It took only an instant, but it felt like eternity.
She remembered every detail, with or without the visual reminder. Her heartbeat quickened as she focused her blue eyes on the provincial town before her. For a town in the country, it was large—the long row of buildings with scattered townspeople milling around the bordering streets. It was an ordinary place filled with ordinary people, but it was still her entire world.
And then it happened. The end. She knew it was coming, as she always did, but it was still too late to close her eyes.
There was no sound or light. Nothing she could see swept past her; whatever came was both entirely invisible and entirely unavoidable. Nothing was spared the wave of massacre.
People walking in the street suddenly clutched at their throats. Others crawled out of buildings only to roll out onto the street. Horses toppled over; dogs convulsed. All living things writhed in agony.
And then, in a terrible wave of shooting geysers, blood began to spray. Blood burst and leaked from eyes, ears, mouths, and lacerations. Body fluids spewed into the air and ran through the cracks in the streets as the people and animals thrashed and clawed at themselves.
There were no screams. Throats shook and tongues quivered, but there was nothing to transmit the sound. The townspeople and their creatures writhed in a terrifying silence.
The blood suddenly foamed. The townspeople thrashed as the fluids boiled and evaporated, leaving the internal organs and muscles to boil within. Rather than liquid blood, red froth oozed and sprayed from pores and wounds.
The air pressure had dropped and created a vacuum. It caused lacerations on skin and a sweeping lowering of the boiling point. It couldn’t be a natural phenomenon— clearly some force was driving the destruction.
Strategic level attack magic. She wouldn’t learn that phrase until many years later. To a girl like her, who knew nothing about military magic, the attack was a cataclysm beyond human comprehension.
The only thing she could hear over the thundering of her heartbeat was the choked gurgling in her own throat. As the swath of destruction continued before her, she watched men and women and children die in agony. She had no way of fighting back. How could she, when she had no idea what was happening? She had no idea that she was only a few steps outside of town, and thus outside the range of the spell. She had no idea that she had barely escaped the wave of death.
She could only watch as her world was wiped out before her eyes. All living things lost the ability to breathe, their bodies burned and bursting by the very blood in their veins.
And then, it was over. All movement stopped. The buildings still stood; they had resisted crumbling in the vacuum. The lifeless structures loomed over the streets, solemnly holding their ground.
But anything that had lived, anything that had ever hoped or dreamed or breathed, now lay lifeless on the ground. Fluids had all evaporated, leaving cracked and dry skin to cover contorted bodies. Her wide eyes moved in slow shock to the nearest shriveled corpse that lay just steps away from her. A thin arm was outstretched toward her, as if in desperate hope for a salvation that didn’t exist.
“… Is… is this… my…”
She didn’t know how she still had a voice. Her words came in high-pitched squeaks from her throat, voicing the terror that clutched at her heart.
“Is this… my… fault?”
There was no answer from the waves of silent dead. No denial; no affirmation. No one could free her from the terrible responsibility or end her uncertain hopes and positively condemn her.
“It’s not… is it? Somebody… tell me it’s not.” Her blue eyes locked on the ruined town, a tiny earnestness lit behind her vacant pupils. She almost felt that if she stared long enough, time would reverse itself. She wanted to see the people walk again, their lives busy with ordinary duties.
But nothing changed before her. Corpses littered the streets like discarded, worthless objects. The sun disappeared over the horizon and left the town cloaked in darkness. After that one, terrible instant, everything felt like it took a lifetime; any time after the fact felt meaningless and passed quickly.
She didn’t know how long she stood there, but she couldn’t break her stare. The only thing she could do when her world ended was stare.
“Elfitine?”
Upon hearing her name, Elfitine blinked slowly. It was time for her to return.
With a great deal of concentration, she pulled her five senses back from the vision she was immersed in. She forced herself to focus on her present self and be acutely aware of who and where she was. A halfway return to the present could cause her serious confusion.
Sometimes, Elfitine experienced hallucinations. They had started at a young age; although only a child at the earliest onset, it didn’t take her long to realize that she was seeing the past and future. She had the ability to break free of the flow of time and perceive events outside her present.
Well, the term “ability” was too generous. Since she had no control over when and where she saw her visions, her power was more like a clairvoyant seizure. The hardest times were when she saw a past that matched her worst memories. The destruction of her town, horrible in its own time, now revisited her in a clear, cruel replay. She was powerless to stop the waking nightmares. All she could do was watch, helpless, and then gather her senses so she could run away.
“Nn…” Elfitine moaned weakly. Her vision faded into another darkness—a darkness of a stone plaza, lit only by a few candles. The small lights bounced weakly off the walls of bedrock.
Elfitine’s eyes focused on a figure before her. Although male, the figure was somewhat slight, and silent in the darkness. His back was to her.
She managed a weak smile. The man’s back was what she always associated with safety—slight though it was, she found it broad and protective. When he’d found her starving years before and had chosen to take her in, the first thing she had felt was his back under her arms.
Since that moment, all I’ve done is looked up at and followed that back. It was all she could ask for. She didn’t want anything else; her world was complete.
“Elfitine,” the man repeated.
Elfitine took a deep breath, her fear melting with the moment. She swallowed once, released her breath, and responded. “Yes?”
The man turned. A simple black mask covered his face, the slight sheen to its surface catching the candlelight. Two thin slits for eyes and one long slit for a mouth were all that connected the man’s face to the outside air.
She had never seen him without his mask. She didn’t know his age or what he looked like, but that had never bothered her. The dark mask was calming, a symbol of his anonymous kindness. Or was it the jade eyes that glimmered behind the mask what really calmed her?
She didn’t know if the mask’s design stood for something or not—or if it’s lack of design was the point itself. Simplicity in sainthood, perhaps.
“Will you do it for me, Elfitine?”
Elfitine’s heart sank. The question was one that disturbed her, but she couldn’t bring herself to refuse. How could she tell him that he had too much faith in her?
“Elfitine.”
She averted her gaze. The role he wanted her to play was beyond her grasp. She didn’t have his strength of will, and her intelligence and kindness fell short of what was required. She couldn’t imagine fulfilling the crucial role he planned for her.
“Um,” she murmured. “I… um…”
She couldn’t refuse him. Failing to live up to the man’s expectations was one of her greatest fears. The man had become her life since saving her—she wanted nothing more than to please him. Rising up his expectations was all that she lived for.
He must have recognized her hesitancy, because the mask bobbed in a short nod.
“Strictly speaking,” he said carefully, “we will be deceiving everyone. But the results will far outweigh that sin.”
Lying. Sinning. These were things in which one could not take pride. It meant she’d be defiled. But it was necessary. Lofty preaching and flowery rhetoric were meaningless. Words from the mouth of a saint who knew only purity held no truth. To go on living, after overcoming hatred and despair… to lead people involved more than that.
This man told compassionate lies to save the suffering. It was painful and heartbreaking, but he did it and accepted the consequences.
Elfitine swallowed. If her savior threw himself into sin, she wanted to follow.
She almost sensed a smile behind the mask. “Don’t worry,” he assured her. “Your beauty will help convince them.”
It sounded so… possible when he said it like that. His assurances were calm and steady, and his faith in her resolute. He thinks I can do it, she told herself, as she always did when she hesitated. And don’t you believe the things that he thinks? He was the only truth that remained in her life.
“You can do it,” he assured her quietly.
I can do it, she repeated in her head. Internalizing his assurances into a constant loop in her head was the spell she cast on herself whenever she was afraid. I can do it, she thought again. He said I can. She placed a mask of confidence over her soul.
“Elfitine.” His tone of voice changed—now it was lighter, more friendly. He asked her again as if it were some small feat. “Will you do it for me?”
The casual, respectful trust was the last push she couldn’t resist. She closed her eyes and gave a quick nod.
“Yes,” she replied.
The consent was short and definite. But her voice still shook, and for that she was ashamed.