A flash of pain. Darkness. Fire. Wrath.

  Confusion.

  Eyes snap open under a slate gray sky. Bleeding fingers dig furrows through ash-covered, half-frozen mud. Memories of battle war with memories of home, of expectations and… mistakes.

  Lungs draw breath and sputter, choking on frigid, sulphurous air. Years of training kick in, then out. Clashing lives, spasming muscles, and a flash of flattened, de-barked trees. A desperate fight for air as face turns from sky to churned earth.

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  Strange weight, strange proportions. Familiar heavy heart filled with unfamiliar reasons. Half-remembered prayers to an uncertain god.

  Unanswered.

  The first damp patter of earth on a hollow coffin.

  A surge, heat, and the sky again. Limbs splayed, jaw slack, heart racing. Light fades, clouds clear, and stars look down through the gaps between light snow that hisses against burning skin, stings at the edges of now-healed limbs, alights on cold weights attached to the head.

  Memories strengthen, memories fade. Identity emerges.

  And with it, recollection. Death—and no proper rebirth.

  Sylvia Frost, former High Priestess of Dhias, former human, screams until her throat gives out.

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