Pain shot through Carmine’s skull as her awakening arrived with the sound of scattering papers and her head hitting metal.

“OW! FUCK!” She roared, pulling herself off the floor, looking around her empty hovel eventually settling on her tipped-over stool and a desire to see it burned. She rose to her still-sleeping feet with only her unsteady desk for help. Every bone and muscle ached in protest of consciousness, but they all paled compared to the hammering inside her skull.

Damn it all. Carmine looked down to her drool-stained notes, peeling one off her face. Fell asleep in the middle of work. Again.

Served her right for reminiscing, Carmine thought as she sat back at her desk. She gazed at the back of her hand, skin tinged gray halfway to her wrist with sickly black veins, no arcane brand to be found. Why think back on that now? How long ago was it, a decade? More? Carmine grit her teeth; keeping track of time down here felt impossible.

She straightened up, her desk wobbling on its mismatched legs, rattling vials and sending papers sliding off the side. Carmine’s blood boiled in her veins as she watched the messy stack scatter apart, slowly floating all over her study.

Fuck it.

She'll clean up later. Right now, she needed something to calm her brain from cracking her skull open. Pain pulsed almost in time with the blue lights lining the silver walls. She tried covering them all by gluing papers over them to dull their light, yet there was always a crack where they’d shine through, right in her eyes. If only she could shut them all down; candlelight hurt less.

Carmine reached under her musty wooden desk, looking for her most reliable painkiller. She wrapped her fingers around a cool glass bottle. A fine vintage of ice-wine from Creed in the far north. Whatever those Vulfan did kept it refreshingly chilled. One of the few joys she could still find, though Carmine worried how long she’d be able to keep importing it. Her hand knocked into the wine stained glass sitting on her desk, a dark red stain lining its spot as she lifted it to the bottle’s breach. As she tilted her relief to pour, only one pathetic drop came out.

“Are you fucking serious?” She let out an exasperated growl.

Great start to the day…or was it night? What did it matter? She sighed, looking at the tarnished ancient walls around her. No sunlight reached her down here. She hadn't seen the sun in…in…a concerning amount of time, apparently.

Groaning at the effort, Carmine forced herself from her desk. Part of her wanted to fall in the well-made and dusty bed opposite her desk, but the winerack was only a few steps further along the wall. With the grace of a tumbling brick, she stumbled to her favorite part of the room and pulled a full bottle free. Her own reflection in the bottle caught her eye. Her crimson hair started growing long again, past her shoulders, and she could see every vein in her bloodshot eyes. and touched her cheeks a moment, wondering if they looked a little gaunt or if it was the angle.

"Did I eat yesterday?" She asked herself, unable to remember.

"No." A voice answered.

"Who the fuck-?" Carmine spun to the door, her heart racing as fast as the lightning beginning to arc through her fingers. The spell lived only a second as her stomach turned with the sudden motion and she nearly emptied it further. Carmine covered her mouth, looking at the familiar face at her threshold. A woman with iron gray skin greeted her threat unblinking. Her blemishless face wore a neutral expression only slightly offset by the cat-like amber eyes fixed on Carmine's every move. Her drab green clothes hung loose around her lithe yet powerful build though her left sleeve dangled empty at the shoulder. The visitor gripped a bowl in her only hand. Even despite this injury, to the unknowing she would appear an echo of perfection, a person perfectly crafted. And that’s exactly what she was.

An Echo. A created being.

Carmine relaxed, lowering her hand from her mouth as her stomach's tantrum abated.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

"For fuck’s sake, Kathir?" Carmine leaned on the wall for balance. She let out her held breath, relieved it was no intruder…and that she hadn’t thrown up. "Do you have to sneak everywhere you go?"

"Apologies." The echo replied in an unchanging voice.

"It's fine. What do you want?"

"You have not consumed a meal in thirty hours." Kathir stepped forward, pushing the bowl into Carmine's hand. "I cannot allow your health to suffer, it contradicts my-."

"Yeah, yeah, mission this, directive that, you're doing terrific." Carmine put the bowl at her desk, shoving her materials aside. For once, a pleasant smell reached her nose. Onion soup, not bad. "Thank you."

"Your thanks is unnecessar-"

"I said, thank you." Carmine insisted as she uncorked the new wine bottle. She felt Kathir's eyes on her back as wine filled her glass. Her insistent caretaker had things to say, Carmine knew. "Ask your questions."

"Are you unwell?" The echo started her interrogation.

"Just hungry, why?"

"You appear agitated."

"More than usual, you mean."

"Yes." Not a moment’s hesitation.

"You never holdback, do you?” Carmine chuckled as she sampled the soup. Finally a decent meal. “Never change, Kathir."

The echo paused for a moment and Carmine knew the familiar dance approaching.

"Is that an orde-"

"No, that's not an order," Carmine grumbled before Kathir finished. "I'm not going to give you orders, so stop asking." Another awkward pause wormed its way between them.

"Is that not an order?" Kathir asked again.

"No! Fuck- It's not- just do what you want." Carmine groaned, slapping her hand to her face. It’s too early for this shit. Kathir had to be doing this on purpose, and yet Carmine wondered if the echo could even joke. Even now, she couldn’t be sure. Carmine peeked between her fingers to find Kathir’s unblinking golden eyes still on her. "What were you asking before?"

"You are agitated. Why?"

Carmine sighed, debating whether to even talk about it. What good would digging up the past-...no, to hell with it. Kathir wouldn't care, and even if she did, she rarely voiced it.

Carmine took a long drought from the bottle to loosen her lips. The taste of cold wine washed over her tongue, carrying the worst of the headache away with it. Carmine grinned at the familiar flavor, the intoxicating fumes.

"Had a dream," Carmine said, wiping her mouth.

"A nightmare?"

"No, actually… more like a memory." Carmine put the bottle down, but never far. "I was thinking of my first day at Leval." she looked to the back of her hand again with a feeling she couldn’t place as forlorn or frustrated. “How naive I was. Ignorance is bliss, eh? If only there was a way to send a message to your past self, don’t you think?” Carmine asked Kathir with a wry smirk.

“I would not know. I have never experienced regret.”

“Lucky you.” The smirk fell away. Carmine took another swig, bitterness tainting the taste. “Maybe if I was built as a killing machine I’d have no regrets too.” She grit her teeth the second the words left her mouth. Maybe it was too early for wine. “I- uh-, damn it.” Even after so many years, she still struggled to find the right words to speak, and to get them past her clenched jaw.

Kathir narrowed her eyes ever so slightly, and without changing her expression, “Very agitated,” She said in a deadpan voice only she could manage. Somehow, this being of constructed flesh and devoted purpose managed to make Carmine laugh, even a little. “Ah,” Kathir noted the sudden shift in demeanor and turned to leave. “Perhaps not-”

“No. No, you’re right. Absolutely right.” Carmine gestured for her to stay. “I’m pissed. You don’t dig up the past, and for good reason.” She drowned back the memories with more wine. “Nothing good comes from there.”

“You should speak of it.” Carmine flinched at the sudden advice.

“What the hell makes you think that?”

“My creator often vented his frustrations aloud. It aided his demeanor. You hold your failures like grudges."

"So?"

"They reduce your efficiency. Rather than halt your progress with days of drunkeness, you could attempt to voice what irks you."

"And dwell on everything I've done wrong?"

"Not dwell; learn."

"I didn't know you were made as a therapist."

"I am sharing my past observations of the natural-born. Most of you are creatures of emotion you attempt to suppress."

"And what fine, calming emotions they are." Carmine began to tilt the bottle again, but stopped. She looked to the wine inside, lamenting if she would lose another day to it. Another day gone. Another day she couldn't get back. She rested the bottle on her desk, nudging it away with scarred fingertips. “Why do you want to know anyway?”

“You have scarcely any one else to confide in, and it is affecting your health.”

“And you can’t allow that can you?” Carmine pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling the fatigue of her drunk induced sleep from the night before. "Maybe…maybe it might help…to talk about it all. A lot…a lot happened in those years. Actually, it's around the time I met you after all.”

“I recall.” Kathir nodded. “You were still short then.”

“I was not, you’re just very tall.” Carmine jabbed a finger, a momentary smirk on her face living all too short. “Don’t expect it to be a happy story, alright? For all the good there was, I was the one to break our circle…I had to.” Carmine clasped her hands together, nails digging into her flesh. “I couldn’t stay…I had to break the circle. The last person they need is a murderer.”