Prologue
Desdemona Althenia was but six years old the first time she bore witness to Death.
She believes she remembers the day vividly, as it was the day the Neptharian War began. Yet, there is always a subtle trick with memory—especially those we believe to be most vivid.
This was the second village she called home, a place for miners. The air was thick with soot, more so than with breath itself. There were few trees, no flowers to speak of, nor bodies of water to offer respite. Life was barren in this village, and it was on the cusp of becoming even more so.
Though Desdemona insists she remembers this day with precision, she would swear the quality of the air felt no different from any other.
A Nepenthe flashed by, super speed carrying him past Desdemona before she could make out his movements. In his wake lay three Folk, their heads twisted at unnatural angles.
Another Nepenthe—whether the same or a different one, Desdemona would never be certain—returned, cradling a Folk.
Well, only her head.
The three Folk on the ground ignited, and the severed head fell with them, consumed by the flames. Isa grasped her daughter’s hand, and together, they fled into the woods.
It is here that her claim of a vivid memory begins to truly falter.
They ran for miles. When Desdemona’s small legs could no longer keep up, Isa lifted her in her arms. Each time they stopped, Isa crouched behind the tallest grasses she could find, as if hiding from something unseen.
“Are you hurt?” Isa asked.
Desdemona shook her head. This was yet another thing she finds difficult to recall: the silence she swore by in her early years. With each day, I watched, waiting for her to speak, longing for wisdom that would transcend her youth.
The longer I observed, the stronger my understanding became.
The removal of memory shapes a person. Memories carry emotion, and emotion is energy—energy which cannot die.
Each time Isa stole Desdemona’s memories, the emotions remained.
And an emotion without a rational cause can make one feel as though they’ve lost their very mind.
That night, the two of them slept beneath the stars.
“This is something you haven’t seen yet,” Isa whispered, holding Desdemona’s hand.
She pointed toward the sky with the other.
“That’s Aeliana and Persiphis. And that’s Surma—Sulva’s son.
” She told the stories of the constellations, their fates woven into the tapestry of the heavens.
Then, turning her gaze back to Desdemona, she squeezed her hand.
“Much cooler than a plain old ceiling, yes?”
Desdemona smiled, but she was not amused.
Desdemona was cold, but she did not shiver.
Desdemona saw the dead Folk behind her closed eyes, but she did not speak.
She knew that every time she did something to upset Isa, discomfort followed. It was the removal of a memory. Though, at the time, she was unaware of such a possibility.
But she always felt it, fractured as the feeling was.
The following day, Isa killed a possum and asked Desdemona to start a fire.
“But you don't like…”
“We need it,” Isa said sharply. Desdemona didn’t recoil; she barely reacted. Isa could see she’d startled her daughter. “It’s all right.” She softened her tone. “If I’m here, nothing bad will happen. Understand?”
Desdemona nodded. The fire ignited with such ease, it was like wiggling a toe. The heat spread from her stomach, up through her torso, and to her chest. She held the flame in her hand, and Isa held the possum over it. Desdemona was a living bonfire, radiating heat and light with every breath.
They spent days in the woods, living with the animals, before Desdemona asked, “Are we going to another village?” Sometimes it took weeks to travel between them.
“Yes,” Isa replied.
Desdemona believed her. Now, she knows that was her own fault. For Isa planned to wait out the war in the woods, away from the Nepenthes, away from the threat. Desdemona understands that now.
She didn’t yesterday.
Each day, Desdemona employed her magic to cook their food. Nothing ill came of it. She did not set the forest ablaze, nor did she harm any living soul. She simply prepared their meals, and they continued on.
After a month, Desdemona had grown accustomed to the fire. By the third, it had become second nature. Today, in the quiet moments of reflection, she wonders: had she not forgotten, would she have ever faced a problem at all?
Could she have been a master of the Flame?
But forget she did. As such, she didn’t merely face problems, but she became one. Killing in every village, forcing her mother and her to run—more than even Isa had planned.
They spent a year and a half in the woods. When the war finally ceased, and they made it to another village, Isa did what she had always done—she erased Desdemona’s memory. Their life in the woods vanished from her mind, replaced with one of a village, much like all the others.
Isa, however, added one awful truth: the Nepenthes were wicked and vile.
For the next ten years, Desdemona remembered a hut in place of the trees, a ceiling in place of the stars, and murder in place of the meadows. The war—once avoided—was now a retched experience, in memory alone.
With it, Desdemona forgot how effortless it had been to wield her magic—that there was a switch inside her, one she could flip with little more than a thought. She struggled to recall what she knew at six: she could use fire to aid in survival, to cook food, and to generate warmth on cold nights.
And after she killed Bernice and Nova, she forgot she could use magic at all. Each time her fire rose to the surface, she killed. The next day, she forgot.
Isa was afraid of Desdemona.
So Desdemona was, too.