Bleeding Starlight

    All I want is to see the stars, Haedril thought as she crept along the wilderness’ shadowed treeline. I’ll see them and then I’ll go back.

    She hesitated, turning again to the quaint stone cottage that lay just behind her. Its wind-smoothed stone walls, cloudy glass windows, and chipping red roof--all shadowed beneath a canopy of leaves--seemed to call to her of safety and homeliness. She quickly turned away from the sight’s comfort and walked on through the lush, green grass. At every twinge of guilt or wariness she pushed herself on to the next fencepost, the next crop field, the next cabin, until she found herself at the base of a wide dirt road. The trees’ coverage broke above her and finally she laid eyes upon the vast expanse of the sky. Her breath was stolen as she saw it clearly, sparkled with a shimmering dust of stars, for the first time in her life. She couldn’t tear her eyes away for several minutes, and when she did she saw something similarly unfamiliar to her; a village.

    She had promised herself to turn back after seeing the stars, satisfying the burst of curiosity that had pushed her stealthily from her home. And yet she was struck anew by the yearning for experience that had been growing in her for months. Inhibitions forgotten, she stepped onto the dusty road and began to walk. Each building she passed was rustic and unique, weathered windows spilling light upon Haedril’s path. At the end of the road, fields and farmland extended as far as the eye could see, such a difference from the trees and forests she knew. She longed to lay among the long grass and wonder at the open sky above her, but her gaze was soon drawn by another sight: a building towards the edge of town, its door ajar spilling the sounds of rowdy laughter, upbeat music, and clinking glasses. Haedril’s feet pulled her forward as if drawn by some guiding power until she stood right before the door.

    A man poured colored liquids from clear glass bottles, passing them across a counter to patrons who staggered to their tables to rejoin their laughter and conversation. Haedril was captivated by this new setting. She envisioned herself among them, joining in their laughter...

    “Are you going in, or are you just going to stand there?” A playful voice behind her interrupted her daydream.

    Haedril jumped, turning over her shoulder to find a fair, simply-dressed, willowy young woman with short, golden hair standing there. The girl smiled, raising an eyebrow. Haedril opened her mouth to speak, but in her terror only nonsense came out. “I…I was…I just--”

    “You act like you've never seen a tavern before. Or had a conversation, for that matter.”

    Haedril blushed. If only the girl knew how true her statements were. But the girl in question simply laughed, threading her arm through Haedril’s and dragging her through the threshold of the building. “I’m Ealwyn. What’s your name?”

    “H-Haedril,” she forced, turning red once more at the very prospect of speaking. Her aunt would be livid. Why didn’t I turn back after seeing the sky? Haedril thought. Was that not enough wonder to satisfy me for the rest of my days? And yet she let Ealwyn guide her to a table in the corner of the room and sit her down in a crooked wooden chair. And though she was startled by the rush of noise--all the rowdy laughter and shouting and music--Haedril forgot her anxiety. She let herself imagine that she was like Ealwyn, a girl who could come and go as she pleased, frequenting pubs at night, starting conversations with complete strangers, and spending long nights in the fields beneath an endless blanket of stars. Ealwyn exuded life and freedom. Haedril worried that, in her curiosity, she might develop a taste for the world outside of her aunt’s cottage.

    “You’re not from here.” Ealwyn concluded after studying her for a while.

    “How could you tell?” Haedril blurted, almost shouting to be heard above a raucous argument that had broken out at the table beside her.

    Ealwyn laughed once more, a melodic, carefree sound. “It’s a very small village. I would’ve seen you before. And, plus, you startle at every single noise…like humanity is new to you.”

    “I do live near here,” Haedril admitted, her honesty commanded by Ealwyn’s carefree nature. “I just never leave the house.”

    “And what’s so special about tonight which brought you forth from hiding?”

    “The stars…”

    Ealwyn raised one eyebrow and smirked, like that was an odd thing for Haedril to say but she didn’t mind. “Well, Haedril. Perhaps the stars led you here so you might meet me.” And so began the first friendship of Haedril’s life.

---

    There was a loose floorboard by the third table to the left of the bar. Haedril knew this because the waitress with the black hair tripped over it almost nightly. Sometimes, Haedril and Ealwyn made a game of predicting when the next time would be that the poor waitress would stumble over it and curse as she spilled a bit of food or ale upon her dress. But none of the people who crowded over Haedril where she lay on the ground were laughing. Not when they saw the gash on her head the table had made.

    Haedril stumbled to her feet, bringing her hand to her face where something warm and sticky ran down it. Her fingers came away shimmering with gold more lustrous than any coin or trinket upon the Earth. She knew then that she was meant to regret every decision she’d made for the past year--each night she’d filled with life and laughter instead of placidity and boredom. And yet she couldn’t help but think that it was worth every moment. Even as she heard murmurs of “monster.”

    “It can’t be…” one woman exclaimed. “You were meant to have died!” 

“Unnatural witch. She probably thrives upon death.” Another added.

    Haedril retreated like a cornered animal, her back pressed against a table, searching for

Ealwyn’s face in the crowd, or some shred of familiarity and support. What she found in Ealwyn’s face was not friendliness, but bloodlust. “You’re the girl with the golden blood.” She heard her say even above the crowd. “The one from the stories, touched by the stars. The one whose blood is measured in wishes.”

    “Wishes she would keep for herself, no doubt!” A strong male voice blared through the crowd. “What say we tear her open and take some of those riches for ourselves?”

    The crowd voiced their approval, each one remembering some story they were told many years ago about a golden-blooded girl from the heavens, a gift sent whose blood grants wishes to those who draw it. A weapon so priceless she was dropped in an insignificant farming village before disappearing overnight, presumed dead. As their memories encouraged their greed, Haedril wished for the warmth of her aunt’s cottage and the protection of its leaven canopy protecting her from the prying eyes of the village.

    As the townspeople drew their knives and swords, Haedril could not find a shadow among them of the people she had come to know--the kindly tavern owner, the man who always held the door for her, the group of women who sat in the corner to escape their rowdy children, or the fiddler who played every night for coin to feed his family. Not even Ealwyn remained the friend with whom she shared every new experience, who took her to the fields every night so she could look at her beloved stars. All of the humanity in these people was gone. Instead, they were murderous. And their fury was directed at her.

    Haedril ran for her life, dripping specks of golden blood behind her, her head light and dizzy from the gash. A few of the villagers pursued her beyond the tavern, but she knew the woods in a way they didn’t. She knew which tree to climb until they lost sight of her and, eventually, gave up their hunt. And then she trudged home, feeling as alone as ever she had. Unwilling to face her aunt’s judgement, she snuck silently into the cottage through the window to her bedroom. There she sat by its sill, unable to sleep. She peered through it towards the sky, searching for the comforting view she had come to love and the sense of magic it brought her--for a shred of the hope she’d so briefly had that she might actually be entitled to a life. But the night was clouded and black, and not a single star remained visible in the sky. Darkness overshadowed every single one.

---

    “I told you you’d never be able to escape them.” Aunt Morwen said, her voice thick with panic and disapproval. If Haedril listened close enough she could hear the shouts and marching feet coming from the village. She could picture the king’s soldiers tearing houses apart despite the protests of families, searching for something they would do anything to find.

    “I suppose the villagers never realized that by telling the king my location they were jeopardizing their own houses.” Haedril said, a feeling of guilt spiking in her gut. She almost wished that the guards would discover the dirt path at the edge of the town--marching its route through the woods to the small clearing containing a singular stone cottage--if only so that they’d take her and leave the poor village alone.

    “Hush.” Morwen chided. “This is not about them. You must remember how they treated you. They’d stop at nothing to see your blood spilt--that’s exactly why they called the soldiers here despite knowing that every inch of their houses would be searched for you. But I will not let their greed take you.”

    Haedril wondered at the determination in her voice. She heard the shouts drawing nearer with each quivering breath she took, and she could think of no solution; there was nowhere to hide that the soldiers wouldn’t search.

    “Our only hope is to take you away from this place--somewhere they’ll never think to look.” Aunt Morwen took a small vial from the shelf beside her, one filled with a dangerous-looking silt colored liquid. She threw the back door open and rushed into the trees, bidding Haedril to hurry behind her as she could hear the clear marching of iron-toed boots down the dirt path, nearing the threshold of the cottage.

    Aunt Morwen led her through the thick woodland that existed beyond the cottage, past the trees Haedril had climbed as a child, the rivers whose clear waters she swam in, and the nooks she’d explored and deemed a castle or a fortress. And then all familiarity fell away as they entered a place much deeper in the woods where Haedril had never been. They stopped at a small clearing in the trees which gave rise to a large cave carved into the side of the hill like a gaping mouth, pitch black darkness stretching down its throat.

    “Go in.” her aunt commanded.

    Haedril’s feet hesitated for a moment, as if they knew what was about to happen. As if they sensed that once the cave’s mouth swallowed her, it would be the end of late night trysts and exploring the woods and basking in the light of the stars, and what little life she had grown to experience would fade into darkness. But the last time Haedril was disobedient, she was almost killed, and she brought a raid of soldiers upon a town that, though deserving, had been kind to her once. She wished more than anything to have the opportunity to leave impressions upon people’s lives, and she did not want to leave a mark such as what she already had.

    So she forced herself through the threshold and into the severity of the cave’s main chamber, a rounded, damp little room; stone walls caked in dirt arching up to form a dripping natural ceiling. If Haedril extended her hand above her, her fingertips could just barely brush the stalactites that stretched down from the stone above her like living beings that might grow to impale her. She took another step forward, startling as a bug scrambled over her bare feet, looking towards the three openings at the back of the main chamber that formed tight passages presumably leading deeper into the cave’s network. Haedril couldn’t bring herself any farther towards them, for there the darkness felt innumerable.

    She turned back, a sense of foreboding overcoming her. She did not belong in the cave, she belonged under the sky and the trees, where the air wasn’t stale and confining. But when she turned to leave, her aunt, who stood just before the cave’s mouth, held out a hand as if commanding her to stop. She drew her other hand back, the one containing the vial, and then threw it at the ledge overhanging the cave’s entrance. At once there was a loud crash and a spark of fire, and the stone above the cave’s entrance crumbled into boulders, brought down along the entrance as if sealing a tomb. And with one last look at her aunt’s sympathetic face, Haedril was thrust into complete darkness. For the sake of nothing other than the blood that ran through her veins, 

she was trapped.

    There was shock.

    Darkness.

    Coldness.

    Drops of water falling from the ceiling.

    The heartstopping sound of scurrying and scratching.

    There was fear.

    Panting breath.

    A wildly beating heart.

    Scrambling hands and feet feeling the damp walls and floor of the cave.

    And then, perhaps after minutes or hours, there was light. A final albeit smaller blast of her aunt’s instant fire gouging into the cave’s ceiling a deep, deep hole, only the circumference of Haedril’s palm. Though the world was far above her she rushed to the beam of light as if she could drink it in and be delivered somewhere other than this monstrous place. And then a scrap of paper dropped through the hole towards her upturned face. It fell the long way down and she caught it from the air, unfolding it and reading it in the waning sunlight beaming through her new skylight.

    “I will send supplies every day. You shall live in confinement until I find someone free of greed who will not harm you for the power your blood contains. I will send this pure person to set you free, and they shall protect you for the rest of your days. Only then will you be safe from humanity.” Haedril read her aunt’s scrawling script aloud and wondered at the impossibility of her situation.

    She was filled with uncertainty and fear. How would she sustain herself in the darkness of this cave? Who knew how long it would take for her aunt to find someone supposedly worthy of setting her free. She wished that she had let the soldiers take her, for though she certainly would have died at their hands, she would have lived before her demise and succumbed to death in the open air looking upon human faces. Now she was isolated and useless. It was reminiscent of the loneliness she had grown up in but so much more obsolete. The world would forget her and she would forget herself, and every trace of her would be given to the stone and darkness.

    Overwhelmed by countless emotions, Haedril fell to her knees, feeling the cold stone beneath her and the darkness pressing in all around her. And, beyond all hope, she let herself succumb to the shadows.

---

    When Vrain entered her employment several months ago, Mother Morwen told him that there was a beast in the cave--that grave things would happen to the village should he not feed it daily. He figured, rather, that the old woman had trapped her goats, mistaking them for some vicious power in her elderly delusion. But he brought food and water every day as she bade him, for he couldn’t find a way to move the boulders blocking the entrance and he refused to let whatever was in the cave suffer for Mother Morwen’s negligence. And perhaps a part of him was superstitious that the cave really did harbor a beast capable of tearing his village apart, for though he only lived in a small, insignificant farming village, it was his home--there was nothing more important for him to protect. Despite the dire circumstances, he couldn’t help but think of the alleged beast as he ran through the streets. For though he fed the beast every day, it didn’t prevent him from having to watch his village burn.

    He had been out in the fields of his father’s farm, tilling the soil when he caught the first whiff of smoke in the air. He was able to pretend, for a minute, that the smell was nothing more than someone cooking or burning off weeds. And then he heard the screams--horrible, bloodcurdling things that drove him into action.

    There was a mile’s distance between the fields and the cabin where Vrain’s family lived. He ran the entire way, charging past burning crop fields and houses. A man locked in combat rolled into his path, overtaken by a muscular soldier whose blue coat bore the mark of the Enderiel Empire. Vrain swerved past them, closing his eyes against the sight of the man he most definitely knew: the kind one who sold sweet bread in his quaint little shop and handed out free samples to deserving children. There came the gruesome squelch of a sword breaking through sinew and the final scream of a man who should have lived many long years. Vrain ran faster. When he finally reached his home, he was not surprised to find it, too, alight. His family was nowhere in sight.

    He screamed for them until his voice was raw, searching the surrounding areas and trying to breach the burning walls of the crumbling house to pull them out. But soon the cabin was nothing more than ash and no one answered his calls. He was forced, then, to believe the worst…the Imperial soldiers raiding his village had killed his family. He cursed the war a thousand times over, driven to tears by his grief. But the world had no sympathy even to allow him a moment to grieve. A soldier came upon him, sword drawn. Frantically Vrain pulled his dagger from its sheath, a blade meant for working in the fields rather than spilling blood and a pittance of a weapon in comparison to that wielded by his foe. In a fit of rage Vrain stabbed blindly at his opponent, striking flesh enough that the man was incapacitated. Vrain ran away as fast as he could, not even checking to see where he hit.

    A dagger clenched in his fist, he ignored the shouts and screams of the villagers as death and destruction filled the air. He found the dirt path at the edge of the village, the one shrouded in woodland. He knew the soldiers would find the path eventually, but it remained in relative safety at least while they dessicated the rest of the town. He followed the path to a small clearing in which a quaint cottage rested, one made of smooth grey stones with a thatched red roof. He ran, taking no care not to trample the beautiful flowers he had planted along the pathway, and threw open the stained wood door so hastily he almost ripped it from its hinges. Slamming it behind him he looked about frantically for the old woman: an eccentric referred to as Mother Morwen, one that few people in town acknowledged or cared for. He had been employed as her gardener and caretaker many months ago and had since come to visit her every day, if not just to cure her loneliness. But today he brought to her the burden of seemingly unhealable grief, a fresh wound so gruesome he didn’t know how he’d live with it.

    The crone at last appeared from an inner room, walking over with stunning calmness despite the sounds of screams carrying through the woods from the village. “Mother Morwen, the Empire has come to take the village. They’re burning it to the ground and killing everyone in sight. We must make for the next town over, where the king’s soldiers take refuge. They will save us and help us defeat this foe.”

    “You truly think that a small group of the king’s soldiers is a match for the power of the Empire? They will burn more than just this village to the ground, before long. No, we will not go to another town. I have a much more important task for you. Do you remember the tale of the girl with the golden blood?”

    Vrain nodded, hastily, shifting his weight between his feet as if he might bolt for the door at any second. “Mother Morwen I don’t see why this is relevant. Can you not hear the screams?

The empire is coming for us.”

    Morwen ignored him, her wrinkled face remaining placid and calm. “The girl from the stories, Haedril, is my niece. After her parents abandoned her for her peculiarity, she was brought into my care. I hid her from the world for many years, but I couldn’t keep her safe from her own curiosity. You might remember the day the villagers found her in a tavern, or the time a month later when they told the king of her existence and the village was torn apart in search of her.”

    “I do remember.” Vrain replied. “They never found her.” The memory is fresh, not unlike what was happening in the village as they spoke, though the king’s soldiers didn’t kill when they came.

    “That is because I hid her somewhere no one would think to look.”

    A wave of recognition dawned on Vrain. “The cave.” It was no beast that he had been feeding for months, but rather the most coveted girl in the kingdom.

    “That place is no longer safe as long as this kingdom and the Edreniel Empire are at war. I promised her that I would find someone pure of heart and free of greed to set her free. It seems fate has brought you to me for that purpose.”

    “But Mother Morwen I only came to help you escape the raid--”

    “You must deliver her and keep her safe, Vrain. So many people would 

kill Haedril without second thought, because though a small wound in her flesh might produce an equally small wish, the one who kills her can manipulate the universe if he wishes. The greed of humanity is strong in the face of such power. I cannot think what might happen should the king or the Empire get their hands on her.”

    Vrain was speechless for a second. He felt burdened almost immediately by responsibility. He had not come to the cottage to save a stranger from a cave, but rather to save the old woman he cared for, the closest thing to family he could find among the chaos, from meeting the same fate of his parents and sisters. And yet he felt almost obligated. The rest of the village was very well dead or dying at this point, and so too would be anyone remaining in this cottage when the soldiers came. If he was unable to save Haedril, she would remain in her cave forgotten until she ran out of food, for there would be no one to care for her any longer.

    “Please, save her.” Morwen begged. She pressed into his hand a small vial filled with a strange liquid. “Take this bottle to the cave and shatter it upon the cave’s ceiling where you normally deliver the food. There will be a small explosion and an opening will be created big enough for you to pull her through. From there take her south away from this kingdom and this war, and protect her for as long as you are able.”

    “And what of you?”

    “I will die as I am meant to--defending my home. Now go!”

    “You must come with me.” Vrain protested, frantically. He heard the shouts of soldiers and the sounds of their feet marching through the woods. They’d found the path. He couldn’t stand to watch yet another person he cared for die.

    “I cannot. Save her in my stead.” Morwen answered, still calmly as if she had long accepted her fate. And with that she opened the back door and thrust him out into the woods beyond, closing and locking the door behind him. He rushed towards the door as if to break it down and force the woman to come with him, but he heard the unmistakable sound of voices just beyond the cottage’s threshold. The soldiers had arrived with their torches and swords, ready to set alight the last house of the village they had conquered. Vrain, blinded by rage, wished for a moment to attack them himself and take his revenge, but sense soon caught up to him. There were dozens of soldiers and all he had was his dagger and a small vial of liquid. He was no match. And so, with a heavy heart, he turned away from the cottage and delved deeper into the woods.

    He followed a short journey through the wilderness, the same one he had made each day for months, and found that the farther he delved into the woods, the less the sounds of destruction and disaster could reach him. For the lack of chaos, he was allowed to think, and his grief was given space to manifest. His demeanor changed. So much had been taken from him in the span of an hour. His house was gone, his village was gone, his livelihood was gone, and everyone he knew was dead or dying. He could very well assume he was the only survivor, for he was one of the few people that even knew of the sheltered path leading to Mother Morwen’s cottage. All he had once cared about was now no more, and such an emptiness as he had never felt overcame him. He had nothing left. And then he had a shred of hope as he remembered the vial in his hand and the girl in the cave.

    A girl who had been trapped her whole life, who had never known true life and surely wouldn’t miss it. In fact, she might even ask for death. Especially if she knew he would use his wish to save countless people. She would be something of a hero, and her loss would not be in vain. That’s what Vrain told himself as he walked. Suddenly a clear path of fate lay before him. He would not kill her for greed as Mother Morwen had worried, but for the good of many. He would be grateful for the second chance, and would restore his life to the way it was before chaos struck.

    Vrain smiled, his mind at peace once more, his grief forgotten. He said a silent prayer of thanks that he went to Mother Morwen’s cottage through the chaos, for if he hadn’t he never would have known how he was destined to save his village.

    He came, finally, upon Haedril’s cave. He had every intention of setting her free. And he had every intention of killing her.

---

    Darkness.

    Emptiness.

    A pang of hunger.

    A pang of longing.

    Uselessness.

    And then, suddenly, a sound like an explosion.

    A light so bright Haedril might have believed she was looking at the sun itself. It made her eyes water, and when the tears cleared she saw a face. Her first thought after months of broken consciousness and scattered sensations was that she must have died at last. The face she saw was an angel’s. His golden hair was made of sunlight and his kindly countenance was that of the stars.

    He reached a hand towards her.

    Fear.

    Pain.

    Hope.

    She reached for the hand in turn, grasping for it. The feeling of soft human skin was so unlike the dirt and grime of the damp stone walls. The air that filled her lungs as the angel hoisted her out of the cave was air that she could breathe deeply, air that she could sing and speak and devour. At once a consciousness seemed to come to her that she remembered but had not experienced in what felt like years. The soft grass and warm sun and towering trees awakened in her a memory of what her life had once been, and she was no longer living in broken uselessness. She could think once more, and she felt a little more human than beast for a second as a smile came to her face. She turned once more to the angel.

    “If this is death, it is most pleasant.” She said, her voice scratchy and foreign with disuse.

    The angel raised an eyebrow, though he gave an almost amused smirk. “You’re very much alive, Haedril.” He said.

    Haedril could think of no reply, for she wouldn’t believe him if not for the breath that she felt spilling into her lungs. She became aware as the euphoria wore off that the boy was no angel. His plain brown tunic and black pants reminded her of what a farmer from her village might wear. And as her ability to think clearly came back to her, she remembered that her Aunt Morwen had promised to send a pure-hearted savior to deliver her from the darkness.

    “You’re the one she deemed free of greed?” A shadow passed across the farm boy’s face as she asked this. She thought to herself that he didn’t look particularly pure or special, with his dirt stained clothes and face. And he studied her unusually, as if she were someone to be revered or feared. “You’re the one worthy of me and all the possibilities of my blood?”

    “I hope to be.” He said. “My name is Vrain, and I was sent to set you free. But that is not the only reason I came…” he trailed off, and at once Haedril began to notice more about the world around her.

    The smell of smoke drifting on the breeze.

    The blood staining Vrain’s skin.

    The determined look in his eyes.

    The dagger he held in his hands.

    She knew then that he meant to kill her. Overtaken by a sense of danger and a primal instinct, Haedril turned to run. But she was weak and disoriented. The ground seemed to slip from beneath her and she found herself laying in the hard dirt. The boy who was supposed to be her savior wasted no time pinning her there with the feeling of cold, sharp iron at her throat.

    “I am not taking your life for greed.” He explained, as if he couldn’t bear the thought that she saw him as a monster. “I am taking it to save my village. You’ve been trapped for the entirety of your existence because of your blood. You have never truly lived--” “And therefore my life is worth nothing?” Haedril interjected.

    “Your life is worth everything. By giving it, you save others. Your usefulness is beyond what anyone can hope for. You would be a hero.”

“Should I not be able to choose that path for myself?” She shouted, her voice raised in anger at the realization that she stumbled from one cage into yet another.

    Vrain hesitated for a second, regret passing over his features before determination hardened them once more. With the press of the dagger into her neck, a sharp bite of pain and the feeling of blood spilling from the yet shallow wound, Haedril let out one last scream, a cry of fierce fury searching for justice in an unjust world. And just as she prepared herself for true death, she heard the sound of horse hooves on the dirt.

    In an instant Vrain was pulled off of her, his dagger falling to the ground as he’s swept clean off his feet by a muscular, bearded man atop a beautiful white horse. He held Vrain by the neck with one arm, brandishing a sword at his throat with the other. “You shall not harm her, Edreniel filth. You’ve brought this village enough destruction for one day.”

    Vrain bucked and gasped against the man’s hold. “I’m not an Imperial soldier!” he pleaded. “I bear not their emblem. I have no sword or torch. I live in the very village that they destroyed!”

    “Then why were you trying to kill this poor woman?”

    Vrain did not answer, only continuing to struggle. Several more men on horseback, about a dozen, gathered behind them in the woods. They were the king’s soldiers sent to save the village from destruction, each bearing weapons and armor. Though they had come too late to save the village, they heard Haedril scream and were eager at the prospect of saving at least one life. The man holding Vrain let his gaze stray to Haedril where she cowered on the ground. At once his gaze caught on the blood spilling from the shallow wound in her neck. With a gasp he released Vrain, dismounting his horse and inching towards her with disbelief. She scrambled to her feet, though the remaining soldiers circled around the clearing with their horses, blocking her from fleeing into the woods. She couldn’t escape them, nor the conclusion they’d surely make of her. The soldier stopped before her, raising a gentle hand to swipe her wound. His fingers came away smeared with gold, which he displayed to his fellow riders.

    “I might not have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, but this girl is the star-touched one with the golden blood.” The man announced. “The one our King has been searching for for years. We thought she was dead, and yet…” He trailed off, turning his gaze back to Vrain. “Where did you find her?”

    Vrain regarded the man with suspicion, providing only silence for an answer. The man huffed with irritation. “Nevermind. She will be taken to the castle and delivered to the king whether you answer me or not.”

    “No such thing will happen!” Vrain broke his silence, his voice laced with fury. “I found her and delivered her from her captivity. She is mine, and her blood is mine to use.”

    “She belongs to the king, and her blood is his to use! Don’t you know what he could do with it? The war could be over. Your pittance of a village would not have died for nothing.”

    “I will use her blood to save my village, which is far from a pittance…”

    Haedril found that she could no longer pay attention to the men bickering over her as if she were a common good in the marketplace. They spoke of her blood as if it was a treasure they might steal. They spoke of her life as if it were worthless, below consequence. They spoke of her as if she were expendable, nothing more than a vessel for the great power within her.

    Mother Morwen chose Vrain for his lack of greed, but if he was devoid of greed she didn’t know what greed was.

    The king’s soldiers are meant to defend the kingdom, and yet they treated her as if she wasn’t a member of their kingdom herself.

    Since she was born, Haedril had been trapped. Her parents abandoned her. She was given to her Aunt Morwen, who locked her in the safety of her cottage and never let her leave. She experienced a brief year of life beneath the stars, but even then she was a captive in her own body, hiding her identity from even her closest friend. When that identity was revealed she was betrayed, and locked in a prison of darkness that no human should ever have to experience. Even now that she’s been freed from that prison, each path before her leads to unwitting death by someone else’s hand. They claim to use her blood for good, yet they speak as if it’s even theirs to use. Haedril was blessed with such a magnificent power, and yet it belonged to everyone else.

   Why, she thought, can I not use it for myself?

    If she could use it, she would use it for life.

    She wanted life back. And yet everyone she’d ever known had tried to deprive her of it, whether under the guise of safety or friendship or heroism, as if she didn’t deserve to make her own decisions solely because of the fault and greed of the human race. She wanted to use her own power to her own liking. And as she was ruminating this, she remembered something her aunt had told her when describing to her why she was trapped in the cottage all day.

    “One who steals your lifeblood is granted a wish so powerful they can change the very universe.”

    Haedril’s eyes flicked to the dagger that Vrain had dropped on the ground. She was stricken with fear for a moment that the idea forming in her head wouldn’t work. That she would waste her life by choosing death, taking a risk that could never be undone. But freedom, she decided, was worth the price.

    Vrain and the soldiers were so busy arguing over her that they didn’t notice her crawl silently across the ground to the dagger. They didn’t notice until she had already pierced her own chest deep, gasping at the overwhelming pain. And even then they couldn’t believe what they saw.

    A river of gold poured from Haedril’s chest as she removed the dagger, letting it flow free. Collapsing down to the ground she choked on it as it filled her mouth. Her hands were coated in it. Her sight was blurry. And as her lifeblood flowed out of her she took a drop of it in her hands. So magnificent a thing that had manipulated her entire life. She would be glad to be rid of it.

    “I wish…” she gasped around the blood. “For a second chance.”

                  And at her wish she spoke no more, and her whole world dissolved into starlight.