Prologue
I was weak once. Weak enough to need saving at any given moment. Weak enough to cry when I even slightly hurt myself. I was weak to the point my parents thought I would never amount to anything but a crybaby.
They had such high hopes for me in the beginning, their miracle child. A baby born to the family after what felt like years of failure. I was the hard earned fruit of all the trials they went through to have me. My mother and father were overjoyed beyond words that I was coming into their lives.
And what big plans they had for me.
They threw me at so many things I must’ve tried them all. Swordplay, dancing, cooking, even sewing. I’d done so many things without displaying perfection in any of them. When I didn’t show a talent for anything, my parents stopped looking at me with love. If I couldn’t uphold the legacy of my family we were doomed. Everything would fall and die into my small, quivering hands.
But my parents never gave up hope that I could amount to something, anything. But my incessant tears never seemed to stop flowing. My skills never improved and I never really did a thing of importance. In my small village, I was less then invisible. Just the strange girl who never seemed to stop crying at everything.
The one thing I found joy in was prayer, a practice all of us shared. My people followed a lesser known goddess that was of little note to the rest of the world. But I took a strange comfort in crying to her. Some part of me hoped that she would listen to my pleas, make me a somebody. I filled a sea with my tears and she still never thought to listen to me. Perhaps it was because she too knew I was weak beyond a doubt.
Not that I had ever heard of anyone being lucky enough to talk to her. We were blindly loyal to a goddess that never listened to any of us.
Prayer without answer. The one true horror of living in a world ruled by the gods.
I never stopped believing in her, all the same. It’s hard to abandon something you’ve known all your life. She was my goddess and I was her follower, and it would be that way for as long as I lived. Even if she couldn’t care to answer I would pray to her. Besides, it gave me some comfort knowing she’d never spoken to anyone else either. I could pretend it wasn’t because I was frail. Useless.
I was weak once. Weak enough to crave being strong. Weak enough to train harder then any other kid. And with all my training, all my desperation, I stayed weak.
I couldn’t help being a crybaby. No matter how much my parents hated it, how much I was teased, crying was habitual. Habitual to the point of being odd.
I had never gone a day of my life without crying. I cried so much the only thing people could remember about me was how loud I was. At some point it became less about sadness and more about the pure feeling of needing to cry. And without a doubt, I hated that about myself. It pounded the idea of my incompetence further into my skull. Each time I cried I found myself spiraling further into self hatred.
It was on a day that for once, I wasn’t crying. I wasn’t sad but the world came crashing down on me regardless. Sort of ironic how it all played out.
I was sat in front of the house, feet dangling off the porch, when I heard a voice. It was the voice of a female I’d never met before. Loud and commanding in a way that shot me up to my feet in alarm. My mother came to stand on the porch beside me, grabbing my shirt with a tight fist.
And I suppose it was then I realized everyone could hear the same voice I was.
“Run,” it begged from above the tree line, “Run while you still have the legs to walk and eyes to see. Escape from here while you still can.”
A warning.
Something our peaceful town hadn’t received in all of its existence. It took my small, eight year old mind, far too long to process. When I saw the terror in the eyes of my mother I knew we were in danger. She stood with her mouth agape, frozen in fear. I couldn’t shake her from her stupor no matter how loud I called her name.
My father had shouted then, drawing all the men together to protect the village. They gathered at the main tree with a strange sense of confusion in their shoulders. That day was the first and last my people ever prepared themselves for battle.
Women and children in the homes around ours scrambled to gather their belongings. The feeling of urgency hit me too, and I ran into my own home to grab anything I could. And that’s when the tears came, in a moment where I had neither my mother nor father to comfort me. My mother seemed too broken to move and my father was occupied with readying warriors.
My small arms weren’t strong enough to hold all they needed to. Everything went tumbling to the floor in a sad display of my hopelessness.
My mother came to me then, seeing items discarded on the floor. I cried at an uncontrollable volume that my mother immediately flinched at. My loudness seemed to do nothing for the despaired look she held on her face.
A loud crack of lightning sounded in the distance at an almost deafening volume. The thundering sound of a tree collapsing shortly followed after the noise. My mother and I streaked to the door without even thinking to see what had happened. When we pushed aside the leaf that was our door, we were consumed by the smell of fire.
All I could see was smoke. Suffocating. Filling the area around me with gray and polluting the once clear skies. Ash clung to the swelling tears still on my face. It was thick enough that I could almost taste it in the air.
Yells erupted from all around us, dread gripping into me as I saw a body fall from the trees above. A scream nearly tore from my throat as it hit the porch before falling all the way to the ground. My mother dragged me back inside with a hand clung to my mouth. I felt sharp breaths from my own lungs, but I barely registered even taking any. Somehow it felt as if my heart was going to beat straight out of my small chest.
My mother tore up a loose floorboard, grabbing me by the arm and shoving me in the space left. I vaguely recalled my father creating this place to store extra food. Cooking was almost my mom’s entire life now that she didn’t have to look after me all day. It brought her such joy when my father first showed her. I didn’t see that same joy as she lowered the top, enclosing me in a world of darkness.
I was weak once. Weak enough to cower below the floorboards as my home was attacked. Weak enough to not beg my mother to crawl down with me.
A small sliver of light was all the vision I still had of my mom. When the soldiers came, that sliver was all I had to see her fall heavily. Red seeped from her body and dripped onto my face as if in some sort of sick mockery. I held a shaking hand over my face to quell the despair that blood brought me.
They never found me there. Perhaps because the storage place in which I was hiding didn’t exist in any other household. Or it could be because the body of my mother concealed the small oddity in the floor that revealed where I was. But maybe the soldiers never found me because I was only ever noticed when I cried loud enough. I simply was too invisible for them to even notice.
I stayed hidden until it felt like my legs were stuck in their cramped position. My body stayed still until the blood of my mother painted my face an ugly red. I cried until there was nothing left, eyes dry with the absence of tears.
It haunted me how little they cared about human life. How my mother wasn’t even given a chance. My young mind couldn’t quite comprehend how anyone could be so evil. It didn’t make sense how uncaring they were towards someone who didn’t even fight back. My people had always believed life was precious, and yet it had been so cruelly yanked away from them.
We hadn’t done anything to anyone to warrant genocide. Living in seclusion with our small goddess, we had peacefully abstained from conflict. It was more than just unfair that everyone had to die at the hands of uncaring soldiers.
Were other people as scared as I was? Did their killers revel in the feeling of superiority? There must been some part of them that enjoyed slaughtering terrified people. They held the lives of hundreds in their hands and chose to squash them like bugs. It was murder for the pure sake of murder.
When I first emerged from my hiding place I was tempted to hide away again. The putrid smell of my dead mother sent bile up my throat. I didn’t want to imagine what horrors lay outside of my house, where others lay dead. The image of a falling body flashed before my eyes and almost sent me back beneath the floorboards.
My mother was a true image of beauty, even when she no longer had rosiness in her cheeks. Raven black hair long enough to weave a blanket encompassed her still form. Her eyes were more blue than they ever had been in life. Shining, clear like crystals, but forever unblinking.
I had always hated the fact I didn’t look like my mother. Nor did I share any resemblance with my father. Or anyone in the village for that matter.
Where others had dark hair, mine was white enough to blend into snow. My green eyes were a stark contrast to the dark blue and black of my parents. I was so different in appearance from my family that nobody could really tell we were related at all. The only thing I shared with my mother was her straight hair that shone in the moonlight. My only relation to my father was the same last name we had.
But I suppose the extreme difference in looks was what saved me from being caught. My peoples killers were certain they’d killed everyone, as we all shared a unique look that couldn’t be found anywhere else. So when soldiers saw me there weren’t any second glances. I suppose my features are unique, but not the same as my parents, not enough to draw suspicion. No one ever hunted me down. I should be grateful for that.
A small part of me cries every time I’m reminded that I look nothing like my parents did. Nothing like anyone who died that day. The last remaining remnant of a murdered race, and yet I was an uncommon outlier. My people died. And I feel as if I’m not good enough to represent all they were.
Now, I was the last remaining follower of my goddess. At least that remained of all who lost their lives. She was the only common factor between myself and everyone else. And yet, I still found it hard to believe in her after my home burned to ash. My faith nearly died alongside my mother.
I was weak once. Weak enough to fall into despair. Weak enough that I couldn’t pick myself up after I fell. Weak enough that I almost died every day in the forest. I only survived by pure luck for almost a year.
I was nine years old when a man found me in the forest. Feral, disheveled, and barely breathing. He took pity on my small form, throwing me over his shoulder and hauling me back to his farm.
It was a rather small place that held no one but himself. A lonely, dusty home, that farmhouse was. Photos obscured by dirt lined the walls of the dark corridors. Empty rooms stood with their doors ajar, looking like someone had lived there once.
He sat me down in his kitchen where the only light came from a candle. A meal cooked over a small fire was placed in front of me. It was the first time in a year that I ate anything cooked.
I cried. Tears I had somehow forced away sprung from my eyes. And he watched me in content, rubbing circles on my back and assuring me I was okay now. It was relieving in a sense crying after all that time. The act almost made me feel like I was human again.
He never kicked me out of his home, so I became a resident of that small place. And he- Otto was his name- became something akin to a second father to me. I loved him the same way I had cherished my parents. And Otto treated me like I was his daughter too, so he must have loved me just as much. We went everywhere together after he took me in. I was like an inseparable baby chicken never leaving the side of its mother. Him and I were a duo, whether we were at the farm or walking through town.
Being with him made me stronger then I was before. Otto didn’t demand things of me like my parents had, but he did put me to work. I was strong enough to do chores on my own after a year of living with him. Lifting heavy objects was no problem for me. Wrestling animals was a common occurrence. My younger self would start crying if she could see the ten-year-old version of me.
Before I realized it, all thoughts of despair fled my mind. Tremors and nightmares didn’t attack me in the night. I could close my eyes without the fear of seeing my dead mother’s form. The falling body didn’t flash across my vision every day anymore. I felt more alive then I had been since the annihilation of my people. Otto and his small farm made it possible for me to finally breathe again.
It is how they say, however. All good things must come to an end. That was true for me too.
Spring came, and with it, the crumbling of my new life. Otto fell so deathly ill that he couldn’t get out of bed anymore. He had to have me cook for him and do all the chores he was normally responsible for. Fatigue held me, but there was no way I’d let him push himself out of bed. So I became the sole reason the house kept functioning. There were enough chores that some nights I didn’t make it to my bed before collapsing. Other nights it was light out when sleep finally came to me.
I took care of him in this state for a week before I had the sense to journey into town. In my desperation I begged all the doctors that lived there, and I begged any passing through. I pleaded with them in hopes of medicine, healing, anything that could help Otto recover. None chose to help me. A single doctor offered his services under the condition of a fee I could never pay. It was more of a mockery then compassion.
Two days. For two entire days I begged anyone I could to offer me help. And all I was met with was disgust and contempt.
People had the nerve to laugh at my attempt of receiving help. The same people who knew Otto and I so well. The same townsfolk that we talked with every weekend, that we were friends with. One sign of trouble and they’d abandoned us. It was a slap across my face.
I trudged back home with nothing to show for my efforts. My entire world was crashing down on me. I felt just as helpless then as I did when I watched my mother die.
For his credit, Otto was rather calm about the whole situation. I suppose he thought it funny how hard I fought for his sake. He’d always told me he didn’t believe in things like miracles. Then again, he didn’t really believe in much of anything. Some part of him knew that the people in town would never help him. He had just as much faith in them then he had in whatever god he used to follow. None.
People didn’t care if he died not because he was a bad person, but because he was unfaithful to god. I knew he didn’t believe for the same reasons as me. It never crossed my mind that the world would turn their backs on anyone for such a trivial thing. Our gods shouldn’t be all that define us.
The day I returned from town, Otto took hold of my hand to tell me a story.
He spoke of a couple that were deeply in love. In love, but forced to be apart due to status. So deeply in love, that a child was born between them. With that child came the courage to run away from the binding shackles of their families. They were faithful to each other and the god they followed. A small farm house was all they needed in life to maintain happiness. The family of three were joyous in ways other people could never dream of.
But not everyone agreed with their choice of god. Soldiers barged into their home, demanding they stop worshiping a lie. And when the small family refused they were met with fire. It raged until nothing of the farm was left but smoke and death. Everything the three had built was gone, destroyed with a single boom of lightning. All the man had left was himself and a few pictures. There wasn’t even the bodies of his dead wife or child to be buried. He despised his faith. His god had done nothing for him.
The story was sickeningly familiar to my own. Down to the very lightning that had cost him all he had. It seemed people like me existed elsewhere, forced to watch all they love whither and die.
But it all made sense now, why people looked so disgusted when I asked for help. And everything else about my time with Otto finally clicked into place in my mind. Why the grass refused to grow in some places. Why so many charred tree trunks stood abandoned around the lot. The empty rooms in the hall that held candles as if in offering. How I sometimes heard Otto cry so loudly in his sleep. I could tell now why the picture frames in the living room were all turned around.
But most of all, I understood why Otto called me a name that was not my own when he tucked me into bed.
Goodnight Emery, he would whisper. I never had the heart to ask why he would call me that. He knew my name. He called me by my name at any other time of day besides night. Emery was a title that had never belonged to me. It never clicked that maybe he was too tired to realize that the girl in his daughter’s room wasn’t really his own.
Did that realization hurt? Maybe. I’m not sure how I feel about it, even still. He loved me just as I loved him. I wasn’t treated like some replacement for the child he had lost. He never made me feel like I had to act a certain way or live up to any weird standards. Otto let me be whoever I wanted to be. So in that sense, I can’t be mad that he slipped up and called me some other name before going to bed.
Otto was everything to me. It didn’t matter who he thought I was, who it was he was wishing a good night. I cared about him more than anything else. So much in fact, that when his sickness didn’t get better, I prayed.
My pride abandoned, I fell to my knees before falling asleep every night. I begged my goddess to do anything for the man I’d come to know as a father. It became something of a ritual before going to bed. Praying for her to listen for even just a moment. One miracle was all I needed, something she’d never bestowed before. I should have known she wouldn’t listen to me then after she refused to when I was younger.
Though it must have been a small miracle that Otto lived for some time after that. But you can’t really call the condition he was in living. Sure he was breathing, but at some point he couldn’t move anymore. He lived his life tied down to a bed unable to move. It was almost unbearable to watch him, a once strong man, in broken spirts. Chores were entirely on me to complete then, and at some point they were all that kept me going.
It was a rather lonely time. I spent the majority of my days alone with only my thoughts to keep me company. Every meal I ate was by myself, I didn’t want to bother Otto in all his tiredness. It didn’t take me all that long to feel like I did before he found me- alone and afraid.
Otto was still talkative despite the pain he was dealt. He told me a million different stories before I would trudge off to bed. About his life, his family, and of the world outside this small farm. Listening to him I wondered how he could remember such fantastical tales. He made me yearn to venture beyond the small town that confined us.
Though out of everything I enjoyed the stories about his wife the most. I could tell from his words alone that she must have been the pinnacle of grace and beauty. Otto once told me she defended a bread thief in the market, putting herself in harms way for a stranger. I can’t imagine ever acting a hero like she was. It takes a whole lot more empathy then I own to do something like that. I envy the fearless women she was, she would’ve been a wonder to know.
But what I loved the most about her was how much she adored her daughter. Otto spoke of the lengths she go to make her child happy. And though I loved my mother, I was jealous. Yes, my mother had died hiding me, but that was the singular time she had done anything for my benefit. All my life she had neglected me. My mother never did anything for me when there weren’t watchful eyes. Perhaps that’s the reason I was so prone to crying when she was the one raising me.
I once asked Otto if his wife would love me as her own if she were still around. He responded with an immediate, resounding yes. What would life have been like with her, I wonder? If she were alive the injustice and prejudice I faced would be gone. From the stories alone I could tell she was the type of woman to stand up for what was right.
But she wasn’t alive. And there was no one to help my dying Otto. Heaven knows I didn’t have the courage to speak my mind. I’d be stoned at the first spark of an argument. I suppose the difference between Otto’s wife and I is that she didn’t fear punishment as I do. My words of disagreement never left the confines of my mind, where she was the opposite.
That fear is what led to the ultimate demise of the one person I had left.
For three years Otto faced tortuous pain stuck in his bed. One winter morning, I found that he’d had enough of his life during the night. He was no longer laying down when I walked into his room. It must have been some sort of adrenaline rush that pushed him up. There was cause for celebration until I realized something was very wrong, and his room too quiet.
I saw his feet before the rest of his body came into view. He had taped a note to his chest, taunting me with its letters painted in red. In my stupor the plates I was carrying came crashing down at my feet. My heart felt like it was beating in some far off place, not in my chest where it belonged. I didn’t have the mind to read what he wrote. The form of his dead body made my blood run cold. Vaguely, the image of my mother collided with his in the back of my thoughts.
The house was silent in a way it’d never been before. All I could hear were my own labored breaths, the noise of crickets even disappearing. It was odd. Our farm had never stayed quiet for more then ten minutes. This couldn’t be real, couldn’t be happening. Again.
I stayed in his doorway for an obscene amount of time before I could move. His body swung in front of my eyes, and all I could do was watch. When I finally tore myself away I collapsed in the hallway outside his room.
Part of me was tempted to go into town and yell at everyone. Otto could have- would have- lived if any one of them had helped. But they were too caught up in their self righteousness to care about anyone without a god. I wonder how different things would have been if I chose to lie to people. Say Otto had found the right path again as he was faced with the fear of dying. Though I know in my heart he would hate me deceiving people like that, even if it were to save his life.
When I finally had the strength to pick myself off the floor I felt numb. A part of me was dead, hanging alongside the body of the man I’d come to love as a father. My legs felt heavy as lead when I walked back inside to snatch the note.
There isn’t much to say about that piece of paper. Words on a page that drove a knife into my skull with how much they hurt me. Disgusting, annoying tears obscured my vision before I could finish reading it. Otto had told me, more or less, not to be angry with his decision. That he had been in constant pain for far too long and it was his time to go. He told me he’s sorry he was so selfish. He’s sure I would recover quickly.
What an insane notion it was, that he thought I would get over his death. Him and I both knew death was something I could never get over. Not after what I had been through as a child.
Maybe he thought his note was enough to placate me. To make it so I would bury his body and get back to regular business on the farm. But I had only done what I was told thus far because I had him to return home to. Now I had absolutely nothing. No one. It’s as if everyone I ever care about dies and leaves me alone. I didn’t do what I knew he wished I would.
I knew why Otto died. I knew why my parents were killed. And I would slaughter each and every person that had been the cause. Gods and power meant nothing. I would kill the people who committed genocide on my innocent race of people. And I would kill those who burned a house to the ground, as well as those who stood by and did nothing. If human beings were this awful to one another than I saw no point in making friends. I didn’t need to play nice if no one else was.
Thirteen years old and I began to research what it took to kill a man.
All the various things I had been forced to learn as a child came rushing back to me. Muscle memory and the strength I had gained doing chores made me almost formidable. But it took me another two years before I was confident enough to start hunting.
Otto’s door was still closed when I left home, just as I had left it. His body still hung inside of that closed room. The food I had dropped still lay discarded and rotting where it had fallen. I never had the courage to go in and clean even the floor. My last parting gift was his body reuniting with his dead wife and child. I left home with a flick of match over my shoulder, and the small farm I called home caught fire. My life burned down. To anyone in town both Otto and I were dead and gone, burnt up just like his family had been. I found it almost poetic.
I was essentially a ghost then. No parents or home to speak of. It worked out perfectly in my favor.
From fifteen to sixteen I spent my time hunting purely monsters. I had to get used to the sensation of killing and fighting, more then I had done on the farm. Money came with the carcasses of larger monsters, so I began seeking out more and more dangerous ones. Better equipment and weapons came with the territory of my increasing wages. And I had made a small name for myself as I hunted completely solo. But I had hidden my appearance with a mask and hood since my very fist day. I remained an enigma, a mystery, to everyone who saw me.
When I was comfortable in my position is when the real hunt began. I had the strength and experience that I hadn’t possessed before. And I set my target high, reaching to kill anyone related to those cursed soldiers.
I was weak once. Weak enough that the first man I went after left a scar across my chest. Weak enough that I almost died after struggling to be stronger my whole life. But not weak enough to die, not weak enough to crumble under pressure. Strong enough that my sword plunged itself hilt deep into a man. My first kill.
Blood stuck under my fingernails for weeks, stained my hands, but part of me enjoyed the feeling. My arms were heavy from exhaustion for several days after the successful murder. But it was a good kind of fatigue, in a way I’d never felt before. For the first time in my life it felt like I truly accomplished something. I knew after I killed that first man that I wanted to kill the rest too. I’d known it before, but now the thought was cemented deep in my brain. It gave my life a whole new purpose.
On the night I’d killed him, I dragged his body up the slopes. He faced the crashing waves with my sword still deep in his chest. Resounding feelings settled in me as I watched his pitiful form slowly fade in color. An ugly sense of pride was all I could feel.
I bet this is how he felt when he slaughtered my people. The nervous shaking, the pounding of my heart, he’s experienced it as well as I. His death brings me joy as our death brought him joy.
He knows why I killed him. Why a seemingly random girl sought him out with the intent to kill. My eyes gave me away, he said before my blade caught him. He had grasped my hand then, told me revenge came with a heavy price and a heavier burden. But I told him that it didn’t matter anymore whether the gods shunned me for my misdeeds. Death will befall all those who contributed to the genocide of my people. An eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, murder for murder. They would all get what they deserved by my punishing hand.
At deaths door, bleeding at my feet, he still had the strength to laugh at me. The surprise of it almost sent me flying off the side. Even now I can’t believe that anyone would ever be crazy enough to find humor in their situation with a sword in them.
He had grabbed my hand, a red smile on his face.
“Every man you kill, everywhere you go, wherever you end up, despair will chase you. Despair over your life. Over your revenge. Over anything you do that clouds your mind. And by the gods I hope you never stop running girl,” he pulled me down to the ground with him.
His words wormed their way into my head as the cold breeze stung at my wounds.
“If you stop for even a moment that despair is going to suffocate you. It’ll grab you by the neck and make sure you never know peace again. Sleep won’t come, nor will the blessing of silence. That is the price of revenge girl. Are you willing to pay?” His speech came to a pressuring end.
I didn’t know whether to heed his warning or shove it to the back of my mind. The ramblings of a dying man should do nothing to deter me. He was speaking from his own experiences, his own haunting past. It was as they say, his entire life was flashing before his very eyes.
In the end I decided to do neither. I wouldn’t ignore his words but I wouldn’t commit to them either. Revenge was something I committed to long ago. It wasn’t something I could go back on now, especially as I watched a man breathe his last. Nothing waited for me anywhere even if I decided to miraculously become a better person. No family or home to speak of. The branding of a monster would follow wherever I went. I might end my life in the same way Otto had if I gave up now.
I would drag all the other monsters down with me. We’d fall to the depths of the world hand in hand.
So was I willing to pay a price? Yes. Without question I was willing to do anything.
I grabbed his hand before he could die, “I promise to wipe out the people that took everything I loved. I will exact my revenge even if the gods condemn me for all eternity. That is my oath, man.”
We stared at each other for a few moments too many, and I worried he hadn’t heard my declaration at all. But then his hand was on my sword- the blade- and his hand was cut open. And his other was on my heart in a questionably pleading manner.
“Swear by it girl,” he rasped around my weapon, “Swear to the gods of your revenge. Write it in blood.”
He wanted me to complete a blood oath. Something rarely ever seen, even rarer still to ever be fully followed through with.
My mother once told me they were a mark of a devil worshipper. She said a women had sworn in blood she would murder her cheating lover, and she did. I was told she went mad with power after her success. Blinded by her rage she became a creature of death and insanity. My father had hunted her down and put an arrow through her head after she killed her child in the middle of town.
Blood oaths are, in actuality, something created by the gods themselves. Written by their hand and given to their followers to promote devoutness. They were initially meant for a much more important purpose. The problem was that a contract made by a god was absolute. Meaning that death was only a small price that you paid if you failed. And something that pressuring drove people mad in a way that wasn’t intended. Blood oaths were a failure, taken back by the gods, but people still clung to them. They were big for a while before all the craze left in favor of something bigger.
I suppose it didn’t matter to me whether I was driven mad in the end. My end goal would be the same in both scenarios. Death would befall all who wronged me. Their lives would be claimed by my bloody hands. Being crazy in the end means I can forget who I was before. Forgetting everything seemed like the most peaceful way someone like me could hope to die.
So I didn’t hesitate when he offered his hand. I sliced my own and grabbed him without a moments thought. A blood oath with someone dead had never been done before. I’m some sort of pioneer in that regard perhaps.
My mouth opened and spoke without me even willing it to, words I’d never known before flowing off my tongue. I don’t know when I learned how to complete a blood oath, but perhaps it was engraved in me.
“In cold light of the following day,
For those who died were dragged away,
A Blood Oath for those who died,
To the underworld, once more, we ride.
For fury and fire. Ash to ash.
I swear revenge.”
I was weak once. So weak that I cried for the first man I killed. Weak to the point I could barely move the day after. Weak enough that I almost regretted my now unchangeable decision. Almost.
But I wasn’t weak enough to let terror consume me. No, I grabbed my fears by the neck and turned them into my power. I was done being the crybaby. I was done being the weak little girl. My blood oath proved that- I proved that. Nobody would hurt me again until the day I died.
I may have been weak once, but I swore I never would be again.
