He had tried to stop her, to talk to her as she left, but she had pushed past him

  She wandered through the house in a hazy trance, her mind tracing her soft skin, fluid joints, pain-free side.

  She stared out over the maze, her grove was in the distance. She could see the pile of stone that used to be her home. The edge of the lake was visible. On a day like this, Neve would have been resting there basking in the little bit of sun that managed to reach the grove.

  She wished she was still that grove. She would be finishing preparing her preserves around this time, re-insulating her home against the cold. Her hand would be bloody and blistered from pulling the rose roots. She would still be there hoping someday she might be free. Free from the maze, free to see her family.

  But now that would never happen. She would never see her family again. Not like this. She would never be free. She doubted she would even see them in death. Not even the gods would take her like this.

  Silent tears rolled down her cheeks. She would be alone forever, not even Neve was still here.

  Even if there were some chance her sister was still alive, she would never be able to see her.

  She roamed down the hall to her bedroom. It was as she left it. The clothes she discarded for the travel outfit were laid out over the bed. The fake sheep still grazed on the hillside.

  It had been a long time since she’d been here. She didn’t know how long, but it had been long enough for the air to stale. Everything was still, covered in a thin blanket of dust.

  Surveying the dead room, her eyes met with a stranger’s. Her new body reflected back in the mirror of the vanity. Her body was curved and elegant. Her posture, that of a skilled dancer.

  The face was hers, but not. It was uncanny, flawless in every way, the skin a beautiful golden tan hue, not a single blemish, scar, or misplaced sunspot. Her features were perfectly symmetrical, light freckles stretched across her high cheekbones like a spattering of stars. They highlighted her large, rich evergreen eyes that were encircled by long lashes.

  An elegant wave ending in perfect coils of silver hair haloed her face, a stray strand brushing the corners of her peach pink lips like butterfly kisses.

  This was the body of a monster.

  With a scream of loathing, her fist found the glass. It collided with the pane straight through it, straight through the thin wooden backing behind it, finally stopping when it hit the stone wall. Shards cut long grooves into her perfect new skin, blood flowing down her perfect reflection.

  She ripped her arm free, kicking the vanity to the side, the shattered glass spilling over the floor, throwing thousands of her own image mockingly back at her.

  As she fled the room for the only sanctuary within reach. A long trail of blood pouring down her arm, off her finger tips, chased her.

  The serenity of the beast room offered little peace. The animals didn’t approach her, keeping a weary distance, sensing the truth. Bird’s stopped singing as she neared their trees, rabbits descended down their holes.

  She found a clearing, far enough away from the animals to not frighten them, and took a seat in the cool grass.

  Her bloodied arm throbbed painfully, but any feeling other than perfect comfort was welcome.

  She glanced at the injury. Mostly shallow gashes trailed down her arm, smaller hunks of reflecting mirror glass still protruded from the mangled flesh of the deeper ones.

  She plucked at them mindlessly as she surveyed the backs of her unworked hands.

  It wasn’t long before her relative peace was interrupted.

  She felt him behind her as he approached, long before he even spoke.

  “May I please talk to you?” He requested gently.

  “No.”

  He inhaled a breath of frustration, but didn’t let it show in his voice, “What happened to your arm?

  “Broke the vanity.” Her words were short, final.

  He ignored her, “Will you allow me to stop the bleeding?”

  She didn’t respond, staring at the grass as he left.

  He returned shortly after, kneeling in front of her with a handful of the iridescent snails.

  Taking her wrist delicately in one hand, he crushed the snails in the other. He gingerly applied the goo across the length of her forearm, the skin numbing at contact with the goo. The bleeding stopped, but her arm and his hand were still stained with old blood, the cuts still remained.

  “I could give you a Runebind to heal yourself.” He offered, lowering her arm back to the position he acquired it from.

  “I told you I don’t want Runebinds.” She muttered.

  He sat down in front of her, cross legged with a determined scowl, “I have to talk with you, Miss Cora.”

  “Please just leave me alone.” She growled.

  “I will, but first you must listen to what I have to say.” He said firmly.

  “No.” She stood up. “I truly don’t care what you have to say.”

  He too stood up, “You don’t now, but you will.”

  “Then I’ll ask when I do. For now, please just leave me alone.” She turned away, heading toward the exit.

  He let out a sharp exhale, “Fine. When you change your mind, I will find you.”

  She retreated to her room, stepping over the shards of glass to rest on the bed. Sleep didn’t draw her, as much as she wished it would. She wouldn’t ever have that peace again.

  She stared at the rainbow lines rippling the ceiling, for the first time noticing that they weren’t naturally part of the stone. Where the floor and walls had been smoothed and repaired, raw crystals sprung from crumbling marble in the ceiling.

  She had always thought the embellishments were an artistic choice, they certainly went right along with Zaramir’s extravagant dress sense, but now that she saw the unpolished version, they almost seemed to be an accident.

  The marble was significantly damaged. If magic didn’t hold this house together, she expected the upper floor would crumble because of it.

  Perhaps it was a byproduct of a spell, like the storms.

  It is. An instinct clawed at the back of the brain. There was a hum, a vibration, coming from the crystals. While silent, it created a light buzz in the air, like a nearby swarm of insects.

  It was a soothing thrum, like a summer’s night.

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  She took a deep breath, feeling some semblance of peace. The magic in the air cocooned her in a soft blanket of safety.

  She ran her fingers over the small cuts in her arm the glass had caused, they really weren’t that deep nor did they even hurt now with the snail good that had dried on.

  Her arm began to itch from the flaking blood and peeling layer of goo. She picked absentmindedly at it, scratching the irritating texture.

  She didn’t even notice that she was truly scratching at it til her nose twitched as she caught a twinge of a metallic scent. She sat up, to find her fingertips were sticky with fresh blood. She’d scratched away the healing ooze, leaving raw skin behind.

  Yet, she couldn’t stop scratching, the itch only grew, creeping slowly up her arm.

  She streaked red lines of blood across her arm as she attempted to relieve the sensation. As it slowly crept across her body, it began to feel as though she had Needleroot thorns under her skin. The itching turned to a painful prickling.

  Something’s wrong.

  The pain at least stopped the scratching. Every movement, brush against her skin felt as though she were being swarmed by biting insects, venom slithering through her veins.

  The blanket grated her skin as she slid off the bed and tiptoed over the tiny shards of mirror to the bathroom to attempt to wash the stinging, piercing pain away. Though she doubted she’d even be able to feel it if stepped on a piece at this point.

  Attempting to peel off the tunic, she found herself in agony. It felt as though she was peeling her skin off. She only managed to get one arm partially out of the sleeve before it became unbearable.

  Abandoning the wish to remove her clothes first, she stuck one foot under the running sphere of water, needing to get wherever was causing this off her as quickly as possible.

  This turned out to be her biggest error yet. As soon as the water came in contact with her skin, it burst into flame, turning the whole orb into a miniature sun, and the bathtub into an inferno, the air around her baking her soft skin. The ceramic of the tub cracked from the heat.

  The molten water immediately sizzled off her skin as let out a scream so loud it rattled the gems in the ceiling above her. She scuttled backward across the floor, pulling her blistered leg behind her away from the ball of fire, until the back of her head hit the sink.

  On top of the stabbing that enveloped her body, her ankle was now an oozing mess of blisters and mangled flesh.

  “Cora!” Zaramir was kneeling at her side before she even knew he was in the room. Her scream must have drawn him. “Fae, this is what I was trying to talk with you about!’

  He scanned her burns, his eyes finding the fireball at the center of the room a moment after. He extended a hand to the flame, balling it into a fist and the sphere extinguished, leaving empty air in its stead and decimated tub beneath it.

  As his hand landed on her bare shoulder, it sent a lance of pain through her neck, “Don’t touch me!” She shrieked, ripping herself away.

  “Listen to me right now, Corabelle.” His voice was firm but urgent. “ I know, you don’t want Runebinds but you need them and this is why. Allow me to give you one to heal you and I will explain more thoroughly.”

  “Fine,” She agreed, tears of pain, welling in the corners of her eyes.

  Drawing a tiny blade, smaller than a thorn, affixed to an abalone shaft from his pocket he spoke, “I didn’t expect this reaction this quickly nor in this exact manner but I knew it would come eventually. I was hoping to talk to you before it did.” he held the blade above her skin, “This will hurt but not for long.” He warned.

  He pressed the blade into the flesh of her upper arm, dark ink flowed from a small vial in the shaft of the handle down a small groove in the top of the blade as he swiftly carved out the runic circle.

  In truth, she didn’t even feel a difference between it and the pain of touch as the side of his hand would brush her skin as he worked.

  As soon as he finished the ring, the Runebind began to glow. The burns swiftly healed over as did the bleeding from the Runebind he’d carved and the glass cuts on her arm.

  The stabbing pain dulled to the irritating itch. Though, she would gladly take this itch for a lifetime over that pain for another moment.

  He tucked the blade back into his pocket, “That will not be enough, but it will be sufficient until I can finish explaining.” He sat back, as if settling in for a long story.

  “What happened?” She questioned, wiping the tears away with one hand, rubbing mindlessly at her itching arms with the other.

  “You’ve probably wondered why I have so many Runebinds. It’s not exactly common to have any, let alone this many.”

  “I just assumed they were convenient.”

  He shrugged his coat off his shoulders revealing the circles emblazoning them, “Some are. I have a handful of utility Runebinds, some for protection, but many are there to serve a more critical function. Every Faedemon who intends to survive for very long has them for the same purpose; To temper our Sparks.”

  He pulled his coat back up, re-covering the marks, “Our magical abilities are a double edged blade. Yes, our spells are far more potent, our aptitude of magic far higher, but this comes with a Spark that burns much hotter, much larger. If it’s not tamed, it will find a way to unleash itself one way or another.” He looked at the remains of the bathtub. “Your Spark is a lot more aggressive than mine was when I was first created. I didn’t begin to feel the effect until months into my existence. Even then, I was able to quell it with simple spellcasting and a few minor Runebinds for years. My first real eruption was here in the maze. You can see it all around us.”

  He ran his hand along a line of the polished colorful crystal in the floor, digging a nail absentmindedly into an imperfection in it.

  He dared a joking smile, “Though I seem to have been more fortunate with my manifestation than you were.”

  The edge of her mouth twitched up slightly, but any humor was quickly consumed by despondency.

  His smile vanished, “The longer a Faedemon lives, the more the Spark begs to be harnessed. Runebinds consume the energy of the Spark to be sustained. It is an efficient way to ensure the Spark doesn’t erupt. Most of my Runebinds have no daily, practical use.” he rolled up his left sleeve, exposing more Runebinds. “This one gives me a lifesense tied to this domain.” He ran his fingers over one just below the crease of his elbow. “I know the location of any living thing in the labyrinth, the castle.” He moved the one next to it. “This one keeps my hair how I like it, pure vanity.” He chuckled, rubbing his thumb over it as though it were a childish decision, made when he was young. “They mostly serve little to no practical function outside of keeping the magic in check. And you’ll need more for the same reason.” He pulled the sleeve back down.

  “If you would prefer it I can put them on your back from here out so you don’t have to see them and I can give you ones you may find useful.” He offered as he observed her repetitive scratching of her arms. “But they’re no longer optional I’m afraid.”

  She balled her hands in her lap, fighting the urge to keep scratching, “Which ones would you recommend?” She asked softly.

  “Would you like to be able to command the animals? You seem to enjoy being around them. You could have them do simple tasks for you.”

  She shook her head, “No. I couldn’t…I don’t want to force them to do anything.”

  “I understand. Would you prefer ones that are more passive? I could let you see in the dark?” He suggested, before adding jokingly. “I could give you the same vanity Bind.”

  Wrapping her arms tightly around herself, she shrugged, “Fine, whatever.”

  “Would it be acceptable if I gave you both?” He inquired. “You will need many over time, but I believe three will be enough until you can make decisions with a clearer head.”

  She nodded indifferently.

  “I’ll put them on the back of your shoulder.”

  She turned her back to him, shrugging her tunic down further to expose more of her back.

  The carving of the Runebinds was painful, but the pain was quickly muted as her first Bind glowed brightly, healing the wounds dripping small lines of warm blood down her back. Every so often she felt Zaramir's hand swipe away the drops before they stained the top of her tunic.

  Once he finished she felt his hand wipe across her back, removing the remaining blood before delicately pulling her top back over her shoulder.

  The itching vanished. There was no change to her vision in the well let bathroom. Though she felt her hair brush her neck, sending chills down her spine from the corner of her vision, she could see a stray strand lengthening slowly.

  She turned back to lean against the sink once again.

  “Does everything feel alright?” He questioned, gently.

  “Mhmm.” She murmured.

  There was a moment of silence before he released a slow breath, “I realize now I made some poor decisions. I should have just released you from the maze when I found you but… Truthfully, I missed having a human in my house. It gets…quiet after a while. But I know my decision was selfish and you paid for it. Now the best I can do is offer my deepest apologies.”

  She raised her eyes to look at him, “Thank you. And I’m sorry too, for yelling at you. I know there was no way you could have stopped them from doing this to me. It was wrong of me to blame you.”

  He gave a solemn nod, “Is there anything else I can do for you, or would you prefer I leave?”

  “Can you do me one favor?”

  “Of course.”

  “Can you put me to sleep?” She requested. “I just don’t want to be…I just want to rest.”

  Standing, offering her a hand up, he agreed.

  She accepted the hand, following him to the main room. The glass in their path vanished with a wave of his hand along with the broken vanity.

  She laid back on the covers, him taking a seat on the edge.

  “Rest well.” were the final words he said to her as purple mist enveloped her and she drifted into the darkness.