kajsa ㅇㅅㅇ

Prologue - 1

Mira

I can still hear her screams. 

For hours, I’ve lain awake with my eyes closed, and for hours, sleep has refused me. For I can still hear her screams.

I blame it on my itchy mattress, poorly made of coarse fabric and poky straw, though I know my bed is the least of my problems. Even if it was comfortable, even if I was sleeping on royal silks and feathers, I would not sleep. I would still hear her screams.

Because today, I broke.

Feeling wretched and empty, I kick my blankets to the foot of my cot, leaving them in tangled heaps like the knots in my gut. My heart heaves as I stand to pace, body hot with anxiety, golden eyes blazing like hot coals. 

Mama says it wasn’t my fault, wasn’t Arson’s fault—and I know it. The Masons were supposed to train us, not kick us to the streets like stray mutts. It’s their fault I can still hear her screams.

Standing from my bed, I hear my scrawny twin stir, cot creaking under the weight of his irregular breaths. I watch Arson as I pace, for so long his features twist into hers, the woman’s whose screams won’t leave me. 

I watch in horror, for the thousandth time, the moment that will always haunt me. 

I can still hear her screams, and now they become real.

Her face melts into something awful, blackening as flame eats her body from the inside out. It claws up her throat and out her eyes, charring her skin and hair, devouring her, until she’s a pile of ashes that the wind won’t touch. 

I’m not pacing anymore. My own bloody screams have cut through the night, and I’m on the floor without exactly knowing how I got there. Mama bursts into the room, her baby blue shawl fluttering to the floor, lost by her haste. 

“Mama,” I whimper from the floor. Tears spill onto my cheeks. 

“Mei kaija, my sweet Mira,” Mama takes me in her arms, settling on the edge of my straw mattress. She gently combs her fingers through my long curls, pulling me close to her heart. She doesn’t ask me what’s the matter. She knows.

Instead, she rocks me, singing. My frightened brother, apparently woken by my terror, climbs from his own bed to curl against my mother’s opposite side. He sings dryly with Mama as she strokes his hair with her free hand.

The song is one I’ve heard many times, one Mama learned just for me and Arson. It’s an Eldinese lullaby, something we still would have listened to if Laili really had kept us. But I’m not bitter towards her, not while I have Mama. And with these thoughts, I drift into some form of sleep.

—

The sun’s fingers creep through my window, brushing my cheek with their warm embrace. The cot creaks under my weight as I stir, waking to expect a sizzle of bacon or laughter from the next room over.

Instead, I am met with silence. 

Estella’s arrogant timbre floats under my door, followed by a scolding from Mama. I am the last to wake, and I assume that Arson is tending to the chickens as usual. 

My door flies open, and Estella stomps her way into my territory. She couldn’t look more like Mama, with her sleek golden hair, pure green eyes, slender form and porcelain face; a real display of Riesen beauty. They both look best in baby blue, but their insides clash like wolf and cat, night and day, rain and shine. 

I almost growl as she stalks toward me, silk dress brushing the floor delicately. Yanking my wrist and bearing her teeth, she snarls, “We’re leaving, you little--.”

I ignore the last word out of habit. Stupid Estella. She jerks my wrist, forcing me to follow. I am not unused to this style of treatment, seeing as how Estella is my nasty older sister, but that doesn’t make it any more enjoyable. It seems she has problems realizing that I’m actually a person, not another of our naughty chickens. 

She doesn’t let me get my coat on the way outside, leaving me to fend with the feathers she so clearly thinks I possess, and practically hurls me out the door. 

Autumn has fallen, and the wind is edged with ice. It whips my dark curls into my face, stinging my hawk-yellow eyes.

As I gather my wits, the scene comes into focus. Arson stands with two adults, one of them a woman with sharp yet delicate curves, more defined by the purple-black silk she wears and her matching sleek hair. Her big, buggy eyes may as well be bottomless pits, cold and unfeeling. She makes me shiver worse than the cold does.

The man is much less imposing despite his bulging muscles, with bright eyes and touseled brown hair. He almost looks pleasant, but his hand is clamped around Arson’s arm in a very threatening way that I do not like.

But they do have one thing in common–a small symbol inked right onto the side of their necks. It looks like some kind of huge tree; its branches are twisted into a triangular-looking knot, and the whole thing is encased in a circle. I take too long puzzling out their skin-pictures, giving the woman a chance to grab me in a manner that would make Estella shout for joy. She drags me through the fallen leaves against my hopeless protests. 

I always thought it was fear that motivated people to be so nasty to me and Arson, but this woman emanates nothing but hate.

The most I can do is push a good bit of my body heat into the woman’s hand, make her miserable as she tugs me down our roughly-hewn walk. I remember watching Mama and Grady place the stepping stones, fitting each one into carefully dug holes, and I remember watching her tear some right out of the ground as she sobbed. That was an eternity ago, the day Grady died. I don’t remember his hanging, but I’m able to imagine it whenever I’m in town and the gallows is up. It’s always gruesome. 

As we round the bend, I catch a glimpse of our wagon hitched to Laurel, the old mare. The man hoists Arson up first, tossing him into the hay, and sends me right after. 

We do seem to be heading into town; I wonder if maybe we’re headed to a hanging now, in the main square. Another one I could only imagine. If that was the case, the town wouldn’t miss us; they would probably cheer as the life was squeezed from our throats–cry for joy, sing a song, do a little dance. All but two, anyway.

I steal another glance (there'll be more here)

—

The last drops of blood seep between the pale lips of a corpse.

They have Stripped me of my flame and stripped me of my brother.

My Arson… 

Tear tracks stain my cheeks, though my wails of agony have long ceased. 

There’s a horrible hollowness that racks my chest and makes it hard to breathe–an ache, a barren space like my lungs have been ripped from my body–and I know that it is not the result of the Strip, but the loss of my brother. 

I want people to see my anguish, to feel it in every fiber of their being, and to weep with me, to regret–no, to hate themselves for the way they’ve treated us. And to feel this grief and worse. I want fat tears to stream down my face, want to clutch his dead body until Everett or Mama rips me away. 

To my despair, though, I’m too empty to cry, too empty to sob. Too empty to do anything but hate–so that’s what I’ll do.

I’m still grounded enough that the cogs will turn. The rage will boil.

I will strip all of them of their wretched little souls.

And not one of them will escape my inferno.

and have a roof over your head,