The Shadows Have No Face || 𝐀𝐂𝐎𝐓𝐀𝐑

For You, I Promise Death

(~200 years ago)

It had been a rough morning of repairing the damage from the week before, when a beast had stumbled across our land and attempted to take the Tower for its own home.

My job until lunch was to help clean the remaining scraps of fur covered flesh that would be turned to coats for winter. Thankfully, I was not forced to clean the massacre left just outside.

Anya took what I had cleaned and folded it neatly, stacking the square sheet atop the pile of others. Perfectly measured out, perfectly cleaned, perfectly folded. After finishing all of them, they would go to the seamstresses.

I pushed a few fallen strands behind my ear and grazed a hand over the spun braided bun to make sure it still stood strong. I then readjusted my mask, as it was starting to slide off my nose. Still too big. I wonder who owned it before me...

Anya clicked her tongue to get my attention, silently reminding me to not pause work for anything.

"What does the rest of your day look like, Akari?" Maria asked, walking into the room and closing the door quietly behind her. The firelight blazed brightly across her ivory white mask. The two holes for eyes barely let me see she was smiling.

I shrugged my shoulders. "Cauldron watch again. And tonight I will stand watch outside with Ana."

"I will pray for you," Anya said sarcastically.

Maria smoothed out the front of her leather tunic and said, "Joseph ordered me to tell you that you will not be standing watch tonight."

"Why?" I asked. Had I done something wrong? It wouldn't be the first time. The last healing wound still itched along my arm from three days ago.

Anya tilted her head, and spoke through the blank face of the mask, "you haven't been counting?"

I dropped the brush and fur and looked up. Anya was staring at me, and I couldn't tell if she was smiling under that mask. A year. It had been a full year since my arrival, hadn't it?

"Seriously?" I asked Maria.

She laughed, "what else could it be? Now come on, they're waiting for you above."

I carefully organized the table so everything was ready for my return later. Today I would go to the elders and my fate would be decided. My future told to me and all who wished to witness. The most important part of my existence, according to everyone here.

The footless Cauldron stood in a calm simmer at the top of the tower, surrounded by a surprising number of people waiting, including me. The three elders stood together, so old that they knew this land before the tower was built.

"With your first given weapon, give your blood to its power," the eldest of them commanded.

I stepped up and took the folded steel blade wrapped tightly in dark stained leather. The metal was cold against the skin of my palm, and I squeezed hard as I pulled the dagger through my hand. Blood trickled down my wrist and into the bubbling Cauldron. It evaporated before hitting the liquid, billowing up in black smoke.

The elders watched closely. Watched the smoke that rose from the Cauldron, from my blood. Pitch black, darker than fire-smoke. Moving, waving like seagrass up my hand, through my fingers, across my skin with a tickling cool feeling, disappearing quickly, leaving no trace behind.

I felt my heartbeat in my head. My throat had already dried out from the climb up all those steps and the hot sun beating down. I didn't know what to do. If I should step away or stay where I was.