The old woman in a shawl looked up to the greying sky as the first drop of rain splashed on her bronze wrinkled cheeks. It was barely an hour after sunset, but it was as dark as midnight. I must hurry now. She gripped her long wooden walking stick and tucked the herbs under her right arm, walking as fast as her old legs could carry her.

By the time she reached the cave, the rain had begun. At first it was just little drops like the one that splashed on her cheeks, then it came. The wind blew like it had never blown before. The trees were bending, threatening to uproot.

The old woman was glad she was inside before the rain got furious. But she worried about their little ones outside—the tiny dragons with colorful scales and a fire that could hardly harm, or the old ones that needed nothing but sunlight to survive—but she figured they would be okay. They were dragons, after all.

She entered deeper into the cave. The fire touches lighting on their own whenever they sensed her coming. They brought light and warmth. Two things the woman loved. She continued her journey till she reached the temple.

Her granddaughter Monasi was already tending the embers of the last sacred fire. She poked around in the ashes to find an ember still glowing and added some dry kindling. Within minutes she had skillfully brought it to life and started a new fire, and the daily cycle repeated itself once again. The old woman usually lit up the candles that were around the hearth, but not the hearth itself. The hearth, to her, was for terrible and urgent times. Not nightly prayers. But her granddaughter lit the hearth anyway. Monasi placed a bronze pot filled with the grey ashes of a coriander leaf—spring ashes—then stood up.

"Mama Eiza, how many times do I have to tell you to stop working?" she complained as usual, taking the purplish herbs from her grandmother and setting it beside the fire. Instantly the cave was filled with the sweet smell of coriander and utanko—a plant the Yanzi used in pleasing the gods—Eiza did not reply to her granddaughter, she walked across the dirt floor to the fireside, placed her walking stick on the cave walls and squatted down. She warmed her bones by the fire, as a lizard might have stolen the early morning sun.

By her right, Monasi stirred the pot and added a few more ingredients to it—some spices, a bit of meat and the shuraka, a long white piece of chalk—the smell had changed. It was now the scent of roasted meat, the smell of an actual sacrifice.

They waited for the right moment in silence, sitting beside each other. Their hands were cupped and eyes closed. When the smell changed again—ashes—Mama Eiza chanted the nightly prayers in the Yanzi tongue.

"Spirit of the eagle

You who flies in the heavens and command the sky.

You who stalks in silence.

You who flies between the clouds.

Between the morning light and the night sky.

Lend us your strength.

And the wisdom in your keen eyes.

Show us the hidden paths.

And walk with us in our solitude.

Guard us as we move through this world."

After the prayers were done, Monasi went to sleep in one of the carved rooms, while Eiza remained in the temple. The fire was gradually going out, its flames reducing. Eiza lit three tallow candles and added more wood to the fire. The fire was to be kept burning all night. The first lesson those who served the Eagle Lord had to learn; the fire must never, ever be allowed to go out at night.

The old priestess closed her eyes and said a prayer, then opened them once more to face the hearth-fire. One more time. Show me. Many priests and priestesses before her had been brought down by false visions, by seeing what they wished, craved to see instead and not what the Lord of Fire and Light had sent. Earlier today, the old priestess had seen terrible things in her fire.

She had to be certain, before deciding. She waited for the fire to respond to her request. Patience was one of the first skills a Blood Priest must learn.

Visions weaved before her, yellow and crimson, shaping, flickering, melting and rebounding into one another, bizarre and terrifying forms and shapes. She saw the eyeless heads again, staring at her from sockets weeping black ink. Unlike the last time, she could see their bodies; arms black and burnt till the elbow, dripping the same black ink as their eyes. Then the graves came, crumbling as the dead crawled out. Shadows in the shape of skulls danced in the fire, then turned to mist, forming bodies locked together in ice. Frozen, but not dead.

Through the fire, great shadows wheeled against a thundering sky.

The girl. I must find the broken girl again. She had seen the girl only once, and that was this morning. A girl as brown as the sacrosanct trees of the Blood Priests. But the broken girl didn't stay long, as the blood priestess watched the girl crumble and blow away like chaff before the wind.

A face took shape within the hearth. A dark face, cadaver white. Was this the enemy? A thousand red eyes coasted in the rising blazes. The face writhed and rolled, forming a familiar face she thought she would never see again. It can't be. She's dead. Beside the lady, a boy with a lion's face shook his mane and roared. The old priestess shivered.

The fire was inside her, an anguish, filling her, changing her. Gleams of warmth designed on her wrinkled skin. Odd voices called to her. "Zhollo," she heard a mother cry. The lady was seeping through her neck as her child remained over her with a blade canvassed in blood.

Snowflakes fell from a dark sky and ashes rose to meet them, the grey and the white whirled around each other as flames arced above the familiar wall of Eiza's valley and dead things rose silent through the cold, beneath a great grey cliff where fires burned inside a hundred caves.

Then the wind rose, sweeping in, impossibly cold, and one by one the fires went out. Afterward, only the skulls remained.

A child against his mother. An enemy rose from the dead. And death...too many deaths.

The flames crackled softly. Eiza assumed it was done. The skulls and the fire were the Eagle Lord’s message. She proceeded to put out the tallow candles. Her feet and arms were trembling. Skulls and death. Skulls and death.

The candles were out now, the only source of light was the hearth fire. Eiza turned her back to exit the temple. Skulls and death. Fire. Fire.

She felt a presence behind her but dismissed it, knowing that was impossible. There was no other entrance to the temple beside the one directly in front of her. She glanced back and froze, seeing a slim figure step from the fire. The woman stood silently next to the fire, which had turned an icy blue. In the thirty-three years Eiza had been a priestess, she had never seen the fire turn blue. Sometimes red, sometimes gold, but never blue.

She didn't know what was more disturbing, the fire or the woman. She stared at her cautiously. "Who are you?" When Eiza had first started the priesthood, she'd been taught how some gods would manifest in a human form to their chosen ones. Eiza had only experienced a zumbo—a god's presence—once, when she was in her early twenties. A long time ago.

"You do not know me, Zhollo?" the woman asked with a sad smile, fumbling with the brown leather belt that held her clothing together. The woman wore a white lion's skin like a jacket over brown leather, the lion's mouth she used as a hood. Her feet were encased in leather sandals with straps. Beside her was a hoe. Thick wood and a sharp blade.

She looked like a hunter. Like a true Yanzi Goddess. Unlike typical gods and goddesses in silks and satin from other countries. Yanzi gods were savages. Savage gods for savage people.

Eiza found it queer to hear her name, her original name, after so many years. Ever since she took up the position to be the Eagle Lord's priestess, Zhollo had become another person to her, another face. Someone she knew but never was. She had forgotten what it was to be Zhollo. To be a regular Yanzi water-bender. A beautiful brown-skinned teen—with round brown eyes and honey hair—from Ethiopia that took a lot of poor decision. Now she was Eiza, a Blood-bender, the priestess of the Lord of the sky, the light and the fire. An old woman with greying red hair, freckled brown face, mismatching eye colours—the left was brown and the right bright-blue—and tattooed arms.

To be his instrument, the Eagle Lord required a new you. You would walk through the fire of the Lord of light and be born again. Wear the sacred tattoos and put your past life behind, embracing the Lord of the fire and only him. A new face, purpose, soul and name.

"You are the monkey." At that moment the woman stood up, revealing the long brown tail of a monkey and uncovered her hood. Her ears were pointy and furry. As Eiza stare lingered, the lady became more monkey than man or god.

"Yes, I am." she wrapped her tail around Eiza's left hand—the one without the stick—in a friendly manner. Her tail was unexpectedly soft. Softer than the cats the Earth benders around the mountain had. The softest thing she'd ever felt. "And I need your help. In ten days, the broken girl will come. Prepare her, prepare her for the choices she will make and the enemy. Yes, she has returned and with a stronger host."

Eiza didn't want to hear that. She didn't want to believe it. Suddenly she felt like she was in that room again, her worst fears becoming reality before her eyes. It was dreadful, something she would never. Sworn never to do. That room reminded her of the horrors the gift of Blood bending could do if given to the wrong person. Especially a skilled and cunning person like her.

Eiza removed her hand and swallowed. "What you ask—"

"I know. I know it is hard. But you are our only choice—the gods' only choice. You're the only person who has faced her in battle. The only one who survived."

Yes, it was true. She was the only surviving one. Out of the hundreds—more skilled and older—only young, young and dumb, Zhollo had survived. And survived with barely a physical mark, the emotional one was worse than any physical mark. That night, the duel, it wrecked her like a thunder stroke through her body. Hot, painful, and never forgetful. The pain was always raw, no matter how many years.

"You know, the broken girl will never be the same. She will sacrifice a lot." Just like Zhollo had sacrificed a lot. Her family. The love of her life. And almost her child. Her only child.

The monkey nodded. No words could contain what both of them felt. They did not know this broken girl well, but they were grieving for her. The broken girl never asked for this, but it would be her cup. A cup she couldn't turn down, or the two worlds—Tikun, the world of discipline; and Tohu, the world of chaos; a spiritual world so intense, so untempered—would unbalance and anything, anything could happen.

The only sound between them was the rain; heavy and strong. It did not help the situation. Adding more gloom and cold.

Eiza took a deep breath. There would be no going back. "It will be done. The broken girl would learn the way of the Yanzi and hopefully restore order to Tikun and Tohu forever."

The monkey nodded again and turned into mist. The fire had returned to its normal state—gold and red—but Mama Eiza had not. And never will either.

Eiza was staring at the spot where the monkey had been few minutes ago, when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned back, revealing her daughter, Sana, Monasi's mother. She wore a shawl like Eiza's but hers was green and earthy—not crimson—for the Earth benders. The gown under the shawl was cream with embroideries, green, yellow, red and dark-blue. Beside Sana was her house cat, Quwi, a black and white cat. The cat was stretching its fat paws and yawning.

The poor creature must have been woken up. Earth benders went nowhere without their cats.

"Umma, Monasi said she felt something...off here. But she was too scared to check. Umma, are you ok?" Eiza was a little bit proud how her granddaughter, Monasi, was slowly becoming the priestess she wanted to be. Many people, including Eiza, wondered why Monasi chose to be a Blood bender and priestess not a Waterbender like her mother or an Earth bender like her father. The answer was always "It is my calling." and she did have the calling. Sensing the monkey's presence and the fire's bad news was no ordinary feat.

"Forget what that girl says. We must prepare. Someone is coming. Make a new cave in the mountain and get some supplies from the city. We have only ten days."

Sana looked at her mother like she'd grown three heads. A new cave. A new person. As far as Sana knew, no one had come to the valley in the last hundred years. But she nodded anyway. Eiza was the priestess, not her. She understood these things more.