#nualie

For them to be discarded like nothing? Thought of as bramble that needed to be burned in order to open the way? Greed. Greed and foolishness and yet, so much blood spilled because of it. So many untenable sins, clogged up under her nails. She'd never been afraid of killing, afraid of doing what needed to be done. Her father raised her well, taught her how to wield her blade with determination, but also to not lash out senselessly.

Her father, always thinking of her, always telling her to try her best.

Her father, dead.

Her father, her friends, her tribe. Any and all she met, it was like she was a carrion bird, anywhere she roosted, corpses bloomed at her feet.

And yet.

She huddled in the dark, hands pressing into her side, trying to keep it closed. It didn't matter. She knew. She could feel death coming, and it was not a comfort. She was going to die in that dark hole, alone and forgotten, and no one was going to care. Just like no one had cared about Aderfi. Or Azariq. Or Hugeweh. Or Mendas. Or Yuften.

Gods, she had killed so many, the faces and names blurred in her mind, names slowly slipping through her fingers like sand.

And for what?

It burned. On her tongue, like unspoken truths. At the corner of her eyes, like all the tears she'd learned to swallow back. In her very flesh, where she'd carved all the lessons her father taught her. It burned, brighter than the sun, hotter than her hatred.

It burned.

She burned.

"Shh," came the voice, and a hand curled around her eyes, the other over the gash on her side. "Shh, I've got you."

When the Traveler found her, her pursuers were dead. All of them, the ones outside the small temple she'd retreated into, the ones in the camps dotted all around her tribe's abandoned hunting routes, all the way back to the capital in the rain forest. She knew, because she went looking. Vengeance demanded it. Justice, too.

Because she didn't die, in the dark, even though it felt like a part of her did.