Dahlia woke up in the middle of the night, in a pool of sweat, her cheeks stuck to the pillow with a line of drool. She jumped straight from being asleep to a fighting stance. She was up with her guard up, trying to force her eyes open. She was sure her bones were on fire, and it felt like her brain was dripping out of her nose. There was a hungry scream that echoed in the empty space inside her ribcage.

When she finally pried her eyes open, the starlit interior of her room attacked her. Images blurred together. Her breathing and heartbeat were too loud and out of synch with each other, both wrong in different ways. She tried to force the panic down. She slapped the valve on the wall next to her bed, and waited ten excruciating seconds as the bowl under it slowly filled with ice cold water. She bent and submerged her head in the bowl.

She screamed in pain and fear. Cold, comforting water kindly muffled the sound. Dahlia drank some of the water that filled into her mouth and spat the rest of it out, along with a generous amount of her blood. She kicked the drain and watched as blood spiraled down the bowl, slowly disappearing.

She turned the valve again. The dress that used to be white was on the floor, torn to pieces. She kicked it away before picking up the bowl and dunking it all on her head. Minerals sizzled as the water burned her scars. She didn’t remember dressing the wound, but bloodstained wraps were stuck to the deep gash on her side. She could just about get a whiff of a feint smell of medicinal herbs through the overwhelming scent of blood. She ripped away the bandage, the sharp pain forcing her eyes to finally focus.

She placed the bowl under the pipe, where water flowed out incredibly slowly, and turned towards the medicine cabinet across the room. She picked up a jar that was supposed to be full, but only a few pieces of bright yellow roots remained on the bottom. She dumped the contents into her mouth and started chewing as she picked the bowl up and doused herself once again. A bitter taste slowly turned sweet, as the glowroot activated. She spat the mushy plant on a fresh piece of bandage. Little green veins had started to glow inside the roots, now that the medical properties were activated with her saliva and blood. She turned off the valve and poured the last bowl a little more slowly, focusing on the long slashes on her arms this time.

The cuts were not nearly as bad as the hole in her side. Hard scar tissue had already formed on it while she slept, a side effect of blood magic. It would heal quickly, but never fully. She remembered her mother’s skin at the end, almost fully covered in scars, lines on lines of them. She remembered the look in her eyes as she pleaded Dahlia to let her die.

She had let her, because Dahlia had promised her never to use blood magic. She didn’t break that promise when the only person who mattered in the world, died. She rushed to the trash bin in the corner and puked three deadly wounds’ worth of mistakenly swallowed glowroot, and then dry heaved for another minute.

She pulled gray pants and a black tunic from her chest, and hastily put them on. She glanced at the thin blade resting on her bed and shook her head, leaving the room.

She stopped to pick up a clay bottle filled with plant milk, and drank straight from it. Somewhat wishfully, she felt if she drank enough milk maybe her bones would stop aching. She couldn’t taste the milk. Her mouth was still filled with the stench of glowroot and blood, salty and bittersweet.

She walked the narrow path down the spire’s edge, under the blue glow of moon. The night wind was cold and harsh. It knocked what little sleep remained in Dahlia. She let her feet take the lead as she scaled down the familiar path. Soon, the black dome appeared in a small opening.

Stone crypts lined the cliffside. They were structured to resemble Traechia, insect god of death. Faces were carved on their seals in their tenants’ likeness. A giant wall of dead people’s faces. It always gave Dahlia a strange sense of melancholy. The obsidian mausoleum sat against that wall. White smoke snaked out of its single shaft, signaling that the only resident was awake.

As dependable as her father always was, it didn’t surprise Dahlia. She passed by three smoking remains of starbeasts and entered the building through a tall arch. The old man was sitting next to the large hearth in the middle. Half a cigarette hung from his left hand next to a big ashtray filled to the brim. He was sitting on a rocking chair almost as old as he was, creaking in synch with the mechanical clicking that accompanied his every breath.

Rusted iron covered the majority of the old man’s body, including his entire right half and where his heart used to be. His left eye, still organic, was narrow and covered with a white curtain so thick Dahlia could barely see its black iris. Under his right eyebrow, sparks of electricity flashed inside a clear glass orb. Even though Dahlia knew he could see more clearly with that eye, than she does, she still had trouble looking directly into it. His mechanical right hand rested on the handle of his ancient rifle that rested on his lap.

Dahlia’s father was a peculiar man. A relic of the old world, with its good, bad and all the rest. Admittedly, he showed more signs of the latter. He nodded in recognition as Dahlia entered the room and let herself fall on the ground in front of him. He slowly took his shaking hand to his mouth and took a long drag of his cigarette.

“How did mom take this, dad?” she asked, skipping over any niceties she might have attempted on a normal night. “How did she live like this, day after day? Helping people, animals, us?”

James von Richten III sighed, a low growl accompanied his breath as it left his lungs. He took a long look at his adopted daughter, his organic eye focusing on her hair. Then he spoke in a low, graveled voice. “Did your mother ever tell you about the first time she ever used her powers?”

Dahlia perked up, looked up at the mountainous figure of her father and shook her head.

James stared for a second, his eyes unfocused. “Ah, fuck it, not my story to tell.” In a chorus of metallic friction, he left his rocking chair. His rifle dangled from his shoulder on a leather belt, the only piece of metal around him that was well maintained. He extended his right arm to Dahlia as his left one grabbed his walking stick. “Walk with me little flower.” He whispered.

Dahlia took his hand and they slowly walked out of the circular crypt. Incoming dawn painted the horizon in watercolor orange and blue. They walked to the edge of the cliff, where the small opening that housed the mausoleum ended. James sat on a crude bench and gestured for Dahlia to do the same. She stood for a second, remembering every time she watched her mother sit on that bench with James as she played with her sister in the clearing. She sat next to her father, at the same height for the first time in more than a year. He looked smaller from this angle, withered.

“When was the last time you ate anything?” she asked him.

“What day is today?” he answered. He looked up at the stars, his glass eye sparking. “Three days ago. Heh, time flies when you are this old aye.”

Stolen novel; please report.

Dahlia shook her head and flinched as a piercing pain stabbed her head.

“Your mother’s stories are not mine to tell, I could never tell them like she could.” James said. “What I can do is tell you about the first time I was in a war.”

Dahlia raised her eyebrows at the implication. James never talked about old days, it was one of the main reasons him and Cartha started to grow apart.

“I was thirteen when my town was destroyed.” His gaze fell to the clouds beyond them. “It was somewhere over there. Full of green, built on sand and soil. It had the most beautiful dock, full of ships with colorful sails and fields that we could work all day.

“Five thousand people lived there. Every last one as honest as winter and hardworking as sun. Our town wasn’t even the target, no. The target was the city two towns over. ‘twas a hot day, summer. I was swimming with my friends when the storm exploded.

“‘Possibility Bomb’ they called it. A ball filled with storm, hellfire, and death. That city was completely leveled, so were the towns around it, including mine. A mere two hundred survived out of five thousand.”

James flicked the cigarette butt in his hand off the cliff and pulled his tobacco box out of his chest pocket. He pulled one for himself and after a second, offered one to Dahlia. She took it with shaking hands.

“We had been hearing whispers of war for years. Never thought it was our problem. We weren’t close to any borders, nor any centers of importance.” He took a deep breath and heavy smoke filled the air as he let go.

Dahlia lit her own cigarette with her father’s lighter. Smoke burned her throat. She desperately searched for something to say but couldn't form any words.

James continued, talking more to himself than to Dahlia. A small tear formed in the corner of his organic eye and slowly trickled down his chin.

“I had a friend back then. We met when we were in a refugee center. We stuck together, his name was Jason. He was the one who convinced me to go through with it. He would say there are four things that would always come, no matter how much one tries to delay them: Hunger, pain, death, and war.

“We were the first generation of answers to an impossible question. A hundred kids whose insides were scooped out and filled with steel and pumped with magic. It wasn’t anyone’s intention for any of us to survive, we were simply meant to slow the enemy down enough for the people in charge to find a more sustainable solution.

“Out of that hundred only three survived. Jason died on the first day. I should’ve died with him, but I was too scared. I fought for two years, shoulder to shoulder with my siblings, delaying death one day at a time.

“That’s how she did it, little flower. That’s how I do it, and that’s how you will learn to do it now. It’s been forty-five thousand seven hundred and two days since that bomb destroyed my world. We don’t move on. That’s what they do, sitting in the comforts of their homes and labs and towers.”

He put his steel hand on Dahlia’s shoulder and squeezed surprisingly gently. “Swords, rifles, Possibility Bombs, starbeasts, steel soldiers, blood witches, even dragon riders,” he said. “We are all but pages in a very, very long book child. There is only one way to go on.”

“One day at a time,” Dahlia completed. She rested her head on her father’s shoulder, cold steel a calming presence on her aching skin.

“You live as long as I do, little flower,” James flicked his second cigarette off the cliff and watched it fall into the clouds below. “You start to see things, patterns. I look at you now, and I see a soldier in the making. I see a road filled with danger and hardships. But more than anything, I see a girl that saved dozens of lives today. Saved them at a cost most would never dare pay too.”

Tears started flowing down Dahlia’s eyes. Her shoulders started shaking, as a ball of pent-up anger and fear untangled in her belly.

“In her prime, Syvie would be lucky to heal a sword wound,” James said, his voice was filled with love and grief as he talked about his wife. “I don’t know what you did up there today, Dahlia. All I know is this overgrown piece of rock was crawling with scragglies one minute and was clear as a pond the next. It was nothing short of a miracle. That is what keeps you going.”

“Thank you, dad,” Dahlia whispered. Her body still ached; her bones screamed. Yet a light was lit inside her chest.

She didn’t know what she expected when she came down here to see her father. Maybe some secret plant that would fix her, a magical solution to give back what magic took from her. She surely didn’t expect mere words to fix her, she doubted anything would now.

One day at a time, she thought to herself again and again, like a mantra.

They watched the dawn in silence. The only sound was the sizzling coming from the remains of starbeasts evaporating under warm sunlight. They walked up to the hovel arm in arm. James made himself busy in the kitchen, while she sat down on the single sofa that stood in the living room. She barely felt the blissful void of sleep coming to take her.

Packing her belongings felt so final. Some part of Dahlia knew she wouldn’t be coming back to her beloved corner of the world. However sad she was, she had no more tears left.

She found the last of her supply she had drained when she woke up and saw a note from her father. It rested next to a fresh meat pie. He had used every last piece of ingredient in the house, which was a message in itself. Dahlia sat on her bed next to her hastily packed bag and looked at the piece of paper for the hundredth time.

‘A beautiful flower, with hair like stars in the summer sky. Made of stone, blessed with blood, molded by steel. You are kinder than everyone else in this family combined, and stronger too.

‘There are good days as well as bad ones.

‘Show them who you are.’

Dahlia neatly folded the paper and put it in the hidden pocket inside her leather vest. She pulled the buckles of her boots tight, feeling as if she were gearing for battle. She stared at the bronze and silver scabbard that rested next to her for a long minute, before picking it up and securing it on her belt right next to her own stone blade.

James had found that dull old blade while she was sleeping, and repaired, sharpened and oiled it. Dahlia could imagine her father mumbling to himself in frustration, angry at her for letting a weapon waste into such a state.

Dahlia walked out of the hovel and put her bag on her bench. She climbed her stone tree, and when she got to the top, she took a pick out of her pocket and broke the stone where one of the butterflies connected to the highest branch. It was the oldest one, her parents had both held her up when she wanted to put it on the highest possible place. It wasn’t the most valuable one, not the prettiest. It was made of simple stone, cracked and sharp in places.

Dahlia secured it onto the opening her old sword had in its scabbard for such a decoration. Enchanted stone secured the butterfly in place in a flash. She sat on the bench and took a deep breath, as she looked at her garden for one last time.

“Okay,” she whispered. “Any minute now.”

Less than an hour later, the red dragon soared into sight with a loud whistle. Its rider jumped down, landing in an impossibly agile roll, that ended in a sarcastic salute.

“Here to fight or here to talk?” Dahlia asked, pushing the wave of fear that the flying monster incited in her.

“Heh, you Seventh Spire children sure have spunk dontcha?” she snickered. “Gotta say, we need bout a hundred like yous back home.” She leaned against the stone tree and took a bite out of something that appeared in her hand out of nowhere. Her accent reminded Dahlia of her father’s, flat and flowy as it was. “I’m just here to ask you what you would think about joining up actually.”

“What do you mean, join up?” Dahlia asked. “Like, become a rider?”

“Aye, folks up there wanted to kill ya, mind.” The woman smiled, alerting every ounce of self-preservation instinct in Dahlia. “I told ‘em I would be responsible for you. Die if you betray the cause and the like.”

“Why would you do that for me?” Dahlia asked, vary.

“Why wouldn’t I? You interest me,” she said, taking another bite of the fruit. “A cursed blood witch with a special connection to starbeasts?” she whistled melodically as she imitated an explosion with her hands. “There is only one thing left to do now: you accept it, we report it home, and you leave with us on our ship today.” She produced the small leather notebook she used on the summit and started writing. “I, lieutenant Faelix of the Golden Vanguard, hereby accept the recruitment under special circumstances of one…” She looked up at Dahlia with one eyebrow raised.

Dahlia sat up on the bench, slowly swallowing her fear and doubt. She felt warmth coming from the folded piece of paper in her pocket and the stone butterfly resting on her scabbard.

“Dahlia von Richten.”