******

Accordingly, I'd bathed with the aid of the maidservant before heading for the dining hall. There, I'd dined with Lord Himmel and the Mayor. Uneasiness had rippled in the atmosphere. My wrists had been unbound, but Lord Himmel was eyeing me across the table with such suspicion throughout the whole meal that I wouldn't have been able to play my flute, even if I wanted to.

The Mayor hadn't helped either. He had been chatting amiably with Lord Himmel, and occasionally made small talk with me. But it couldn't hide the leering side-glances towards me. I'd shuddered, thinking of how easily his thin, bony hands could break me; and how his hard lips could whisper fear into my ears.

We were now out of the house, but I still wasn't rid of the foreboding feeling settled in my gut. Lord Himmel's elite guard had arrived after dinner, and the stable hands had saddled up Lord Himmel's mare for us. We'd rode out as the first stars crept into the sky. The ropes were back on my wrists. It almost felt natural to have them again.

The night usually meant more patrolling guards, but this was winter. Less monsters. So some guards could afford to take leave and get some blissed rest before the ice melted, and before the monsters awoke from their slumber. However, there was still quite a number of people roaming the town. I noticed that crowds gathered where we passed by. Not surprising. The townsfolk were always fascinated by the prospect of a wealthier province's ruling nobility coming to visit. I remembered how they always gawked at a lord or a lady's entourage, cluttering up the streets, while I hung back, constantly watching from a distance, admiring but never daring to go near.

And I was currently at the centre of it all.

I shifted uneasily, enduring the disbelieving stares of everyone. Everyone—from the richest merchant to the lowest-born scallywag. It set my nerves on edge, and for once, I hoped that we would arrive at wherever Lord Himmel wanted to go soon.

Halfway through the town, a song began to float in the air. It took me a while before I realised that it was Lord Himmel who was singing. For all of his monstrousness, he did have a beautiful voice. It sounded like gold, like silk—like the heavens itself. My Core, nearly forgotten, stirred to its rhythm. It was weak, suppressed by the magic on the ropes, but it was there. I'd sorely missed its presence, and its warmth was a small comfort.

Soon enough, I found shape in Lord Himmel's song: it was meant to repulse and push away. Eventually, the crowd found something better to do, and no longer kept trailing after us. I sucked in a deep breath, finally able to breathe without being monitored so closely. The weight of people no longer suffocated the air.

Only, the chills came back. I lifted my face to the sky, hoping to find solace in the stars. Instead, the sight broke me.

There was a full moon.

A full moon, when Saint Bromilde would be at the peak of her power. When Lord Himmel would usually drain children of their youth. When he would go to provinces to steal the Fountain's magic.

Whatever Lord Himmel was planning, it wasn't going to go well for me.

After a few more minutes, we came to the entrance gates. The sorcerers on duty stopped us. They eyed me and my leg, as well as the entourage of guards behind us. I imagined that we must have been quite a sight, a travelling party of about thirty men strong heading out of the town. The walls weren't much, but they were better protection than nothing at all.

One of them, a tall middle-aged man with a broken nose stepped forward. "It's dangerous out there, milord," he said. "It's advisable to not venture out at this hour."

"We'll be all right," Lord Himmel replied coolly. "Won't we, Klaudia?"

I almost jumped out of my skin. "Y – yes. Of course, mi – milord," I stuttered awkwardly.

The sorcerer frowned at us, features silhouetted silver under the moonlight. "If you're sure..."

"We're very sure." Lord Himmel's tone was hard, and the sorcerers immediately stepped aside. They all beat fists to their hearts and bobbed their heads.

"Stay safe, milord," said the leader.

Lord Himmel kicked the horse in the ribs, and it started in a slow, easy trot. The steady clopping behind us ensured that our rear was being guarded. The night was peaceful, and the trees rustled in the gentle wind. No sensations of being watched, of being surrounded by danger.

If only the full moon weren't there.

Then slowly, the sorcerers took their positions to guard our flanks. And the trot turned into a canter. Then a gallop. The horses kicked up plumes of snow, and the scenery rushed past us in a blur. My eyes watered from the sting of the air; I closed them. I didn't have the liberty to consider where we were going.

When we stopped, I restored my vision to see that we were literally in the middle of nowhere. The town of Hamelin was just a small bump and rise here and there in the distance, and there was a forest to our right.

Everyone dismounted. Lord Himmel held me down, and I wished my hands were free to do something—tug on my hair, wrap around myself, play my flute. So long as it rid me of my jittery nerves, anything was welcome.

Some of the sorcerers tied the horses to nearby trees, while others started to form a circle. They looked so at ease, and no instructions were given to them at all. Had they known of everything beforehand? What were they going to do to me?

"Stand in the middle." Lord Himmel's voice came from my side. I looked at him, and his eyes were glittering dangerously. There was an aura of restless energy about him. He was bound to Saint Bromilde, in a way, so I supposed that he drew strength from the moon.

I obeyed his orders. The sorcerers automatically parted to allow me into their circle. Lord Himmel also stepped inside, walking towards me. He took my wrists and untied the ropes. It fell onto snow in a cloud of white. I looked at him incredulously.

"Take out your flute," he said.

Don't do it, a small voice whispered in my head.

"Now!"

With trembling fingers, I took out my Medium. The wood was icy to the touch, and where I usually found solace in its shape, all that was left was fear. Pure, undulating fear. It filled up my entire being, numbed my mind, leaving no room for other emotions.

Lord Himmel walked out of the circle, leaving me alone to be surrounded by the sorcerers. Their faces were impassive, not a trace of what they were feeling peeking through any cracks. Yet their eyes were all on me, unnaturally silver, even if their irises weren't grey by nature. They were almost beautiful, in a way. If they weren't so hard and unyielding and emotionless. Run! the voice in me screamed. Run while you can!

I didn't—couldn't.

"And now, let the moon light your path." Lord Himmel's voice sounded ancient, reflecting his true age, a strange note ringing in it.

Right on cue, the sorcerers began to chant.

There was no music, no beat to accompany the strange echo of voices in the darkness. But there was no need; the chant was music in itself, a weaving, winding phrase of whispered words and beast-like noises. The language itself felt familiar, yet alien. It was the language of magic—of Fountains, of power. It was the language of saints, as they looked down upon us from their heavenly home. It was the language of the beginning and the end, where cycles ran in circles, never truly having a start and a finish line.

Tears sprang to my eyes. The chant was beauty in all its terrifying glory, cities built upon ashes, birth blooming within decay, riches forged upon blood. My Core cried with me, revelling in the chant's power. Drowning in it, getting pulled deeper and deeper in its lull, and refusing to surface.

The snow beneath me glowed silver.

My vision turned white.

******

I blinked furiously, clearing the light out of my eyes. I was standing in the same spot, the moon still shining bright above, the wind still singing quietly.

Except that everyone was gone.

Wrongness. The air was distilled into wrongness. There was no trace that anyone had been here. No footprints, no horses. Nothing. I held onto my flute, keeping a wary eye on my surroundings.

Then wisps of smoke rose from the ground.

I raised my Medium to my lips, preparing to fight. The wisps took shape, forming heads, bodies, and limbs. They had features on their faces too, and they were slowly being painted with colour. I stood very still, unable to tell if they were friendly or hostile.

When they were done transforming, Papa Gunter, the Mayor and a few other townsfolk from Hamelin were standing before me.

"Cripple," the Mayor hissed.

I flinched. The voice was guttural, monstrous. But it belonged to the Mayor, all the same.

"You don't belong. You never belonged," he continued. "You were an accident. An abomination that should never have entered our grounds in the first place. If not for you, we would still have our magic. We would still be rich and happy."

Why was he suddenly saying this to me? All these years, and he'd never mentioned a word about banishing the infamous cripple. Why now?

"You deserve to die."

Each word was a jab to my heart.

He held out his hand, and smoke curled around it. Soon, he had a riding crop. My lips trembled at the sight of the weapon.

"You deserve to die."

This time, the sentence didn't come out of the Mayor's mouth.

It was Papa Gunter.

I staggered backwards, as though I had taken an invisible blow to my gut. His expression was poison, ten years' worth of hatred and anger burning in his eyes. No sign of the man who had loved me and taken care of me. This was the real him. This was the demon he had always kept under wraps.

And now it was baring its fangs at me.

"Have you any idea how much I suffered? Have you any idea how much I wanted to abandon you? If only I weren't bound to the blood oath Anton and Maria had forced me to take, I would have done so a long time ago!"

Tears streamed freely down my cheeks, meeting the ruthless kiss of winter. It couldn't be—he would never say anything like that. But even as I tried to convince myself otherwise, I knew that it wasn't true. The love he gave me was all a lie. Everything I knew were all lies.

Lies lies lies.

Then suddenly, every one of them roared out at once, words jumbled with one another's. But I knew they were directed towards me. Curses came unbound; insults hurt worse than scorching fire. And amidst the chaos, they all came walking towards me. I was unable to move. I watched as they drew closer and closer.

Papa Gunter led them all. The Mayor's riding crop was in one hand. With the other, he silenced the others with a smooth gesture.

He grabbed my hair, threw me onto the ground, and started to beat me.

The first blow landed squarely on the small of my back. I cried out, more out of shock than pain. Then the next blow came. And another. And another. Agony rain down upon me, angry flashes of lightning striking me, over and over. I screamed until my throat went hoarse, but Papa Gunter didn't relent. The scars on my back split open, and I buried my face in the snow, muffling my screams, feeling blood well out of the new and old wounds.

"Please," I heard myself beg. "Please don't."

The blows stopped coming. I took in deep, sobbing gasps, revelling in the brief moment of pure bliss, where there was no pain tearing me apart, where I was left alone with my wounds. I heard the shuffling of boots by my side, and I weakly craned my neck to see who it was. Papa Gunter's brown eyes stared into mine, as cold and as biting as the snow my cheek was resting upon. His face was nearly unrecognisable. Had the craftsman I'd known truly been a facade all this while?

He held the stare, his gaze cutting into me. I forced myself to stop crying, to not look so vulnerable.

Even as my heart shattered.

"Weak. Even now, with so much power in you, you're weak," he hissed, his breath brushing against my hair. "Why don't you use your magic?"

I tried to move, but my limbs were leaden, and I couldn't lift a single finger without feeling a twinge of a muscle. My back felt like it had been shredded apart, and I could feel my skin being exposed to the winter air, my blood freezing all over.

"What now, girl? Can't you even form a single sentence? Or are you deaf and dumb as well as crippled?"

He didn't understand. They all didn't understand. I didn't ask for this disability—no one in their right mind would. I was just a victim caught up in the eye of the storm. If only they knew, perhaps they would be more accepting of me, see me more than a cripple. Perhaps they wouldn't turn all their anger towards me, perhaps I wouldn't be so scarred by my past.

I felt strong fingers yanking on my hair, forcing me onto my feet before flinging me backwards. I landed on the ground back-first, my head throbbing. Once I managed to regain my orientation, I saw all of them bearing down upon me, bloodlust glittering in their eyes. Even Papa Gunter's.

"You cannot run now, little mouse," he said. And he laughed. Laughed at my helplessness, at my weakness. The rest echoed him, their voices filling the night air with their mania. In an effort to scramble back, I accidentally twisted my bad leg, and they all laughed even more at my clumsy attempt to get away.

"Run, little mouse. Run!" they cried. "But you cannot get away—you can never get away."

Now my back, my head and my leg were all blooming with pain. I gritted my teeth, struggling to pull myself together. I wasn't just a cripple; I wasn't a helpless girl anymore. I was a Magus, and I had my Medium with me.

I suddenly didn't feel so afraid anymore.

Clamping down on the pain, I pushed myself onto my feet. I forced myself to look at each and every single one of them, face the inner demons I'd never revealed to anyone. Not Lady Gertrude. Not Heidi. Not even Elise or Josef.

These were my fears, and I had to defeat them.

******