Prologue:

The first memory I can recall is thus: The sun is falling behind the horizon, bloodying the sky with the last heat of the day.

I’m looking through the ajar frame of a door. Strange lamps are hanging from the walls, inside the large wooden room, bizarre candles of glass with translucent liquid in them.

There are many a table, cupboard, cabinet all around, neatly arranged, perfectly packed to be safe.

A man is leaning on a working station, grinding charcoal down.

I’m looking with all my attention. He made strange lights a few nights ago. Some were surprised, some cowered in fear at the sight. I did neither.

I looked at him as he lit strange tubes. I looked at him while bangs startled me, focus unbroken. I looked at him as he smiled at his creations.

I don’t know what he is. Whispers of witch or warlock, wizardry, sorcery. Those words are spoken in turn with fear or respect.

I don’t care. I want to see him do it again.

And so I spy on him and this strange place.

I’m so small, everything is so big.

I’m so young, everything is so strange.

“Well,” The old gentleman suddenly says, “Won’t you come in, girl?” He asks. His words are different from the others.

The smith sneered at me before driving me away.

The carpenter looked at me in disdain, didn’t even care to speak, spanked me so I wouldn’t return.

The brewer turned red and screamed.

All the men looked down on me.

Not this old scholar. His words weren’t kind or angry, they were cold, precise. His head turned, his gaze fell on me. I froze, his eyes like the butcher’s finest blade.

“Do you want to learn, or not?” He asked in a savage and precise way. I felt like in the middle of winter, carrying the biggest pack of wood. Crushed and cold, but… not dismissed.

I tried to calm my breathing. I failed. I still took a step forward.

“Some spine. You’ll need it, girl.” There it was, the hate I had felt outside all those masters’ doors, but it felt strangely fake. He was making a point.

Oh. A warning, not about him, but about the world. 

I don’t know how I knew it.

Chapter 1

The place was Rankia. The year was 987. The 1th of March, very exactly. It would be important, yet I didn’t know any of those things at the time.

The village wasn’t small, but it was far away. Nobody cared. You don’t need to know the year to harvest wheat, to slaughter the sheep, to make booze. You don’t need to know the country’s name to build houses, to tile the soil, to dig wells.

I was the only daughter of a lone father. He had taught me to cut wood, to fix the roof, to tile the ground. He was a good man.

For all that, we were looked at with glares that ranged from envious to hateful. I was not a dainty wallflower, and I had no mother to teach me how to be a good little girl. I knew how to cook because my father had been forced to learn to provide for us. I knew how to sew because he had begged an old weaver to teach him, and showed me. 

But I didn’t know those things to make a good wife. I had muscles that women shouldn’t have, scares that proper submissive bedwarmers should avoid.

If that was all, I wouldn’t have been shunned, no. Some of the girls liked that I wasn’t weak, wasn’t meek. 

All of them, however, agreed that I shouldn’t be Henry’s apprentice. Most would agree that nobody should.

Yet life was good, I believed, and in a way I was right. Day after day, I helped my old dad in the house and the garden, and I watched Henry work in his laboratory, with his tools and ingredients, creating healing concoctions and tools of delight. People shunned us but most couldn’t muster hate.

It’s hard to hate someone who saves your little boy from his fever, who delights the village with shows of light to banish the dark, who makes the booze better.

As I would learn, hard doesn’t mean impossible.

***

Charred flesh. Burned wood. Those smells overpower my mind, taking all the space in my nose, my lungs.

I cough and grab my throat. I can’t breathe. I flay around, my hands touching soot and charcoal.

I wrestle for some time before the sensations mellow down. I still can’t breathe, but the pain goes away, and the smells mellow down from all-encompassing to simply unbearable.

Opening my eyes takes all my strength. I’m greeted by a clear sky, full of stars. Ambers are still burning, not far from here, but even so, I am seeing everything too clearly, as if the sun was no longer needed.

Ever so slowly, strength flows back into my limbs, and I raise my body from the ground, sitting down, taking in the scene.

Henry’s house is a scorched husk, down to the large garden that had once surrounded this place with many an alchemical plant. I’m currently there, a few feet away from the last ambers.

Not far from me, there’s a body, and a person kneeling by its side. 

Henry is dead. 

My mentor is dead.

Dread starts to fill me as I slowly understand the situation. I force myself on my legs, wobble the handful of yards separating us, and fall on my knee close to him. Ash makes small clouds.

I don’t know what to feel. No.

I don’t know how to feel.

I’m empty. There’s pain and sorrow and dread and anger but everything rages behind a wall of glass, and I find myself simply devoid of a will to live, robbed of initiative.

The person kneeling close by raises her eyes. “I was too late,” She says with a deep, whispering voice. I can’t sense any emotions from her.

She moves her gaze to him. “At least I saved her, old friend. You wouldn’t have agreed with the method, but you have to cut me some slacks. In this forsaken place, can work miracles only up to a certain point.” She whispers to the empty husk in a casual, vulnerable way. She wouldn’t show me this again in a long, long time.

I can’t speak, I’m too weak. I don’t understand anything that's happening, so silence stretches as we both stay quiet, until the woman gets back on her feet.

“I hope you’ll survive long enough. He looked forward to your achievements quite a bit,” This is the first time she speaks to me, and the last in forever. I raise my eyes from the corpse, and she’s already gone.

***

What’s happening. I don’t understand.

What’s happening.

I look right and left, not knowing what to do, yet the world around me grounds my mind little by little.

The cold air of the early Spring night. The dying breath of the burning house. The grass.

I sit down at Henry’s side, close my eyes, take his hand. He’s already getting cold. I stay like this for a while, but something gnaws at the back of my mind, an instinct growing by the second.

Something is not right.

Henry’s place is slightly isolated from the village, but even so, there’s too little noise.

Anxiety grips my throat as I finally start to recover from my shock.

I’m sitting beside a corpse and a burned house, so...

Where are all the people? The bystanders? The curious?

The answer makes my mind reel in horror as I rush back to the village, walk down the main street.

Corpse. Corpse everywhere.

On the village green, I find a sea of bodies, tens upon tens of the villages’ men, surrounded by their smothered torches. They are completely desiccated, as if their very life had been drained away.

I walk faster.

I see lifeless women at many windows, just as withered.

I walk faster.

Through an unclosed door, the dry remnants of a child.

Now I run with all my might and the building around me blurs. I don’t know how I got here so fast, yet I’m home.

No sounds.

Please please please please plea-

My mental litany is stopped by the brutal reality.

There’s a form, sitting down on our prized armchair.

I remember when father finished building it. He was so proud.

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And now here he is.

Dead.

I rush to his side. He’s not like the others, not dessicated. His throat was slashed open. His face still show surprise, pain. His hands are full of blood.

My mind cracks. I hear a monstrous scream, a lamentation of sorrow carried by an inhuman voice.

It’s me. I’m the one screaming.

Rankia, 07 of March 987

I’m hiding in a deep thicket of birch trees, curled up into a ball. It is day, I’m trying to sleep. I can’t.

I can hear it, its mighty roar, its crushing scream, everywhere, all the time.

The sun, howling in deep womp-womp sounds, like I have never heard, crashing onto me.

I shouldn’t be here, under trees, I should be hiding deep in caves and buildings, far away from its judgemental rays.

Yet here I am, hiding like an animal.

Night comes and I can finally sleep a little, but soon enough I wake up. Just like yesterday.

Today the sky is mildly clouded and, once again, just for a second, I lose myself to its magnificent beauty. There weren’t that many stars in the sky before.

Then comes the dread. I’m lost. I had never left the village before, and now I’m away from it, so far away.

There was nothing left for me there. Nobody. No life.

Focus, Camille.

I have a few bags with me. One contains food. I haven’t been hungry since I departed, so it’s left untouched. I know that something is wrong with this, with me, but I don't linger on it.

There's another bag for dirty clothes, and a third for clean ones. Finally, a bag with all the tools I could recover from the workshop and the houses. A hammer, a sickle, some cooking utensils. Ingredients for black power and healing balms, anything I could scavenge from that dead husk of a village.

A spear. I know how to use it, dad showed me. It makes a fine walking stick. I hope I won’t use it for anything else than that.

All of this should be heavy, yet it feels so light. I haven’t stopped to think about it. I divert my mind from that though.

I change clothes, I comb my hair, I brush my teeth. Mundane acts to anchor oneself, to focus on something, anything, other than my situation. 

I can’t think about the sun. About the night. About the corpse, my dead mentor, my departed fathe-

I stop myself forcefully.

By the time I’m finished, the sun’s last rays have nearly disappeared. I can still hear it, beyond the horizon, soft and muted, light buzzing at the edge of my mind.

I exit the thicket, start walking down a nearby road, spear in hand, bags in tow.

Away from my village, towards the unknown.

Rankia, 30 of March 987

I’m a monster.

I had fought this thought for a while now, but…

The nights are too long. I am too strong.

Food doesn’t nourish me, I’m always hungry.

That wasn’t enough proof, however, not for my rebellious, fractured mind.

No, I had to kill someone to understand it.

And here I am, standing over three mangled bodies.

Gruff men, unwashed, uncaring, carrying unkept tools of death, heavy, rusted cutlass.

One of them is skewered by my spear, right through the heart. It’s broken. The second and third ones, their bodies show proof of a savage beating, as if a bear had mauled them.

My hands are covered in blood. My mouth too. One of the body is exsanguine. I didn't even think of taking a hammer out. I did it with my own, bare hands, and the red liquid still flows from heavy claws, parody of my nails.

The young couple at the side looks at me with horror. The man is beaten to a pulp, the woman was nearly raped. 

I shouldn’t have intervened. I still did. 

We’re in the middle of the night, and everything is so slow. The rustling leaves, the dancing grass. The owl sluggishly closing on its prey, the couple looking at me.

Why is everything so fucking slow!

I look at the couple, angry at the world, lost at what to do. I can’t even speak to them, it is torture to simply wait for their lips to form words.

They are afraid of me, so I leave.

Rankia, 27 of May 987

Every night, I walk. Some nights, I kill.

Blood is the only thing abating my hunger.

I hate it. It is so good, yet I hate it.

I grab someone and I bite their throat, and life flows into me, alongside memories.

There are bandits, a slew of them, in the land. A war ended not long ago I think, I learn from draining my victims. The people are poor, starving, and banditry’s appeal overwhelms some.

Others are simply profiteers, butchers and rapists that see this as a great opportunity. Fewer patrols, fewer soldiers, and desperate people. 

A horrible mix.

And every early summer night, I walk, to flee and forget. I forget so much.

I find myself in yet another thicket of birch trees, much like so many days ago.

Another day of attempted sleep, another day crushed by the roar of the sun.

But today is different, I realize when I finally wake up, after the two or three hours of peace I could get around dusk.

I smell burning wood. I hear people. 

My heart beats hard and I quickly pack my thing as an instinct overwhelms me for a few seconds. I was sleeping, defenseless, and people approached me.

I want to puke, I want to flee.

But I stop myself.

I calm down, smell the air. A mix of fragrances hit my nose. Booze, blood, unwashed bodies. Sex and fear, pain.

Bandits.

I move closer to their camps, its limit only a few yards away from my hiding hole. A miracle none of them found me while taking a piss.

I stop breathing. I don’t start again.

They are the largest group I've met so far, at least eight people! They look gruffer than most, their weapons are slightly less rusty, and they even have some pieces of armor, some old, some brand new. They look like down-their-luck soldiers who deserted.

The sun is barely setting, and the curse of the night hasn’t taken me yet, so they move at a decent pace, slightly faster than half the speed people should normally go at.

They have prisoners. Three girls, two of them with shredded clothes, sobbing weakly in the embrace of the third one, a woman in her very early twenties, older than me by a few years. She’s wearing what I think are noble clothes, blue and white, now stained. Her gaze is defiant.

Soldiers sit on the ground, in underwear, their hands in their back and bound together with heavy ropes. One man is kept separate, his mouth, hands, feet, all of him heavily bound, attached to a tree. His nice clothes are torn open, singed, but his wounds are shallow.

Four horses are attached to nearby trees.

I grind my teeth with strength, I look at the two weeping girl, one of them my age, the other younger than me, barely a woman. Three of the bandits are still eyeing them. I can smell sex on them.

My survival instinct is strangled by my anger. I slowly walk in the open, looking at each and every bandit.

Guilty. Guilty guilty guilty, all guilty. I don’t care if I’m seen, I’m not anyone anymore. I don’t care about their weapons, I am dead inside. But those people they attacked, the girls they raped…

How can anyone do that? What cruelty is this?

I watch the scene and as the bandits look at me in surprise, then with hungry, evil smiles, I remember my village, all the dead, the senseless sorrow.

I walk to the first rapist, a little man with sunken eyes and black teeth. I’m not slow anymore, and he’s surprised by my speed. Still, it’s only dusk, and he’s able to react to me, taking his sword and striking clumsily, but I take my time sidestep and dodge it before hitting his wrist strong enough for something to break. He open his mouth in slow motion, a scream building up from his throat, but I’m already behind him, and I savagely bite down. 

He falls limp in my grasp as I drink and drink and drink, what filthy blood, and suddenly someone tries to skewer my side with a sword. It cuts my shirt, the last good one I have, and slide on my white skin without leaving a mark.

Iron can’t hurt me. Wood, tough, can pierce my skin. Not that it makes a difference.

I finish draining his friend as I receive another two strikes and, as I let go of the lifeless body, I turn my eyes to meet the gaze of someone slowly realizing how deep in shit he just stepped.

The other are reacting too, but their actions are staggered by the fear they feel. They still think they’ve got a chance, unlike the monster in front of me who, after a few strike, understood that he’s out of his depth.

I run around him and bite down. And again. Three, four. They start to flee. They are fast, in good physical shape. Unlike other bandits, those were organized, they had food.

It doesn’t help them.

They get slower for each passing second as the roar of the sun diminishes, and I am full of energy after feeding so much.

I smash one of them against a tree but don’t take the time to drain him. All of those scums will die, so there won’t be a next victim. Not anymore, not ever.

The second one to run, he trips on a root, and I break is neck like a twig. The last two are smart, they took horses.

I get one of them with a rock to the back of the head. He slips, dead, from the horse, his body entangling in dense shrubbery.

The last one is far, but not so much. It’s hard to go fast with a horse between trees. He’s at the edge of the thicket, and so I run. Like so many days ago in my village, I run, fast enough to reach the man.

I grab his legs, tear him away from the fearful animal who neighs and run away. This was the leader, I can see it. Fatter than the others, better dressed. He had access to more food and, yes, I smell the air, more women too.

I look at him in the eyes, I see fear, I hear him beg in the usual slowness surrounding me. I realize I don’t care. I don’t feel anything towards him, no empathy, just anger and retribution. I kill him by ripping his throat away with my claws, leaving him bubbling in his own blood. I don’t even want to taste it, and flick his blood away from my hands.

I get back to the clearing in the thicket, draining the bodies I left in my wake for good measure. I reach the camp, where the oldest woman has already untied the fancier man. I’m not discreet while I walk. My father would be sad to see all this hunting training wasted.

They turn their heads toward me, take in my bloody figure, the massive claws dripping with blood. They are afraid.

They are always afraid.

Now that my bloodlust has abated, I feel empty again, and sorrowful. I’m a monster.

I turn around and take a step towards where I left my bags. I don’t have good clothes anymore, only bloodied one.

I guess I’ll have to to make do.

“Wait!” I suddenly hear, as suddenly as a human going twice slower than me can be, anyway.

The man has a hand extended toward me. I feel danger, for some reason. I snarl, and he retracts it, slightly surprised; but he clearly wants to talk to me, and this speed is still bearable.

I realize I haven’t talked to anyone in months. I want to die.

I stop and wait for him to continue. Any words is better than no words right now.

“Are you the Night Warden?” He asks, to the woman’s surprise, shock appearing on her refined face.

“The what?” I answer, blinking, surprised.

He seems as surprised as I am. Yes, I can talk, asshat.

Calm down Camille, you’re too angry. Disgusting blood makes you cranky.

He frowns, “Are you the vigilante killing bandits at night?” He asks another question, waving at the corpse all around.

I’m not very sure how to answer that question, but I indulge him, if only to keep the pain at bay. Talking with someone is truly a treasure, even if it’s a half-naked man you just butchered eight people in front of.

“Maybe? I’ve been killing bandits lately, yes, but not that many?” I answer, and realize as I do that, yes, I in fact killed a lot of them. More than a bandit a night, in average.

With tonight, I think I’ve killed at least fifty people so far.

Gods. I want to puke. I’ve killed so much. What am I? I’m Camille, the alchemist’s apprentice. The curious girl. And I killed tens of people while wandering aimlessly for gods know how long.

The woman keeps looking at me and the fancy man while freeing the tied soldiers, who grumbles thanks and nods at her with deference.

I think he understood my inner monologue, I must be an open book right now.

“Why are you doing it?” This question feels like a trial, and his awkish eyes pierces through me.

“They’re rapists and murderers, and I’m hungry. There’s no reason not to kill them.” I say, and his eyes turn to the first man I drained.

“How often are you hungry?” He still glances at the corpses.

“I don’t know,” I answer honestly, and he seems to take a decision.

“I’m down six men from ten, this is the second attack we withstand, there’s still two days of travel and the Lady needs to get back home. Come with us as a bodyguard, and I promise you clothes, money, and death sentenced to feed on.” He suddenly offer with a fast and forceful voice.

What?

“What?” The woman exclaims. We meet gazes.