Chapter Nine // The Woman With No Heart

For Arha, unfortunately, the long dream had only just begun.

A formidable thunderclap boomed out from between rumbling black clouds, and lightning arced across the sky like some mad, drunken dancer as an all-encompassing deluge poured down on the village below. And all the while the three of them descended the hill in silence. Zekval was in Makran's arms, unconscious and barely breathing. Olta was stone-faced and silent. And Arha? Arha was hardly even present.

She was freezing cold, the rain having soaked her down to the very bone, though she neither cared nor even really noticed. All the world around her had slowed to a strange and muted crawl. None of this was real, after all. Her entire life - including this moment, now, and these things she was feeling – nothing more than a shimmering mirage. Just a trick of the light, that was all. The viewpoint would shift, the eyes would narrow, the breeze would blow a certain way and then the vision of Arha would simply cease to be.

Twenty of Olta's finest soldiers - teenagers, all of them – were arranged in a semi-circle around the hall, their faces shrouded beneath hooded cloaks as raindrops ran linear paths along the steel of their swords. For many hours they had stood sentinel in all but total silence. None fidgeted. None complained. Every one of them knew exactly what was at stake - the entirety of the Voshtarri people, all of them now huddled and terrified within the longhouse.

Now, the guards parted, allowing Arha and the others to pass. At Olta's orders, Zekval was taken inside, whereupon the village physician would do everything in his power to save the dying exile's life.

And then, well, there was nothing more to do but wait.

And wait.

And wait.

Makran was pacing constantly. Sometimes it was a scream of wordless fury that ripped itself from her throat. Sometimes it was a shuddering, full-body sob. Her hatchets never left her hands and she spoke at all times of hideous tortures and punishments to come. Prospects of future violence – of revenge, of making-things-right – were her only solace amidst the raging storm.

Olta was stern-faced and stoic as always, periodically speaking with or encouraging the members of his makeshift militia in hushed, dire tones. By his presence alone they stood straighter, held their swords tighter. Olta was an indomitable bulwark against the terrible, swirling chaos of it all.

And then there was Arha. Poor, poor Arha. The former Third Eltok was all but catatonic, her hand resting upon the hilt of her sword only as a reflex of muscle memory. She did not speak. She did not move. She certainly would not fight. She just stood there, staring down at the ground, and prayed again and again and again for death.

Because this.

Was all.

Her.

Fault.

She knew that like she knew the sun and the moon, like she knew all the stars in the sky. She knew like she knew the sting of the rain against her skin that she was a monster cloaked in human flesh, an abomination who brought with her only death and devastation. She knew in her very core that for nearly a year now she had been living a life undeserved.

And yet, somehow, it was Nageth who had been punished instead.

It wasn't right.

It wasn't fair.

It should have been her.

Arha looked down at her hands and saw, for the briefest of moments, a vision of a child's hands, soft and unblemished. Then, the vision was gone, and she saw instead rough, calloused, leathery things, dripping with rainwater and crossed with dozens of pale scars. Whose hands were these? She didn't even know anymore. She couldn't even-

There was a hand on her shoulder.

"Arha," Olta said, and in his voice there was something terribly wrong. That one word had come forth utterly devoid of emotion. There was no hint of warmth, no compassion. He said her name as though it were entirely foreign to his lips. "We need to talk."

Why not? Arha was incapable of engaging in any sort of conversation, to be sure, but she supposed she could at least listen. And so, she allowed Olta to guide her to the back of the longhouse, whereupon without warning the Voshtarri moved in close - shoving her back against the wall - and blocked her path with but a single arm. And his other hand drifted down to his sword-hilt, and dimly Arha was aware that she was in a great deal of danger.

Twenty-five years of violent instincts went ignored. Arha offered no resistance whatsoever. And so, the goat-man leaned in close, his eyes narrowed to slits, and upon his face there was an expression of pure, undiluted anger. Not an ounce of remorse or sympathy or affection remained; all had been obliterated by the cold fury that now dominated his visage.

No - it wasn't just fury, was it? It was more than that. That look in his eyes was hate.

"You knew those men," Olta declared, leaning in close. Never had she heard him speak as he did now. "You and Makran both used the name Kelsen. Do you deny it?"

"No," Arha said hoarsely, staring off into a space just above Olta’s left shoulder. None of this was real, she reminded herself. It was all just a terrible, terrible dream...

"Those men," Olta hissed, leaning even closer, "were carrying worm-bone weapons. Do you deny it?"

Only in the deepest, farthest reaches of her mind did Arha experience any sensation of alarm.

"Peerless warriors, you called yourselves," Olta spat, his words all but dripping with venom. "You told me that death was your profession. Do you deny it?"

Wordlessly, Arha just shook her head. And that, for Olta, must have been the final straw, because his hand closed tight around his sword and he leaned in so close that their noses were practically touching and he snarled, with words buoyed by a lifetime of terror and hatred and longing and sorrow:

"You're a fucking Winnower."

And then, just like that, the dream was over. The colors returned. The sound returned. Sensation returned. Everything was real and everything was raw and everything really, really fucking hurt.

Grief hit Arha like a hammer to the skull.

"Monster," Olta growled, through gritted teeth. “Butcher. Beast. Were you present when they raided this village, beast? Were you watching when they carved my mother in two? When they put a spear right through my father's eye? Did you laugh, beast? Was it funny? Did you enjoy yourself?"

"Please," Arha choked out, because by this point she was on the verge of complete and total collapse. Her greatest and most vile shame had been laid bare by the man she had truly come to love. She felt the same way, of course – but to hear it from his mouth was agony beyond compare.

"What’s wrong, Arha?" Olta demanded, his growing louder by the minute. His eyes were wide, now. "You don't like talking about the past? You don't like being reminded of who you-"

"Just kill me!" Arha blurted out. Abruptly, Olta stepped back, and Arha collapsed into the mud like a puppet with cut strings, head bowed and body trembling. Above, a deafening thunderclap rang out, and the two of them were illuminated for a moment in brilliant, blinding white.

"I should be dead," Arha sobbed, and finally for the first time she was saying aloud the words that had been repeating in her mind again and again and again and again and again. "I know it. I’ve always know it. I stole and I stole and I stole happiness that I did not deserve. I pretended to be human, to be one of you, but now you finally see me for what I really am.” She put a shuddering hand to her chest and, with great effort, forced herself to look up and meet his eyes. “A woman with no heart.”

Her head sagged, as though the last vestiges of her energy had run dry.

“Please,” she muttered. “Just do it.”

Olta was glaring down at her with not even an ounce of sympathy.

His hand twitched, and Arha truly believed that he would kill her then and there. And then, for the briefest of instants, something she could not identify flashed across his face - only to be smothered at once by another wave of cold contempt.

"Do it yourself," was all he said - and then he threw up his hood, turned away, and left her kneeling there in the mud without another word.

And so, Arha just huddled into a ball, wrapping her arms around her knees and staring out at that distant, blackened treeline and shivering all the while. This time there was no numbness, no void of thought. Arha felt everything, all at once, and so she wept for Olta’s parents and she wept for Kagen and she wept for her countless victims. She wept and then there was a memory of gnashing teeth and she screamed, raging against the howling din of the infernal tempest around her. And then there was a memory of something else – of blurred faces, of gentle hands, of soothing words. A smell of lavender, of warm and crackling fire. A memory of tranquility.

Of a place that no longer existed.

Finally, when Arha could weep no more, she rose slow and unsteady to her feet. Make no mistake – Arha was a woman truly devoid of any will to live. There was no logical reason as to why she would stand back up; Arha herself could not possibly articulate why she had chosen to do so.

But none of that matters, of course. All that matters – not just for the fate of the Seven Wastes, but for the future of the entire continent – is the fact that on that dark day, in that dire moment, for reasons that none shall ever truly comprehend, Arha got back up.

And then, in short order, there came another irrational decision that would forever shape the course of history. The echoes of that choice would reverberate through the centuries and, in time, outlast even the memory of Arha herself.

She began to walk.

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She knocked once, twice, thrice on the door - and she was just about to turn around and disappear into those woods and never, ever come back when the door swung open before her.

It was of course Elder Seko who stood there, framed in the doorway by a gentle orange glow, cane in one hand and a small, steaming wooden cup in the other.

He took one look at the exile - at her miserable, huddled, wretched condition - and promptly jerked his head back towards the entryway.

"Get your ass in here," he ordered, and so Arha did just that.

Seko's chamber was like another dimension entirely - warm and well-lit and somehow immediately comfortable and in short order Arha had been forcefully guided to a chair and forcefully made to sit by a crackling fireplace and forcefully dried off and draped in a dozen different multicolored blankets and now there was a cup of that same steaming liquid in her hands and Seko was sitting across from her, observing her with a mix of curiosity, concern, and genuine sorrow.

"Nageth was a good man," Seko said, after a long period of silence had passed between them. It was no hollow declaration; the Elder spoke those words with the voice of true and terrible regret. "He didn't deserve this. You don't deserve this, either, despite what you seem to think."

Arha didn't respond.

"His death," Seko leaned forward, "was not your fault. Neither is Zekval's current condition. Do you understand me, Arha?"

Arha remained silent.

"This world," Seko continued, "is as cruel as it is beautiful. It is not fair. It is not just. And sometimes, through no fault of our own-"

"We're Winnowers," Arha blurted out.

There was only the crackling of the fireplace to follow.

Something shifted in Seko's eyes, then. He sat up straighter, squared his shoulders, set his drink aside and folded his hands in his lap.

"Obviously," the Elder scoffed.

That one word was a bolt of lightning straight to Arha's brain. All she could possibly do was sit there, deaf and dumb and mute, and blink in wordless surprise. Her mind was working desperately to re-orient its understanding of the entire world, to put it all together in a way that actually made some semblance of sense.

"What?" Arha demanded, finally. It seemed the only appropriate word for the situation at hand.

"I mean, come on," Seko shrugged. "You didn't even use fake names. Five men and women covered in scars show up at my doorstep, then offer me the most blatant Winnower names I've ever heard, then claim to be from 'a tribe I wouldn't know of'? Arha, please." He gave her a small, sly smile. "Do you really think I've spent all my life as a musty, cloistered village elder? Most pilgrimages last for ten years. I returned after thirty-seven. I've seen things you can scarcely imagine and I certainly know a band of Winnowers when I see one."

"You knew...?" Arha trailed off, framing the unthinkable into simple terms that she could perhaps begin to understand. If nothing else, all her sorrow and self-loathing had been temporarily drowned out by her sheer bafflement at what she was hearing. "But...why...?"

"Why did I let five psychotic killers into my home?" Seko asked. Again, he gave her a small smile, hoping perhaps to soften those particularly harsh words. "Three reasons. First, you claimed to be exiles - and by your starving and disheveled states I could reasonably surmise that was true."

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Arha was sitting up straight, now. For the first time in hours her body was possessed by some semblance of actual vitality.

"Second," the Elder continued, "for Winnowers, you seemed reasonably sane. Your minds had not yet been lost to the Wa-tek - you were able to articulate and reason clearly, and more importantly you had actively chosen to negotiate for a better outcome rather than simply kill whatever was in front of you.”

Hearing the old Voshtarri speak the Old Tongue, even for just a moment, was such an extreme culture shock that it took Arha a second to even register what she had just heard.

"And the third?" Seko said. Slowly, his smile vanished. And once more he was the cold, calculating old man who had interrogated Arha months before, who she now knew had seen right through her desperate fabrications and falsehoods. "Because I had no choice."

That statement was delivered without an ounce of softening, and nearly all of the old man's warmth had departed his countenance as he continued to speak.

"There is nothing," Seko said, his gnarled old hand curling into a fist, "that I would not do to protect my people. Nothing. We were on the brink of disaster, as you well know. I was the only one who could see the storm building and yet there was nothing I could do. So, when you five showed up..." He trailed off. "I chose to gamble."

"Without us, you were doomed," Arha muttered. "But, with us..."

"That's right," Seko nodded. "You were our only path to salvation. You want to know how it is that I'm able to show you compassion, even now? How it is that I was able to accept Winnowers into my home?"

Arha just nodded her head.

"Because I had to," Seko said, his voice dropping low. "Because this world isn't perfect, and because oftentimes survival comes only with compromise. And..." His voice and expression both softened, somewhat. "Because I don't believe that our pasts define us. Because the shape of a human soul is a mutable, twisting, shifting thing. And because all of us have the capacity to become greater than what we are."

Arha didn’t reply. She just thought on that for a long, long time. And Seko watched, patient and unhurried, sipping at his beverage all the while.

"You truly believe that?" Arha asked, finally. There was a newfound vigor to her voice - a certain edge that had been all but absent before. "That people can change?"

"I have to hope so," Seko said, smiling ruefully. "For my sake as well as yours.”

"But how?" Arha demanded, leaning abruptly forward. "How could a person possible change so much? Every time I look in the mirror, I still see her face looking back at me! How could I ever change that? Do you have any idea how many innocent people I've slaughtered? How many tribes and civilizations I've wiped from the face of the world? One person, responsible for the suffering of so many. How could I ever..." her voice broke. "I can’t. I don’t deserve it."

What Seko said next, he said with a tone so dire and gripped with intensity that Arha was momentarily taken aback.

"You don't deserve forgiveness," Seko agreed. "So fucking earn it."

Arha didn't know it yet - but those words would etch themselves upon the surface of her soul for as long as she lived. Night after night, those words would echo within the chambers of her mind, and day after day they would be the strength with which she would carry the weight of her sin.

"How?" she asked again - and at that, Seko rose to his feet, hands clasped behind his back, and began to pace. And then, once more, he began to speak.

"Let me tell you a story," he said, "of two men."

Arha listened in enraptured silence.

"Their introduction came about under inauspicious circumstances - in the depths of the Worm Cult slave pens," Seko began. His voice was a window to a time long past but keenly, keenly remembered. "One man hailed from the north, the other from the south, but through their mutual suffering they would become all but brothers. They were intelligent, clever, cunning men; men possessed with a defiant spirit that burned within them even as the years exacted a heavy toll and one torture after another was heaped upon their backs. They would not accept their circumstances. They could not accept their circumstances. And so they plotted, night after night. They plotted and plotted and plotted, and then...they waited. With boundless patience they waited for the day to arrive."

"They escaped?" Arha blurted out.

"They did," Seko confirmed.

"But-that's impossible," Arha stammered. "No slave has ever-"

"They had to do terrible things," Seko interrupted. "Unfathomable things the like of which I will never speak aloud. The sins of that night weigh upon my back with every waking day, and everything I do for my people I do in hopes that I might one day absolve myself of that wretched night." His expression hardened. "Yet not once have I ever felt an ounce of regret. Sorrow, anguish, pity yes - but never regret."

Arha was coming to understand in real time just who this old man really was.

"The two men parted at once, hoping to split off any pursuers," Seko continued, steepling his fingers. "But before they did, they swore an oath to one another. Night after night in those miserable cells, they had dared to dream of a coalition that would reshape the entirety of the Seven Wastes. They whispered to one another of a fantasy wherein they would unite every downtrodden tribe and village and city and fortress, every one of the Worm's countless victims - and wipe and wipe his damned followers from the face of the world. They called this coalition The Union."

Seko's hands were trembling with excitement, now. He was a young man in an old man's body, his eyes alight with boundless electricity, and now his mind looking not to the past but to the future.

"Have you heard tell," he asked, slowly, "of a man called Darrack Fayne?" When Arha shook her head: "They say that he has done the impossible - that he has united the warring tribes of the Mudlands beneath a singular banner."

"That's-" Arha stopped short, because she didn't want to just repeat the word ‘impossible’ back at him. But it really was impossible, wasn't it? That the Mudlands would forever be at war was but a basic fact of life! Everyone knew that – didn’t they?

"He did it," Seko said solemnly, resting his hands upon the back of his chair. "I don't know how, but...after all these years, Darrack actually did it. And now…all he needs is a general." He turned his head, and his eyes locked laser-focused onto Arha's own. "You were an Eltok, were you not?"

Another pivotal moment in the course of history. There, it began in Arha's soul - the tiniest little spark of flame.

"That's right," she said, rising to her feet and casting the blankets off. Her grief was dulling, fading, giving way to something new. Her mind was re-orienting itself once more. The shape of the future was presenting itself to her just as it had to Seko, so many years ago.

"Thought so," Seko clicked his tongue. "You always did have the bearing. You know what that means, don't you?"

The broken, listless, huddled woman was gone. In her place stood a warrior, tall and defiant and brimming with newfound purpose. There was all but an energy, a subtle vibration radiating from the surface of her skin, and her one eye blazed with certainty more vivid than any streak of lightning. The fire roared, as though in celebration, and upon Seko's face there was spreading now a wicked, wild grin.

"Of course," Arha said, jamming a thumb against her chest. "That means he needs me."

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Illina stood like a sentinel outside his door, arms folded and expression stoic. And then she saw Makran's face - and her countenance was marred by a painful flash of guilt.

"I'm sorry," she said quickly, as Makran continued forward. "I wanted to be by his side, I did, but the physician said that we should give him time to-"

"It's okay," Makran said simply, resting a scarred hand upon the other woman's shoulder. Whatever harsh rebuke or wild-eyed madness Illina had expected from the exile did not come. The look on Makran's face now was one of genuine sympathy, of a warmth Illina had not known the exile to even possess.

"Shit," was all Illina could choke out, and she turned, burying her face in her hands.

Makran just watched her, for a moment. And then, deciding that there was little she could do to comfort the other woman, she simply pushed the door open and stepped inside.

It was said that the river cutting through the Voshtarri village was one that possessed impossible healing qualities, one that repaired bone and mended flesh in impossible time. And thus, Zekval had been all but pumped full of the stuff - a parting gift from old Al'Varok - and thus, from what Makran could tell, he already looked to be in remarkably better condition.

But still he was facing the wall, huddled and small and silent, even as Makran spoke his name aloud and waited patiently for a response. None was forthcoming.

And so, Makran just sat at the corner of his bed and let out a long, heavy sigh.

"Fuck," she muttered, partly to him and partly to himself. "He's really gone, isn’t he?"

Zekval said nothing.

"I never saw him pick a fight," Makran said, her words slow and listless. "Never heard an unkind word. He hardly ever yelled or shouted. But then, he just goes and makes one mistake..." She snapped her fingers. "Gone. One moment, a person. The next, just a corpse. Just a thing. How is that..." Her voice wavered and broke. "How the fuck is that fair?”

And then, finally, Zekval stirred, his head rising from above the blankets, and he stared out at her with dark and sunken eyes.

"It's not," he said. His voice was ragged and dry. "Nothing in this world is fair."

The bed creaked and groaned beneath her as she turned to face him fully, now. Her own eyes, barely visible beneath the usual mess of brown hair, were rimmed with red.

"We're the only ones left," she said, and by the Wastes did it hurt to say those words. Poor, poor Makran - Makran for whom every emotion was so vivid, so intense. Makran who felt too much. "It's just you and me now. Arha..." She glanced away. "I don’t know how much longer she’ll be with us."

Zekval just nodded in silence.

“Kelsen has to die,” Makran whispered, partly to Zekval and partly to herself. “I can’t live in a world where Nageth is dead and Kelsen is alive. I just…” She trailed off. “I just can’t do it.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Zekval muttered, shaking his head. “It doesn’t change anything.”

“It matters to me,” Makran insisted, putting a thumb to her chest. “Because I don’t know what else there is, after a thing like this. All I know to do is to hunt him like a dog, day and night. I’ll never stop. I’ll never rest. They can take off my head and my arms and my legs and hack me to pieces and still whatever’s fuckin’ left of me will find him and I swear I will watch the life drain from his eyes. I swear on everything I am.”

“Makran-”

“The cost doesn’t matter,” she continued, because in truth she could not stop. “My life is nothing. I won’t hesitate to spend it.” And then, slowly, she reached up, brushing the hair from her eyes and looking out at Zekval with blatant desperation. “Come with me.”

“I can’t.” Zekval’s voice was all but a whisper.

“I can’t do it without you.”

“Then don’t,” Zekval insisted, wincing as he struggled to sit upright. “I have a life here. Illina, she’s…” He trailed off, and when he spoke next his voice was laden heavy with equal parts awe and fear. “Makran, I’m going to be a father.”

Never in a thousand years would he have hurt Makran intentionally – but nevertheless, those words were perhaps the cruelest he could have spoken.

“Holy-” Makran started, and then she was crying tears of joy and disbelief. “Holy shit, Zek. I-holy shit.”

“I know,” Zekval managed, and now there were tears in his eyes as well. “I’m so fucking scared.”

“Heh-well, I mean-that’s-” Makran stammered. “Zek, that’s amazing.”

And then realization hit like an avalanche. Zekval saw it in her face at once.

“I…can’t stay,” Makran muttered, forcing herself to look away. She could no longer meet his gaze. “I have to do this. I just…I don’t know how to do anything else.”

“That’s not true,” Zekval said quietly, leaning forward – this time ignoring the pain that shot up his chest like liquid fire. “Makran-”

“I gotta go,” was all she said. She couldn’t possibly manage any more. Every word was blazing agony. “I’m sorry.”

And then she was gone.

Zekval laid back into bed, closed his eyes, and simply allowed himself to drown in an ocean of black misery.

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The length of the blade was shining even in the dull lamplight as the hand moved slow and rhythmic across. A cloth went up and down the weapon's edge, scouring away dirt and imperfection, and all the while was Olta humming quietly to himself while he worked.

He sat there cross-legged upon the floor of the hut, his purpose twofold. The first – to carefully and dutifully maintain his weapon, as he did without fail each and every night. The second? To try, with every fiber of his being, to blot out the terrible memories and emotions swirling within his skull.

The first was well underway. The second was an abject failure.

He had trusted her. He had admired her. He had - yes, it was time to admit it, he had loved her.

For so, so long Olta had lived his life entirely on guard. Never relaxing, never faltering. How could he? His parents and friends and so many others had been ripped away without warning and there was nothing he could have done to stop it. At any moment another calamity might come; at any time everything he knew could simply cease to exist.

And then Arha had shown up. And for the first time in so long Olta had genuinely felt safe.

He loved everything about her, in truth. He loved the sharp points that she put on the ends of her words, he loved the subtle cant of her chin when she was confused or annoyed, he loved her surprisingly shrill laugh - and the face she always made, as though she herself was taken aback by the sound of it. He loved her focus and her discipline and her pride and her arrogance and her compassion and her sarcasm and her confidence and her wit and he loved the subtle, blink-and-you'd-miss-it way her face lit up every time she saw him.

He also hated her. No, that wasn't right, no matter how badly he wanted it to be true. He hated that she was a Winnower. He hated that he had to hate her because she was a fucking monster, not a woman he could ever love. She was just a wretched avatar of death that walked, talked, ate, and slept like a human being. And she had stalked among his people for months, a wolf in sheep's clothing – right beneath his nose.

Olta's hand slipped - it had been trembling, after all - and he let out a sharp hiss as the blade bit deep into the side of his finger. And then, as he rose to fetch some gauze, there sounded out a short, hesitant knock against the door.

"Just a moment!" he called, knowing that it was likely one of the poor adolescents he had been forced to conscript into soldiers. The guilt of that, too, was a steady presence in his mind as he made for the door, wrapping his hand in a bundle of stray cloth as he did so.

He turned the handle, pulled the door open - and then froze on the spot.

There she was - outfitted now in a fresh, hooded tunic, her sword notably absent and her head framed by a halo of pale moonlight. She did not bow her head. She did not hunch her shoulders. She stared right at him with not an ounce of fear, and an expression upon her face that Olta could only qualify as determination.

"Hey," she said, rubbing sheepishly at the back of her neck - a gesture so absurdly mundane and contrite that for a moment Olta all but forgot to whom he was speaking. And then, of course, an image flashed before his eyes: that of his father, dropping like a felled tree with a spear-tip protruding from the back of his skull.

"Come to silence me?" Olta growled, and his entire body tensed up, ready for a fight – ready to put into practice months and months of training and preparation. And then his eyes flicked back to his sword, which sat several feet away upon the floor.

Shit.

No way he'd reach the weapon in time. Not a chance. And although she was seemingly unarmed, Olta had learned through countless sparring sessions that, physically, Arha was significantly stronger than she appeared. His odds of overpowering her were dubious at best.

No matter. He would meet his death with dignity. Olta straightened up, folded his arms, and waited for what he knew for a certainty was soon to follow.

"Olta," Arha said, and though her expression was firm her voice came out gentle and understated. "Would it be okay if we talked, for a minute?"

He hated her so, so much.

So why, then, did he turn on his heel and beckon for her to come in?

And so, the two sat side-by-side upon the bed and stared out, together, at a blank and unfurnished wall. The deafening roar of the storm was but a gentle murmur in that space, the noise filtering down from the roof above, and within the confines of the hut a trio of candles flickered idly, each growing dimmer by the minute. It was in truth one of those odd and indescribable hours, the ones at the twilight of dream and reality wherein time seems to halt and those within exist only in a small, cast-off sliver of the true world.

"Can I tell you about my parents?" Arha asked - and Olta blinked, momentarily taken aback. Not once had Arha mentioned any family beyond her fellow exiles and an adoptive father called Tekarn.

"Why?" was all he asked.

"Because nobody knows them," Arha replied, soberly. "Just me and the man who killed them."

Amidst all Olta's hatred - which, in truth, was already flickering just like those tiny candles - there came a pang of sudden and unbidden sadness. And so, at his silent nod, Arha began to speak.

"I don't remember them at all, really," Arha began, her voice low and wistful and laden heavy with a time-weathered sort of mournfulness. "I can recall shapes, colors – this smell of lavender – but all I have of my parents is what Tekarn told me afterwards. He said that my mother was a powerful woman, an exceptional warrior who fought like he had never seen before. It took seven veterans of the First Host to finally bring her down." She blinked twice, thrice. There were tears forming in her eye and Olta had to muster all his discipline not to reach across and comfort her. "And...my father? He was red-haired, just like me." She ran a hand through that same hair, smiling sadly. "Tekarn called him a weak man. He was no fighter. But he wrapped himself around me and would not be moved and could not be pried off me and so they were forced to hack him to death and even then his grip did not loosen. Even in death he was protecting me."

She turned to Olta, met his eyes for the first time since she had appeared upon his doorstep. Her lip quivered.

"I never knew them. I hardly even think about them. But today, on the walk here-" her voice broke, "-I just miss them so much."

And then she really was crying, and hatred be damned Olta held her tight and stroked her hair and didn't dare let her go for a single second as she sobbed and sobbed, mourning a life wasted and a people she had never known.

Finally, her tears subsided, and she extricated herself from his arms and fixed him with a red-eyed stare.

"I know who I am," she said, her voice thick with determination. "And I know what I am. I will never deny the things that I've done."

And eternity of silence passed between them. Inside Olta's mind, a war raged.

And then the war was concluded. A victor was declared. And so he reached out, took her hands in his own.

"I know who you are, too," he said – and he wasn’t talking about her life as a Winnower. And that one simple statement, delivered with the same unflinching conviction as always, was quite likely the most important thing Arha had ever heard in her entire life.

Arha's face split into a raw, unguarded smile - an expression of joy and relief that Olta had never seen her wear before.

"I'm going to atone, as best I can," she declared, and Olta felt her hands tense beneath his own. "I'm going to gather an army, just like they taught me, and then I'm going to make sure that the Winnowers never hurt another soul again. I will be to them what they have been to so many innocent people, and when I am finished there will be no trace that they ever existed at all. And then..." She hesitated. "And then I will rest. And maybe, finally, I will be worthy of knowing peace."

And at that, Olta felt something he had not felt since he was but a young boy - brilliant, gleaming, unabashed hope.

It was for that reason that he didn't hesitate for even a moment. Olta squeezed her hands, leaned forward, and declared with true and total certitude:

"I'll be right there with you."

That night, as Arha slumbered in his bed once more, she dreamt of nothing at all.