Six Days Earlier

Fire.

Chaos.

Blood.

And the screams. The endless screams.

Just two minutes ago, Ayla Shadowmend was sitting peacefully in the dirt. Legs crossed, eyes closed, fingers brushing lightly, playfully in the dirt, kicking up tiny flecks of dust. This was her spot – her “Spot”—the place she held nearly sacred. The place where she could be alone and free. Away from everyone. Her mother, her sisters… everyone.

Shrouded in the shadows of the trees surrounding her, lying at the base of Mount Redemption, Ayla never felt more at peace than when she was in this spot. Whole.

Her “Spot” wasn’t expansive. But size wasn’t necessary. What mattered was that it was secluded and "away." The grass grew green, though slowly, in patches around her, fading into brown with the changing seasons. Leaves fell in autumn. Sometimes there was snow in the winter. Flowers—small, but pretty all the same—bloomed in spring.

For the rest of her coven—the Sisters of the Twin Moons—nature was an essential part of their culture, their lives, their worship. But more than anything else, their belief centered on the moons, Yuchin and Da. They believed the twin moons were the source of their magic, and revered them for it. Ayla wasn’t so sure. Unlike her sisters, and every other woman in Crescent Hollow, her mother had never allowed her to practice any form of magic.

Nonetheless, she had always felt a connection to magic and the natural world. There were things, little things, she could do naturally, without any training or practice. She knew that was unusual, but didn’t dare mention it to her mother. Better to keep such things to herself.

She had learned that lesson the hard way. When she was still a child, she’d had her first vision, one that had terrified and bewildered her. She had run to her mother, relaying the horrifying, unnerving things she had seen. Her mother had slapped her across the face, accused her of lying. “The twinless do not have ‘visions,’ young lady. Especially not when they are mere children.”

Ayla had cried. But just a little. The slap had hurt. Her mother’s words had hurt more.

She’d never received any sign of love from her mother. Nothing resembling affection. Not even a single kind word. Everything about Ayla seemed to disgust her.

The visions continued, sporadically, over the years. Some featured strangers she’d never met, in places she’d never been. Because of this, there had never been a way to discern if the visions were real or not. But those that did involve the Sisters… they had all come to pass. Every single one. Some of the details might have been off, though; the visions seemed to have a penchant for the over dramatic. But the crux of them had always proven accurate.

Sitting in the dirt, surrounded by grass, shaded by trees, Ayla had been hit with a new vision. It hit hard. She’d been sitting, meditating, reaching out to the Mother Goddess, seeking peace and calm in a world that was cruel to her. And then, without warning, the vision had come.

To anyone observing her in that moment, she would have appeared to be gazing straight ahead. But her eyes were unseeing, utterly consumed by the images flashing through her mind. The images were vivid and clear. It was just the time and place—the finer details—that were nebulous.

What she could discern this time was fire, blood, and chaos. Buildings ablaze, towers tumbling down around running, screaming people. Bloody bodies laying dead or dying in the streets. A wave of black and red pouring over them, past them, through them.

She had never been to Safehaven, the capital city of Brightholme, but she thought that might have been the place she was seeing. Something about the scope and magnitude of the vision suggested it had to be there.

Something was coming there, and soon. And when they arrived, clad in black and red, everything in front of them would fall.

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Including the Godknight.

She had never seen him. Not in the real world. But she’d had visions of him in the past.

They were nothing like this.

The vision began to fade. Slowly. Ayla blinked, brought her dirty palms to her face, rubbing at her eyes. The world seemed brighter. Her eyes ached. Her heart was pounding, nearly out of her chest.

She sprang quickly to her feet, already in a near panic. Something was coming, she thought again. And though she knew her efforts would likely prove fruitless, perhaps even painful, she had to warn someone.

She began to sprint towards the village, forgetting to brush the dirt off her long black robe. She’d pay for that, too. But she did pull her hood up over the top of her head to cover her hair, purely on instinct and muscle memory.

She reached the village and ran right through, passing the scoffing and tsking of Sisters as she moved. A few yards away from her house, she spotted two of her actual sisters, Retecka and Lu, walking arm-in-arm towards the door. Ayla brushed past them, mumbling an “excuse me” as she went. She could hear their laughter and mockery as she entered the house but ignored it as best she could.

She found her mother in the kitchen, dropping leeks and peas into an oversized pot hanging over an open flame. Her two oldest sisters, Ferdy and Fay, were bustling about around her, following her directions like the obedient daughters they were.

“Mother!” Ayla panted. Her mother spun around, looked her up and down. She scoffed, that familiar look of disgust on her face.

“What are you doing, girl?” she spat. “You’re filthy. Why—”

“I had a vision!” Ayla interrupted. That elicited some giggles from Ferdy and Fay, who paused their work to watch the show.

Her mother placed her hands on her hips and rolled her eyes. “Oh, a vision, is it. What was it this time?”

“It was… it was…” Ayla wasn’t sure how to describe it.

“Your imagination?” Ferdy or Fay suggested. The other one giggled.

“No! It was real! Mother, listen—”

“I don’t have the time or patience for this, girl,” her mother interjected. Ayla took a half-step back, expecting her mother’s right hand to come roaring towards her. This made the twins giggle louder, quicker.

“What’s going on?” Retecka asked as she and her sister entered the kitchen.

“What’d she do this time?” Lu asked. The four of them, both pairs of twins, huddled together. They laughed and grasped at each other’s sleeves, pointed and mocked. Ayla saw a brief grin cross her mother’s lips. It might have broken her heart, that little grin. If it hadn’t already been shattered so many years before, by similar cruelties.

“Mother, you have to listen,” Ayla said, attempting to force herself calm. It was so much harder with her sisters present. “Something’s coming. Something’s coming, and it’s going to be really, really bad. I think… I think you need to…”

The room grew silent as they all stared at her, smiling, anticipating the coming punchline.

Ayla dropped her gaze, forced her eyes closed, and gritted her teeth. She had no choice. This was bigger than her, bigger than all of them. Whatever abuse she was about to receive… well, she’d just have to take it.

She looked up, locked eyes with her mother. In her most vulnerable, sincere tone, she pleaded: “You have to warn the Godknight.”

There was a long moment of silence. The girls all exchanged surprised glances. Her mother didn’t move. Just stared. Ayla kept her eye contact, pleading. Pleading. Praying this one time her mother would listen.

“Please,” she whispered. “Please, mother.”

Her mother’s face remained expressionless as she took a step towards Ayla. It took all her will not to back away again. She didn’t strike her, though, instead just pulling Ayla’s hood off of her head, revealing her long red hair. Despite living with her all her life, her sisters all gasped as if seeing it for the first time.

Her mother took the bottom of Ayla’s hair in her hand. Rubbed it between two fingers. Staring at it, she said, “What did I do to deserve you?”

“Mother—”

“A twinless, flame-haired abomination. An aberration, that’s what you are. A punishment from Yuchin and Da, for some forgotten misdeed.”

The girls, all with the blackest of black hair, began giggling again. And Ayla knew all was lost.

Her mother flicked Ayla’s hair in her face and turned away. “Stay out of this house tonight. Sleep in the woods, for all I care. I can’t bear to look at you one minute more.

“Start your chores in the morning, before the sun comes up. Don’t let me see you. And if you wake up any of your sisters, you’ll get a whipping. And I won’t go easy on you this time.”

As if any of them had ever been “easy.” Ayla whispered a soft “yes, mother.” She left the house, her supposed “home,” feeling as defeated as she could be.