The journey back to the Readorium was tough, I concluded that I had some sort of beyond severe rash. The longer I indulged in soothing contact, the more debilitating it was when I left it. I was feeling pain again. Serious pain that was only comparable to many broken bones, it covered my whole body. Every part of my skin was reddened and the relief from even light contact was euphoric like a drop of water in the desert. Every time I moved the brushing of my clothes caused the pain to vanish and flare up over and over. I fought through the agony and stopped making unnecessary contact with everything I could to stop it from getting worse.

I learned my lesson from yesterday and left with plenty of time before sunset. It forced me to avoid far more guards and people but I didn't want to be outside by nightfall. Almost every guard I came across had a blade but about one in ten used the same bladed whip as the man I killed. When I arrived I feared the worst. The door to the Readorium was wide open and there was no one around. Was it a trap? Did I forget something obvious? There was a faint ringing in my ears.

I leaned out from my shady alley to get a closer look. Everywhere else around me had at least a little sand on it but there was only a small scattering of sand in front of my building and on the surrounding area like it had been purposely swept clean. There was little reason to completely clean an area as the wind would blow the sand back and night would certainly erase your hard work. Then it hit me. The sands were strong enough to erode flesh and cloth easily but rock was able to survive for many years and metal was likely immune. I never recovered the bladed whip or the chain mail armour the guard wore, it had slipped my mind. I only searched just in front of my door and gave the area a surface inspection, I didn't dig deep into the sand as they had. But how did they know to come here? Again the sand should have erased any trail I left, I was counting on it. The ringing grew louder.

I looked up and down the streets and saw the many thick gouges that were cut into some of the buildings. In my mind I heard the crack of the whip once more, I remembered the gurgling laugh of the guard as he struck blindly and suddenly I knew why. He wasn't aiming for us and he wasn't striking randomly as I thought, he was hitting the buildings around us. He thought he was going to die and left marks for his fellows to find. I ditched any attempt at stealth and sprinted inside, the pain I felt was dulled by my panic. The ringing overpowered most sounds, the only noise that cut through was the sound of my heavy breathing.

They knew. If they didn't know right now, then they would as soon as they checked the building's owner. The guards knew that I was the attacker and a murderer. All of the shelves were tipped over and my precious books were scattered everywhere, the boy was nowhere to be seen and the earnings barrel had been taken. I couldn't hold back, I screamed and hit a wall so hard that it cracked and I felt some of the muscles in my good arm tear. I couldn't stop myself. I couldn't think. I just took my rage, regret and sadness out on everything in the room. The tables, the chairs, the shelves and even my beloved books were smashed against the walls and broken beyond repair. By the time I collapsed to the floor in despair, I was surrounded by broken furniture and a mass of scattered papers. I was fucking stupid to think that I had any hope of covering up what I did. The ringing was all that I could hear.

The weight of everything that I shunted to the back of my mind came spilling forth and I couldn't stem the tide. My thoughts were in such disarray that they didn't feel mine anymore. What was the use in anything? Even if I braved the desert and escaped into the night it wouldn't matter. Fleeing to another duchy would only work until word spread, all it would take was one person recognising me to force me to move again. I had doomed myself to a life on the run. Enslavement, imprisonment, and years of torture were the things that my future held. I had no one to blame but myself. Nothing felt real. Like my brain was filled with sludge, every thought I had was slow to come and lingered in my head crowding my mind with a thousand lost thoughts. It was getting dark and the sands began to jump and as I watched those hopping grains another solution came to mind.

I found a clear thought that erased all others and finally there was silence, there was no ringing, there was nothing.

Kill yourself.

You don't have a future anymore, you saw to that. The sands wave and beckon for you. What awaits you is far worse than the way out that the night offers. You've exhausted all of your second chances, all of your good luck, all for a failed act of heroism.

Kill yourself.

Your life has been nothing but mistake after mistake: You wasted your early years, you weren't there for Alessia when she needed you, you couldn't avenge her and you lost the only thing you had to remember her by, you've been nothing but worthless. You destroyed your bond with your mother, you caused the mutilation of every child in the slums and let's not forget that you spat on Hann's helping hand by consistently not listening to her. You listened to the pleading screams of a dying man but refused to show him mercy, the same mercy you wished to see from others, does mercy only belong to the weak? You gave a child false hope by rescuing him and treating his father's corpse, now you've killed that very same child or worse he will be tortured and abused until the life is beaten out of him, It's all your fault, you are alone and there is nothing you can do about it.

There's only one way out.

One way to atone.

Kill yourself.

Whatever was left of my mind was no longer in control. In the darkness of my inner world, I stared blankly through the two windows to the outside. I watched as my view shifted. I saw sand frantically bouncing around just outside of a doorway. My view lurched left and right as the countless inviting golden dots got closer. It wasn't long before the drizzle of sand was all around. Everything shifted slowly upwards until the motionless sea of sand below came into view. From my spot in the darkness, I watched the sandy sea grow ever more turbulent.

Time passed.

Now nothing but a thick wall of sand filled my view. A shadow appeared behind the curtain of sand, the first major change in a long while. The shadow grew larger until a figure could be made out. A young man with a scarf that covered all but his eyes, brown eyes that looked like they had just seen horror beyond words. My view shifted as the dark-haired person with the glinting straight sword walked nearby. With jerking motions, the sands receded and a doorway was in view again.

"What happened to you! Are you alright?"

He slid the door shut and hurried back, he tugged on a piece of his headwrap and it came undone. His hand waved about, close enough to blot out the surroundings and the concern on his face grew. He looked around at the destroyed room and grimaced.

"Your books… I'll have them all replaced, so don't worry!"

He gestured around the room and looked back expectantly but whatever he was hoping to see wasn't there.

"Did you see what she did? I'm sorry, Mother told me all about it. I felt sick just hearing the description, I can't imagine what you're going through… Your hands, you're bleeding!"

He removed a slightly bloody glove from one hand and cringed when the bloodied bandages beneath were revealed. With some apprehension, he started unwinding them and regretted it. The arm was coated in blood both fresh and old. Down its length was a spiralling slice that had almost fully reopened, it was deep enough to see where the muscles and bones connected. He almost threw up but just barely managed to keep it together. He spent a long time treating the wound. He spoke a little while he worked but didn't stop until new bandages covered the arm.

"I'm sorry this is the best I can do right now. I wasn't expecting to see you here, Mother said that you were too sick to move."

He grabbed the other hand and began treating the knuckles that had been smashed into a red pulp.

"The guards caught the killer. I promise on my honour and the honour of House Smythe, that she will never leave the dungeons alive after everyth–"

"Killer?"

It took a moment to register but when it did the word yanked me out of the darkness. My muddled mind was violently thrust back into control. Alex's relief was short-lived as he heard my next words.

"I'm the murderer! What do you mean they caught her!"