Chapter I: Demon

 Mirela opened her eyes. It was cold, and very dark. She always awoke like this. Mirela never dreamed: nothing of hope, nothing of fear. No terrors drove her while she slept. The times when she rested were a blackness, an empty stretch of time until her eyes opened again. Mirela opened her eyes.

The darkness was complete, yet she had no need of sight. Mirela knew every stone in the walls that encased her, every pebble on the floor beneath her resting place. Mirela swung her legs over the side and stepped down, feeling the cool dirt with her toes. It clung to her feet as she placed them, fell back to the floor as she stepped away, as if the dirt itself understood its place in this ritual.

Mirela found the door, exactly where it always was. She lifted the heavy oak crossbeam from its setting and moved it aside. The door swung open and Mirela left the cold, dark room to enter the cold, dark staircase, leading her upward.

Mirela climbed the long, winding staircase, the stone hard against her bare feet. One hundred and twenty seven stone-cold stairs, twelve and one half complete revolutions. She passed no doors, no windows. At the top of the stairs was a door with a simple latch. Mirela opened the door and stepped out, stepped into the cool, fresh, moonlit night.

The top of the tower was stark and barren, but it provided a breathtaking view of the surrounding countryside. The night was beautiful, perfect. Would Ilinca and Daciana know she was awake? Would they know that the moon was high and bright, and the air crisp and clear? Yes, they always knew. Mirela knew that they would be waiting for her.

Mirela looked over the side of the tower; her home, the only home she could remember any more. The castle, and her tower, stood on the edge of a tremendous precipice. Anything dropped from the edge could fall a thousand feet without interruption.

There was no way down, other than the stairway leading to the dark, empty room. Mirela would not be returning there tonight. She stepped up, onto the tower battlement.

Mirela stood at the edge, without fear. She thought about how very cold the air was tonight, but even in her nightgown a thousand feet above the earth she did not shiver.

Mirela stepped off the edge, and fell.

So very cold. But the dead do not feel the cold.