With the iele gone, the multicolured light and fairytale clearing seemed pale and lesser, like circus artists deprived of their makeup and costumes. And perhaps it was so. It would not be the first time the Daughters of the Woods had changed a place to suit them, and it would not be the last.

I turned and walked out. The damn place was unbearable now. Like looking at the insides of my soul.

I walked and walked, but not forty days and forty nights. I wasn't a hero. I doubted there would be a happy ending for me.

I found Bianca sitting on a log, back in her human disguise. Quickly, I focused my senses on the log, to make sure it was not alive, not writhing and squirming, like the tree I'd murdered.

God, what has my unlife come to that I'm using sentences like that?

But, no. It was just dead wood. Long dead. Bianca made a point of never using or exploiting living plants, but the log was long gone, and she didn't care about it anymore.

Wonder if I'd share its fate, and how soon.

She nodded as I approached, then saw my flesh was even worse than when we'd parted. Sighing quietly, she stood up and walked to me. She held her hands before her, and I reluctantly took them.

'I'm sorry they failed you, David. I thought...or, rather, hoped...'

'It's alright,' I lied. 'I'm the one who failed them.'

And I told her about my stupid tantrum, about the tree I'd felled and her sisters' twin promises.

'If you weren't already dying,' she told me with a dry look. 'I'd say you were trying to get yourself killed. What were you even thinking?'

'I wasn't, much. At the moment,' I admitted. 'But it's like you just said. What more can they do? I'm already-'

'Already getting on my nerves,' she snapped. 'You need to stop thinking you're hopeless-when it comes to surviving, I mean. Not even your god could help you with the other things you're hopeless in.'

I managed a small smile, for her sake. It didn't fool her.

'After we heal you,' she sounded so sure it would happen, too. 'My sisters will be sure to make good on their promise. They keep their word.'

'How do you know they won't intervene before that?'

'Because us iele are patient when it comes to revenge...and your ilk are annoyingly hard to truly harm.'

She moved away from me and sat back down on the log, suddenly looking exhausted. 'Go. Alex and Andrei are next.'

'So, Alex first, then Andrei?'

'No. Are you deaf? Both of them. Now leave. I'll try to get us out of the mess you got us into. Maybe I can claim you were delirious, or... '

I left her to her planning and dim view on my sanity.

I could feel where my friends were. Andrei's strong, fast breathing, characteristic of most weres, and the pale, ragged thread in the tapestry of the world that was Alex.

I followed my senses and, after what felt like a few minutes, I was on a battlefield.

Romania after the Second World War. After unreality broke into reality, and the world's powers scrambled to put down enemies they had never seen before, except in story books and childhood nightmares. All grudges forgotten, at least while mankind and the world as they knew it were under siege.

The Soviets had swept through Romania like a red tide, like blood pumped into a corpse. Someone had to keep order in Eastern Europe, and, after our neighbouring countries were dealt with, it was our turn.

The Soviets brought order, I won't deny that. They brought along their psychics and occultists, their mystics and the results of their esoteric experiments. And our myths-the cruel, dangerous ones-were forced back into the shadows.

And to the heroes, the spoils. Who cared if some farm or two were looted, or if some women were deflowered, if the country as a whole was safe again? And why would you even pin the blame on the heroic liberators, and not a cruel strigoi or ogre? How could you tell who was responsible? You could not. Thinking like that would not help anyone. In fact, you would help much more if you joined the rebuilding efforts.

These were Andrei's memories. The world of his childhood.

Andrei stepped out of a cloud of dust, clad in shredded, bloody Soviet fatigues. I didn't tell him how well they fit him, how natural he looked in the uniform. I knew his opinion on his father.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Alex rose from the ground, floating next to Andrei, and wasted no time in explaining their idea. 'You see, David, we believe the cause of your decay, for want of a better term, is internal, rather than external. That is, we believe it's a mental problem. Say, are you at peace with yourself?'

The question came out of nowhere. I could only look blankly at him. 'What?'

'Do you feel at peace with yourself? Are you happy being a strigoi?'

A low growl rose in my throat. 'Are you mocking me?'

'Yes, David. I'm making sure my friend is going to fall apart while in a shitty mood. Of course not, genius!'

'What Alex is trying to say,' Andrei said, and we were clearly in a bad spot if he was trying to be diplomatic. 'Is that, as long as you hate yourself, you are going to wither. How many strigoi do you know, or have you heard of, who do not embrace themselves?'

I looked at the ground.

'None, right? And none of them share your problem, either.'

'So, what are you saying? That I should just give up? Say "fuck everything" and start acting like a fucking animal? Forget that. I'd rather shove a sharpened cross through my brain. I still have enough faith that it would work.'

'Maybe,' Andrei replied. -But what is the worst thing you have done since the beginning of your unlife? Have you hurt, truly hurt, anyone?'

'I've become more...temperamental. Started swearing a lot more. I've started insulting people and shoving them around in public, just because they got in my way. I never did that before.'

'You were a spineless worm before,' Andrei said bluntly. 'But the past is the past. Alex believes that, if you were to become happy and content, your body would stabilise. And I agree. I think that clearing up a mystery that has tormented your nights would be a good first step. Would you like to learn about your parents?"

It seemed things could not stop but fly at me out of left field. I didn't reply, and Andrei likely took my bemusement as approval, because he continued.

'I chose this background because... because we're going to talk about memories,' Andrei seemed unusually hesitant, and I didn't like that. How bad could my parents have been, to unsettle the old werebear?

'Your mother was a little slut.' Very diplomatic start. At least Andrei was back in character. 'She was underage, but sneaked her way into places she had no right or business being in. Getting drunk, getting groped, sleeping with men and women twice or thrice her age. Most of them knew they were exploiting a stupid child. Both sides found it exciting. Your father was her last partner.'

I didn't ask how he knew this. Alex talked with all sorts of beings in the afterlife, and Andrei knew everyone who knew anyone.

'Your father left her pregnant, something neither of them had ever experienced. The teenage mother screamed and wailed her way through the pregnancy, while the stupid bastard wrung his hands and ran around like a headless chicken. She died giving birth to you, but he was not prepared to be a father. Hell, he hadn't even been prepared to be a husband. So, he took his newborn son, and went to the house of Constantin Silva while the priest was away, and left you there. He knew Silva was a good, responsible man. A better father than he could ever be, guilty and terrified as he was.'

I waited for him to continue, but that was it. So... so...

So fucking, mindlessly stupid. This was the secret story of my birth? No wonder I was such a damn failure. Must be genetic.

I understood Andrei's outrage, too. He'd never been able to stand people like his father.

Eventually, I forced a choked laugh out of my throat. Stretching my arms above my head, I walked over to Andrei. 'Thanks for the effort, man, but...that sure as shit didn't cheer me up. Some mysteries are supposed to remain veiled, I guess. Still,' I said with a strained smile. 'Thanks for telling me about my father. Put it in and ran away after, did he? Just there for the fun, not the consequences. Fucking...' I chuckled harshly. 'And you called me spineless. If I survive this, I'm going to find that bastard, and tell him a thing or two.'

'Alright,' Andrei said, walking closer, a strange look in his eyes. 'Tell me.'