The first thing I feel is the rain.

I choke as water lashes at my face, the sound of a thousand seas each raging with storms pummelling the ground around me. The cold presses unwelcoming on my skin, reminding me of when I was young. It reminds me of the servants' hands, made cold by the early morning, shocking me awake.

There is a moment, when the dark world around me goes silent. In the absence of the rain, I only hear myself, struggling to pull in a breath. I try to lift my bones from the floor, my clothes coming away black from the dirt I lie in.

Disorientated, I press my palm to the ground, slowly pulling my fingers into a fist. Each breath is slow and burning, a fire kindling. I exhale unevenly and feel leaves scrape against the inside of my curled fingers.

I try to lift my head, and see the familiar sight of pines swing overhead, nausea sinking in my stomach. A forest. Again. My head drops back between my shoulders, lolling while I swallow borrowed breaths. I would laugh if I could.

I feel like my limbs have been rung, every joint screaming. I shiver uncontrollably, trying to struggle to my feet. I collapse back to my hands and knees, rainwater assaulting my face and spilling too fast over my lips and chin. I squint into the storm, ears ringing. I don't recognise the clearing at all, panic casting its rope around my heart and knotting and knotting and knotting.

Where have the roses gone? I think dazedly, the boy's figure slouched over his brother's grave flashing before me like a bolt of lightening.

I finally grapple to my knees, blinking rain water out of my eyes. Unyielding pressure crushes against my shoulders and I try to fight against it, the flood of water and my panic warring in my heart and in my chest, a fist squeezing around my lungs. I've been plunged into midnight with no way to break back into the dawn. I breathe.

The rush of water crashes back into my ears and I wince, the silence over. I throw my head back, the rain slipping over my hair where it plasters to my forehead.

The cloaked figure from the dark room stands with his hands on my shoulders, holding me down. Without thinking, I growl and bare my teeth, shaking wildly, trying to loosen his grip. It's impossible.

A scream tears from between my locked teeth.

I'm so angry, so incredibly angry, I can't stop screaming and writhing and my bones feel so trapped, so full of so much power. I glare up with so much hate at the figure in front of me, murder and violence clawing at my hands, something deep and inexplicable and old inside of me wanting- needing this man's blood.

Something like a knife, severs me from myself. I think for one single second, this is losing control.

"You deserve to die," I hear myself hiss, my entire frame trembling. I feel like I'm watching myself from a distance, crouched in the rain, someone wearing my face and my skin, yelling into the dark like some sort of demon. All I can do is watch in fascination, my own mouth moving and my own fists pounding the earth, yet my hands hold still and my mouth stays closed.

"You all should burn and be buried under every layer and rip in this world and you should all be put there by my hand." I scream at the top of my lungs, feeling as though my chest is tearing.

Then, all of a sudden, all there is is the rain.

The man stands like a statue in a garden, unfazed by the rain of a thousand years and my faded screams, rotting silently. My lungs contract and expand like they always have, my shoulders rising and falling too fast, my heart beating for me. I stare at the figure, waiting for him to seize me and end my life for saying what I did. Even though it wasn't me. It wasn't me.

But he didn't hear what I said. He doesn't move, doesn't even flinch. Maybe I never said it. Maybe it was all in my head. Dread laps against my neck and I can't shake the feeling like I'm sinking. Unhinged, I look around me, spitting water.

The tall pine trees still loom over the forest floor, the rainwater still silver against the black of the night but somehow, I feel like something's changed. I feel heavy and wrong, as if someone has hollowed me out.

I notice something- something in the dark. Past the man, hidden beneath the shadows, stands a figure, a long cloak brushing the undergrowth just like his. Their face is invisible beneath a charcoal hood, their head bent and hands folded into one another. A red snaking crest burdens the place over their heart. The Kosul.

Panic brings my heart to the gate of my ribs, the bone biting into each pulse.

Trying to swallow my building hysteria, I search the rest of the darkness, my hands wracked with tremors. I see another hooded figure, cloaked by darkness and a rich velvet robe, just like the others. There are more, each stood silently in the dark, almost like they're waiting for something. Red crests wink at me from every inch of the gloom like watchful eyes.

I count twelve silhouettes, all locked in a circle around us.

I shudder in my soaked clothes, disorientation striking my ears and washing up against my thoughts, my coherency sinking into an unknown ocean. My eyes roll back into my head.

Centuries seem to pass.

The rain still falls.

"Why- Why am I-" My lips burn at the touch of one another, resisting speech. I tear the word from my throat by my teeth. "-here."

The man doesn't answer, his lips pressed together like stone. Then, he brings his hands up my neck, slowly.

His long, heatless fingers trace the line of my jaw, thumbs pressing into the hollows beneath my chin and fingers sliding up behind my ears. He brings my face up to him against my will. I look at him with all the cold and confusion in my bones.

His hood has dropped back.

Strands of rain-soaked hair fall to his temples, plastered to his dark skin by the rain. The hollows of his angular cheekbones are thrown into darkness, making them appear even more prominent. But the thing that causes dread to crawl into my chest and live there are his eyes.

He looks down at me with the white eyes of a blind man. But I can feel his gaze on me, like he cannot only see my face, but into my soul and burns me like a brand over my heart. They shine dull in the dark like tarnished stars.

He looks off into the distance. "I see too much death." He says finally, pulling away.

I feel my entire body deflate at the absence of his touch, my head spinning and the sound of water stomping on the ground like gunshot in my ear. My eyelids flutter, my body caving forward. I refuse to lose consciousness.

"I'm not dead." I say through numb lips. Even though my death would be welcome right now.

The man looks back at the circle around us. "The boy has no control." He announces. The rush of the water is the only response. He turns back to me and we lock eyes when he speaks. "I saw it." A word slips into my mind, unwanted and unbidden, there one second and gone the next. Traitor.

I claw at my body with my hands, searching for heat, trembling with the cold. "Why are we here?" I ask again, fixing my eyes on the sodden ground. When no one answers, I continue my tongue lashing at the inside of my mouth. "If you need venue recommendations for the next time you try to kill someone, I'd be happy to make a suggestion. Maybe it could even have a roof."

"You were agitated." The man says sharply. "We've seen rain bring Walkers back to their bodies before."

I see the young boy from only moments ago, laid dying while it started to rain. He told me something. I remember. I try to concentrate, but all my thoughts slip away like trying to hold on to water. I only hear a glimpse, like a ghost whispering in my ear.

"Can't you feel them?" He looked me over warily. "Inside your mind?"

I shiver,  but not from the cold.

"And here I was, thinking bringing me to a dark forest at night was just for dramatic effect." I say. Something moves in the shadows.

"Obviously control is not the only thing you need to learn, boy: the art of holding your tongue would also be useful." My eyes slide toward the source of the female voice.

Her hood obscures most of her face, but her long blonde hair falls to her hips, twisted into two thick braids. A thin mouth set into pale skin levels with my eyes.

"I'm sorry, we haven't had the pleasure of being introduced." I snap, feeling like I'm getting closer to death by the second. None of the hooded figures seem to care. She lowers her hood.

Her face beneath is pointed, blue eyes piercing the darkness. I think, she's pretty but my eyes are unfocused so I can't be sure how accurate the statement is. I look down, trying to blink the haze from my vision.

"I am Kseniya Orina Kosul." I lift my eyes, my frozen heart lodging in my throat.

She is one of the three Kosul siblings who first sat on the council. The circle of leaders were named after the three children, and Kosul became not just a feared, prestigious family name, but a word that carried law and death. Over time, more chosen council members put on the velvet cloaks, making the circle stronger, until thirteen completed the ring. Everyone apart of the council are immortal, some still appearing young when really their bones should be dust.

My teeth chatter with the cold of the thousands of years they have ruled for.

I bow my head. "My lady."

"No, please." She says, outstretching a long, thin hand. "Continue with your witty repartee." Her words make me bite my tongue. The Lady walks over to where we stand, looking down at me. She reaches down and runs a finger along my jaw, turning my cheek up to her. My fingers dig into the wet ground.

"I thought Nayaa said the boy had learnt control." The Lady comments, as if I'm not there. Dimari's first name crowds my ears unfamiliarly, estranging her to me. Nayaa.

My blood beats against my skin, suddenly remembering and aching at the lie Dimari told. I've nearly died countless times trying to gain control, like holding on to a cliff in a storm, only for it to crumble away every time. Maybe she'd lost hope. She got desperate and lied to them. In the moment, I'm abruptly not angry at her at all: I feel desperate, too.

The man lowers his hood the rest of the way, soaking his hair and face, water running off of his sharp features. "She was wrong. His grasp Here is slipping." He says tonelessly. The Lady meets my eyes. She sighs and drops my face. I stare down at the floor, rain dripping into my eyes.

"You may leave, Walker." My knees feel like they've been here too long, like I'm rooted to the forest floor just like all the other pines and if I stay here just a little while I might grow or change or live a better way. I breathe.

I rise to my feet.

The minute I turn away, my unstable breaths crest and plummet over the air, my fingers slipping on wet ferns and damp bark. I lurch into the dark of the forest, away from the clearing, from their whispering voices and in the blur of black and lush greenery I think fiercely- too fiercely for my heart to take -I will not leave this Place. Not yet. 

If you're a weekly reader and you've noticed that this chapter is (a little) late, then I apologise!! I've been away on a ski trip and also I've been fighting with  this chapter for a number of weeks. I hope you enjoy it! Leave a comment or even a vote and message me any time!

Martha x