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“What story? Where are you?” I asked, my knees bending and my hips lowering in a fighting stance that was as natural to me as breathing. Had I been a warrior, once? My body seemed to think so.
“Your magic is awakening, Khione. Remember...”
“Who are you?” I tried, still not seeing a face or even a form in the fog as I turned a slow circle. When the mist came to me, it was like clay, creating the likeness of a familiar loved one. I wasn’t sure if I had any loved ones, though.
This was a voice I’d never heard, just syllables floating on the fog and echoing in the chamber of my head.
“Am I dead?” I asked, lowering my fists. It wouldn’t be so bad, to be dead. Easy. Emotionless. But what good is a warrior in death? A warrior fights death.
The woman chuckled. “It takes more than hope to kill a great-granddaughter of mine.”
I blinked. Great-granddaughter?
Yes, I was someone’s great-granddaughter. Whose?
Valda - the name slunk into my mind. Grand-mère. So then this was Grand-mère’s mother, Cherise. I’d never met her. Knew little except...
She was the last vampire to call the Trials of the Moon.
The what? There were no moons here. My memory grew blank again, clean and empty like the fog around me.
“I don’t hope to die,” I blurted, but the woman was silent. I began to walk again, my muscles needing the flex and motion to remind them that they were there.
I had already forgotten where I’d been before all of this icy blue fog. It was simple here. I couldn’t tell if I liked it, though. I had no emotions. No cares.
“You cannot stay. Saori Sang needs you, Khione.Kana... go home. Save the city, and it will save you.”
The fog whipped and swirled around me as I remembered my name. Kana. That was me. Not Khione. Except... it was. I was both.
And I lived in Saori Sang. I needed to fight... something. I was a warrior.
“Save the city,” the woman repeated, the words booming in my mind like the noise snow makes when it falls from the mountain cliffs and rushes down the steep slopes, crushing trees and animals as it roars inevitably toward the valley. An unstoppable force of natural destruction.
The fog crushed against me, burying me beneath its icy weight until all I could see was the blinding blue light burrowing into my eyes. I was an animal, crushed under the heft of an avalanche.
No, I was a warrior.
And I could hear the echo of my footsteps on cobblestone streets.
I looked down, surprised to see my ragged, torn clothing had returned, and it was a moon dark night.
I walked powerfully through the city streets, feeling each thud of my heavy boots like the toll of a clock, ringing in midnight. Every step cleansed and calmed me, erasing the uncertainty of what who I was. Leaving only the peace of moonlit walking, in a city I’d returned to save.
Ahead, the palace rose in the city center like shards of black ice, more achingly beautiful than I remembered. I’d been gone much longer than I once hoped. Would there be welcome waiting for me?
I was here to destroy Queen Merden and save my people.
Everyone I loved was here.
I was a warrior, and I’d come so save them. I was the avalanche. The natural force of destruction.
Two female figures loomed in the city center, limned by moonlight. I approached them, pushing back my sleeves to feel the bite of my city’s frigid air. Stepping onto the ice-glazed platform that held the statue of the Original Sisters, I gazed up into their blank stone eyes. Breathing in the cold night, I smiled slowly up at Saori Sang’s founders.
The twin daggers I’d stabbed into their stomachs to begin the Trials were still there.
“I’ve come to save my city. Your city. My name is Khione,” I said to them, and in my memory, they smiled down at me, welcoming me home.
I made my slow, unhurried way deeper into the city streets. The mist whispered around me again like an old friend telling gossip, and my boots splashed in the puddles of rain as I made my long-awaited ascent to the palace of the false queen.
