An indefinite amount of time passed before I realized I was awake and staring up at a ceiling. Black stone looked back at me, covered in moss and cracking here and there. My gifted sight let me see every detail, even from afar and in the pitch black dark.

My... well, everything ached. How long had I been asleep? I groaned as I pressed the heel of a pale-skinned hand firmly against my brow, the pressure servering to soothe the dull throbbing in my head. Then I flinched, sharply inhaling, as the memories of my last experience with consciousness throttled me where I lay.

The sound of drums, echoing in the distance, and the crashing of the battering ram against the palisade.

The attack, and Sister Cassia yelling for me to run as Mother Lilian was butchered alive in front of us.

Barricading the door to the one of the rooms in the dungeon, my only company the sound of the blackguards employed by Radivarius slamming their truncheons against the barrier, trying to break in after me.

I staggered to my feet, stumbling forward, legs shaking not just from fatigue but from the revelations as well.

I hadn’t just slept - I had died, trapped in the dungeon with no food or water for over a week, while priests sanctified the entire grounds. I remembered pacing to keep busy, fretting as I thought of my sisters, crying as I felt my skin begin to burn with the rites being performed above - and then flashes of delirium, and then nothing, til now.

I had to find out what had happened. I had a second chance in front of me, and I couldn't squander it. I might have been the weakest of my sisters aside from Sister Clarice while I was alive - but I was one of the gifted, and I had vengeance on my side.

Wearing just my initiates garb - a simple black top and a wrap around my lower body - I didn't cut the most impressive figure as I traversed the room. I was barefoot too, which meant I could feel every bump and pebble of the hard stone floor. Eventually I reached the door, and the impromptu barricade I had created, consisting mainly of the room’s large heavy oaken work table. I had managed to wedge it firmly underneath the door’s iron handlebar into a deep divot in the stone floor. They hadn’t had the patience to axe the door apart to get in, and their prayers had been answered in the end with my expiration in any case.

As I grabbed hold of the table, which was covered in spiderwebs and dust, my long black hair got in my eyes. I puffed air up my face to get it out of the way, and I pulled on the gifted strength within. It wasn't much - perhaps the strength of two men - but it was enough. With a grunt, I dislodged the table and let it fall to the side with a mild thud. With one hand on the wall, I tugged the door open, only to get a face full of dust from the hallway, causing me to blink and cough.

I found the first body, then - or rather, a skeleton with one arm, slumped against what remained of the far wall, which looked to have collapsed. It had no lower jaw, and it wore no clothing aside from a pair of rough woolen pants - which matched my memories of the blackguards wear, to some degree. At the least, I was certain it wasn't one of my sisters.

The collapse of the far wall left the other rooms of the dungeon on that side wide open and accessible, and a gleam of metal caught my eye in the shadows. I waved a hand in front of my face, trying to clear some of the dust, as I crept over the rubble towards my object of desire. It turned out not to be a sword, which would have been my preference based on what little training I'd had with Sister Tassidia, but an old beating stick with the leather part of the handle missing - probably chewed off by rats, if I had any guess. I gripped it tightly in one hand, and found it much heavier than I liked.

As I turned around, I realized it would have to do, as I was no longer alone.

Woolen pants - indeed, the same skeleton I'd seen slumped against the wall stood before me, blocking my exit. With a quiet creak, it lurched towards me with shambling steps.

I was no practiced fighter - but I knew the fundamentals, if only from watching my Sisters brawl in the courtyard. I brought the beating stick over my shoulder behind my neck, my free hand held up in front of me in a false guard. The skeleton stepped in, its lone arm swinging haphazardly, and I stepped back just enough for it to fly past my face.

"Hnrgh!" I grunted, swinging the stick. The blow caught the skeleton on the collarbone, and sent it stumbling back a pace. It didn't seem damaged - I hadn't struck hard enough, having only made a half-step approach. I bared my teeth, brought the stick back again, and stepped forward, this time putting my weight into it with a full stride before it had time to recover.

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The skeleton put its arm in the path of the strike, and it lost everything from the elbow down as a result.

I kept advancing, repeating the same simple strike once, then twice, then thrice - then again, and again after that, and its skull was caved in, and it wasn't moving. I gave it a kick in the ribs for good measure, panting for breath.

"One down," I gasped, quietly. I forced myself to stop breathing, to listen closely for the sound of anything else approaching from the distance, but I heard nothing. I took a second to pull my hair out of my face, then grabbed my stick with both hands as I delved back into the hallway.

At one end of the hallway was a set of stairs that led up towards the palace kitchen. I light-footed my way towards and up the stone steps, careful not to catch the lip of my sandals on them, and found the door at the top was closed. I gently pressed a hand against it - and the whole thing fell forward, landing with a crash against the floor.

Naturally, this attracted the attention of the three skeletons standing in the kitchen, all of which turned towards me with ill intent. None of them were missing limbs, and one of them had a rusty sword in a boney grip, even.

"Oh, hellfire," I hissed, hesitating only a moment before turning tail and retreating back down the steps.

Once I'd reached the bottom, the first of the skeletons had reached the top of the steps - and it appeared that it didn't really know how stairs worked, because it took one step forward and fell. It landed in a heap in front of me, and I didn't wait - I brought the beating stick down in a two handed grip, putting a wide hole in its skull in with a single blow. The second one fell down after it, but it ended up in a seating position on the step second to the bottom, and it managed to block my first attack. I didn't retreat quickly enough, and it landed a strong blow on me in return with a boney fist against my ribs. It hurt like hell, but it left me with my wind, so I returned the favor, swinging my stick sideways and catching it in the neck.

It wasn't a decapitating blow, but it seemed as though half of the skeleton went limp, then. It was easy to follow through with another blow to its temple, and leave a broken skull hanging by a thread.

I was getting tired - if it weren't for my gifted strength and endurance, I'd be done by now - and there was still another one, standing at the top of the steps. The one with the sword. I was lucky it hadn't been the second one to fall - otherwise I might have a hole in my stomach, instead of bruised ribs.

I slung my beating stick over my shoulder, waiting for it to come down and join its brothers - but it didn't. It just stood there, staring down at me with its empty eyes.

"Come on!" I called, just enough to be heard. I felt a bit silly doing so - skeletons didn't have ears, after all. But this one seemed to be intelligent, to some degree - at least enough to recognize that making the same decision as its brothers to descend wasn't a good idea.

Then, it lifted a foot -

and stepped onto the first step, without falling.

Then it stepped down another, and I knew it wasn't a fluke - it knew how to use stairs. What else did it know? Was it holding that sword just for show, or did it know how to use it too?

It descended slowly, carefully, its bones creaking and crackling with each step. I found myself retreating automatically, matching its pace to maintain the distance between us. Then it defied my expectations for a second time, and fell down the steps. No - wait, it was running - swinging the sword from above -

I caught the strike at the base of the blade with a two-handed grip on my stick, but the damage was done - the pain was immediate, overwhelming, as the top half of the rust-covered sword cut a jagged wound into the space between my neck and left shoulder. The skeleton cared not for my suffering - ignoring my unintelligible grunt-shriek of pain it mercilessly yanked the blade back, worsening the wound in the process, and kicked me hard in the chest. I was sent sprawling, my wind gone, my vision blurred with the daze of the impact.

Frantic, I flipped over and scrambled backwards, only to find I was going forwards as I bumped into the skeleton's legs and tripped it up in the process. It swung its sword on the way down, missed my leg by a thread, and broke it against the floor. Dust filled the air as the skeleton flailed to get its weight back under itself, and out of desperation I threw myself onto its back. My hands were empty - I'd lost my stick somewhere along the line - but I had my meager gift of strength, and my blood was roaring in my ears.

I grabbed the skeleton by the skull, lifted it up, and then slammed its face into the floor. Then again, and again, and again, until I couldn't do it any longer.

I had won, but my left arm was covered in blood, and I felt dizzy. Sister Tassidia had told me once that if a person lost all of their blood, they would die - I supposed that rule applied to the gifted as well. It took every ounce of my gifts to get me to the top of the stairs, where I found the kitchen empty. I'd never been so grateful, not in this life, nor the past one. I would have loved to just sit down and rest - but I felt I might pass on again if I did.

No, as injured as I was, there was only one option - finding a healing potion. The storerooms were likely raided when the blackguards came through - but Mother Lilian always kept a stash in her quarters for emergencies. I just hoped they hadn't been thorough enough to find it - and that I managed to get all the way there in one piece. Her quarters weren't far from the kitchen, but given how many skeletons I'd encountered thus far I wasn't optimistic about my chances of reaching them unmolested.

I tore a piece of cloth from my skirt and pressed it hard against my shoulder wound, holding my beating stick in my off-hand.

Come what may, my name is Grinnith, and I am one of the gifted. I will get through this. Probably.