"Kaderin, just wait—"

She charged for the door, but he traced back to it and held his ground. She feinted left and ducked right, moving so fast she knew he couldn't make out her form. As he blinked, she swooped around him, bringing the sword handle crashing back into his chest, deciding at the last minute not to crack his sternum.

He gave a bellow of fury when she barreled past him. She darted down a rotting landing, toward the three sets of winding stairs, running through massive cobwebs so thick he must have traced through them for centuries.

Half staggering, half tracing, he was right behind her as she bounded down the stairs. But she pushed a hand on the railing and vaulted over to the next flight of stairs, then once again to the ground floor.

With a hoarse yell, he leapt down behind her, lunging for her. At the last second, she shimmied out of his grasp, reaching the heavy front doors. She burst through them, wrenching them off their rusted hinges and sending splinters arcing into the air.

Even outside under the morning sun's protective watch, she didn't slow. She raced down the valley toward the village—ragged breaths, leaves crackling beneath her boots, the warmth of the light. Don't look back.

Tears blurred her vision as she fought not to sob. The sorrow ached as unbearably as it had when she'd collected and buried the... pieces of her sisters. She ran away as if to forget that last night, as if to leave that memory back at that desolate castle. Don't look back...

After the burial, she'd torn at her hair and clawed at her skin, alternately shrieking with fury and grief and yearning for the oblivion of death herself. Exhaustion finally rendered her unconscious, and in that heavy sleep, an unknown power had communicated with her as a voice in her mind, promising surcease from the pain yet deadening all of her emotions.