Six years later, I sat in those woods, thinking about him and the day he brought me out there. I thought about the long, hard, battle-filled winters and sweaty training summers, and how unfair it was that, after all of that, he didn’t make it. His own child would never know what he looked like.      But why? Why would I miss someone who endangered all of us, our entire society, for reasons he wouldn’t even tell to Estell? He was weak, that bastard, and he let the demons get to him. …right?      None of us really knew. Of course Reva knew, but would she ever tell any of us? Hell no. So we were all left to grope in the dark, all of us starting rumors and privately speculating, never really knowing. We were never going to know. Why? Why? Why why why why -      My brain stopped working. There is no other way to describe it. My ears rang and I collapsed to the ground, clutching my head and not breathing. Why?      “It is because one misses Salem.” A delicate hand touched my shoulder. I would’ve said hello, but instead I almost screamed because I was already panicking. A high-pitched “H-hhhlllnohhh…” was what came out.      “Name of mine, Lothiriel,” she said. “One needs help to calm?”      I nodded vigorously.      She sang something in Elvin I didn’t understand, plucked a strand of hair from her head, broke it in half with her fingernail, then smiled and kissed my forehead.      Calmness washed over me. I gasped for air like a fish. “Wh-who…”      “As said, is Lothiriel. You?”      “My name…my…” I realized I hated my name. “I…” “Void” suddenly felt like someone else. It felt like that person who closed himself off from everything and everyone, shut down his emotions so he would stop being hurt. That wasn’t me anymore.      “Time, there is lots.” She nodded, sensing my hesitation.      “Thank you,” I said. Reva might be pissed about my name change because she’d have to edit the records, but oh well. “Why are you helping me?”      “Chance,” she said. “Cevenaur comes much at here, to see.”      “To see?”      “Danger.” Her eyes grew wide. “Much danger, here.” She leaned in close and whispered, “Cevenaur is danger also.”      “Oh,” I said. “Do you need to hide from him?”      “Hide?” She shook her head. “Leave. Always.”      I took a deep breath. “Okay. Come back with me, to where I live.”      “How far?”      "Not that far," I replied. "It's the shabby castle in the distance. I will have to ask if you can stay, though. That's not my decision."      Lothiriel nodded and stood up with me. "Thank you, Miluion."      She named me? What did that mean? I wondered as I walked back with her. "Milui" meant "friendly," "on" was just a masculine suffix, right? "Friendly one?" I liked it.      I pushed open the giant doors. Their creaking echoed through the whole palace, alerting everyone of my arrival. Immediately, Reva came sprinting down the staircase, the wooden soles on her boots clacking angrily against the cold stone. "Where the hell have you been?" She was practically hissing, patches of fur already standing from her human skin, but she began to calm when she saw our visitor. "And who is this?"      "Name of mine, Lothiriel," she said again as she bowed respectfully. "Miluion I found, in the forest, in the danger, the spirit danger and Cevenaur danger."      Reva raised her eyes at my new name, but nodded. "Thank you for bringing him back. I am grateful for that. Who is Cevenaur? Is that alright for me to know?"      "Cevenaur leads, watches over the spirit danger, but the spirits hurt him now." Lothiriel sighed. "Much regret, I am for poor speaking."      "It's alright, I understand." Reva smiled a bit. "Our residents aren't very fluent in Elvin, but they are learning slowly. In time, you can master many languages, if you wish. So, your leader, Cevenaur, is being affected by the demons in the area?"      Lothiriel nodded. "Yes. He is much, much danger. No more staying are safe."      "Do you need shelter here?"      "Yes, if it can. Is danger here, too?" She looked around warily.      "No, no - though I suppose you can sense there was once an evil presence here. It is gone. It has been for a while. We keep up on cleansing rituals, just in case." Reva rolled her eyes at me, sensing my emotional twinge at the thought of Salem. "You can stay for as long as you need. I will show you to your room. Void, in my office, immediately," she called over her shoulder as they began walking back up the stairs.      Every single door in this damn place was heavy, ridiculously huge, and made of solid oak. Just walking around for everyday activities was exhausting. I took a glance around the room to see that Celestine was there, browsing the ancient texts that spilled off the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Xe took a glance over xir shoulder at me as I shut the door. "Hey. What're you in for?"     "I took a walk and brought back an Elvin refugee. What about you?" I asked as I plopped down on the stone bench in front of Reva's cluttered desk.      "I spilled a bunch of the paint that Zephyr made all over the kitchen, right after Estell got done sweeping the floors." Xe sighed, but it came out more like a grunt. "I just want to try splatterpaint!" A golden feather poked out of xir hair.      Reva burst in, her long brown hair swishing dramatically in the wind the door created. "What were you doing out there?" she snapped at me.      I hesitated, not sure if I wanted Celestine to hear this or not. "Well..."      "Celestine, please step into the next room for a moment," she muttered. Xe nodded and disappeared into the bookshelves. "What. Were. You. Doing?"      "I just needed some time to think," I said. "It hasn't been easy, you know, and it certainly doesn't make it easier when you won't tell any of us what the fuck happened!"      She growled and slammed her hands down on her desk. "You think it's easy keeping it from you? Do you think it's fun to hide the truth, especially with a mind-reader around? Do you think I do this for kicks? No! I have a responsibility as a leader to keep you all safe, and sometimes that means you can't know everything."      "Do you think it's fun being kept in the dark?" I began to stare her down. "Do you think it's all fun and games to have panic attacks, wake up screaming and sweating from recurring nightmares, want to die because you can't help but think it's your fault, watch everyone avoid saying his name like the thought of him is a curse? Do you have any fucking clue what any of us are going through? Or do you just not give a shit?" I clenched my teeth and fists, trying not to yell as I continued: "His own daughter doesn't know who he is, Estell doesn't know what happened to him, and you're over here acting like keeping everything from us will keep us safe, will keep him out of our minds and keep the place 'clean'. It doesn't work like that, damnit! There has to be some closure, some kind of resolution, because if not then everyone living here is going to hate you. Can't you feel the resentment building? Everyone is so damn tense all the time and it's because they're walking on eggshells, trying not to upset you or each other. You pulled me in here for taking a damn walk when I'm a grown-ass man, fully skilled in self-defense. Celestine was in here because xe spilled paint! What is wrong with you, Reva? What is going on? The more you don't tell us, the worse everything gets, but I guess you haven't figured that out by now."      She looked like she was about to quit holding herself together and tear me to shreds. "How dare you speak to me like that?"      "It's about time someone said it, in my opinion. So are you going to talk about what happened or not? Because the truth is eating you alive, and the lies aren't helping us out either." I glared at her.      She bit her lip - hard. It bled a bit.  Her eyes were slits. (That rhymes...amazing.) "Get out. I can't look at you, I can't deal with you right now," she said softly, turning away and looking down. "Go up to the observatory. Don't talk to anyone."      I stomped out of her office, making sure the door slammed on the way out. The observatory was the desolate balcony at the very top of the north tower. There wasn't a clear definition of flights of stairs since it was all one winding staircase, so I'll just say it was a very, very long way up. No one used that place anymore because it was so out of the way, and the wind blew so hard you had to grab onto the unstable railing to make sure you didn't fly away. I thought she was giving me a time-out until I walked through the entrance room.      There were symbols drawn everywhere on the walls in various substances - chalk, paint, rock dust, raw berry juice...some looked like blood. There were bones of small animals everywhere. A massive, ominous-looking book sat on a table full of various altars. Underneath the table was a messy stack of old notebooks. A pile of sheets were crammed into a corner. They looked like they'd been slept on many times and never moved. The whole room radiated a negative energy that cut off my breath and made me feel panicked.      "This is what he'd been doing." Reva had made it up the stairs behind me without making a sound. "He prayed to the Moon one time and asked for help, and then this started." She sighed as she looked around the room. "We never gave him a cleansing ritual. Remember that?" I nodded. "It turns out he had tons of scars from violent physical abuse that he'd endured since childhood. During the Moon ritual, he would've had to cut his wrist, and then his body was all for the demons. The negative energy trapped in those scars must've been astounding."      "He...he was...possessed?" I felt dizzy. "For h-how long?" "At least a year," she said. "Maybe even five or six. I'm not sure. He kept journals when he could regain control, but it's not like he had any way to tell the date, so they're all kind of foggy." She picked up the notebook on top of the pile and held it out to me.      I took it hesitantly. I steadied my breathing before flipping through to find its last entry. In large and messy scrawls, it read:      "i don't know what's happening anymore im so scared and confused estell i don't understand why i keep hurting you i don't understand what i did please help me please i don't remember anything i don't remember my mother's name why does void hate me where did haku go what did i do what have i been doing what is wrong with your stomach i don't understand!!! i don't understand anything anymore i don't want to be like this i feel like i'm going to die i feel so helpless and overwhelmed please please please help me what year is it"      My dizziness came back, this time with tears welling behind my eyes. "So he...he just..." I couldn't finish my sentence. Until now, we had all thought that Salem had been a rebel, a simple spy for the other side, then regretted his choices and offed himself. But that didn't really make any sense - not with the Salem we knew, the real one.      I turned around to thank her, but she was already gone.