His body ached all over. That morning all of his wounds had ripped open the second he got up from the cellar floor. The blonde girl who had supposedly healed his wounds did not. He was convinced she was a dream. A form of comfort that he could not have—not anymore. He had spent nearly an hour applying salve and bandages to his wounds. Even now he could still feel the stickiness of the salve and the rub of the bandages against his wounds. But he endured it all morning and afternoon while training. By the time he got back to the Farja Manor, his back felt like it was being torn apart once more.

Ignatius stood in front of the mirror, looking at the angry, bloody welts. He had cleaned all the blood off before leaving for training, however, all the movement made them bleed again.

He crossed to the wash basin and started to wipe the blood off once more. The water was cool and harsh at the same time. The sound of dripping water filled the silent room.

When he had finished, he dipped the cloth back in the crimson water. His heart raced faster whilst he focused on his breathing. In, one, two, three. Out, one, two, three. Over and over again while he wrung out the cloth.

It's just water, nothing more, he told himself.

But what came out of the cloth was not water. It was blood. Blood all over his hands, marking him for his crimes. His hands shook as he looked at them, stained in blood that was still warm and fresh. He stumbled back from the wash basin that overflowed with blood, tainting the wooden floor. There was blood everywhere. On the grass, in the fountain, on his hands, under his fingernails, his face, his teeth, all over him. And before him was a boy crying. Long jagged claw marks marred nearly his entire back. Blood ran down the boy's back, turning his shirt red, and spilling on the ground.

The boy looked up at him and whispered that one word he feared more than anything in all of Elementa, "Monster."

Ignatius backed away from the boy and the spreading pool of blood. The boy stood up and followed him. His amber eyes were dead and his face cold. He pointed his finger right at Ignatius and repeated "Monster." As he said that a thin line from his right ear to the corner of his jaw appeared, blood flowing freely from it.

Ignatius felt his heart speed up to the point he thought it felt like it was going to burst from his chest. He couldn't breathe. He felt like he was suffocating again, like someone pushed back under into that darkness, leaving him to drown in his misery and despair.

"Monster." The boy said again and again, never ceasing that one word.

Ignatius collapsed against the wall. He placed his bloodied hands over his ears but he could still hear that cursed and damning word.

Enough of this!

He gasped when he felt that fiery wrath fill his veins and entire being once more.

No, no, no! Not now!

Ignatius pushed himself to his feet and stumbled over to the drawer next to his bed. He ripped open the top drawer of it and pulled out a simple chain with a small white stone attached to it. He slipped it over his neck and clasped it in his hand.

In an instant that fiery wrath was swept away by a tide frost, chilling and containing it once more. He let out a sigh of relief and sagged against the bed, not caring about the protest from his wounds. All that mattered at the moment was containing his rage. He sat there for a few minutes, revealing in the peace of his own mind once more.

He opened his eyes and found the room to be empty. There was no blood or boy. It had all been a hallucination from his attack. The third one this month.

He leaned his head against the bed. He needed to go back to the witch soon. Before the Tribulations. But now he was going to have to bandage his wounds and clean that blood off his bed. He sat up and looked at the blood on the bed and grimaced. Hopefully, he wouldn't have another attack this time.

Standing up on shaky legs, he returned to his initial objective: his back. His back was a bloody ruin once more. Looking at the blood water, he groaned. More water. Again.

~ ~ ~

Clack, clack, clack. The woman walked down the marvelous gem corridor. A man walked next to her. Together they exited the gem-encrusted corridor and entered a more natural beauty than the artificial and eye-sickening monstrosity behind her. She and the man followed the stone pathway that led to a pavilion under the shade of a large Rose Quartz Tree.

The woman seated herself at a Silver Quartz Wood table and the man followed her.

He watched her carefully with those dark obsidian orbs. In the two years she had spent married to him, she had never been fully able to determine what he was thinking. He was as cold as the gemstone he had been named after. The opposite of her flame. Her equal in every way and right. A perfect match some would say despite that it was not a match of her choosing. Nonetheless, she found herself finding their union to be beneficial even though she never wanted it in the first place. Another injustice struck against her. Another vengeance she would take.

"You have requested to return to Pyrisa? What for, may I ask?" He asked, never taking those obsidian eyes off her.

She locked her own eyes of fire with his. She did not fear him. She feared no one. Everyone else should be terrified of her. Dread the vengeful wrath that would solve every problem and give her everything that she had ever wanted. What was rightfully hers.

"I desire to visit my family and witness the Tribulations of Pyrsia." She started. "I long for my homeland, Husband. I tire of only seeing this place for the past two years. It would do us both some good." She reached across the table and gently clasped her husband's hands and added in a softer tone, "And it will give us plenty of alone time."

His sharp, penetrating gaze surveyed her. She did not know what he looked for but whatever it was, she willed her face and eyes to look as innocent as possible. She did wish to watch the Tribulations, however, that was not the only reason she wanted to return to her homeland.

"I will ask Father and King Lazuli. Perhaps Giada would wish to go. She has always had a fondness for this type of...thing." He finally said, his neutral face remaining impassive as always. A well-crafted mask that concealed what he was always thinking and feeling, a result of being born into a court of schemes and scandals.

She forced a gleeful smile on her face. Leaning across the table she kissed him on the lips. He kissed her back but it was merely a peck. She was fine with that.

"Thank you, Husband. I promise this year's Tribulations of Pyrisa will be one you will never forget."

Her husband didn't say anything nor when she got up to leave.

She walked back to her chambers alone.

~ ~ ~

Fire blazed everywhere, turning night to day. People ran and yelled, trying to put out the blaze that suddenly appeared in a few of the houses closest to the forest. No one knew what started the fire. None of the adults would tell her when she asked. Whenever she did, they would just scold her and tell her to go back inside. So there she sat, waiting while her parents and the rest of the village staved off the fire.

"Nya, where's mommy?" A little boy asked her as she pouted on her bed. She looked at her little brother, standing on the threshold of her room, a stuffed toy Taurus bull clasped in his hands.

"She's helping Father and the rest of the village with the fire." She replied curtly. She did not want to deal with him tonight. She was not in the mood.

She looked out her bedroom window. She should be out there, not sitting here watching her little brother. She was sure if she could help the fire would be put out faster.

"Oh." Her brother replied. "Nya, will you tell me a story? Pretty please."

"No."

"Pleaaaase. Mommy said you have to when I ask you to."

She sighed. Of course, he got Mother to say that she had to do that. But she didn't want to. Why did she have to do everything her brother and adults wanted? What about her? What about what she wanted to do? No one let her do anything she wanted to do. So why did she have to do what everyone else told or asked her to do?

"Tell yourself a story. I'm leaving." She got off the bed and stalked out of her room. She headed to the door with her brother trailing behind her like a lost Griffin hatchling.

"B-b-but, Mommy said you can't leave me alone and you still have to tell me a story. I can't sleep without one." He whined. Sometimes he was just so annoying that she wished he had never been born and she was an only child or had an older sister instead. An older sister would be better than her brother. Boys were stupid anyway.

"Go away, Elio, and stop being a baby."

"Nya, please, don't leave me alone. I'm scared. Please!" Elio wailed as she left him alone in the house.

Adults were still running around, buckets of dirt to throw on the fire. All were too busy to pay attention to her. Good, now she could help out and everyone would be too busy to even notice her. She just had to stay away from her parents and she could get away with everything.

Grabbing an empty bucket, she headed into the woods. There was a stream that she could use to fill with water. She wasn't sure if the adults knew it was there; she never told anyone. That was her stream. She found it herself and it was the only place she could go to get away from her annoying little brother.

The leaves cracked gently under her feet. No wonder the fire spread so quickly. It was the dry season and everything was so dry that all it took was a single spark to start a fire. That must have been how the fire had started. But she thought everyone took extra precautions during the dry season. That's what their Clan Warlord demanded. Maybe that family didn't take precautions. It has been a few years since the last fire. They probably were too confident that they weren't going to start a fire. Well, now they did and they would be lucky if they didn't get kicked out of the village if not the Clan for being so careless.

From the woods, she could still see the fire burning brightly. The adults were going to need more than her bucket of water. Perhaps she should tell someone about her secret stream. But then...no she had to tell someone. Then she would be a hero. First, she had to get a bucket of water so everyone would believe her.

She doubled her pace. She needed to get there soon. The village depended on it.

She was there in no time. The stream gurgled softly. Here only the gentle light of the moon shone. No harsh orange light from the fire. Just pale, soothing light.

Heading to the deeper part of the stream, she dipped her bucket in the stream, waiting for it to fill up completely. She needed all the water she could get. Every drop was precious. Something she was taught at a young age, the very reason her village was using dirt instead of water. Water was scarce in Pyrisa, it could be found in remote places away from the Glacial Lake and its branching man-made rivers, not often, though. Her village was no exception. Situated along a scrub woodland, there wasn't much water to go around. Her village relied on the rain from the rainy season and whatever water they could draw from the semi-arid ground along with some water-holding plants. This stream could be—

"Hey! What are you doing? Get out of my stream!" A voice yelled at her.

She was so startled by it that she fell into the stream. Cold water rushed down her throat and into her lungs. Strong and slender hands grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and yanked her out. She found herself face to face with a beautiful raven-haired woman.

"Who are you?" The woman demanded, her river-blue eyes narrowing on her.

"Who are you?" She shot back.

The woman scowled at her. "I don't like your attitude, Human."

"I don't like you either, lady."

The woman let go of her and she fell on her butt.

"Leave. This is my stream." The woman said, turning her back to her, and fished her bucket out of the stream, chucking it at her promptly.

She caught it and stood up and said. "No, I found this stream first. It's my stream, not yours. Besides, this is Warlord Paru's land, you're trespassing." This woman was not from Pyrisa. She had blue eyes. She had to be from Okeaneum. They had blue eyes like hers from what she heard.

The woman laughed. "You think I'm scared of that weakling Warlord? He's nothing, just like you." The woman started to approach and the girl backed away under the intimidating gaze. "Weak, pathetic, cowardly, murderers. That's all you filthy little Human invaders will ever be. Nothing more."

She felt tears prick in her eyes. No, she wouldn't cry. This woman was the real weakling. Using words to injure instead of using weapons was proof of cowardice. Weapons were more effective than words, always.

"No, you are. Only a coward uses words to injure. Words cannot hurt you, only weapons can."

"Stupid and naïve. That will get you killed, girl." The woman hissed at her. "Now leave."

"No, I will not..." She stopped talking as soon as she saw the water rising from the stream and formed into a pointed lance directly at her.

"Still want to say this stream is yours, little girl. Go ahead and you'll find yourself without a head to say so." The woman's words were dripping with maliciousness. She would not hesitate to slice her head clean off her shoulders if she dared to even say that this stream was hers again.

The girl backed up and waited till the woman dropped her water lance. Once she did, the girl turned around and headed back to the village, empty-handed and unable to tell anyone about the stream. That woman—a Nymph she now realized—would hurt anyone who tried to come to her stream. She didn't want anyone to get hurt because she couldn't chase off a trespassing Nymph.

She huffed. It would be fine. She just had to get some dirt. If she recalled, her mother had a pile of dirt by her garden. She could use that; her mother wouldn't get mad at her, she was sure of it.

She rushed back through the woods and to the village to find that it was nearly unrecognizable, almost as if it had been wiped clean off the map. All that remained in its place was the fire. Nothing was left. No one was left.

Without thinking, she sprinted for the house. It had to still be there. Elio was there. He had to be fine, he had to be. Everyone had to be fine. They all probably just relocated somewhere because they couldn't stop the fire.

She came upon the house to find it wreathed in flames, soon to join the ruins of the rest of her village. Inside those flames, she could hear a weak plea for help. She rushed in, finding Elio under the table, coughing.

"Elio!" She picked him up and held him for dear life like he would disappear the moment she let go of him "I'm so sorry. I should have never left you." She whispered into his ear.

"Taurus." Was his only reply. Spotting the stuffed toy on the floor, she picked it up and gave it to him. It was frayed a little on the edges from the heat but Elio didn't seem to mind.

She took him out of the burning house where the air was cleaner and he started coughing less.

She felt terrible for leaving him all alone. How could she have been so stupid? There was a fire that all the adults were busy dealing with. No one could watch him, except her. Now she could see why her mother told her to stay home with Elio. If only she had been here, hadn't been selfish. She could have gotten him out of the house before being set on fire.

"Are you okay?" She asked him. Elio wasn't looking at her. He was looking at something else with wide eyes. "Elio, what's wrong?"

"D-d-dragon." He said so quietly as if he were afraid to disturb the beast that was indeed behind them.

She slowly turned and saw the massive maroon-red dragon rummaging through the flaming remains of a house. The dragon was easily as tall as five houses and double that in length. The dragon looked perfectly unscathed save for the long, jagged gash on its left hind thigh. Dark blood ran down its scaly leg in rivulets. The wound still looked fresh. Did her village do that before the monster killed them?

She watched the dragon carefully and judged the distance between them and the woodland. If she could get to the woods, they might have a chance as long as the dragon didn't set the scrub forest on fire.

The dragon wasn't paying attention to them. It was still sifting through a charred house, eating something. Then she saw an arm with five fingers on it. And on that arm was a bracelet that looked exactly like the one her mother wore.

Dread clenched her gut. Her mother was dead. Dead because of that cursed red dragon. She wanted to kill that dragon. Kill it the way it killed her mother, her father, and her whole village. Not today, or tomorrow. But someday she would get her revenge and kill that monster.

She got a better grip on Elio and slowly started walking towards the woods, praying to Fya that she didn't make a single sound. The dragon was so engrossed with its feeding that it didn't notice her. Perfect, everything was going according to her plan. Once in the woods, she could get them to the stream—she begged Fya that the Nymph wasn't still there—where hopefully if the dragon did set the forest on fire the stream would be a safe place to wait it out.

"Nya, run." As soon as her brother said those words, her legs surged, pushing to get them both to the woods. Elio was heavy and she was already tired from going to and fro the stream.

A blast of fire to her left blindsided her and the impact of it as it hit the ground sent her tumbling, losing her grip on Elio. She looked to see Elio right next to her, blood dripping from her forehead.

She reached for his hand and he did the same. They were fingertips apart when he was ripped away from her. She screamed as he did and watched in horror as that dragon swallowed her brother whole and set its dark amber—nearly black—gaze on her.

She screamed at the dragon. All her rage and fury in that scream. She wanted the dragon to know her anger at it before it ate her too and she joined the rest of her family and village in its stomach.

The dragon opened its maws and the glow of orange light gathered at the back of its throat. She stood there, ready to accept her fate. She deserved it didn't, she? She had failed at being a big sister. She deserved to die too, to join him in the Neth or the Aeth, whatever place she was destined to end up in based on her deeds in life.

Fire engulfed her and she remembered screaming and then nothing.

~ ~ ~

"Open your eyes." Someone told her. She didn't want to open her eyes. She didn't want to find out she was sentenced to the Neth where eternal punishment awaited her for her actions. She knew her family was in the Aeth while she would rot in the Neth when she opened her eyes.

"Open your eyes, girl." The voice insisted again, this time sounding more familiar.

"It didn't work, Larissa. A human cannot become a Nymph." Another voice told the familiar one.

"Yes, they can! Fiamma did! So can she. She has a strong heart. That's all they need."

"And be willing to give up their old lives so they can embrace their new ones."

"Didn't she?"

"We won't know till she awakens." The second voice said.

"If she awakens you mean." A third voice joined in.

Larissa snarled at the third voice. "Shut up! You have no right to talk after you failed to stop Fiamma from getting herself killed. You owe me a new sister. This," someone poked her in the chest, "will be my new sister whether you like it or not, Ninah."

Ninah snarled something that she couldn't make out and must have left because she could no longer hear Ninah's voice anymore.

A warm hand pressed against her cheek and Larissa begged her one more time to open her eyes. She didn't know why but she felt herself opening them this time and she found herself face-to-face with the Nymph from earlier. Tears were in Larissa's eyes and a smile was on her face.

Larissa hugged her and thanked her over and over again.

She had always wanted an older sister. Now she had one. She hugged Larissa back. Elio and her parents were still dead and she would never recover from that. Though, shouldn't she try and make the most of this second chance at life to avenge them? She was given a second chance to live. She would not throw this life away so easily this time. No, she would savor every moment of this life and become the best warrior she could so that she could kill the dragon that took everything from her.

Enya jolted up.

Sweat covered her entire body like a second skin.

"Another nightmare?" Someone asked, placing their hand on her forehead.

Enya leaned into the cool touch, savoring the coolness over the heat coiled in her gut, unable to be released.

"This is a sign from Amarantha that you shouldn't go." Her sister told her, still cooling her sweat-dotted forehead with her water magic.

Enya opened her eyes and was blessed with the sight of her sister. River-blue eyes and raven hair that shone like a pearl in the dark of the night. A beauty that wielded a creative and destructive force of nature.

"I have to go if I have any hope of ending that dragon's reign of terror and you know it, Rissa."

Larissa bit her lip. She knew what that cursed maroon-red dragon did to her village a decade ago. What it did to her. Larissa agreed that what the dragon did was out of place and most dragons, including the Fire Dragons—which were known for infamous tempers—knew better than to start a battle they could not win with the Pyrisain Military.

"I did not drag you back from the brink of death to have you go and put your life on the line again. I cannot lose another sister." Larissa had lost her younger sister, Fiamma, ten years ago as well coincidentally a few days before Enya suffered the loss of her own family and village. She knew the pain of losing a sibling, something that bonded them aside from the deeper connection she and Larissa had formed many years ago. Something Larissa called a Soulbound. It was a type of connection between their souls so that they could always be together, no matter how far apart they were. It was the safest of the Soul Connecting techniques. The other types had complications that either put both at risk of dying or one person being in control of the connection.

Even now, Enya could feel the connection between them. It pulsed strong and bright in her chest from the proximity to her Soulbound. Through their connection, she could feel the emotions traveling between their Soulbound but she didn't acknowledge them. It felt like an invasion of Larissa's privacy. Larissa respected her privacy and Enya did as well.

Enya grasped Larissa's hands and held them as she looked into her sister's river-blue eyes. "I know, Rissa, but someone has to stop that dragon. What it did is an act of war against Pyrisa. Why Pyrisa hasn't declared war against the dragons is beyond me. However, the fact remains, that dragon needs to be stopped. It has been burning villages for years and not just in Pyrisa, but all over Elementa. It's trying to incite war and you know it."

Larissa didn't respond. She avoided Enya's gaze completely.

"Rissa, talk to me," Enya begged. Larissa got like this when she talked about killing the dragon. She didn't like the idea of killing such a sacred beast to her goddess and mother, Amarantha. Dragons and Nymphs were supposed to be allies, kith. But after the Great Purging half a millennia ago, the dragons started to disappear and become only stories in children's books.

"I-I don't like the idea of killing dragons. Amarantha gave life to the dragons. Killing one is like our mother and ourselves. I'm sorry Enya, I can't let you kill the dragon. If you did kill it, I can't protect you. Ninah is looking for any excuse to be rid of you."

"I know, Rissa, I know. However, you and I both know that Ninah is right. I don't belong among the Nymphs. I can't even summon a single spark of fire. I'm not a Nymph and never will be. Not while I still live in the past. Once I kill the dragon, perhaps I'll be able to move on and become like you."

"Even if you can become a Nymph, the rest will still shun you, Nymph or Human. They will see you as a murderer. So please, don't go. Stay here with me where it's safe. No Humans have ever found us and they never will."

Enya kept her gaze on Larissa's and said, "Okay, I will, for you, Rissa."

Larissa smiled and hugged her.

Her heart ached and her mind whirled as she kept her true emotions under the facade she fed to Larissa through their Soulbound. She would kill that dragon whether Larissa liked it or not. She would no longer hide from the rest of the world. She would reveal herself and show the dragon that its fire was not enough to kill her. She died in its fire and was reborn from it into something new and dangerous now. Something that would not be consumed by fire but would make it bow at her feet.

Enya lay awake still, wondering how Larissa was doing. It had been months since she left her sister and cut off the Soulbound between them. It had hurt more than anything in the world and she hated doing what Larissa's first sister did to her. But if she wanted to accomplish what she set out to do then she needed to prevent any harm from coming to Larissa through their connection. She could still feel the twang of pain that erupted in her chest the moment she severed it. It felt like someone had driven a dagger through her heart and left it to fester.

Enya looked over at the sleeping form in the room she shared. The blonde-haired girl was asleep. She was a priestess of Fya. Pyri's Temple of Fya had agreed to take her in when she first arrived in the capital. It would have been easier to merge into another village in the Chaparral but she needed to disappear from her birth Clan and the Pyri Clan seemed like the perfect place to start. New people were always arriving from destroyed villages like her own. Many of them were turned away. Only the lucky few like her were taken in by the Temple of Fya. Why they did was a mystery. Though, she had a feeling it had to do with the girl asleep in the other bed.

She watched the girl's sleeping form for a few minutes before she closed her eyes and fell into the memories that were always on the edge of her mind. Memories that were hers and those that were not. The memories she saw tonight were not hers. They were from another life that was not her own. As she faded into a deep sleep, she saw a young child, perhaps seven years of age, crying before her, no not her, the person who owned the memories she was seeing. The boy looked so similar and yet so different.

A kind and gentle voice echoed in her mind as her mind finally fell into the deepness of sleep. "You will save us all, my beautiful boy. My precious, Cinead."