The door swings violently in, smacking the wall with a loud thud and shaking the wall. I see my father chained against a wall, his eyes blazing with hate and rage. I see three men standing around something blocked from my view but I have a sickening feeling that I know what they are standing around. At the sound of my entrance the men all face me. One of them has blood coating his hand. A different one narrows his eyes at me and draws a sword, stepping toward me. As soon as he moves I can see what they were huddled around... my brother. My little brother who had yet to see his eighth summer. He is bruised and battered and I cannot see if he is breathing. He is bleeding from his nose and a few cuts on his arms, but what catches my eyes the most are his shoulders, pinned to the ground with knives.

My vision goes red and I stop hearing. A scream in my chest tears me apart. I hear howling in my ears. The man with the sword moves his lips, probably asking me something, but the howling drowns it out. I stare at him with a dead look in my eye, anger cutting through my numbness as a snarl more animal than human manifests on my lips. I feel a hand on my shoulder and see the elf male behind me. I jerk my shoulder away from him and stare back at my enemies. The other two men have stopped what they are doing and have drawn weapons, all three take a step toward me. Something snaps deep within me and I use my ability, the three men slam back, I pin them against the wall with wind, crushing them. I hear bones snap, probably their ribs as I push them against the wall relentlessly. I stalk toward them with a growl rumbling deep in my throat.

They try and beg me to let them down, beg for their lives. Cowards. All too willing to beat a seven year old child to death or the brink thereof, but they have the nerve to feign innocence only when someone fights back. I let up my wind and see them stumble to the ground, they gasp with pain and move to charge at me with their swords. I slam them against the wall with more force, causing the home to shake. I push the wind harder and harder, willing it to break every bone in their worthless bodies. I slip into the string world and begin to play their strings. I make them feel pain, the kind that makes you wonder if it will ever end. The kind that makes men beg for death. I see their eyes widen and tear up with pain and I smile at them. I dark smile that suggests that there is nothing human left in me. I make them bleed from cuts that do not exist. The blood runs down them as I give them the most fitting punishment I can fathom. I stop the symphony of suffering for a brief pause, the men's choked sobs are mixed with thoughts of relief before I bring down the end with a deafening crescendo as I end the lives of the men. I release the wind and turn toward my brother, searching for a string to show he is not dead, I see one faintly. It is fading quickly, I know it's too late now.

Tears sting my eyes as I kneel next to my dying sibling. I grip the blades pinning his shoulders and yank them out quickly, I see a flash of pain across his face followed by relief. He looks so much like our mother, pale skin and hair so blond it could be white, clear blue eyes that look like an endless sky. I brush his hair out of his face with shaking hands, my tears splashing onto his face. His eyes meet mine and a whimper escapes his lips.

"Shhh, shhh, everything will be alright soon. All the pain will go away. I-I" my voice breaks with emotion before I can continue, "I'm sorry I wasn't here to protect you like I promised I would be. I'm so so sorry," I sob into his chest. I should have never left my family. I should have stayed here to protect them, stayed to fight. I hold my brothers hand until I feel his dying breath leave him. The elf came in some time while I knelt with my brother, he unlocked my father but both stayed far away from me. I scooped my brother up into my arms, numb with grief, and carried him out of the small house and out into the fresh air.

Snowflakes drift lazily around, the start of a spring storm for us. I lay my brother in the powder of snow that has just fallen, his bloodstained and broken body looking out of place in the serene snow. I lift a stone near the outer wall of my home and pull out two viles of oil, two stones, and a bushel of winter berry branches with the unripened berries still attached. I kneel in front of him and begin the tradition my mother forced me to learn as a child. She always told me it was our females (she never did call them women) did in times of death and that I must learn it to carry the tradition on. My father seemed to have no knowledge of the tradition.

I place the winter berry bushel in my brothers small arms. He is too young for this ritual. He had so much more to live for, he had a life waiting for him, a family, someday a wife and children and now all I can give him is the proper death ritual. With choked back sobs, I anoint my brothers brow with the oil in one vile, coating his hands and feet as well. I then take the other vile, a far larger one, and pour it over the rest of his body. I take the two stones in my shaking hands and strike them together; once, twice, and a third time before the spark catches and flames engulf my brother. It is the same ritual I performed for my mother when she died.

After the fire has caught, I sit back on my heels and begin the song of mourning. It is in a tongue not spoken by my father or any of the people of our village, and while all the other children had had fun and learned to swim, I sat with my mother learning a language not understood by any others, learning to read it and write it, and learning rituals for the dead. My father taught me the ways of the staff while other children learned to use a bow to hunt.

After I finish the song of mourning I begin the lament to the dead, asking for safe passage of my brother, asking them to guide and protect him and welcome him into their arms. My voice is crisp and strong in the air, it does not break with emotion once, for if it does, the soul cannot rest. After the lament to the dead I start the last song. One I have never known the meaning of, only that it must be sung. It is a powerful song with building emotions and ringing glory, ending with a note of triumph with the undertone of sorrow.

I sing for my brother as his body is turned to ash and after I finish singing I remain kneeling by him until the last swirl of ash has disappeared into the night. Only after this has happened do
I rise from my position and enter my home. I see my father sitting on a stool, nursing his hands. The elf stands by the front door. Both look up sharply as I come inside. They glance at each other unsure of what to say to me. The elf chooses to speak first:

"My condolences for your loss, both your losses," he says with a bow. I do not know how to react, but my father does it seems.

"Your condolences are accepted Balaṁ Kattisāmu. Please share our hearth this mournful evening," both my father and the elf male watch me cautiously, but I ignore them as I drift into my room and fall into a restless sleep.