'Stay on the path', Scarlat says, 'and not not stray. Tread where I lead, and we will be out of the forest soon enough.' And to be sure, as we walk down the path towards where we exit, light begins to filter through, and the forest behind us seems to brighten and spring back to life. Already the time we spent there is starting to feel like a distant memory, and as I look behind me, I can't help but think that I've left something important behind, though for the life of me I can not remember what. Daylight, violent and bright, assaults our senses. I can barely see - it's a strange juxtaposition, to leave extreme darkness behind me only to walk into blinding white light. As my eyes adjust to this sudden clarity, three things I notice at once : one, I am alone, Scarlat was no longer with me. Two, behind me there was no forest : I now stand on the threshold of a precipice that looks down to a deserted shoreline. Waves crash and break against the rocks, and I am lured down to the shore by what I see last - Viorica standing on the sand, her piercing gaze a beacon for me to follow. I find my way down, and as I approach her, I feel her sad eyes upon me. This light shows me facets of her that I had not yet fully seen, and just like her brother, she has somewhat of a lupine look to her. Her eyes follow me, mine follow hers. I reach her, and we both walk towards the water. She takes off her clothes, and commands me to take off mine. I do so, and we both wade into the water. It's freezing cold. We're waist deep in the water, and her long arms stretch toward me. Her fingernails trace invisible patterns on my skin. She's crying. 'Do you understand what you are here now and what you have already left behind?, she asks. 'Penance.', I say. 'As to what I've left behind... I know I'm missing something, I just can't tell what it is that is missing.' Her strong hands turn me around, and now I feel her nails on my back, they hurt in a gentle kind of way. She holds me from behind, so much like a lover, and tells me that I'd sacrificed my name, and along with it my faith and devotion, whatever they might have been. That sacrifice had severed my soul's connection to the light. She asks me if I had been told this, and I say no, not in so many words. 'Ah,', she says in my ear, 'my brother is much better at doing than explaining. He is instinct, pragmatic and to the point. Whereas I am much more welcoming. This is the last time we see each other, so I am always the last kindness you know.'
The water churns and swirls around us, I feel like a whirlpool is forming under us, ready to drag us both down to some watery abyss. But then she raises her hands, and the waters calm themselves. She looks at me, and says, 'As my brother became the Breaker of Faith to you, so I become the Breaker of Wills. Come with me.', she says, leading me by her hand. We walk a short distance to where a table and some chairs are placed on the ground - I hadn't notice them before, had they been here all the time? We sit down, each on a chair, facing one another. There's a bag by her side of the table, and she empties it on top of the table. A few objects drop and clink as they fall. She arranges them in order, a pack of cards, a smaller bag from which she removes runes, and a small wooden box which she opens, revealing fragments of bone inside. 'From the three, you shall choose one. From the one, you shall choose and accept your penance. Not all penances are completely unkind; some will make your fate far harder to endure, some may ease it. But it will always be what the fates decide for you. There's only one choice, and that choice being made, there is no staring anew. Am I clear?', and I nod. She turns her head away from me and directs her gaze to the shore. 'Once upon a time,' she says, 'I too had to choose my penance. My penance is to relive this moment forever. No matter how many times I repeat these actions, you always do the same things. Me and my kin - we see not only what was, and what shall be, but we also have insights into what might have been under other circumstances. One of those glimpses into a maybe future, saw us together. So I've been waiting all my life for you come to me, and when you did for the first time, I transgressed against my edicts. It unfolded the same way : you arrive, you meet me and my brother and Baba, that night I visit you, and we lay together. Only I use my talents to quicken the seed inside me, and you stay with us. But that is not what is written. And so I am punished, and so I am given my penance. It always hurts.'
She pushes the objects in front of her towards me. It's time for me to choose. Had I not been so thoroughly convinced by now of just how real this all is, then the cynical part of me would have thought these options laid in front of me the basest of clichés. Tarot cards, runes and animal bones. I choose the runes. Viorica sets aside the other two, and tells me to choose one from inside the bag. I fumble inside it with my fingers, and produce a small rock, ebon in its colour, with an amber sigil inscribed upon it. I don't know what it means. I hand it over to her, and she looks at it, slightly surprised. 'You never choose runes', she says. 'And this one... I wonder. This is different. She opens the pack of cards, and quickly shuffles it. Her hands are swift and deft, and she breaks the deck into smaller piles before putting it back together again. 'Pick a card,', she says, 'any card.', and I pull one out and place it face down on the table. She puts the deck away, and opens the bag of bones. They fall soundlessly on top of the table, and form a pattern. She is looking at it intently, then to the side of it, she places the rune. 'Now', she says, 'show me the card you picked.' I turn it over, and it's the face of a man holding out his index finger up to his nose, his stern visage stating that no noise was permitted. 'The mute.', she says. 'And the pattern of bones, it too portends the absence of sound.' She points at the rune. 'Tystnad.', she says, and then adds 'The silent rune. Your penance is silence, no sound shall ever again escape your lips. She waves her hand, and the table is cleared of its contents. Suddenly, she gets up, and comes up to me. 'Tell me your name', she says. I cannot, for I do not know it. I do not have a name. 'Tell me what brought you here to this lonely place.', she asks, and though I can no longer speak, I know this is all for the righting of the gravest cosmic injustice. What happens to me after this, I care not. Whatever hell my soul is condemned to, I care not. I will got into it willingly just so she can live.
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