In the depths of sweat soaked sheets and terrible pain, she dreamt.

She dreamt of water, of a rushing river as dark as lamp oil in the black of night.

Fire raced across the river’s surface, great gouts reaching out to erase the flickering moonlight. It roared around her in a great gyre, fire and water circling in a wild dance. She was its nexus, the focal point, fear blossoming within her as the maelstrom rushed toward her.

Above the fury of waves and beneath the bright fingers of the conflagration, there was a glimpse of something else. A bridge, sundered and dead, sunk beneath the water, its shattered pieces bobbing in the waves. Before she could see any more details, it vanished behind the furious curtain, and she awoke.

The familiar sight of the ceiling boards increased the sense of the eternal as the pain crawled across her arms. While it had ebbed and rose over the course of the last two days, it had never let her be. Other than the cold and the dreams, the pain had been her one constant companion. It was always there, no matter what distractions or work she attempted, and only the void of sleep could quell it. The whispers that accompanied it had mercifully quieted, though, at least when others were near.

For that reason, she remained as close to her mother when she was in the house, at least, when she was not bedridden with this ‘illness’. The lie sounded blank and inefficacious when it was said within the walls of their home, but her mother had assured her it was for the best. Magic, let alone a curse, was better left unknown, or explained by more usual things, suggested the man known as Carnes.

That, at least, did comport with Aya’s understanding of the world. The only knowledge she possessed of magic and its practitioners was primarily from church scriptures. Her mother had down-played and sometimes arguably contradicted, those accounts with tales from Karkos. But even she, who came from a place where magic was known and even tolerated, had little to say on the matter.

“It was beyond my ken,” she said, “mages keep to themselves, Aya, and for good reason. You’ve seen the way that the priest talks about them. There are many others who say the same, or worse.”

She had made Aya promise to keep her curse a close secret, to say nothing of it to anyone, ever.

“Illness is bad enough,” she said, “but an honest-to-lost curse? People will fear you as a portent of bad luck. Some will see you as a thing to get rid of. Do not tell anyone, simply say you’re ill.”

And so Aya had languished in the family home, doing what chores the curse allowed her to do. Once Shayana had knocked on the door, interrupting her third attempt at tidying the kitchen. Aya wanted to go out into the world, to tell her friend about how much it was hurting. But, remembering what her mother had taught her, she waved her away under the pretence of preventing her from catching the ‘illness’.

Shyana had agreed hesitantly and suggested that they go for a walk when she felt better. She wished her good dreams, unaware of the bitter irony of those particular words, as she parted from the home. The dreams were another thing that refused to leave her be, seemingly only to grow in frequency and intensity. Worse still, they were beginning to appear in her waking hours as well.

The previous morning, the pain had abated just enough for her to make an attempt at cleaning the porch, the first time she had emerged into the light. Barely managing to hold the broom handle due to the spasms, she began to slowly shift what dirt she could out onto the frozen ground. A small amount of serpent grass still existed at the corner of their pen’s stone walls. But that was not particular remarkable to Aya.

What was impressive was the flower, standing tall where she was certain no flower had stood before. The bloom was massive, larger than she had ever seen. Pink and red petals looped back and around to its thick stem, darkening as they reached into the centre. She knew, with absolute certainly, that she had never seen anything like it on this mountain, and yet… she could not help but feel almost familiar with it. Either way, she had glanced at the porch she was cleaning, and by the time she had looked back, it had vanished.

This however was charming in comparison to the other visions. Fires held a particular terror for her now, even the small candle flames that light up her night felt ten times larger. Their heat was similar to that of the roaring village bonfire for the summer festivals. Still stranger where the visions of what appeared to be a different world. Once, she dreamt that she was standing on a far above mountain peak, great grey-blue ribbons of stone folding their way across the landscape.

Down below in the carved out remains of the mountain below her, lay a great forest. The bows of its trees were taller than any evergreen that lived near Visaya. Around were seven great pillars, segment after segment of stone carved and placed on top of each other. Great hexagonal chains linked between them to suspend a great geode, with crystals glimmering in the light of the setting sun.

Another dream placed her within a great cavern, pointed rocks stretching up and around her, like the jagged teeth of some great beast. Before her lay a dark lake, edged in ore veins that comfortably eclipsed her home in size. Moonlight pooled on the water, let in from a tiny hole at the very apex of the ceiling.

She could not see below the surface of the shadowy lake, but she knew two things - One was that it was much, much deeper than she could’ve even imagined and second that there was bridge beneath its surface. She could feel it, in the same way that one could simply feel a storm coming on.

Only on in a dozen of the ‘dreams’ she had were as clear as this however. Oftentimes she only heard snatches and glimpsed sights. A hot brush of fragrant yet sour winds. A purple cloth so wonderfully rich and deep she thought it was some new colour that she didn’t have a name for. Yet for every fascinating discover she could make, five horrible visions dominated her mind.

The ringing of swords, the sounds of steel on steel. In a lot of ways, it reminded her of her mother sharpening her knives, but far more brutal in its character. Cold air smelling of pine and woodsmoke would suddenly smell of the copper scent of blood. The worst of all of these were the screams. Men, women, children, all crying out in pain or fear.

Still, it was better than the all-consuming pain she had suffered days ago. Almost anything would be better than simply collapsing and letting it consume her. She pulled the quilt off as she swung her legs over the bed, stepping onto the cold planks.

Gathering a shawl around her as best she could, she quietly stepped out into the kitchen from her little side room. The kitchen lay quiet and still - the fireplace had gone dark sometime ago. She slid to the left and crept out the door, to come step down onto the path.

The night was a beautiful one, cold and clear, the moon in full above. Around it was a grand litany of silver stars, scattered around it in milky bands. She remembered a story that her mother had told her, about how the sun and the moon once used to be married.

The moon had grown angry at the sun for not allowing the mortals to rest, so she parted with him and created night. The mortals still needed light, however, and the moon could not provide enough, so her children, the starts left the sun to help her. The sun grew so angry at the loss of his beloved children that they now hide during the day.

She raised her head to the sky to stare at the moon, a halo of light framing it in the night sky. As she looked at it, a sound crept into hearing, perhaps a rustle or a patter. She looked around, but she was alone, no animals, nothing that could be causing the noise.

But still, it crept closer and closer, the sound slowly growing louder, but staying at the edge of the hearing, as if a long way off. It was an odd sound, familiar, yet strange, distorted, similar to dripping water, but far too numerous.

Then the answer hit her - rain. Strange, slow rain, but rain none the less. With that realization dread began to seep into her bones. There was something wrong about the sound, and not just because it didn’t appear too have a source. The droplets came with an odd crashing sound too, like water lapping at the edges of the well, but more immediate and violent.

And that was all it took was to send her down the path, stumbling, scrambling, trying to get away from the unnatural noise. The sting of the chill was quickly absolved by her panting and the ache of her muscles as she clambered up a hill and slid down the other-side, the rain coming and out of hearing. The land around her began to blur into inattention as her lungs burned in the cold, legs straining to carry her away from the panic.

Finally, drenched in sweat, wheezing in the frigid mountain air, she finally had to stop. Bending over to breath deep, she came back up to realize that the noise was finally gone. Looking around, she also realized that she was a long way from home, as the small lights of the main village lay a long way back, glimmering faintly through the trees. Her back was the church, the tall cobbled walls standing as a harsh silhouette, even in the twilight gloom.

It was an oddly intimidating building, built about five years before Aya had been born. The sharp corners and steep roofs all served to make a jagged continence, but it was of little matter at this point. After the various visions she had seen and the pain she had suffered made being scared of architecture seemed silly.

As she stood in the meadows, the frost stilling any motion of the grass in the mountain breeze, the needles of the pines began to shake. As the chill past over her, she finally began to feel just how cold she really was. Maybe she could hold in the church until sunrise, she was sure the priest wouldn’t mind. She walked down the rough framed steps in the hillside to the arch of the door, placing her hand on of the large slatted doors.