I must have spent two hours just lying there, listening to her voice.

  "In the for-est... it... hap-pens..." Aurora stumbled, huffing angrily over the page.

  "It happens," I corrected, not opening my eyes.

  "It happens... ma-ny be-ings..."

  "You missed a letter. Be-ings. Read it by the syllables; don't rush."

  "To... tell... them... a-part..."

  Her voice... it was so... It no longer held that piercing rage that made the stones tremble. Now it sounded soft, uncertain, almost melodic. I didn't even notice myself starting to drift off to that steady reading, like a lullaby I was never sung.

  I fell into a sleep, but the silence didn't last long. In the middle of the night, I was unceremoniously shaken by the shoulder.

  "Zenhald!" Aurora was sitting nearby, pulling the book right up to her face. "It says here that cir-rus clouds herald precipitation, but also good weather."

  I struggled to pry my eyes open, trying to make sense of it.

  "Well..." I shrugged. "I don't know. Clouds are just steam. They fly wherever they want."

  Aurora looked at me with genuine contempt.

  "Stupid," she spat and buried herself in the book again.

  One short word. Just six letters. But somehow, it went straight to my heart.

  Inside, right where my heart is, it became unbearably painful. As if a thin, icy needle had been driven under my skin. I was already used to her sarcasm, used to the blows, but now... now that "stupid" echoed with such a thick, gray sadness that I just wanted to dissolve into the darkness of the cave.

  I take her words too personally. Terribly personally.

  It hurts... I whispered so quietly she wouldn't hear.

  I turned to the wall, feeling a heavy lump of resentment stirring inside. Why did her opinion become so important to me?

  The next day was a waste. I just lay on my back for hours, hypnotizing the clouds. My mood was somewhere below ground level.

  My mana, the faithful companion of my depressions, lived a life of its own. The grass around me began to slowly cover with frost, turning into fragile ice statues. And Aurora... Aurora didn't even look in my direction. She methodically continued her training, squeezing bucket after bucket out of the air.

  I was infinitely, sickeningly sad. Just a tiny piece of attention. Please. One look that isn't soaked in contempt.

  I couldn't take it. I stood up and trudged toward the village. I needed to hear at least someone’s voice that wouldn't lash me like a whip. I had only taken a couple of steps when it hit my back:

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  "WEAKLING!"

  I almost collapsed to my knees right there on the path. That word hit the back of my head with such force that my vision went dark. I feel like I’m about to burst into pieces from this injustice.

  Why? Why do I take her words so personally? Right now... right now I’m as dependent on the opinion of one bratty girl as an infant is on milk.

  I hobbled to the old couple's house. I knocked. Gramps opened the door, looked at me, and understood everything immediately.

  "Come in, young man. Why so sour? What a day it is—sun, birds..."

  "I’m just hurting, gramps," I said, sitting on the edge of the bench.

  "Whoa," the old man froze. "You’re hurting? Who could have harmed you? You seem like a strong lad, look at how you handle those logs."

  I looked at my hands.

  "They’re hurting me with words. Cutting my soul without a knife."

  The old man went silent. He placed his heavy, calloused palm on my shoulder.

  "Well, I can't help you with that, sonny. There’s no medicine for it. This is your personal choice: either you lock your soul behind every bolt and turn to stone, or you keep it open and accept every blow."

  In the depths of my soul, I knew he was right. But I didn't want the truth. I wanted someone to just pity me. To tell me I was good. But gramps was too honest for that.

  I left quickly. Almost ran back to the forest.

  I reached our spot, hoping to see Aurora at the basin, but... the clearing was empty. The stone shelter, the fire pit, and dead silence. She wasn't there.

  I fell to my knees. And then I just slumped face-first into the cold, matted grass.

  She left. Left me alone in this forest.

  I woke up from a smell. It wasn't the aroma of fresh dough or forest herbs. It was a greasy, stifling smell of soot and burnt meat.

  I snapped my head up. Where the village should have been peacefully living out its days beyond the forest, a pillar of thick black smoke was rising into the sky.

  POP.

  I materialized in the very center of the ruins. The village was ablaze. Houses were collapsing, turning into skeletons of charred logs. But I wasn't looking at the fire.

  In the square, right in front of the well, there were pikes. And on them...

  Their faces. The very ones that just yesterday were smiling at me over raspberry pie. Gramps's eyes were half-open, as if he were still trying to see the "wrong light."

  I collapsed to my knees right in the hot ash.

  "NO... NO! WHY?! FOR WHAT?! WHY?!"

  The scream stuck in my throat, turning into a wheeze. Tears flowed down my cheeks, instantly evaporating from the heat of the fire. Something inside me finally snapped.

  The stones around me began to tremble and slowly rise into the air. My eyes... I felt the darkness boiling in them. The white disappeared. The iris dissolved. Only two black holes.

  "SO, HOW DO YOU LIKE IT, ZENHALD?" a ringing, mocking voice sounded.

  Aurora stood on the roof of a burning house, enveloped in a white radiance. She was laughing. Sincerely. Merrily. Like a child who had just broken a complex toy.

  "DOES IT HURT?!" she shouted, jumping down and landing a couple of meters away from me. "Finally, you look real!"

  I raised my gaze to her. The rage was such that I stopped hearing the roar of the fire.

  SNAP.

  I didn't pour in mana. I simply commanded her existence to end.

  "DEATH."

  The air exploded. Aurora’s left shoulder simply burst, turning into a cloud of bloody mist. Her arm was torn off along with her collarbone. She slumped to the ground, choking on her own scream, but triumph still burned in her eyes.

  She began to gather mana with her remaining hand. A white, blinding sphere of Oblivion began to swell between her fingers.

  PEW!

  The projectile hurtled in my direction. I saw its trajectory. I could have dodged, could have teleported, could have...

  But I just watched. I applied my will to space, slowing the sphere down. It approached slowly, viscously, shining with an impossible whiteness.

  I looked into her eyes.

  I want to forget you, I thought. I want to forget your voice. Your reading lessons. The smell of this ash. This unbearable pain in my chest.

  Oblivion was a gift. The only medicine that could save me from myself.

  The white sphere touched my chest.

  The world flashed and began to crumble into gray flakes. Voices, faces, names—everything went into the silence.

  I fell backward, feeling my consciousness dissolve into an icy void. The last thing I felt was my heart, for one moment, stopping its ache.