Modran shivered, her teeth chattered a jig someone mad would’ve tried to dance to. No matter what she tried it was hopelessly cold even though she sat as close to the fire as she could without throwing herself inside of it.

She was half tempted to. Death had no hold on her, she would always come back, but her wounds wouldn’t heal unless she died. That and she didn’t want to give aunt Sharia and cousin Karis a fright. That and last time she had stayed dead for nearly half an hour.

“How are you feeling, dear?” Aunt Sharia hovered next to her, two clay mugs full of bitter-scented tea in her hands. She set one down next to Modran with the utmost care to not touch her even through her thick shroud of quilted blankets.

“Cold. Weak.” Modran said tremulously. Her lungs ached with every draw and exhale of breath, and the air tasted stale in her mouth. She knew that if she looked down her skin would be wrinkled like a drained waterskin. She was a few days away from becoming a walking corpse.

“Drink. Drink up! All you need is some stout tea.”

Modran complied with a wince at the desiccated state of her hand and grunted with the effort of picking up the half empty mug. Even that was nearly too heavy for her. She had to hold it with two hands and take small sips from it lest she spill it all over herself.

“Have they… have they gotten my medicine yet?” Modran’s mouth turned bitterly sour, and not just because of the tea. Everyone was so circumspect in their efforts to paint the facade of her unfortunate talent as an illness.

When she waned it was her sickness and no one would touch her or let her outside so she couldn’t make a graveyard of the farm. They’d even go through great pains to keep the dogs out so they wouldn’t touch her.

“Elias and Kieran sent Garret out to see what was keeping Theodran so long. Aleyr knows what kept your brother!'' Sharia shook her head then pointed at the still near full mug of tea.

Modran drank thinking acrid thoughts.

Theo was likely out with that moneylender’s daughter again.

She tried to not let it bother her that he was taking his sweet time in getting what she needed, but she could hardly blame him either. If he had a talent like hers she’d be wary too.

It still hurt though.

Loss chilled her heart every time her sickness made a ghost of her. It was one thing when her aunt and uncle and her cousins avoided her like the plague she was. But it was always far worse when dad and her twin kept their distance too. It wasn’t like she enjoyed it either.

“Here, trade you for the second.” Sharia set the other mug beside her, and after a moment Modran placed her now empty one down to collect it. She didn’t drink it though, only continued her contemplation of the flames.

Rings of ash-white boiled in the wood with the fire crackling merrily in its wake. Living trees did that beneath her touch too, but only without the fire. Instead she burned life. Or her talent did. Not that anyone seemed to know the difference.

“Well, I’ll leave you to it. Did you want one of your books?” Sharia stood up, straightening her skirts, pausing hesitantly to see if she had any other needs.

“No, thank you. The tea and fire are plenty.” Modran smiled without meeting her aunt’s eyes. She didn’t want to see the flinch at her gaunt face or to see the shade of Sharia’s dead mother chasing after her trying to remind her of every little thing her aunt seemed to forget.

At least she hadn’t seen her own mom’s shade in awhile.

Sharia left with a hum as she went to prepare lunch in the kitchen, pots and knives clattered while she worked. Modran frowned into the fire, too fascinated and too tired to look at anything else.

She wondered if her mom would’ve hummed like that if she’d lived. After all, Modran’s birth was what killed her. No one would told her anything about it, but she knew what happened. She’d seen it happen several times whenever she drained the life out of something.

Everyone had a talent and hers was far more of a curse than a blessing.

She still wondered what had let Theo survive their birth when their mom certainly hadn’t.

Voices murmured outside. She repressed a shiver as she tried to make it out. With a blink she realized her sight was dimming, the edges blurred. Her hearing would be next.

In a day or two she’d die. She knew she’d come back, but no one else believed that she would. Just because it had happened once or twice that they knew of... they didn’t think she’d come back.

But she always would. She could draw her death out or spur it on at a whim. Just like everyone else though, she would die again eventually.

Modran tilted her head to the side as she doubled her body’s march towards death so she could cycle the lifeforce towards her ears. Her vision cut out abruptly, but her hearing sharpened to the point she could hear outside.

“Took you long enough.” Dad grumbled with a rustle of fabric. He must’ve crossed his arms so he could glare at Theo like he always did. “I was hoping that if you took Nightfire you’d be back sooner.”

Modran snorted. So had she. If it weren’t for that bastard’s daughter, he probably would’ve returned hours ago, but she wasn’t that upset. Just because she couldn’t live (ha!) didn’t mean he shouldn’t.

“Modran said she had awhile left this morning.” Theo said in that pathetic apologetic tone he used whenever any of the ‘adults’ chastised him. They would be adults themselves after this year. Squeals emanated from somewhere outside and her heart fell in time with her stomach’s rumbling. “I put Nightfire through her paces in the woods again so she’d have more practice before we can sell her for the races.”

“Hm. Good. Where’s your cousin?” Dad ignored the squealing racket of the basket as if it didn’t exist. He hadn’t asked yet for the chips he’d loaned him, but he would after. He kept a tight fist on funds.

“Stopping by Mother Kressi’s first.” Theo said, his voice grew louder as footsteps pressed closer to the door.

“What is it?” Dad asked in an acrid enough tone she would’ve bet that Theo could’ve shaved his half-beard with it.

“I fear she’ll need both.” There was another squall of piglet terror with a clear enough distinction that she was sure there were two of them.

Silence.

Modran almost felt the prickling awkwardness of the pause from where she sat in front of the fireplace. Dad was just about certain to have that scrunched up furrow in his brow matched with that disgruntled pucker he did with his mouth whenever he was disgusted or displeased with his children.

He wasn’t a fearful rumormonger by any means, but her and Theo had both heard him whisper to their aunt and uncle about the supposed atrocity that must’ve been committed by an ancestor for them to be cursed with her talent.

“Hurry up. I want you right back out here working the stalls and tending to the horses. Stomper’s been braying about something or another while you took your sweet time in town!” Dad called over his shoulder before Theo could slip through the door.

Modran cut the excess drain of her life and groaned at the backlash. Her vision was clouded and she only saw the vaguest suggestions of shapes and colors. Her ears rang and hummed in a discordant whine. She smiled at the snippets of the song Aunt Sharia was still humming along to the banging beat of pots and pans.

Too bad she hadn’t bothered to sniff while she’d been eavesdropping or she could’ve smelled the food, but now her nose was too stuffed up.

Footsteps pounded across the floorboards as Theo approached with the racket of pigs. She tried to turn towards him, but instead toppled half over. Her blood seemed to boil in her veins as her heartbeat skipped like a cup full of gravel.

“Theodran?” Modran turned to look at the brown blob that was her brother as she watched him kneel beside her.

“I’m here.” Theo guided one of her hands out of her quilted nest of blankets towards the closed lid of the basket. Pins and needles sparked where he touched her, but she didn’t fret about it. Theo was the only one that she didn’t have to restrain her talent from draining the life out of.

No one knew why that was, but it didn’t really matter even if they did whisper about what it meant to have one twin that was walking death and what that must make the other.

“They’re so full of life…” Modran whispered with unshed tears that brimmed her eyes, her hand trembled unmoving on the lid of the basket. “It’s a shame that they have to die, just so I can live…”

“Is it though? It’s not that different from us butchering pigs, chickens, or cows to eat them. You’re only skipping a few steps. Besides, we don’t know… how many times… you’ll return.”

She frowned as she undid the clasp with a herculean surge of effort. Was he also thinking about the time they’d pinched a few sprigs of whitelock from Mother Kressi’s garden when they all first discovered Modran’s talent. She’d eaten and eaten flower after white flower.

Chew, swallow, die, live.

Time and time again.

Until they noticed that it was taking her longer and longer and the last time she woke up to Theo sobbing beside dad who’d caught them at it. The last time it’d taken her almost ten minutes to come back to back surrounded in a ring of withered plants.

That was the moment that her incredible talent of invincibility became a curse of inevitability.

Modran sighed, first in disbelief, then again in satisfaction as she plunged her hand into the depths of the basket. Vitality surged from her fingertips where she rested her hands on the soft down of the crying piglet. Her hands no longer shook and her vision cleared.

She smiled as she fought to stem the flow, but it was a tide that could not be stopped. Her hand sunk in as its bones crunched and collapsed. Its heart gave out.Then there was nothing except ash.

“Take the other one away.” Modran commanded as she yanked her hand back from the other piglet. Hopefully she’d be able to stave herself long enough to allow it to live as much of a life as any other livestock animal could.

Theo flinched at the sudden strength in her voice then again as she stretched luxuriously. She reached out to finish the now cold tea that Aunt Sharia had left out for her, but stopped in surprise when it shattered under her grasp.

It was always hard to remember her strength after she fed. The only time she would be stronger would be if she fully died then came back.

Theo pulled a handkerchief out and dried her hands and the floor, collecting the shards of broken pottery. Gashes on her palms and the inside of her fingers had already closed by the time it took for him to finish.

She had plenty of vitality for the moment to heal something as trivial as a few scratches.

“I hate how good that feels.” Modran glowered even as her mouth kept trying to upturn itself to a smile. “Everything feels so vivid. I can feel every thread, every fabric of my clothes and these quilts.” She ran a hand down wonderingly over the blankets. “I can hear birdsong… it’s faint but so full of light. And by Aleyr, the colors!”

Modran climbed to her feet with a laugh and turned to beam at her twin who had one that matched her own. She hugged him, then rushed over to assist Aunt Sharia with the rest of the cooking.

Now, today was a day like any other.

Except they all knew the illness would return in a few months if she didn’t pull from something or if she exerted herself too hard.

Before too long she’d be confined to the fireplace or her sickbed once again.

Then this would all repeat again.