"She looks dead, like a skeleton, because she refuses to eat. She hates us for the protection we give her. And this is our most revered saint? Our god?" — from the journals of an unnamed acolyte at the northern monastery

~~~

"No," Briar said, shaking her head. "No, that can't be. You're wrong." She laughed, an uneasy sound that echoed emptily against the tall ceilings and didn't sound like her. Her mouth parted in a tentative smile, her eyes wide as she searched his face, as if expecting the end of a joke. "You must have heard wrong."

Rook shook his head. "That was the saint who was kept here against her will. The one most venerated by the acolytes here. Sven told me all about it." He spoke slower. "He also told me yesterday the suspicions he had about you. Didn't believe him though." His eyes took in the mural again. "I still don't know what to believe."

"What suspicions?"

"Said the first time he saw you he thought he was hallucinating, because you looked just like the saint in the monastery's basement. Sven is a level-headed man and not the kind to spin tales, but I still didn't give the theory much credence." He scratched the back of his head. "He said he thought you were the reincarnation of Saint Orla."

Briar's eyes bulged from her head. "I am not a reincarnation." She began to doubt the words even as she said them. "It's all just a strange coincidence. It has to be." Her desperate eyes bore into him. "It has to be. Look." She reached into the leather satchel at her waist and brought out the wooden icon with the yellow dot of paint on its chest. The grooves of wood, smoothed out from the amount of times she held it, shone in the torchlight. "This is Saint Orla. She is my saint. I've been praying to her for weeks." Her hand shook as she clutched it, her tone bordering on frantic. "You can't mean to tell me all this time I've been praying to myself?"

"Briar." Rook put a steadying hand on her shoulder but it did nothing to stop her trembling. "Settle down and try to clear your head. Don't jump to conclusions."

"I refuse to believe this," Briar continued, not hearing him. "I am not a saint. I am not a half-god. I am not a deity."

"You are," said the velvety voice of Nyxia from behind them.

The god had manifested to some extent and was leaning against a marble column, her arms crossed. Briar's talisman began to grow hot on her skin again. She looked like she had in Briar's dream, only now she was less substantial, almost unfinished. She would have blended in to the shadows were it not for the flicker of the torch flame. Her black eyes held an ancient glint that Briar found she recognized. She'd seen it before. It caused a strange old rage to echo inside her.

Without knowing why, Briar balled her fists at the god, overcome with the urge to fight her.

"It was not my intention to cause a crisis," Nyxia said, then furrowed her brow. "No, actually, it was. I was getting dreadfully bored and couldn't resist." She giggled. "Anyways." She pushed off the wall and stood to her full height, which was not much taller than Briar. "You know who I am already, but then of course we have known each other since the beginning of time. But you haven't come into your full memory yet, so let me introduce you to who you are. Who you really are." Nyxia gave a sweeping gesture to the mural. "You are Saint Orla, god of the sun, god of the light, god of the day. You are my sister, and my ancient nemesis. We have hated each other for many lifetimes."

Briar took a step back, head reeling.

The god's words couldn't be true. She was either mad or playing a terrible joke on her. She was simply Briar, heir to the throne of Oloria. No more, and no less. Briar raised her eyes to Rook who stood between her and Nyxia's figment, looking bewildered himself and at a loss for what to do. He would be no help. How could he? This was something she had to come to grips with herself.

Nyxia began slowly walking a circle around them. "Tell me, Sister," she said, "do you often have dreams that seem to be from a life that's not your own?"

"Yes," Briar said.

"Those are memories of your past lives slowly coming back to you," she explained. "You have nightmares, too, don't you? And a strange fear of the dark?"

Briar looked at her, stricken. "Yes."Nyxia gave a knowing smile. "You always do. In every lifetime. You are always afraid of what pertains to me, because we are each other's antithesis. We have been pitted against each other."

"Why?"

Nyxia gave a scolding click of her tongue. "Oloria's golden lady never learned her history?"

"I did," Briar said, "I just don't—"

"The Divine Wars," Rook said quietly.

"Correct, Rook dear." Nyxia said. "It was our parents, the gods, who punished us for our little... uprising in the first age. We were only trying to kill them, but they decided to take offense and punish us. They restricted our use of the elemental gems to one each, and pitted us against our opposite. So we would never know peace or some fool thing like that. Terrible memories, those ones. Dark days."

"I can't be Orla," Briar said. "I don't remember any of that."

"Oh, you will get there, Sister. Your memory will return, bit by bit. The deep memories take longer. I've been alive in this body for a few hundred years. There has, unfortunately, been plenty of time for rumination."

Briar glared at her. "If you hate me so much, then why are you helping me remember?"

Nyxia rubbed her hands together. "Ah, because then things can get interesting again. You don't know it yet, but this is what we live for, you and I. To fight and kill each other, then come back to do it all over again."

"But I don't care about killing you," Briar said.

"You will," Nyxia returned with a roll of her eyes. "You're simply young and naive. You don't yet know what you want. What you were born for."

"No, I won't," Briar said. "Because I'm not Saint Orla."

"You can repeat that all you want, but it won't change the fact that you are." Nyxia's tone bordered on irritated. "I knew it the moment I saw you."

Rook cleared his throat. "Not sure I believe all this, but there's a way we could test it." To the side of the mural was a kind of altar that Briar hadn't noticed, and it was covered in small yellow gems. "Topaz," Rook said, picking one up and holding it up to the light of the lantern. "If you are Saint Orla, then this is your stone. The stone that you draw your power from. Channeling it is likely the kind of thing that would take practice, even for a god— kind of like how your past life memories apparently only come back to you slowly. But if you concentrate on drawing from its power, and you really are the element's master, then something is bound to happen."

Rook held the stone out to Briar and she stared at it dubiously. Nyxia turned quiet, watching them like a cat with her sharp, void-like eyes.

Briar was both curious and averse to the idea. If something happened with the stone, then her godhood was confirmed and it would be a sealing of fate. But if nothing happened with the stone, then she would know for sure that this was all a misunderstanding.

Even before she curled her fingers around the gem, she knew deep down what the answer was.

She shut her eyes, making a fist so the gem was cradled in her palm, focusing on the feel of the sharp facets digging into her skin. And then a process took over without a thought on Briar's part— familiar and innate, as though she'd done it a thousand times. She turned her focus deeper, to the very heart of the gem, seeking the far reaches of its essence. The raw power housed in the stone at the very making of the world.

The stone began to hum.

It grew warm as a hearth in her hand, and it was the kind of warmth that reached into the darkest depths of her. The coldness in her bones, in her heart, dissipated.And then the warmth turned into an all-encompassing, piercing light that rushed through her, coursing through her veins like blood and every bit as vital. Like a severed, forgotten part of herself. Like being enveloped by the sun in the height of summer. Like coming home. She drank deep of it. All pain left her body.

But more than anything, she was flooded with a staggering power that she was born for.

Rook's gasp caused her to open her eyes to see that the monastery was filled with shimmering ribbons of light. The stone glowed so bright it made her hand look almost translucent. The light didn't just come from the stone, though. It came from her. She was lit up like a taper, like a beacon, her skin emanating the pearly light.

She met Rook's eyes. He was leaned back slightly, mouth agape, his expression awestruck and almost reverent. But there was a glint of fear behind the dark of his eyes that Briar found more satisfying.

Her eyes moved beyond him, to the mural of Saint Orla. To the mural of Briar. She studied the detailed lines that portrayed so perfectly her elegance, her wildness, her power. This was who she really was. An ancient deity, regal and worthy of devotion. Beloved enough to be painted, to be sung of, to be written about.

Feared enough to be revered.

Nyxia will not prevail, she thought. Neither will the darkness. I will diminish them until only I remain. All will adore me.

The light sputtered and winked out. The monastery was plunged into the dark again, except for the flickering glow of Rook's lantern.

"What?" Briar breathed as the stone once again turned cold in her palm. She felt drained. Empty. Like her very soul had ran away from her. Her eyes darted around to find Nyxia, seeking an explanation, but the disgraced saint was gone.

Maybe I'm not practiced enough, she thought. Or maybe it's because I'm cursed.

She lifted her gaze to Rook's dazed one. They held each other's stare, at a loss. What was one to say after something like that?

"I guess that... answers the question," Briar said lamely.

Rook blinked and raked a hand through his hair. "Seems that way." His tone was hesitant. He looked back at the mural, at the green and gold eyes of Orla. "The likeness is uncanny. I have to admit."

"But you're not convinced?"

"I'm a skeptic by nature, Princess. No one could convince me of anything so fast." He stared at her quietly for a moment before he took a deep breath and let it out heavy. "No sense standing here in the cold. How about we go back to the fire?"\

Feeling light-headed, she nodded and let him lead the way.

Briar collapsed numbly on her bedroll, her whole body trembling, wondering how she could even go about sorting through her thoughts. Rook knelt on one knee and stirred the dying fire with a stick, his expression grim and contemplative.

"What do I do, Rook?" she asked at length, not knowing what else to say.

Rook remained quiet for a moment before speaking. "If it does happen to be true, I'd say it would be wise to be careful."

"Alright," Briar said slowly. "Careful how?"

"If people found out before you were strong enough, before you were ready, then you could end up like the old Orla. Chained up in the basement of a monastery by crazed zealots."

Briar shuddered. Chained. Caged, again.

Discovering you had enough power to wrap the world around your finger, only to have all control stripped from you.

"People fear or obsess over what they don't understand," Rook continued. "Which is why your forebears burned arcanes and the Amity lost their minds over the saints. Both cowards and zealots would be a threat to you. If history repeats itself, which it seems to, then the chances of you getting kidnapped or locked up are very high." He paused. "If you really are a reincarnated deity."

"So I should never tell anyone?"

"No," Rook said. "Just advising you to tread carefully. Don't make rash decisions like you always do."

Low blow, Briar thought, but she was too rattled to be offended. Too drained. He was right, anyway. "Good counsel," she said in a faint voice.

Rook glanced past her to the violet dark coming through the window. "We have a few hours yet before daylight. Maybe try to sleep. Talk can come later."

Briar nodded, wondering once again how she could fall asleep, but this time for other reasons. 

The wind still moaned and the shadowed trees still creaked, but she wasn't afraid in the same way. The memory of the light pulsing through her left her feeling truly powerful for the first time in her life. Though her mind was still incredulous, her bones knew the truth. As she curled up once more, she fought the urge to take the topaz from her pouch and tap into the magic again. The allure of it tugged at her heart and she wanted more— needed more. She felt consumed by the need to feel the light again. Clawed at by an insistent hunger.

Briar shut her eyes. Clearly this was the answer to the mysteries. Why she was plagued by her ailments. The suspicions of her mother and Gyda. The talisman. The king's fear. All was finally making sense to her now.

Before sleep took her, she had the clearest vision of herself on the Olorian throne— beloved queen, hallowed saint, revered god. She would wear her father's heavy crown and be wrapped in a gown of striking sun beams. She would have the whole world in her hands. Glory would be hers.

~~~

The monastery looked different in the gray pallor of morning. With the shadows of the night chased away, it struck Briar as simply an abandoned relic of destruction. A heavy sadness hung suspended in the place like it was petrified, preserved.

It felt different now, but it still didn't feel good.

Briar pushed up to a sitting position, cringing from an ache between her eyebrows. Rook crouched on one knee while he stirred boiled water into barley grains to make a porridge.

His dark eyes traveled to her briefly. "Morning," he said.

"Morning," Briar returned. She blinked as the insightful events from the middle of the night came back to her in a rush. "Was it a dream that I glowed and discovered I was a deity?"

"No."

Briar cursed under her breath and ran a hand across her tacky face. "What now, then?"

"We search for records of Nyxia's whereabouts, and then we'll go from there," Rook answered. "As far as I'm concerned, nothing has changed." He handed her a bowl of the steaming barley, a spoonful of honey melting over it. Briar thanked him and dug into it.

"Did Nyxia come back last night, after everything?" Briar asked.

"I didn't see her."

Briar swirled the honey into the barley better. "What's the plan, Rook? For her? She admitted her entire life revolves around killing me. How are we going to give her tourmaline to lift the curse without letting her loose to kill me, or both of us?"

Rook stirred his own porridge, his face remaining stony. "Just have to take our chances I guess. We might have to let her go, but in exchange maybe I can bargain your safety." He paused. "I can harness the magic too, you know, and I'm not kept to one stone as Nyxia is. More than that, I'm well-practiced. I actually believe that I'd stand a good chance against her."'

"I read in The Arcana that people used to consider arcanes higher than the gods," Briar said. "Because they defied the bounds of mortality to master something they were never meant to."

"That's what people used to say," Rook said with a nod as he blew on his hot coffee.

Briar imagined having use of all stones, all elementals, not just the light. She wondered what it would feel like to wield that kind of power. Unexpectedly, she found herself envying Rook. "It must be nice to have all of the stones," she said.

Rook gave a stiff laugh. "I don't know if nice is the word." He shrugged. "Maybe it is now, but it wasn't always. For the most part it was trying to stay alive. Trying to reason with the magic to let me live. It was like trying to befriend a fire drake."

"Because you're a mortal," Briar said.

"Correct."

"If I truly am a saint... what would happen if I tried to become an arcane?"

"I don't think it would work," Rook said, "considering the gods tied you to only one stone."

Briar took the topaz from her pouch. It was about the size of an acorn, the small gleaming clusters melded together in shades of deep yellow. If held to the light in a certain way, it looked like the gem held the very shards of the sun. There was no grand show of light while she held it, only a gentle pricking where the stone made contact with her skin. But she wasn't trying to tap into the power. "Maybe I can help keep Nyxia at bay, if it comes to that."

"She did seem to hate the light you channeled," Rook said between bites of porridge.

"I wonder if she feels the same fear of the light as I do of the dark. That would be interesting. Maybe she has nightmares of me, too."

"Or maybe daymares?" Rook suggested.

"Maybe."

As they fell into silence, Briar imagined walking into one of the Amity's cathedrals with the topaz to show the acolytes who she really was. She imagined the relief and awe etched into their faces when confronted with her brilliance. The tears her light would reflect in their eyes. How they would fall at her feet and praise her for returning.

Briar creased her brow, pushing the thoughts from her mind.

Had she really become so vain overnight?

Besides, Rook was right— rashly revealing herself to the Amity was the last thing she should want if she valued her freedom.

Briar looked around the cold room, noticing for the first time the blots of old blood staining the marble floor. At length she said, "I want to find where they kept Saint Orla first. I want to know where they chained her up."

Rook met her eyes across the fire. "Fine by me."

They finished their breakfast and coffee in contemplative silence, then packed up and slowly began to walk, taking in the monastery now that they could see it properly. It appeared that the main room was a place of study as well as artistic endeavors. Briar could picture Sven sitting at an easel in this room, dabbing a paintbrush across the thick page of a book. The vividness of the mental picture made her wonder if it was a memory rather than her imagination.

They took a narrow corridor and found more upturned furniture, the ground littered with shattered crockery. An earthen vase of sunflowers had fallen, broken clean in half, the yellow petals long since crumpled away, but the dried brown stamens still intact. Little altars were everywhere, homes to all kinds of elemental stones, not just topaz. Bones, too, had been placed with the gems, as well as dried sprigs of herbs, tapered candles, and sticks of incense. Wooden icons of the saints once presided over the offerings, but were now toppled over. Useless and forgotten trinkets, now inconsequential pieces of faded wood.

They walked past sleeping quarters, the walls lined with multiple beds. The linens, yellowed now with age and sunlight, were all twisted in disarray, suggesting everyone had been pulled from their beds in the middle of the night. Had they had any time to prepare themselves before the werewolves came crashing through their windows? Had they heard their distant howls in the wind? Had they seen the blood moon hung like a lamp in the night sky and known?

Briar shuddered and looked away, keeping her eyes trained on a door at the end of the corridor."

This looks promising," Rook said once they reached it. He struggled with it before it opened with a creak and a falling cloud of dust.

Stone stairs led down into the dark.

"Want me to go first?" Rook asked.

"No," Briar said. "I will."

She led the way down. The smell became mustier. Colder. Dirtier. Like more sinister kinds of memories clung to the running cracks in the stone. Warning bells sounded off in her head with every step down, telling her this was a mistake, that nothing good could come of this basement. Telling her that she should have learned her lesson the first time and stayed away.

Briar was certain she'd been in this basement before, and that it had been her demise.

Horizontal slits near the ceiling provided just enough light to see by. It appeared to be a records room, floor to ceiling shelves full of scrolls and tomes, though some had been knocked over. It was exactly what they came to the monastery for, but Briar's attention was preoccupied.

For there, in the far corner of the room, was Orla— or rather, what was left of her. Her flesh had long since rotted away, leaving behind a bare bones skeleton. Darkness lingered in the hollows of her gaping eye sockets. Remnants of a garment hung loose over her hollow bones, as well as over her head and face like she had been wearing a veil. The draping strings of fabric looked like cobwebs.

Hanging back, Briar swallowed the bile that had risen to her throat. "Gods," she breathed.

Orla had been chained up when she died, rusted manacles still clinging to her wrists and ankles just like in Briar's nightmares.

No wonder I've always hated being caged, Briar thought. I've been contending with it for many lifetimes past. My soul remembers all of it.

Rook took his place beside Briar. She felt the unexpected softness of his gaze. "What do you want to do now?" he asked.

Briar couldn't tear her eyes from the skeleton, her mind reeling at the fact that, in a way, it was her own skeleton. She knew it was. "I want to take a closer look," she heard herself say.

I do? Briar thought. What more was there to see about a pile of decaying bones? Nevertheless, her feet bore her across the records room until she was kneeling beside Orla's remains. Tiny black spiders scurried in and out of the grinning jaw, and she fought the souring of her stomach once more.

Briar had to touch the bones. She didn't know why. She only knew that she must.

She reached out, repulsed, and hesitantly touched the flimsy arm bone.

The edges of Briar's vision turned black, seeping inward until she couldn't see anything.

And then she was somewhere else.

She was upstairs, in the grand entry hall of the monastery, but everything was different and as it should be. It was clean, warm. Lanterns and candles gave off a pleasing light. Men and women dressed in white milled around her. The men had their hair long, pulled back at the napes of their necks, and the women had their hair braided in loops.

Though the scene was pleasant and peaceful enough, a holy rage boiled up from her chest. Her vision was partially hidden by a silk veil embroidered with dainty golden sunbursts.

Her awareness grew, and she saw that she was being escorted by two men. Their fingers dug so deep into her arms that she already felt bruising. As she was half-dragged through the hall, the people stopped what they were doing to gawk at her with utmost admiration, bowing their heads and bending their knees.

She spat at them.

The scene grew pale and blurry before it changed. She was in the records room. All of the furniture in the place was heaped under one of the tiny windows. Gingerly, she climbed, trying her best not to make a sound. But as her sweaty fingers unlatched the window, she could hear heavy footfalls coming down the stairs. Blood rushed in her ears as she started to scramble, but she couldn't hoist herself up in time. Their harsh hands were all over her, pulling her down.

The scene changed again. Her back was bare and she was being lashed. Every flick of the switch bit into her skin like razor sharp teeth. She cringed, bracing herself against a post, but she didn't cry out. Don't you understand? a man she hated said in her ear. We are doing this to protect you, Saint Orla. We punish you for your own good. No one cares for you as we do. It is not safe for you out there.

Then a scene came into her vision that was similar to her old nightmare. She was in a crumpled heap on the marble. She tried to move, but every bone in her body felt broken. Crushed. Like the weight of the whole world had come down on her. Shackles dug into the raw, pink flesh of her wrists. Her lips were cracked, her throat chalky, her tongue swollen. She was desperate for a drink. A cup of water sat beside her, untouched, but she couldn't give in. She had to let herself die to get away from these cruel people who kept her like a trophy. Though her vision swam, vaguely she could see the blood moon through the shroud of her sunburst veil, framed by the window slit like a work of art.

A man who looked like a young version of Sven came to visit her. She glared at him and he held back, clutching a bowl of something in his hands, his paint-stained knuckles white. He said that he brought her some baked pears. She said that she hoped he'd poisoned them. The young Sven was horrified, saying of course they weren't, but she refused the pears just the same. He showed her some liniment he'd stolen for the wounds on her back. He said that it was hateful what the others did to her. He apologized that he hadn't helped until today.

And then she heard a howl, and another, until they were surrounded by a monstrous chorus. She knew what this meant. It made her heart quicken even as she felt relief. Maybe she would be able to escape this cursed lifetime and start over again. Finally.

Briar's vision blacked out and she had the distinct feeling of soaring. A scene came into her vision, but the edges of it were cloudy, the details less sharp. She had the sense this was a much older memory, perhaps from a different lifetime.

Pale, heavy mist surrounded her. She was clad in armor, the hilt of a sword clenched in her fist. Inlaid on her breastplate was Oloria's old insignia before the invasion of the northmen split the country in two— a mountain lion with teeth and claws bared. Her sword arm ached and her breath was ragged as she clutched her bleeding side. She knew her horse and army had fled, but she also knew that she was not alone.

A new scene took the forefront. She was barefoot, walking across a mossy forest floor wet with dew. The trees surrounding her were taller, their trunks wider than any trees Briar had ever seen. She was wrapped in a thin tunic of gold, a warm glow emanating from her body. A man's calloused fingers were entwined with hers. His red hair curled around his ears. He looked kind. Then she was in a bed with him in the dark, breathing heavy, skin drenched with sweat. But a knife carved from bone came from the shadows and found its mark under her collarbone. The memory gave way to black again.

A strong arm wrapped firm around Briar's waist, yanking her back.

"Briar." Rook gently tapped her face, but she couldn't feel it. She couldn't feel anything until a drop of condensation fell from the ceiling and landed on her face, like a cold tear shed to bring her back to her current lifetime. She felt her full awareness slam back into her body, and then she was just Briar again. Orla, but Briar.

Rook crouched over her, a hand on her shoulder. "What happened to you? It was like you were stuck. You couldn't hear me."

Tears stood in Briar's eyes and she blinked them away. "I had visions," she said. "Of my past lives, I think." As their eyes met, both of them realized at the same time how close their faces were. Briar averted her gaze as Rook cleared his throat, quickly withdrawing.

He cast Orla's skeleton a distrustful sidelong glance. "I don't like this place." Getting to his feet, he raised his eyes to the shelves full of old parchments. "Let's start looking for those books and get the hell out of here."