I taste blood.
And still the earth keeps breaking beneath me.
When I’m finally free of it, I drop to the ground and roll, attempting to smother out the flames covering me as best I can, though most of my flesh is long gone and little muscle remains visible. My body tries to mend itself, but the damage I’ve sustained is substantial. Ultimately, I lose the ability to withstand the pain, and blackness consumes me entirely.
I float in and out of consciousness. Visions and memories come in waves. A youthful Orán holds two wooden swords, trying to cheer me up after another failed lesson. Where Orán excelled at connecting with nature, I felt nothing but a prickling along my own skin.
It wasn’t just my uncle's disappointment that had me down. It was Father’s hopeful expression that had fallen when I again couldn’t so much tap into the power of our bloodline and coax the fish in the stream closer, something Orán could do with ease.
Another vision…Orán lifts a leaf from the forest floor with nothing but his mind. Try as I might, I couldn’t do the same. His offer to help had me stomping off like a petulant child and making him suffer through days of silent treatment, even though he’d left my room bearing encouragement and gifts.
Later, when I’d given up even attending the lessons, he’d meet up with me outside the courtyard where I often practiced swordplay with the other men. We no longer spoke of it. The lessons. My brother's abilities, and how they apparently had only trickled down through our bloodline to him, not to me.
The resentment was there but buried deep, along with the frustration. I guarded those feelings during our interactions, but even now I feel them return as the memories do.
In the next vision, I’m striding down the hallway of our home, intent on speaking with my father.
I’m stopped short at the sight of blood pooling on the floor.
It seeps beneath the large wooden door to my parents' chambers, threading through the cracks in the stone.
A cold dread settles in my gut as I reach for the handle. The familiar creak of the hinges greets me when I push the door open. The sound grates against my ears as the door itself resists revealing what lies beyond.
My uncle’s head snaps up from where he’s crouched. Red blood splatter marks his face and clothing.
Beneath him, my father lies prone on the floor, unmoving. His shirt torn open, his fur cloak covered in crimson, the rich fabric matted and wet. My gaze snaps to the blade in my uncle’s hand. It also carries blood.
I note the symbols carved into flesh—my father’s. All life, breath, heartbeat, and motion cease to exist as the ramifications slam into me. Unable to comprehend—to come to terms with what’s been done for mere moments as my mind catches up.
The betrayal is unfathomable. Surely my uncle is not capable of such a thing.
But here it is…I’m seeing it with my own eyes.
The forbidden marks. The deep wounds. Blood blanketing both and most of the goddamn floor.
Dark symbols. Not merely banned, but unutterable, unthinkable, ancient, and blasphemous, never meant to be seen or talked about.
Unbridled rage builds a great tempest from within. Then I see what I didn’t before, what’s half hidden from my view by the large man standing and turning the blade on me. Mother’s limp and lifeless form, her face turned away, and she lies just as still as my father.
Something inside me shatters. Rationale departs as a growl builds and tears out of my chest. I launch myself across the room at my uncle.
A sound of my grief is animalistic—raw, feral, unrecognizable even to me.
I am no longer myself.
I am something else.
Something made for violence.
So I do not reach my uncle as a man.
Claws meet his chest. Jaw open and teeth elongate as I go for his throat. Fur, coarse hair, and paws that were visible but alien to me.
I know not what I am, only that he must die this day, before their bodies grow cold.
Whatever I’ve become slams into my uncle and knocks him to the floor. My vision shifts and sharpens. The world narrows to scent, to heat, to blood. I rip, bite, and rake claws into any part of him I can find.
I attack him as a beast—relentless, unthinking—until his hand scrambles blindly across the floor and finds purchase on a fallen bust. He swings it upward with desperate force. It connects with my skull. Pain fractures through me.
