Olimpia remained crying next to her mother's corpse, also staining herself with blood, while Simara fixed her gaze on the floor, without shedding a single tear. She observed the red liquid all over her body, on the floor, and her own hands as if they belonged to someone else, as if her eyes merged with the red color that slowly turned darker and drier.

"No... if we don't notify a justice official and flee, we'll be suspects..." Zinnia whispered through her hands as she struggled to think of the best option and how to handle the situation.

After a few minutes, Zinnia made up her mind and left the house, quickly mounting her horse and heading to the city to report the massacre. Simara barely noticed. She only observed the blood scattered everywhere and mixed with the water left by the snow, added to Zinnia's trail.

As dawn broke, her older sister returned with the royal guard. Simara didn't even look at them, only forced to glance at them when a soldier pulled them away from their mother's remains. The girls resisted, clinging to their electric blue capes embroidered with golden threads, but it was no use, the men were much stronger than them.

Simara focused on Zinnia, who approached them and asked a thousand times what had happened, and then she heard her voice.

"They killed her. She... just exploded. It was men dressed in black..."

She watched Zinnia talk to the soldiers and the regional justice official, who was concise about who he believed was responsible. According to the official, it was clear that, due to the nature of the murder, the crime was the work of the most dangerous terrorist organization in all of Gremen: the Onyx Organization, run by extremist miorklaxs and fugitives seeking to destabilize the crown using ‘gemancy’, with which they used the power of precious gems.

The guard also made it clear that Nubia had to be buried as soon as possible, even despite the heavy snowfall, due to diseases and filth. The priest was summoned and soon arrived, cursing and completely soaked, to proceed with the burial and give the deceased a holy burial.

As they arrived at the Snowy Valley cemetery, Simara was shocked because life went on as normal, as if her mother, Nubia, hadn't died. The snow continued to fall just like always, the horses behaved as was their nature, the guards acted according to just another case of violence among thousands, and the priest rushed to his morning mass. Business as usual.

They soon crossed the wide, ancient iron gates of the cemetery entrance, with their curls and flourishes covered in piled-up snow. The silence was broken by the sounds of the horses invading the holy field, the snow falling on each stone tombstone and moss, so ancient they almost became part of the earth, and the steep path to the burial site.

Simara's confused head couldn't understand why they were there. A part of her refused to understand it, trying to look at her mount to avoid seeing the dark tombstones that stretched out, by the hundreds, on both sides of the stone path that could barely be distinguished.

"Girl," the priest's rough voice startled Simara, making her raise her head. "Look up and memorize the path, you'll need it. Do it."

Simara hated him but obeyed. She forced herself to look at each tombstone and memorize the path to Nubia's burial site. Many tombstones later, they arrived at a less populated area of non-living inhabitants, with available space.

Stolen novel; please report.

The gravediggers hurried to dig through the snow and then the earth to create the hole where Nubia would rest forever, leaving behind white and dark brown mounds. With some help, Simara got off the horse and took uncertain steps on the snow, watching as the hole grew and grew. She walked, sinking each foot into the snow, towards the burlap sack containing Nubia's remains, which were starting to leave a large bloodstain on the ice around them, and stayed close to them, very still, until it was time to bury her.

When the soldiers opened the sack and poured out Nubia's remains, Simara saw how each piece disappeared into the darkness of the earth pit, dark and cold. She observed the heavy snowfall that began to fall from the dark gray sky, the small snowflakes were like white wool pom-poms that fell forcefully and acquired all shades of gray as they disappeared into the pit. Next to her, the other people took shelter in their winter clothes, as the snowfall brought a new cold wind that chilled to the bone, but Simara didn't even pretend to close her open brown cardigan. She simply embraced the icy wind, receiving it fully. And, for once, she wished she was just another snowflake.

Soon, without saying a word after covering the pit, the priest urged Simara and her sisters to get back on their horses to return to their hut, promising that the investigation into Nubia's death would continue and progress.

Simara didn't care.

Once they were alone in the hut, which tried to be cozy again, each of them started doing something.

Without saying a word, Simara cleaned up the blood mess in the room with Olimpia, whose sobs echoed in the silence as they both felt their clothes soaked and smoking from the growing heat of the lit hearth. As soon as she entered the kitchen, Zinnia took a bottle of liquor from a shelf, crossed the door to the room, and locked herself in, closing the wooden door. Simara and Olimpia paused for a second to listen to the commotion coming from the section of the hut where the eldest was, and they understood it in an instant: Zinnia was destroying the entire room.

Simara didn't care, nor did she pause too much to think about her or the mess they would have to clean up because there was something more important occupying her mind, something that became everything. As she dragged the red-stained rag across the floor, spreading the liquid that seemed to seep through the joints of the stones and be absorbed by the wood that had touched it, she heard a faint meowing.

Simara raised her head from her task and soon remembered Nubia's little cat. In the chaos of the moment, they had completely forgotten about the cat, who surely must have hidden in some nook of the place.

Simara got up from the floor and started calling the little cat to come out of its hiding place.

"Viko... Viko, come. Out... Kitty..."

She walked towards a pile of wicker baskets with stacked wool and the meows seemed to come from closer by. She searched through the wool until she found him, hidden among several skeins of yarn in a small basket. His small green eyes looked at her warily.

"Poor Viko," Simara said, taking the cat out of the basket and holding him against her chest. She felt the cat trembling as it growled at her, scared.

"With all those screams, you must have felt in danger. Nothing's wrong, it's over. I'll give you some meat and cheese."

She stroked the cat's black fur, which was completely standing on end, and left him on the table to get the salted meat and cheese from the pantry. She cut some pieces of meat and cheese and left them directly on the table, and the kitten stopped growling and started eating, happy and somewhat desperate. Finally, Simara felt that she could have some quiet to calm her mind, a little of the tranquility she desperately needed to think.

Simara sat on the long bench at the table, stroking the kitten as it ate greedily, with the warmth and light of the hearth and oil lamp bathing them. She sighed and looked at the cat while making the same promise to herself that she had made a long time ago.

"I'll catch you and destroy you. I'll kill you, no matter how much it costs me," Simara thought.