Father stood over me, his eyes blazing as he slammed the window shut. The noise made me jump. Still catching my breath, I scrambled backwards on all-fours. I was close enough to the thin wooden floorboards to hear another sound from outside.

Slow, contemplating steps in the snow.

“Your mother said she saw someone outside your window,” Father said, “but I couldn’t believe it. A boy chasing my hatchet-faced daughter?”

His words were cruel but all I could see were the scars on his clenched fist. Knuckles still red and split open from fighting with the other miners. It was another reason that I hated the goddamned mine. Every day, we were surrounded by shifty-eyed men who had hungry babes and dead-eyed wives at home. Finding the pearls was hard enough; keeping them was nigh impossible.

And Father? Well, he was a survivor out of pure spite.

But he kept us alive as well. How long would he keep me alive if he knew my secret? If he knew what had been happening to my scars in the past weeks? Luck had been on my side these last few weeks with winter encroaching on our village; it had been a good reason to wear my ratty old coat to cover the disturbing phenomenon that was happening under my skin…

“Who is he?” Father asked harshly. “Which village fool is waiting out there?”

“N-no one.”

“Don’t lie to me, Lira.”

I flinched at the sound of my name. He always said it with such abject disgust. I always suspected he lacked any real affection for me and perhaps, even my sisters. Only my mother held his heart. It would be romantic if –

He raised a fist. Always the right hand. Mother always said in that cloying tone that he wanted to spare his wedding band any harm, even if it was made of the crudest iron scavenged from the local smithy.

“Tell me who is out there,” he said through gritted teeth, “so that I can show them your face after I’m finished with you. See if he wants you then.”

I struggled in his grip now, fearful and breathless, because I could feel an odd twitching in my hands. Something that felt like a living breathing creature, slow and assured, outpacing my own lungs. My secret, rising to the surface, too fast for me to control.

“Please,” I begged. More for him, than for me. “You don’t want to see –”

–what’s been happening to me.

“Your lover?” Father looked down at me in disgust. “I’d like to see the boy who would choose you. And to think that I couldn’t sell you for wooden pennies at the marriage market.”

Pain flared. Years ago, I remembered running to my mother, crying about my sisters calling me a sideshow freak. She had held me loosely until my sobs died down, then leaned down with a detached expression. “Lira,” she had said, “It is only human to feel. But you feel too much. A girl that looks like you needs to be strong, not soft.” When I had jerked away from and cried harder, she had simply shaken her head. “I don’t recognize myself in you at all. What can I do with a child like you?”

A hard blow to my cheek brought me back to reality.

“– won’t shame me by ruining yourself before your nuptials.”

“No,” I said before I could take the word back. I could feel the skin on my cheek growing taut, hardening as blood trickled down the bruise.

To Father, marriage was safety and shelter. A sanctuary for an unruly daughter.

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Not to me. Marriage had always been a threat; I would only be sent to another family for confinement, trading one prison for another, except my new prison would require new responsibilities. I had glimpsed enough of that every time a drunkard scrabbled at one of my sisters on our way home.

“Not another word. You’re promised to another.” Father leaned closer and I could smell the sweet stink of the plum liquor he favored. “One who has offered to take you without a dowry.”

“Her dowry,” a voice rumbled, “will be your head.”

The Immortal. I looked up to see him in the doorway, his broad shoulders barely fitting through the entrance. He was cast in shadow but I could see the fury roiling off of him.

In a blink, he had reached Father. Grasped him and dangled him several feet in the air. Father was no small man but in the Immortal’s hands, he was a puppet without any defenses. I could see his throat being pinched tighter, tighter until purple blood vessels were forming ripe and ruddy – thick enough to pop.

“Stop, please.” My words were hoarse. They went unheard.

Father was scrambling now, his feet kicking wildly, doing a dying man’s dance.

Finding the courage, I shoved myself between them. “No.”

The Immortal simply inclined his head towards me in question. Granting me an audience like the warlord that he once must have been. The gesture would have chafed if not for the muscles twitching sluggishly in my father’s throat.

“If he dies,” I whispered, “my sisters starve.”

A flicker in those eyes. For a second, he looked unmoved. As if he were seconds away from snapping my father’s neck. I could feel the sheer heat of his skin, melted frost still dripping off of him, and I fought not to shudder from the animal brutality that he exerted as he abruptly released Father.

“You will come.” The Immortal turned away. I could hear a marked accent in those words, as if his deep voice had been drenched and laden in sea salt. It was an order.

Coughing, Father gripped my wrist. Squeezed the old scars from the pearl mine collapse. His eyes were wide, scared, “Stay, Lira. It’s not safe. You’re not safe –”

Those last words left a coppery taste in my mouth. Panic. Suddenly I felt a warmth stir under my veins. The oddest sensation – it felt like my scars were twitching, coming to life.

Something slipped free from my veins like a snake. Moved faster than I could see.

Blood. Droplets on Father’s hand.

Shock dampened the emotion in Father’s eyes. He let go abruptly, his eyes wide, staring at his sticky fingers. There were new scars there now. Long vicious cuts.

Father gaped for a second, then he breathed, “What are you?”

The Immortal assumed those words were for him. He had seen none of it as he had already moved towards the door, too impatient to stay even as he beckoned to me. But I knew.

Father was talking to me. With that terrified gaze, he was asking me what I was.

I pinched the skin below my wrist. Under the surface, silver glinted in my scars. A pearlescent gleam. I could feel its hidden sharpness settling again under my skin. It lived in my marrow and bones now. Whatever it was. Would it ever cut me open? Or the ones I loved?

“Goodbye, Father.”

My words were overshadowed by the sound of the door creaking closed behind me.

Perhaps it was best that I was leaving them behind. Father, mother, my two sisters who likely still slept soundly in the warm hovel behind me. Despite everything, I still loved them with a bitter reluctance that tasted like guilt rather than virtue.

Outside, the cold wintry air crept through my thin garments, but I could still feel that pulsating warmth in my veins. The Immortal swept me deeper into the woods, the crook of his lips curled into a cruel and victorious smile, with a wide hand splayed against my back that made every inch of me tingle. He guided me into the darkness with a cool familiarity as if it were his home.

Still shell-shocked, my eyes hovered at half-mast. I couldn’t stop shivering. At some point, he draped his robe over me. Despite its tattered condition, the robe was heavier and warmer than anything that I ever owned.

Our steps took us into the snowy copse, the powder hanging heavy on every branch, and I tripped on a hidden overgrown root once before he leaned over and picked me up easily. Instantly, his scent invaded my nostrils – oaky with a burnt maple sweetness that smelled like sin. His wiry frame hid an unsettling strength that made me shake with uncertainty and a deep warmth alike.

I had found sanctuary in this bruiser of an Immortal.

And the thing that curled within my scars like a silent blade? Well, it had found sanctuary too – a secret deep inside my skin.