Roya dropped her satchel. The dried herbs scattered into the mud, forgotten.
She broke into a dead sprint toward the roaring flames. The heat radiated down the dirt path, thick and suffocating, carrying the heavy, bitter stench of burning wood and ash.
As she got closer, the terrifying roar of the fire was suddenly pierced by the sound of voices. A massive, unified chant that sent ice through Roya's veins.
"Where is that witch?!"
"Tell us now!"
"Cleanse the demon!"
Roya reached the edge of the hill.
Her house was completely engulfed in violent orange flames. But worse than the fire was the crowd gathered in front of it. Nearly the entire village of Oakhaven was there.
Roya kept walking, pushing her way through the dense, shoving crowd. The faces of the people she had known her entire life—the people she had healed, the merchants she had bargained with—looked entirely unrecognizable in the dark.
The flickering firelight cast harsh, demonic shadows across their features, twisting them into strangers fueled by pure, fanatic hatred.
Slowly, as she moved through them, their heads began to turn. Hundreds of eyes locked onto her.
"This is your last chance for salvation!" a priest in a pristine white robe shouted over the roar of the fire, holding his wooden symbol high in the air.
Roya stopped dead in her tracks at the front of the crowd.
Laying in the dirt in front of the burning house was Elara. Her clothes were torn. Her face and arms were covered in dark, fresh bruises. She looked completely exhausted, her voice hoarse from screaming and crying.
Standing directly over her was Garret.
The heavy, bearded man had his heavy leather boot pressed firmly onto Elara's wrist. He was twisting his heel, grinding her fragile bones into the dirt while she wept helplessly.
A switch flipped inside Roya's mind. The fear, the panic, the anxiety of being surrounded by the mob—it all instantly evaporated, replaced by a pure, unadulterated, blinding rage.
The air around Roya began to violently shake.
The dirt beneath her boots vibrated. A massive, terrifying surge of energy exploded from her chest. Her deep purple Aether flooded out, wrapping around her entire body.
But it wasn't just purple anymore. Fueled by her absolute, bloodthirsty fury, the edges of her Aether burned with a dark, violent crimson.
Her hair lifted wildly into the air, glowing with that same terrifying, blood-tinged purple light. The sheer pressure of her aura kicked up a heavy wind, blowing the dirt and ash away from her feet.
"The witch is here!"
one of the priests shrieked, pointing a trembling finger at her glowing form. "Look! She is using the demon's powers!"
Roya didn't hear him. She didn't care about the mob. Her glowing, hollow violet eyes were locked entirely on Garret.
She began to walk toward him. The crimson-tinged Aether rapidly condensed into both of her hands, shifting into a dense, deadly pressure. She hadn't learned how to fight, but she didn't need to. She was going to rip his heart apart from the inside.
Garret took a terrified step backward, his foot slipping off Elara's wrist. "T-That witch is coming!" he stammered, his face pale with horror. "Stop her!"
Roya raised her glowing hands.
THUD.
A sickening crack echoed in her skull.
Someone from the mob had swung a thick, heavy piece of burning firewood directly into the back of her head.
Roya's vision exploded into a blinding flash of white light. The crimson Aether instantly shattered, evaporating into the dark air. She stumbled forward, catching a brief glimpse of splintered, burning wood bouncing away across the dirt.
Her knees buckled. Before she even hit the ground, the world faded into complete, suffocating darkness.
The sky was unnaturally red.
Roya's eyes fluttered open for a fraction of a second. The world was spinning wildly. Her ears were ringing with a deafening, high-pitched whine that drowned out the roaring chants of the crowd.
She couldn't move her arms. She felt the rough, unforgiving dirt and jagged rocks tearing through her clothes, scraping the skin off her back and legs.
(They're... dragging me...) The realization was a dull, foggy thought. She saw dozens of dark boots marching beside her. The mob was pulling her through the village.
Before the panic could set in, the pain in her head flared with agonizing force, and she spiraled back into the black void.
When she regained consciousness for the second time, she awoke to a horror no human should ever have to witness.
Roya gasped, her lungs burning as she sucked in the humid air.
She was in the empty, harvested rice fields at the edge of the village. Her back was pressed hard against a massive, upright wooden log. Beneath her feet were towering piles of dry sticks, hay, and kindling.
Warm, thick blood was dripping steadily from the gash on the back of her head, running down her neck. Her right eye was completely swollen shut, throbbing with a dull, sickening ache where someone had brutally punched her in the face while she was unconscious.
When she tried to shift her weight, a blinding spike of agony shot up her left leg. It was broken.
She desperately tried to summon her Aether, to force her energy out and cut herself free. But as she pulled her hands, she heard the heavy, metallic clinking of thick iron chains binding her wrists to the log.
(I can't...) Roya's mind raced in terrified circles. She pushed her Aether against the heavy metal, trying to force it to snap the links, but it was entirely useless.
(It's not strong enough. My Aether isn't sharp enough to cut through solid iron! And my head... I can't even focus!)
Her head was spinning so violently from the concussion that her energy simply fizzled out against the metal. She was completely, utterly helpless.
Surrounding the pyre was the entire village. The dark, shifting mass of people stared up at her with twisted, hateful expressions.
"Burn the witch!"
"Burn the witch!"
"Burn the witch!"
The chanting was deafening. Standing at the front of the mob was the lead priest, tightly gripping his wooden cross symbol.
"Today, by the Goddess's will," the priest roared, his voice echoing across the empty fields, "we will punish this pitiful witch who has sold her soul to the devil!"
Through the ringing in her ears, Roya faintly heard a voice tearing through the noise.
"Roya! Roya!"
Roya snapped her head to the left, her one good eye widening in absolute terror.
Just a few feet away, tied to a separate wooden log with her own pile of dry kindling underneath, was Elara. Her mother was bleeding, her face battered, but her eyes were locked entirely on her daughter.
"First," the priest bellowed, turning toward Elara and raising a burning torch high into the air. "We will burn the wench who sheltered and gave birth to the demon!"
The priest threw the burning torch into the dry sticks at Elara's feet.
The flames caught instantly, crackling and hissing as they quickly spread upward, wrapping around the base of the log.
"No!" Roya screamed, her voice tearing her throat apart.
"Mom! MOM!"
Elara didn't scream at the heat. As the flames began to rise, she fought against her ropes, looking desperately at Roya through the thick, choking smoke. Tears streamed down her bruised cheeks.
"Roya, listen to me!" Elara shrieked, her voice frantic, raw, and breathless. "Forgive me! As a mother, I failed you! As a wife, I failed my husband! Because of me, you couldn't follow your dreams! You gave up everything for me!"
"Stop!" Roya sobbed, thrashing violently against the heavy iron chains, ignoring the agonizing pain of her broken leg.
"Stop talking! Somebody help her! Please!"
"I wish you had a better mother than me!" Elara screamed, her voice cracking as the flames surged higher, completely engulfing the bottom of her dress.
"Forgive me, my little bird! Forgive—"
The roaring flames swallowed the rest of her words.
"MOTHER!" Roya shrieked, her throat bleeding from the sheer force of her scream. Tears poured from her one open eye, cutting clean lines through the blood and dirt on her face.
"I don't want anyone else! You did everything you could! Mom! MOM!"
But there was no answer. Only the violent, crackling roar of the fire.
Something inside Roya completely shattered. The iron will, the desperate need to survive—it all collapsed into a hollow, gaping void of pure, absolute despair. She hung limply in the heavy iron chains, her spirit entirely broken.
Through her blurred, tear-filled vision, she saw another priest begin to walk toward her, a burning torch in his hand.
Suddenly, a figure stepped out from the mob and grabbed the priest's arm.
It was Finn.
"Let me," Finn said, his voice eerily calm.
He took the burning torch from the priest and walked toward Roya's pyre.
As he stepped up to the dry sticks, he leaned in close, the flickering firelight illuminating the twisted, sick grin on his face.
"I told you I'd make you regret rejecting me," Finn whispered softly, his eyes filled with a toxic, possessive darkness. "If I can't have you... no one can."
Finn casually tossed the burning stick into the dry kindling directly beneath Roya's broken leg.
The fire ignited instantly. The intense, blistering heat licked at her boots.
Roya didn't even try to pull away. She was losing too much blood from the gash on her head. The heavy smoke filled her lungs, choking her, pulling her rapidly toward the edge of consciousness.
The deafening roar of the mob faded completely. All sound vanished. Her hearing was completely gone.
She could only vividly see the dark, twisted shapes of the villagers, their faces painted with horrific, shadowy grins as they watched her burn. The fire climbed higher, the agonizing heat finally reaching her skin. Roya's eye began to slide shut.
(Dad... Mom... I'm sorry...)
Then, through her fluttering eye, she saw it.
A massive, blinding flash of brilliant, razor-sharp Azure light cut violently through the total silence of the darkness.
It was so bright it illuminated the entire rice field. The dark, hateful grins on the villagers' faces were instantly wiped away, slowly twisting into expressions of sheer,
unadulterated horror as the Azure blade of light tore through the night sky.
Before Roya could see what the light had hit, the suffocating smoke filled her lungs one final time, and she completely slipped away into the dark