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The voice shifted, contorting into something physical. Shadow swirled, forming the image of Cian as he had been on Midsummer.
The fire in my veins forced my arms away from my body. I watched as my fingertips crumbled to ash and fire shot through in a blinding beam of light. It curled around him, burning him away.
Another shadow on the other side of me became Nisang, wings broken as he lay on the battlefield, peering up at me with raw terror in his eyes. “Whatareyou?Whoare you?”
I fought to find an answer, but the question was too complicated. I needed to unravel it, unfold myself from it. He was gone before I could.
Gentle sobbing from in front of me. I looked and found Xeltec and Dorric there, holding each other while their home and books burned. The image blackened like a drawing cast in a fireplace.
Rough hands grabbed me by the shoulder, spun me around.Father. I was looking into the fury-laced eyes of my father while my mother wept behind him, watching her music box burn. She turned her head, her face framed in the profile of hungry flame. Eyes cold, she watchedmeburn.
And then I was alone in the dark, hurting, aching inside and out. I lay on the wood floor, tears dripping from my open eyes into the damp wood. I was just listening to their footsteps, tracking their movements through the house with hunger rumbling in my belly.
Breeze drifted in through my open window, carrying with it the potent scent of burning coals. With it, a voice soft and beautiful. “You aren’t like them, are you?” Something caressed the side of my face. Fire,livingfire, but cool to the touch. “You’re like me.”
I swallowed. “What are you? Are you a demon?”
“No, my son. Rise and you will see. Stand and claim your birthright.”
Slowly, I unfolded and looked around me. The room was empty but for the whisper of a breeze and the fading smell of burnt incense and…
Mother’s music box.
It sat on the floor in front of me, unburnt, unharmed. And there was the key to wind it up.
But somehow I knew it wasn’t music I would find inside.
I licked dry lips, staring at the box, and whispered, “What is it?”
“It is power. It is the world you are owed. The life you should have had. It is truth, child. Your truth.”
I didn’t understand, didn’t care to. My body hurt so bad, my burn, my empty stomach. All I wanted was the song in Mother’s music box. A small comfort. Even if her eyes darkened whenever the song played, even if she sometimes snapped it closed before the song could finish. I loved the song, the box… I just wanted not to hurt for a minute. Surely, that couldn’t be so wrong.
Trembling, fat child fingers picked up the iron key and slid it into the lock. The lock opened with a click and the box lid slid open and music played.
The platform rose with a click and a clink. On it rested a single folded paper. My mouth was dry as I reached for it. With shaky fingers, I unfolded it. An icy chill ran through me when I recognized the word.
Murderer.
I dropped the paper and recoiled. “No, that’s not true! I never killed anyone!”
The sounds of battle swept into the room, the reflection of fire on the surface of the river, the sight of Nisang’s broken wings.
I spun, tears spilling over. “That wasn’t my fault! I didn’t have a choice!”
“Murderer,” came the whispered accusation and Trian rose from the floor in chains, his throat bloody.
I backed away. “No, that wasn’t me. That wasn’t me!”
“Murderer!” Hellion snarled and brought their khopesh down.
I rolled out of the way just as the blade wedged itself in the wood and they blew away like ash in the wind.
Whispered accusations echoed, the faces of everyone I’d ever known parading through the room until it was my parents’ turn. They came to me on fire, the flesh melting off their bones.
“Murderer,” my father spat.
My mother’s voice was distant and forlorn as she asked, “Why did you kill us?”
