When does a girl become a woman?

` Is it when she has realized the truth in the world: no matter how loved she is, she is never safe. Was it that? Or, after she has witnessed a tragedy that changes the entire course of her life? After she has had to fight to survive? After she has first been intimate with a man?

When I was home, the place which was my home before, I would check my reflection in the mirror every morning of my birthday to see if I looked different; and each year, it was the same thing reflected back at me: A pale, innocent girl with wild, untameable haystack hair, and grey eyes in a round, happy face.

As I stared at myself now, in Grieda’s large, oval mirror, I saw a woman.

Her hair was longer, her eyes were no longer sparkling with an innocent glint of childlike carelessness. Her face was narrow, her cheekbones more accentuated. Staring back at me was a woman. The girl was gone.

I started when I felt Grieda’s wiry hand on my shoulder. “You have a week,” she told me. “A week to make a decision. Come back to me within that time when you have made it.”

I took a deep breath and let my eyes close for a moment.

“Will you be alright?” Grieda’s voice was uncharacteristically gentle.

When I opened my eyes, the woman in the mirror’s face was determined. “Yes,” I said. Once for her, and then again, for myself. The girl, dead and mourned, and the woman I had become without looking. “Yes.”

A girl becomes a woman, I thought, when she can make her own decisions, no matter how difficult they are.

I had awoken five days prior to summer sunlight kissing my skin. I didn’t open my eyes, and only lay there, letting the heat dance across my eyelids. It was warm, and I stretched my arms over my head, feeling blissfully content.

When at last I let my eyes slide open, I turned around to gaze at the person laying by my side. After several silent moments where I watched and he didn’t stir, I touched my forehead down to his own, and listened to his steady, quiet breathing.

The fear that had found itself a place in my heart during his fever, even months ago as it was, had yet to disappear completely. Sometimes I awakened in the middle of the night, soaked in a panicked sweat from a dream that rendered me yet again alone in the world. I would shake him out of his slumber, and he would hold me without asking any questions, allowing me to rest my head upon his chest and focus only on the sound of his heart, which beat strong and steady; an undeniable assurance that he was alive.

Even now, when I could see the rise and fall of his chest, I placed my ear over his heart and listened.

Thump, thump, thump—thump, thump, thump.

Every time there was a pause, I felt a moment of fear, wondering if it wouldn’t begin again, but then it would, and I would relax again.

‘Deep fevers—' my mother had told me many times, ‘—never truly leave. The worst ones weaken your heart, if not your body, and then anything could finish the task.’

But there’s no point worrying, I had told myself, and closed my eyes again, assuring myself in the safety of Taelon’s warmth. Worrying won’t help. And there’s nothing wrong. He’s been well for months. Perfectly well.

Later that morning, I came down with a headache. When Taelon expressed his concern for me and offered to stay home, I waved him away and told him I would be fine.

As the day continued, it became increasingly clear that I was not fine, and so I put all housework on hold and went to rest; none of my previous bliss left inside my body. In fact, I felt utterly wretched, and the rain didn’t help; splattering down on the roof in a relentless, thundering downpour that seemed determined to cause me agony.

I fell, finally, into an unrestful sleep haunted by ghostly figures slipping in and out of my dreams and leaving me cold and disturbed, until at last I was woken by the soothing touch of Taelon stroking back my hair.

The ache in my head was gone, replaced with a worse one throughout my entire body, but this did not hinder me from slipping my arms around his neck and pulling him close to me. I knitted my fingers through the damp tips of his hair, and his kiss was warm. The one heat in the world, I thought, that could warm me through.

He responded to my invitation, but with more caution than was usual, taming my fire and keeping his own in check, until I asked him for more; to release all restraint.

When he held me in his arms later that night, resting his chin atop my head and trailing comforting patterns along my back, I felt much better. The pain in my bones now mixed with the soothing sensation of being loved. Warm at last, I fell asleep with a smile on my face.

The next morning, there was an unease in my stomach, and I stumbled, still half asleep, out of bed, out of the house, and into the grass near the cliff where I vomited violently.

When there was nothing left inside my stomach to come out, I lay in a kneeled bow, trembling, not minding the grass that stuck to my chemise, or how the damp ground was soggy and uncomfortable.

I didn’t move even when I felt a warm hand on my back and knew that Taelon had followed me out. When I sat up, and let myself rest against him, he said nothing, but I felt the concern emanating from his body, and in the gentleness that he helped me stand up and led me back inside.

A few hours later, I was feeling much better, and told Taelon that he could be on his way if he wished.

“I’ve been ill before,” I told him in an attempt at persuasion, sitting up from where I had been laying in bed, propped up against the pillows. “And I’m much better now. I’m sure I’ll be perfectly well again in two days.”

“That may be so,” Taelon agreed. “But—” he pulled the quilt over my shoulders, “—I wouldn’t be able to work well with you feeling this way.”

When I tried to protest, he laid his hand atop mine and said, serious and tender, “Let me take care of you, Ingrith.”

I didn’t get better. Not the next day, not the day after or the day after that. I had brief periods when I felt normal, and ready to get back to my life, until suddenly I was ill again and the only thought I could bear was that of sleeping for the next twelve months.

On the fifth day, after I had forced down something to eat, convinced Taelon that I would be fine on my own, and was feeling well enough to sense the stirrings of boredom, my thoughts turned toward my friends down at the fish tent.

Before I could even begin to decide that I wanted to visit, everything was driven from my mind in an overpowering wave of nausea, the moment I thought of the smell of fish; and I had to throw myself nearly out of the window to avoid being sick all over myself.

It was a humiliating and frustrating situation, and I was quite miserable by the time Taelon came home.

“Perhaps you should see someone,” he offered. “No, you must see someone. It’s been five days, Ingrith, and you haven’t gotten any better.”

“But who would I go to see?” I had wrapped myself in two quilts, despite the heat of the sun, and sat near the hearth, nibbling out the middle of a loaf of bread. “Your brother was the only physician on Seaggis, or so you said, and he’s not . . .” I swerved just in time to avoid saying something to pain him. “I’m sure no one else can help me.”

“Grieda could,” he suggested, eyes cast down. “She’s not a physician, but she’s well instructed in the ways of medicine. You called on her to help when I was ill, didn’t you?”

“Oh, but must I?” I complained. “She’s of such an intimidating nature. I don’t know that I could handle it in the state I’m in now.”

“Tomorrow,” Taelon said firmly. “Go to Grieda as soon as you feel well enough. You do this or—” he held up his hand to stop me interrupting,“—or I won’t leave your side until you are fully well again.”

“But you must work!” I told him. “The Feignt is not over yet!”

“I must,” he agreed. “But I won’t unless you do as I say. I’m being serious, Ingrith. I’m worried about you.”

The deal was made, and I went to sleep with a nervous fluttering in my heart. What would I learn?

Late the next morning, as I had promised, I set out for Grieda’s house in the village. All traces of the rainstorm had disappeared. In fact, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and I found to my great surprise that I was enjoying myself as I walked down the path from the cliff, basking in the late summer’s warmth and breathing in the fresh air.

Everyone was busy; far too busy in their lives to stop and take an interest in mine. Though some people waved at me, which was not an unwelcome gesture, there was no evidence that I remained a topic of gossip for the general public, which was a relief.

When I knocked at Grieda’s door, she answered immediately, wearing her wild hair up in a knot on top of her head, and a rough, grey dress, smudged with dirt.

When she saw me, I saw worry flash immediately across her face, and she opened her mouth to ask a question I knew the answer to.

“Is Taelon—”

“It’s not him,” I told her. “It’s me.”

“I see.” The concern disappeared and her eyes traveled down my person in their usual narrowed and intimidating way.

“Well, what may I do for you?”

She let me inside, and I was struck again by how dark it was, as though sunlight refused to enter the windows; frightened, almost.

“Where is your family?” I asked, noting the distinct lack of noise and bustling.

“Out,” she grunted. “What do you need from me?”

“I’ve been feeling unwell these past five days, and I was hoping to have your diagnosis.”

“Unwell?”

Grieda led me into a room, which was slightly less gloomy than the others. It held a bed, a desk and one very large, oval mirror.

I sat down on the bed, as Grieda instructed, and told her the details of my ailment.

She took it all in without a change of expression, except for one slight lift of an eyebrow, and asked a few questions, which I answered to my best ability.

“Lay down,” she ordered, and began to examine me, her boney fingers poking here and there over my body, sometimes in sharp jabs, other times in soft prods. When she was done, she told me to sit up again, and left the room, only to return with a box of small, glass bottles. She then proceeded to take out the stopper of one and held it up for me to smell.

The moment I did, my nose was offended by the violating and repugnant scent of seaweed, oil, and fish.

My stomach lurched, and I clapped my hands over my mouth. Grieda was quick, seemingly to summon a water basin out of thin air and slid it into my lap just in time to prevent an ugly disaster.

“Well, I won’t say I’m surprised,” Grieda spoke finally after handing me a rag to wipe my mouth with and a cup of cool water, which I took gratefully.

“Will I improve?” I asked worriedly. “Whatever it is, it isn’t lethal?”

“Not usually if things are handled properly.” She fell silent, and I sensed she was contemplating how to break my news.

When she told me, a strange quiet fell over my body. I could not feel surprise, fear, or shock. Not even confusion. There was just an unsettling stillness that seemed to be everything and nothing all at once.

“Oh,” I breathed.

A bell rang softly in my head, whispering to me that now I would be cast out. Grieda would tell me to get away. If I failed to comply, she might chase me out, and scream at me for her neighbors’ speculation and entertainment.

Instead, Grieda sat beside me on the bed and put her arm around my shoulders.

“I hold myself partly responsible. It wasn’t as if you two could have stayed apart forever, living so close as you do. I could have instructed you. But I didn’t think you were completely ignorant of the consequences of getting too close to a man.”

“Nor am I.” I exhaled. “But—”

“There’s no more that has to be said. You are in love. Sunah knows this has happened before.”

“What am I going to do?” I asked.

“That is for you to decide.” She paused before speaking again. This time her voice was lowered and hushed, as though whatever she was about to say would be heard by the walls.

“There is a way,” she said. “A way to get rid of it if you act soon. You are a little later than they usually are, when they find out.”

“Get rid of it?” I repeated hazily.

“There’s a tea,” Grieda whispered. “A tea made from some special herbs. If taken early enough, it will get rid of it. Do you wish to take it? I could have it ready in minutes, and the subject would never go further than this room. Taelon would never need know.”

“I don’t know—” My shoulder blade throbbed, and I bit down on my tongue, reaching back to press my fingers against an ache that disappeared just as quickly as it came on. I realized that my voice was shaking, and I clutched my hands together as though this action could steady it. “I don’t know what I want to do. I never expected . . . How did this happen?”

Grieda’s eyes were sympathetic, but not pitying. “You’re a woman, Ingrith,” she said. She helped me stand up and led me to the mirror on the other side of the room.

“You’re a woman,” she repeated.

As I walked home, many thoughts swirled through my mind. Grieda’s last words were heavy on my shoulders and her package was a steady weight in my arms.

“It is up to you,” she had told me as I stood on the doorstep, ready to leave. “But speak to him, Ingrith. It may help you decide.”

As soon as I was inside the house, I opened Grieda’s package and found inside it a bounty of ginger, and raspberry leaves.

‘Boil these in water,’ had been her instruction. “It will help when your stomach is unsteady.”

I took a handful of the raspberry leaves, and a twist of the ginger and cut it into thin slices. Then I filled a small pot with water, hung it over the fire, and dumped both ingredients in. When it had boiled, and I felt sure that enough of the flavor had seeped into the water, I poured some into a cup, as well as a spoonful of honey which had been recommended for taste value.

It had a very strong flavor, but my empty stomach welcomed it and so I did not mind.

I took it into my head next, that I wanted to bathe, and, feeling in a self indulgent mood, I filled a large cauldron of water, hung it in the coals to heat, and sat by the fire to wait. His Lordship, who had been resting up in one of the rafters in the ceiling, cocked his head and gazed at me with one beady, black eye.

I waited there until the sky had turned grey, and then at last, Taelon came through the door. When he saw me, the first thing out from between his lips was, “Did you see Grieda? Will you be alright?”

I told him to sit beside me, then gathered up all my determination, and told him everything. I did it all in one breath, for I knew that if I stopped, I would not know how to start again. He listened intently to what I said, and when I was finished, he stood up and leaned one arm against the fireplace, staring into the flames and chewing his lip with a troubled frown on his face.

I let him remain silent, though it was agony, and waited avidly for his reply.

“Perhaps,” he began. “Perhaps you should take the tea.”

It wasn’t what I’d expected. Neither was it unexpected. I realized I had had no idea or hope of what he would say in the first place, but his answer unsettled me.

“Why?” I asked uneasily. “Do you not want a child?”

“It is not—” He let out a frustrated huff of breath. “It is—”

“Or is it perhaps,” I spoke slowly and quietly as each possibility came to mind. “Is it perhaps that you were never serious about me?”

He took his eyes off the fire and placed them upon me instead, and they injured. “Ingrith—”

“Is it that—” I interrupted him “—I was simply to be your plaything? Something to use and comfort yourself with, and now that there is a child, you would have me get rid of it so that you haven’t any need for responsibility?”

My chest rose and fell with heavy, angry breaths. “Could it be that you never meant to marry me at all?”

“Ingrith—” He tried again to speak, but I stood up and cut him off.

“I’m going to bathe. Think up a reasonable answer before I am done.”

As I walked away, I found that there wasn’t a hint of unease left in my body, and I knew that without meaning to, I had made my decision.

Back when I was a girl, bathing had been a messy affair. There was one large tub that my mother would fill with many pots of hot water and place near the hearth. I would fight with everything I had. Kicking, screaming, biting, pinching, crying. Doing everything in my power to avoid touching the water. Now the feel of the scalding water against my bare skin was heavenly, as though it were burning away the layers of sweat, dirt, illness, and sorrow away from my skin.

It was not a large space that I had. The tub was smaller than the one at home. My knees were tucked up closely against my chest, but I felt infinitely better, and dipped my head down, relishing the soft hum of the water in my ears and the magical way it drove all thoughts and worries from my mind.

My hair turned nearly black when it was wet, and it clung to my skin in long, dark strands. I dipped a cloth into the water and brushed it along my arms. They burned, and I enjoyed it.

I heard the makeshift curtain I had set up being pulled aside, then soft footsteps and a presence behind me.

I did not look at him; not ignoring, simply not verbally acknowledging his appearance. I knew I had been jumping to conclusions and hadn’t given him a chance to speak for himself, but I didn’t feel ready to admit this aloud.

He took the cloth from my hand and withheld a shiver as he pulled aside my hair and brushed it across the back of my neck.

“I love you, Ingrith,” Taelon’s voice was soft as the summer air and warm as the water which caressed my skin. “I would not say such things if I were not serious about you. And I have been. For far longer than you know.”

I tried to open my mouth to speak but found that the words died in my throat before I had a chance. I felt weak; merely trying to lift my arm was like attempting to lift a boulder, as he brought the cloth around to brush up against my neck. In this way he held me his silent prisoner, leave me no choice but to sit and listen to him speak.

“When I was quite young, my mother gave birth to my sister. I do not remember much of it, only that I was awoken in the middle of the night by her screams, and how my brother came in to talk to me and tried to muffle the sounds by shutting the door, but still I heard them, echoing throughout the house all that night, and late into the next day. And later, after it was over, I caught a glimpse of the sheets carried away. So drenched in blood they looked as if they’d never been white before. And my mother was told she could not have more children. That another would kill her.”

The cloth touched my cheek and wet my brow. I closed my eyes and listened.

“I’m not of a prurient mind, but I know enough to realize that it is I who has put you in this place, and if you went through such trials as my mother did that night, because of me, I don’t know . . . It is a horrible thought for me, Ingrith.”

I felt him abandon the cloth and brush his fingers through the strands of my hair, easily and delicately combing out the knots and tangles. I felt the consideration and tenderness of each movement. As though he revered me. Worshipped me. As though I were worthy of every bit of his love and endearment, and more.

“I always meant to marry you, Ingrith. I would never have taken you to bed with me if I had not. But . . . It is a failing of mine that I did not confirm your knowledge of it. The Binder died last winter, and his son is not yet old enough to take on the practice. So, I thought that it would be best to wait until after the war, when we could find someone to enact the bonding, safely.”

“Is your—” My voice was ragged, and I had to start again; forcing out each word as though I were restrained by some witch’s spell. “Is your concern for my sake your only protest?”

“Yes.” His voice was sure and firm, and I felt the gentle, loving pressure of his hands resting on my shoulders.

I let my head lean back against his chest and looked up at the ceiling, formulating the words of what I was about to say on my tongue, rolling them silently about before letting them spill from between my lips.

“My mother gave birth to me, and her mother to her, and so on for countless generations. I know the agony that comes with bearing children, and I won’t tell you that I do not fear it. If I had been asked before, if I wanted a child, I might have said that I wouldn’t. But now—” I ran my hands up and down my arms, where they lay out of the water and exposed to the air that, though heated by the sun from the afternoon, was quite ten times colder than the rest of me was. “Now I feel as though I might. I don’t know what has changed, but something has. Though I know it shall be difficult . . . I don’t believe that it is a challenge I shall not overcome.”

Taelon was quiet, and I worried he might argue with me, but then he pressed his lips to my cheek and said, “If this is what you want, then it is what I want as well. I promise to do my best to take care of you.”

“Thank you,” I whispered to him.

The next day I wasted no time making my way back to Grieda’s. When I told her of my decision, she did not seem surprised.

“And Taelon, what did he have to say?” she asked cautiously.

I smiled at the memory, feeling the security of his warmth in remembrance. “He promised he would take care of me.”

Grieda’s mouth worked silently for a time, and her eyes shimmered with what I might have guessed were tears if I didn’t know her better.

Finally, she took a breath, and clapped my shoulder with her hand, a little roughly.

“And I shall do the same. I promise you; I’ll do everything in my power to bring your child safely into the world and keep you in it.”

My throat tightened, and I blinked rapidly to keep away the tears that played with my vision.

“You’re a brave woman, Ingrith,” Grieda told me, and I nodded, unable to trust myself to speak words.

```````````````````````````````````````

“Shall we come with you, Lord Gwanmal?” the guard spoke as he dismounted from his horse outside the meagre shack that stood side by side with other similar ones that lined the Yanhak street.

“No,” he answered. “Wait outside. There is no danger for me here.”

“Yes, sir.”

He pulled his lips down in a disgusted scowl as he felt his boots sink into the sea of muck. It was just his luck that the hovel was situated in one of Ryun’s scant heat pockets. With every step he took there was an awful squelching sound as the slush and mud tried to suck him in. He lifted his sleeve up to shield his nose from the scent of decay that threatened to insult it.

He did not bother to knock but pushed open the door with a gloved hand. It swung forward with the gentlest of pressure, the rusted hinges too weak to protest.

Inside the hovel, the air was worse than out of it, and three times as dark. He squinted, willing his dimming eyes to see past the black interior.

There was an old man, seated bent over in a chair. His gnarled, twisted hands clutched at the arms in a stiff grip, and tufts of white hair hung lank and dirty to his shoulders, which were swollen and thin.

He was dressed in a threadbare robe, a shawl around his bent back, and an old, worn pair of leather sandals rested upon his feet.

“Shut the door, won’t you? There’s a terrible draft,” the man called out in a trembling, tired voice.

“My, my.” He wrinkled his nose. “How the mighty have fallen. Your blue eyes have gone cloudy, brother.”

“Icthys,” the old man spoke again. “I wondered when you would decide to find me.”

Icthys crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall, being careful not to press too hard against it, for concern that he would go straight through it.

“You remember.” He scoffed. “It’s a shame the same couldn’t be said for the last time when we were still young. I had to search from one corner of the continent to another, and then I found you, in Cthos, playing the manager of a whore-house of all places.” He laughed jovially. “What a time that was.”

“What do you want, brother?” the old man asked.

“That is not the question you should be asking.” Icthys pushed off the wall and prowled to the older man’s side where he crouched down, holding onto the hearthside for support.

“Age.” He grimaced as his bones groaned and complained. “The worst of all curses. The humiliation of mortality. I feel it. I know you feel it keenly. Tell me, brother. Would you rather be a peasant, doomed to live out the rest of this eternal and dreary existence as the pawn of poverty—” he waved his gloved hand about the room, “—surrounded by filth, plague, and manure, or Peinyeil, the god of rain; lord of the clouds, reigning in glory?”

Icthys reached out a hand to grasp his brother’s, feeling the brittle, knobbly fingers neither welcome nor push away his gesture.

“Peinyeil,” he used his brother’s true name. “Come back with me. Shed this useless shell that imprisons you.”

Peinyeil snorted and pulled his arm away.

“You know full well that when I die, I shall be reborn. There is no ridding myself of my shell. When one is gone, there shall be another.”

“Only now,” Icthys insisted. “There is a way, and I have been working many lifetimes to find it. At last, I have. The time is near upon us, but I need you, brother. I need you by my side.”

“Icthys,” Peinyeil said patiently. “I shall be of no use to you as am now. You know this.”

“That does not have to be so.”

“Icthys—”

“There is a woman.” He breathed heavily, blue eyes gleaming brilliantly in the darkness. “A woman I have in my possession. A seer. The most powerful one I have ever found. She has the ability to implant a memory in your mind, so that when you die, and are reborn again, it is there, the first thing you see. You shall know who you are the moment you open your eyes. She can Soulswitch, Peinyeil. She has the potential to be the first Gmhwael since Inkvistar. Prithee, brother. Join me, and we shall have the world to ourselves again.”

“Icthys.” Peinyeil stopped him, laying a withered hand on his arm. When he spoke again, his was the voice of an exhausted, frail, man. “Icthys, I am tired. Over ten ages of mortal lives I have lived. When I forgot, I was happy, when I remembered . . .” His grip tightened until it was almost painful, long, broken, dirty nails digging into rich, blue velvet.

“Icthys, when I remembered, I was in the eight hell. I could not eat; I could not sleep. I lost—” His voice broke, and he relinquished his brothers’ arm. “In my neglect, my daughter died. You cannot know what pain I have gone through these years of remembering. I don’t want it.”

“Then you believe you would be happy—” Icthys gestured to the walls incredulously. “You believe you would be happy like this? As this—” He jabbed his brother in the chest. “As this, disgusting mortal serf?”

“I was happy,” Peinyeil answered softly. “I was happy until I remembered. The continent is no longer the gods’, Icthys. It belongs to mortal men. When we fell, we should have died, but you, it is your will that makes us suffer. Prithee, brother.” His misted blue eyes were pleading. “Let us go. Let my last breath be my last. I implore you—”

Icthys shook away the begging fingers and spat violently on the ground.

“You were a King, Peinyeil. A King among Gods. You wish to forget that?”

“I do.” Peinyeil nodded his old head fervently. “I want to forget, and forget forever, let me. I beg of you. Let me be.”

Icthys’s lips were drawn into a thin, pale line. Bloodless and stiff.

“Poverty suits you,” he spat. “You are pathetic.” He stood up and vacated the hovel in long, furious strides.

Once outside, he slammed the door shut and leaned heavily against the wall. The stench of the surrounding area no longer bothered him.

“My Lord?”

He wiped his greying hair out of his eyes and glared at the guard who stood next to his comrades. “What is your order, Lord?”

Icthys straightened up and wiped his gloved hands down over his jacket. “Kill him,” he instructed calmly. “But bring the body. And destroy this insult of a shack.”

“Yes, Lord.”

The body was cold by the time the fetching party arrived back at the palace, and though Icthys knew full well the corpse was not his brother, there was a kernel of grief inside his heart. Not for the destruction of the mortal flesh, he assured himself. But of the agony Peinyeil must have experienced living as he had, for so many lifetimes. For the frailty in the illusion of an elderly mind that confused him; that made him believe, actually believe he would be content to live a life as a man.

My poor brother. He stroked the old man’s lank hair. This is what morality does to you. Do not fear, brother. I shall remake you a shell, this time worthy of your soul.

“You called for me?”

“Soldana.” Icthys didn’t bother looking up at the woman who entered the room. “You are late.”

“I was tending to your son,” she said. He watched out of the corner of his eye as she lay her pale hands upon Peinyeil’s chest, careful to avoid the wound and clotted blood around it.

“I am not sure—”

“Save your breath, Soldana. We both know this is nothing to the power you have the capability of wielding. I have every faith in you.” He reached out and patted her behind, laughing at her scandalized expression.

“Now, I shall visit my son. I trust you left him in good health?”

“As good health as a young boy can be after being kidnapped, imprisoned, Salted and then abused by his father,” she answered sharply.

“I will forgive you for speaking treason today. Be grateful. Enjoy yourself, and next time I call for you, come to me fifteen minutes early.”

When he had left the room, Soldana let out a tense breath.

The room was round and made entirely of stone, the grey bricks patterned like a child’s crude drawing of a sun. In the centre was a table made of white, polished wood. On it lay two bodies. Men. One old, one young.

The grey-eyed woman reached down into her bodice and pulled out a large, clay coin, which she placed upon the old man’s brow. Pressing two fingers to coin, she let a soft purr vibrate throughout her body, bringing with it a stinging heat. When the coin burned her skin, she peeled it off its charred bed on the man’s head and stuck it inside the other man’s mouth.

“Forgive me, Lord Peinyeil, for the liberty I am to take,” she whispered, crossing his arms over his chest.

Then she bent her head and pressed her lips to the corpse’s mouth. She shivered as she felt the cold, unnatural sensation of his essence sliding into her mouth like a blue, frosted mist. When she felt that it had released all hold on its body, she pulled away and in turn, kissed the second man, urging the soul out from between her lips with her tongue.

When she finished, she snapped the young man’s jaw closed and then dropped to her knees and pressed her head against the cool, white wood of the table as she breathed, fighting against the urge to be sick.

“I am finished.” She breathed in. “I am finished.” She breathed out, then closed her eyes and fell asleep.