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Prologue
The creature in the swamp could not remember being a woman, though its form remained that of a human female. It drifted, dead moss and ooze squelching between bare toes as it walked, and though the denizens of this swamp were not kind, nothing dared approach it. For the swamp’s inhabitants had long ago learned that to touch the creature was to die.
It walked the same path it had walked endlessly since its arrival two years ago, a serpentine loop through the murky depths, the bare footfalls withering anything that had managed to grow since last its feet had tread upon that ground.
It could not remember being a woman because in this moment it was only a shell, a form sustained not by food and water and shelter, but by pure, burning power. It was a husk, a container inside which two forces warred, each as determined as the other to be the victor in this contest of wills. The one was ancient and eternal, a primal force that whispered, every second of every day, Give in, give up, give over.
But the second force, the one that had existed for a mere fraction of time compared to the other, did not know the meaning of the word give. That force—the one that had once been a woman—had not survived to adulthood merely to lose herself to something else.
She had not clawed her way out of hell only to be erased by this thing that lived within her. But she was lost, and she could not remember her way back to herself. She had a vague memory of something snapping inside her, and she thought it might have been that path, that way back to her.
Whoever she was.
But since she couldn’t find it, she was the thing and not the girl, the war and not the person. So the creature walked. Around and around, through and through, over and over, the same words shattering off themselves inside her skull.
Give in, give up, give over, that eternal voice beckoned, lapping like waves against the woman’s will.
I won’t, I can’t, I never will. And unlike a rock beneath the ocean’s waves, the woman did not erode. She did not give. She didn’t know how to give. It was, after all, why the power had chosen her.
The bones of some dead animal crunched beneath the creature’s feet as it walked, rounding a bend that brought it close to the swamp’s edge. A flicker of light caught the creature’s attention and it halted. For the first time since it had come to this place, it halted. There was something mesmerizing about that light. Something…warm, when the creature had not even realized it was cold.
It stood hypnotized as the light came closer, and as that brilliant warmth splashed over it, that path the woman had been looking for unfurled inside her, as if it had only been hidden by autumn’s leaves, and a good wind had finally blown them clear.
Woman and primal force saw the way out at the same time. But that path—it belonged to the woman, not the force. She knew it better, and it was she who stepped foot upon it first, spiraling back into herself in a burst of effort and triumph and pain; she who gathered the threads of power that had leaked free into her and shoved them back into the cage she had built for them so long ago, slamming the door shut.
For a moment, the silence inside her skull was so absolute she thought she might have gone deaf. But then she heard the slow approach of wagon wheels, and that light that had brought her back to herself drew closer, bringing with it the soft murmur of voices.
She had the desire to fling herself into its path, to seek some kind of connection…and yet she found herself backing away. Because people weren’t safe. People had never been safe.
Thick ooze squelched beneath her feet, and without the power running rampant through her body, the cut that opened on the bottom of her foot did not seal itself. Cold lashed her as the wind stirred.
Winter in a swamp was still winter, if not as cold as it might become in other, less temperate climates, and she shivered, teeth chattering, because she was naked. The wagon rumbled away and she told herself it was best to let it go.
But even a starved and beaten creature craves company, even if they know that company cannot be trusted. She found herself slinking along the edges of the swamp, following the rumble of those wagon wheels. She yearned for the soft, steady light that kept pouring from within the wagon. Where was it traveling? It didn’t seem to be going anywhere, only…rambling.
Eventually, when night fell, it stopped. The two voices she had heard earlier began speaking again, soft and companionable. Easy. The crackle of a fire stirred to life and laughter floated to her. They sounded…happy, whoever they were, and she had the desperate urge to run to that fire and curl up there.
She had actually taken a step toward it, almost out of the cover of the trees, before she caught herself. Her mind, once quick-witted and calculating, stretched its claws and woke. She was a naked, filthy woman in a swamp. If she went out to that fire, she would be lucky if they didn’t kill her.
But as she remembered exactly how she had come to be here—and how far from civilization she likely still was—she knew she couldn’t let this opportunity walk away from her, either. She was human again, no longer capable of living off anger and burning power.
Her stomach twisted and she was intensely, painfully hungry. But that, at least, was nothing new.
Something—a half-forgotten memory—drew her gaze to the left, where it snagged on something that did not belong in a swamp. A hard case rested beside a tree. It had a long, thin neck that burgeoned into an oval body.
A desperate need stirred and she ran for it, falling to her knees and running her fingers over the battered case. Battered, but perfectly dry, untouched by two years in this humid environment, kept pristine and sheltered from time by the very power she’d shoved back into a cage. As if that power had known, when they came to this place, that if she ever came back to herself, losing this one thing would break her as nothing else had.
That was the problem with the thing that lived inside her—it could be kind. That made it difficult to remember that it did not, in the end, have her best interests at heart.
She unlatched the case with trembling fingers. It was designed for an instrument larger than the one it carried, and so there was room also for the meager clothing she’d shoved into its compartment when she’d fled here.
She grabbed the first things that came into her hands and pulled on a pair of leggings, so patched and tattered the original cloth was only a memory. A tunic in similar condition followed. The only other items—two dresses, one plain but serviceable, the other so fine it made her want to vomit for reasons she refused to remember—she placed into the open half of the lid, revealing the instrument in the bottom.
Reverently, she ran her fingers over the guitar, her skin touching lacquered wood grain. She swallowed past the rush of emotions the sight of it, the feel of it, evoked. She had run, with nothing but this, determined to become something with it. Something no one could ever harm again.
She swallowed and shoved down the tide of emotions that threatened to choke her, to turn her into a sobbing mess on the filthy swamp floor. She tucked the dresses back around the body of the guitar, so the material would keep the instrument from rattling in the extra space inside the case.
Latching it closed, she hefted it into her hand, walked back to the treeline, and looked out at the crackling fire. She had no mirror to let her know her appearance, but running her hands through her hair proved the power that had raged through her body for...however long she had been here, had at least kept her hair clean.
