《Nilfrem》


 Chapter 1 Under Siege

    Evening in the City of Children, in the Invaded Land of Zantou


    The air was gray and lifeless. Beneath the shadow of a black baseball cap, Nilfrem¡¯s optimistic black eyes peered through a narrow crevice, looking at the other people who were seeking shelter at the temple.


    At only five years old, he was too young to understand the concept of being stuck. There he stood, bent over under the cold solitude of concrete rubble completely oblivious. He wasn¡¯t worried at all that his chubby head was trapped between two steel reinforcement bars.


    Beside the temple, there was a hole in the parking lot resembling a massive pothole. The cars were burned out and wrecked.


    The temple, a three-story building by the sea, was painted in the colors of the Neutral Faction: purple and white. People filled its classrooms and walkways and pitched makeshift tents in a courtyard in the center of the building.


    ¡°Bear with it a little more, my children. For now, you must remain here,¡± Sister Rose said against the backdrop of a deafening explosion. Though not their birth mother, she loved and cared for them as though they were her own children.


    ¡°Oh... Oh¡­¡± The girl cried repeatedly in despair. ¡°It¡¯s not thunder. It¡¯s not raining.¡±


    "No one among you is at fault." Sister Rose looked on helplessly.


    The little girl ran up boldly to her older brother and embraced him, bawling tears on his neck. Even just for a few fleeting seconds, being with her brother sparked joy and comfort.


    ¡°Children? Children!¡± Sister Rose was not trained how to pacify children and it showed.


    Fireballs rained down indiscriminately on the streets outside. Flames lit up the sky as the sounds of bombings and blasts reverberated across the city.


    She whirled around to see a thick plume of smoke rising into the air a few blocks over.


    ¡°Why are we being punished?¡±


    ¡°It is all my fault.¡± Kids screamed and hollered.


    Once in a while, though, some caring person would point into the sky at the invader¡¯s aircraft and say something along the lines of, "It¡¯s nobody¡¯s fault. You are not evil. They are!"


    A crying girl came before Sister Rose and asked her, ¡°Why did they have to bomb my dolls?¡±


    Another fiery blast shook the ground under our feet, the sound was incredibly loud and scary. Billowing clouds of acrid smoke choked the air, stinging her eyes and coating her tongue with an ashy film.


    At that moment dozens of children began to cry and itch. This is the loudest sound that they ever heard. Many of the kids peed in their pants.


    Sister Rose listened, and her face suddenly collapsed. The war tanks were said to be just meters from the hospital across the street.


    She wished she had an answer. She could tell which girls lack mothers by the look of their hair. There was more devastation in the collective suffering of children than anything she had witnessed before. She was so choked up on emotions that she could barely speak.


    She seemed to be pulling herself together for a few seconds, as though she did not know where she was, and what she was doing, and curled up on the floor with her fingers gripping the shawl over her hair.


    In the central courtyard, masses of huddled people had taken shelter here, sleeping in the extreme cold without blankets or pillows.


    But the children could not sleep because of the sounds of missiles. They huddled with their family wide-awake as planes flew across Zantou, their homeland.


    A father and his daughter were pleading to the monks, ¡°We fled under fire at dawn today. We carried a few blankets and walked 2 hours south to reach the entrance to the City of Children, and now we are in the street. Where should we go?¡±


    He had put cotton balls in his daughter¡¯s ears to muffle the sound of bombardments. The walls were shaking, there was a toxic smell in the air.


    The girl pulled at the long sleeves of her dress, desperately trying to hide the angry red splotches that crept up her forearms. In the crowded shelters, about one in six had some skin disease.


    Ever since the bumpy rash appeared a few days ago, her life had turned from a waking nightmare into a hellish nightmare. What had started as a few small, raised spots had quickly blooded into an angry, pitted terrain across her arms, legs, and face. The rough, uneven texture seemed to mock her every time she looked in the mirror.


    Sister Rose heard back from several Brothers. They ran to investigate the site of the latest offensive attack and found it completely destroyed. Bodies were everywhere. They could not find any survivors.


    ¡°For mercy¡¯s sake. The children; they are not to blame!¡± Sister Rose bellowed. She lowered herself completely to the ground, kneeling on a woven rug with her forehead pressed to the cool marble floor.


    Before her stood an imposing statue - the temple''s guardian deity known as a Fire Elemental. Carved from obsidian stone, it towered seven feet tall with the muscular torso of a powerfully built human warrior and the horned, snarling head of a great desert djinn. In the Djinn¡¯s hand was an eternal flame burning continuously behind an open altar.


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    For three decades, Sister Rose had served as caretaker of this ancient temple. Ever since the invaders began their brutal genocide of her people, she came daily to kneel before the Fire Elemental, desperately beseeching the powerful entity to awaken and intervene.


    Shortly after, another person of faith approached the eternal flame, despite the red cross necklace around his neck showing that he was a worshiper of Blood Sacrifice. There were many overlaps in the two beliefs because the Blood Sacrifice and the Eternal Flame were as ancient as the land itself.


    God of Light and Salvation,


    God who seek the Lost Children of Blood


    Extend your mighty hand to fight for us


    Keep us safe and worthy until our eternal death


    We pray for those killed, injured and trapped


    So may your flame comfort our souls


    Together, they called for justice on behalf of their people and on behalf of the children. Everywhere she looked, a prayer room, classroom or a spot in the hallway, were all full of people who lost their homes and loved ones from the oppression inflicted by those who wear the distinctive pointed hats bearing the emblem of the Double Prisms. The rectangular-prism-shaped hats were a distinguishing feature of the religious believers of DP, the Double Prisms.


    Sister Rose¡¯s grieving was abruptly interrupted when a group of toddlers insistently pulled at her shirt.


    ¡°Teacher! We were playing a game. But he followed me through the steel pillars.¡± A four year old girl was pointing to the old playground.


    Sister Rose didn¡¯t see anyone in the direction the girl was pointing to. There was nothing but rubble by the playground.


    Her initial reaction was ¡°Is this a joke?¡± She didn¡¯t believe the girl until another boy stepped forward and said the same thing as the little girl. And then another boy came. And another.


    The voices of children grew louder, which is how Nilfrem, the boy under the rubble, knew people were going to come find him.


    He tilted his head up panicking. It was weird. Ninety percent of him didn¡¯t want them to come. It was embarrassing.


    Nilfrem looked like a ghost. His skin was all sparkly pale gray with dust.


    She examined him with arms crossed tightly over her chest and her eyes squinted half shut from the glare.


    Sister Rose muttered in disbelief, "How did this happen?" She had seen countless ways children got themselves hurt while playing in their neighborhood. But she couldn''t help feeling taken aback every time.


    ¡°Are you injured? Where does it hurt?" One man asked gently as others set to work clearing away the large, broken chunks of building material.


    Nilfrem felt weak. He made little noise. He was so tired. He felt so heavy. His whole body was shaking.


    He caught fragments of a girl''s high-pitched voice. "Don''t worry," but even as the girl said it, Nelfrim felt crushed as if something deep inside him was breaking.


    After 30 interminable minutes, he grew very worried. The realization was settling in on him. Would he remain stuck like this forever? Would he never go back home? There was an anxious, terrible feeling he did not have the words to describe.


    He did not remember everything Sister Rose and the other children had said, only the emotions of their words and how the air turned raw and full of shame. He did not like how other people were looking at him. But if he was being honest, what he truly hated was the way he appeared to them ¨C small, helpless, pathetic.


    He wiggled his head hoping to push it out of the trap through his own strength. But each failed effort only served to drain him further, until hot tears of frustration and despair streamed anew down his dust-caked cheeks. No matter how hard he tried each time, he could not squeeze his head out.


    In his mind, thousands of nerves had been severed then crudely rewired in disorder. It made him cry again, even harsher and more guttural. He could no longer speak.


    This went beyond mere confusion when you see weird things happening. It was an insidious wrongness gnawing at your very being as if a beast were consuming a part of your soul.


    He felt stupid and pathetic. Is this who he really is? Nelfrim wept as hot tears streamed down his face.


    The other people''s words fell on deaf ears. He knew they were speaking, but none of it was getting through.


    Terrible thoughts, barely a whisper, were planted in his mind. He was trying desperately to get rid of these seeds of darkness but how do you make things go away when they do not exist?


    Everything felt wrong, distorted ¨C as if the world itself had been upended and set spinning wildly in the opposite direction. Nothing was as it should be. He did not know how long he was falling in darkness.


    Time was a finicky thing. It stretched out into an excruciatingly long hour and thirty minutes. But once it was over, relief came instantly.


    The teacher was seeing off the other kids as some parents came to pick them up. One by one, each child departed until Nelfrim remained the only child in the playground.


    She squinted against the brilliant crepuscular rays fanning out across the expansive sky coming from the west. The sun was sinking below the horizon, casting a warm orange-pink glow over the sea and the line of hundreds of their invader¡¯s warships.


    Nilfrem couldn''t recall anything, as he had spent the entire time crying and thinking of the worst. They managed to clear the rubble and free him. He was not sure whether they cut through the steel or somehow managed to squeeze his head out.


    He couldn''t recall how he made it home. Was it Grandpa, Grandma, or Uncle who came to pick him up?


    They were all kind and genuinely loving. But his feelings were telling him it was Grandma who talked to the teacher, her hands tenderly holding his own as they made their solemn way home.


    Night fell over the convent, the dying moonlight cast upon fire and debris. Sister Rose finished her nightly prayer. When relaxing was too hard, those familiar mantras brought a sense of peace and comfort. She remained kneeling by her narrow bed, unable to rise just yet.


    Through the white curtains of the window, she gazed up at the stars glittering in the inky sky. For a few blessed moments, she could pretend there was no destruction, no deafening bombs or patrolling Double Prisms officers terrorizing the innocent. The quiet hung heavy, as if the oppression had finally ended.


    The man who stood by her side today, approached from behind and kissed her gently on the neck. His arms hugged her waist and she hugged him back lovingly.


    "Are you thinking about the poor boy again?" he murmured against her hair.


    Rose nodded, her throat tight. "Yes. I am worried."


    "Don''t be." Her lover reassured her, strong hands rubbing her shoulders. "He is one of the lucky ones. He has a brighter future waiting in the Emperor''s Land."


    "His grandmother said his flight will be in two days." Rose''s eyes lingered on a flickering light crossing the night sky - not a star, but a plane heading west. ¡°Toward freedom¡±


    Her lover hugged her tighter. "It''s where he belongs. The blood of our people runs in his veins but he was born in the Emperor¡¯s Land. This invasion cannot be allowed to steal his future, too.¡±


    "Yes...you''re right," she whispered, more for herself than for her companion. They stood together in the darkness, praying the boy''s flight would be safe, that some small piece of their world might be rebuilt from the ashes of this terrible invasion.

 Chapter 2 Fireborn

    Nilfrem remembered the bright airport lights and the feeling of his backpack''s straps pressing on one palms. His other hand was on his uncle, terrified of getting lost in the sea of bodies swarming the departure gates.


    His uncle''s huge frame pushed through the crowds, that round mask strapped to his face. Nilfrem kind of wished he had one too. His uncle had offered to swap masks, but the N95 respirator looked too bulky and uncomfortable for Nilfrem''s little face.


    His uncle explained that the airport¡¯s air quality isn¡¯t good. Nilfrem could smell the faint fumes sometimes. Nilfrem didn¡¯t care because he was a child. He just thought the fan in the N95 respirator looked very high-tech and made his uncle look strong like a hero.


    "You''ll see your mama and papa soon," his uncle''s muffled voice promised, the mask making him sound like a stranger. Nilfrem could not read the unspoken words between the lines but he had a sad feeling and didn¡¯t want to say goodbye.


    Nilfrem was not sure what he did but he didn¡¯t say goodbye to his uncle. He was feeling a mix of emotions. He''d been excited. The voices he heard on yearly phone calls, those were his parents. But also...kind of uneasy. What if they weren''t as nice as he imagined?


    One heart-murmuring second, he was Nilfrem, just an antsy kid who didn¡¯t talk a lot, on his way to meet his ¡°long-lost¡± parents. When his eyelids slid open, his world imploded into a spiraling vortex of flames and screaming embers.


    Have you ever been startled awake in the middle of the night, your heart pounding like you just fell off a cliff? Multiply that by a million, and you''ll barely be scratching the surface of the cold, writhing panic that slapped Nilfrem across his metaphorical face at that moment.


    Because nothing ¨C zero, zilch, nada ¨C could''ve braced him for the sight of himself convulsing like a demented flame. Nilfrem''s form thrashed in a storm of fire and sparks, a twisting amalgam of reds, oranges, and searing yellows.


    For that single, frenzied moment, all he knew was that he''d been...reduced? Transformed. Something fundamental had changed. It felt like he was stripped down to the very essence and reforged into something primal and elemental.


    He was surprised to discover that his body is only 3 inches tall, amorphous and made of fire, constantly flickering.


    He tried to do what any other kid would - you know, scream his lungs out and wake the neighbors three streets over. But this new fiery form had no mouth, no lungs. Just an impossibly shrill screech of shooting embers, like an angry hornet''s nest got doused in gasoline and blasted awake by a tiny stick of dynamite.


    While his new body thrashed in that frenzied dance, flashes of memory sparked through the chaos. The flight...going to the Emperor''s Land...meeting his family at last...had it all been an elaborate dream?


    He was still salty about those inspectors confiscating his Helix the Cat action figure just because the bipedal plastic toy had twin gatling guns instead of paws. It''s not like the little plastic weapons could do any actual damage. The gatling guns were just for show - they made cool little flashing red lights and sounds!


    He had felt the unforgettable disappointment of nearly all toys, many of them were brand-new and untouched gifts his uncle bought for his departure. No matter how hard he pleaded and pouted, the inspectors were unmoved.


    He was stoked to keep his awesome moose lantern whose antlers lit up and played a little tune. He still felt disgruntled for failing to heed his uncle¡¯s advice and not hiding the toys between the layers of folded clothes.


    But enough about tragic toy confiscations. He was having a bigger crisis of existence to deal with here. Like the fact that he shape-shifted into a bizarre, flickering fire spirit while his brain played back his last coherent memories like a reel of KitKot videos.


    He remembered the bubbling excitement of finally arriving at his new home. The place was cozy enough, but to a child it felt delightfully spacious.


    The real showstopper, though, was outside. Nilfrem the Fire Spirit had felt it first before Nilfrem the Child. It was peaceful and safe and a little odd. Different from the streets of Zantou that were sand and dune-covered and the sidewalks were burial grounds.


    The pavement was squared into neat sidewalk tiles that Nilfrem took great delight in avoiding the cracks between. He spent several undignified minutes avoiding every crack, with a bad feeling that if he stepped on a crack, something terrible would happen.


    Sure, it was all perfectly pleasant. Orderly, even. Still, he couldn''t shake an overwhelming sense of disconnect. This new life already felt so distant, so alien. It was a stark contrast to the natural facade of his grandparents'' village. It was not densely populated and impoverished like the City of Children. There was no strong sense of community like in the Central City of Zantou, where his uncle lived in a nice apartment with his short-lived pets.


    He has been here for not even a day. Yet he ached to go back, even if just for a little while longer...to walk those rowdy streets one last time...to hear the familiar sounds of seafood vendors lounging in the countryside and his uncle¡¯s motorcycle...to taste the sweet berries that his grandpa gather on their mountain walks¡­to feel the rush of wind through his hair as he clung to the back of his uncle''s leather jacket.


    The Emperor''s Land felt strange and far-off, even though he stood right there, his feet firmly planted on the ground. It was like his spirit had wandered off somewhere, leaving him feeling disconnected and lost.


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    Back in Zantou, the fire spirit experienced every new thought or emotion flickered through the real Nelfrim''s mind, though it was like being connected through a distorted emotional signal.


    The fire spirit slumped down, his fiery essence dimming as he surrendered to the undertow of melancholy. That''s when he realized where he was - perched atop the eternal flame before an immense obsidian statue of a legendary fire elemental. One look at that snarling djinn head and rippling pecs was enough affirmation that he wasn''t hallucinating some crazy fever dream.


    The ancient inscription spiraled around him in a dizzying helical pattern: ¡°At times, our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another¡­¡±


    Suddenly, it all made sense. Well, maybe not the flying beach ball of existential crisis, emotional whiplash, and fiery transformation. But he knew what he was now - a Fireborn, reborn from the eternal flame''s ruddy spark. While his physical body continued to live its new life in the Emperor''s Land, his spiritual energy had been rekindled as this...this...


    He studied the hypnotic convergence of his own flickering form. Was this why the real Nelfrim had always felt so distant and out of place, even in the most peaceful place in the world?


    <hr>


    Night after night, Sister Rose stood before the eternal flame, studying the way it danced within the obsidian Fire Elemental''s outstretched palm. The ruddy glow painted her face in a warm blush, shadows flickering across her features as if the stone djinn itself drew breath. Yet no matter how intently she gazed, the flame burned ever steady - faint, but even.


    "Well, so your old friend is gone, you''ll be sorry to hear," her lover murmured one evening, arms encircling her slender waist from behind.


    Sister Rose stiffened. "Who?"


    "The Lightbringer. The one who served at the Relief Center, delivering comfort to the internally displaced." His words were muffled against her hair.


    "Is he dead?" She frowned, unable to keep the skepticism from her voice. The Lightbringer was an academic, a celebrated author renowned for his literary works documenting their people''s oppression. Surely the enemy would not target such a selfless, compassionate soul.


    "The Truth Tellers have retrieved his corpse themselves," her lover replied grimly. "By their own hands."


    The Lightbringer...dead? Sister Rose''s throat tightened as fragmented memories resurfaced. The last time they met, a pang of discomfort had colored their interaction - not from any personal strife, but simply the jarring juxtaposition of his life of privileged comfort amidst such profound lack and suffering.


    He had come to present her humble temple with his latest literary achievement - a gold medal and critical acclaim for capturing the complexities in their people''s plight. She remembered his haunted eyes, the guilt simmering behind them as he dwelled in the safety of his plush hillside enclave while others starved on the streets.


    "They killed him over a joke," her lover spat, venom lacing his words. "A simple message on LarryBird, telling people to think critically instead of swallowing the Double Prisms'' fear-mongering lies. He even tried to flee when the death threats started rolling in, but those drones tracked him to his sister''s flat."


    His arms tightened around her, knuckles blanching. "Nine innocents dead. An entire family obliterated by a single fireball from those remote piloted drones. All for daring to speak reason and truth."


    Sister Rose felt ill. The celebrated Lightbringer, she recalled his dry humor, the warmth crinkling the corners of his eyes when he laughed. To think those eyes now stared forever at nothing, their warm light extinguished¡­


    "It''s evil," she whispered, anguish cracking her voice. "He was just an academic. Never a threat to anyone."


    "The Double Prisms always find an excuse to justify their slaughter," her lover seethed, words she already knew were true. "Anyone who dares defy their tyranny is branded a ''combatant threat'' to be mercilessly crushed."


    His hand drifted to the locked display case, fingers brushing the gleaming literary medal encased within.


    "He would have wanted you to have this. The only thing of value that remains of him."


    Sister Rose felt her eyes well with tears as she cradled the medal''s case against her chest. After 44 years of dedication and self-sacrifice, this golden disc, honoring his poetic achievement, was all that remained of the universally revered man.


    She thought of the years of her dear Sister Dahlia who often indulged in the puffs of her beloved death stick. To Sister Dahlia, the death stick was the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It was exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?


    Dahlia had often said to her, ¡°Rosebud, I am not long for this world,¡± and Sister Rose had thought her young sister¡¯s words as mere idle thoughts.


    Dahlia''s words rang truer than Rose could have grasped. But who would bring harm to the peaceful servants in the neutral zone, a temple of peace and non-violence?


    Each evening as she tended the eternal flame, Sister Rose found her lips shaping the damning word over and over - "Terrorists."


    It had always sounded strangely in her ears. It never felt appropriate to call all those invaders such an ugly word, ¡°terrorists.¡±


    A word without forgiveness but aptly fitting because forgiveness for the enemy who killed her all those innocent lives was an impossibility.


    But now it sounded to her like the name of some maleficent and sinful being. It filled her with fear, and yet she longed to be nearer to it and to look upon its deadly work.


    It haunted her dreams. Each night, Sister Rose found herself walking those shattered streets, weaving through the wreckage that stretched as far as the eye could see. Smoke choked the air, embers glowing like demonic eyes in the darkness.


    Yet it was the face that drew her in, pale and mournful against the backdrop of destruction. A face devoid of life, yet whispering incessantly - confessing secrets in a hushed, sibilant tongue. Rose strained to make out the words, but they slithered through her consciousness like slippery eels.


    Some nights, the hollow-eyed face was her own. Other times, it bore the faces of those she had failed - parents torn from their children, loved ones ripped away without a whisper of farewell, always relentless murmuring.


    On this night, she felt her soul receding into some pleasant and vicious region. The wreckage around her goes on for block after devastated block. The smell is sickening. Every minute was another day where hundreds more additional phantom humanoids clawed through tons of rubble with shovels and iron bars and their bare hands.


    And there again she found the gray face waiting for her. It began to confess to her in a murmuring voice and she wondered why it smiled continually and why the lips were so moist with spittle when her own lips were desert chapped.


    A tremulous hand extended, gesturing at the ruin surrounding them. "Look upon their deadly work, sister. This is the face of their ''peace''. It whispered, its form wavering like a guttering candle flame.


    Rose flinched as if struck, the words lancing straight into her core. How many nights had she lain awake agonizing over that very word - terrorist?


    So many innocents slaughtered under that twisted pretense - teachers, healers, even playful children whose only ''crime'' was the unforgivable act of existence.


    "They are the true terrorists," the spirit hissed, features contorting in a rictus of rage. His form began to dissipate, whispers fading into the ether.


    ¡°No more silent vigils. No more mournful prayers for deliverance that would never come.¡± Its final breath was her own. She felt that she too was smiling feebly as if to absolve the blame for every death in this ¡°war¡±.

 Chapter 3 The Eastern Fire Temple

    In the twilight hour, Sister Rose tended to the flowers in the temple''s walled garden. Though small, this tranquil space brought her peace amid the turmoil gripping her coastal city.


    The delicate buds were on the cusp of blossoming into vibrant blooms. Rose smiled, plucking a ripe red teardrop-shaped petal and savoring its sweet flavor.


    "Why do you waste time with that garden?" her blank eyed assistant said, scraping the mud clean from a hoe. "Why do you let yourself be attached to this garden? They will take that away too. Anything that we find joy and fun, they take it away. For good. Might as well cut them all and be done with it. What''s the good of clinging to something you''re bound to lose? If those invaders pay for the property when they damage or steal, that would be something, but they won''t. They''ll take this garden and destroy the last uncontaminated water well and that''s the end of it."


    Rose said nothing, watching a group of neighborhood children dart between the wavering tree shadows. Over the high hills, above the minaret, the evening star shone piercing clear.


    It must have sparked something in another person, who had mistaken their conversation.


    "This land was never theirs to take. Why can''t you see that?" another man spat, words edged with bitterness. He traced the faded outlines of their homeland etched into the courtyard''s ancient flagstones - a sprawling territory now divided vertically in the center into West and East.


    His finger circled the small coastal city, the only region that wasn¡¯t crossed out in the western half. The enemy¡¯s land was over 60 times their size.


    A dull rumble rippled through the earth, drawing gasps from the children, not thunder, but distant explosions.


    ¡°They set their evil heart on taking over this land. And once it falls, more violence will be directed towards our brothers and sisters in the West. We must not let this city go!"


    ¡°When the time comes, we may have to abandon the city." a man with a defeated look said. He bent to meet the child who came running on little, bare, white feet across the rough ground, and gathered her up in her arms. As he turned, he bent his head to kiss the child''s hair, which was black; but his own hair, in the fire¡¯s flicker, was fair.


    The setting sun ushered in the night''s chill, but Sister Rose felt a different kind of cold seeping into her bones. She knelt before the obsidian statue of the Fire Elemental, the eternal flame in its outstretched palm flickering.


    A distant rumble, like far-off thunder, made the children tense. But the sky overhead remained a brilliant golden orange and majestic feathery clouds.


    Another explosion rocked the temple, this one closer, louder. Plaster rained from the vaulted ceiling as the ground trembled beneath her knees.


    Sister Rose scrambled to her feet, robes whipping around her calves as she raced through the arched doorway and into the courtyard beyond. A massive plume of oily black smoke billowed above the city''s eastern quarter, lit from beneath by an angry orange glare.


    "Come home, Children! Come home!"


    The man stood outside, his own feet bare and cold on the ground, the sky darkening above him. His face in the dusk was full of grief, a dull, heavy, angry grief that he would never find the words to say. At last he shrugged, and followed his wife into the firelit room that rang with children''s voices.


    Shouts and screams echoed through the temple halls as civilians fled from their temporary shelters, barefoot or in sandals, eyes wide with panic. A young woman clutched a wailing infant to her chest, stumbling blindly until Rose caught her arm.


    "This way!" She pulled the woman toward a narrow doorway, escorting her and a stream of other refugees into the relative safety of the reinforced cellar. "Stay here until¡ª"


    An ear-splitting blast detonated nearby, hurling Rose from her feet. She struck the stone floor in a haze of ringing ears and blurred vision. Someone screamed her name, but the sound was swallowed by a high-pitched ringing.


    Dazed, she squinted against the clouds of burning white phosphorus billowing through the open doorway. The courtyard wall was gone, reduced to a pile of rubble. Beyond it...horror.


    Bodies littered the once-serene garden plaza, broken and motionless amid the craters and spilled blood. An overturned cart spilled crates of vegetables, blasted into an unrecognizable pulp.


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    A child''s doll, once lovingly cradled, now lay eviscerated in a streak of crimson. Rose clamped a hand over her mouth, fighting back the surge of bile.


    The silence that followed was shaken only by a cadence of boots. Through cracks in the roof of the temple, gaps between columns where a whole section of masonry and tile had collapsed, unsteady sunlight shone aslant.


    It was an hour after sunset. The air was still and cold. Dead leaves of weeds that had forced up between marble pavement-tiles were outlined with blood, and crackled, catching on the long black robes.


    And there, beyond that scorched pit of destruction, the soldiers marched in ruthless precision toward the temple. Riot gears concealed their features, but the Double Prism emblem blazoned on their green uniforms marked them as the enemy''s soldiers.


    Cradling the woman and her child against her with one arm, Rose reached with a trembling hand to retrieve her fallen cane. She braced it beneath her, using it to lever herself upright, broken chunks of masonry crunching beneath the hem of her robes.


    "Stop, I beg you!" she cried.


    One of the soldiers raised his arm, a cruel-looking rifle clutched in his gloved grip. No voice spoke, no eyes watched besides her own. Red scoring along the barrel''s length glowed like a branding iron.


    "Don''t¡ª" Rose tried to call out, but her voice cracked to a strangled whisper.


    Too late. The soldier''s finger tightened on the trigger, and a blinding lance of crimson energy lanced from the weapon''s muzzle. It struck one of the wounded refugees¡ªa man missing both legs, his tattered pants leaking blood from ragged stumps¡ªand engulfed him in roaring flames.


    His agonized screams filled the air, a soul-searing wail that seemed to stretch on for an eternity before mercifully fading as his charred remains crumbled to ash.


    Rose flinched as bullets whipped past, instinctively shielding the young mother and her child, bile burning her throat as the young mother sobbed against her shoulder.


    Through a haze of stinging tears, she met the gaze of the soldier who had fired the fatal shot. He cocked his head almost quizzically, as if studying an insect pinned to a board. Then he raised his rifle again, taking aim at another survivor struggling among the rubble.


    A tremor raced through Rose''s frame, not of fear but of rage. These people¡ªher friends, her flock¡ªcowered in terror as the soldiers casually, callously extinguished their lives.


    Gathering the last of her strength, Rose straightened her spine and leveled the soldier with a look of pure, undisguised loathing. "You will go no further, murderers!" she shouted, her words ringing with conviction. "Not one more step into these sacred grounds!"


    The soldier froze, rifle drooping slightly as his helmeted head swiveled toward her. Then, as one, the column pivoted in her direction and raised their weapons.


    Rifles barked, unleashing torrents of tracer fire that kicked up fist-sized craters in the rubble-strewn earth. Rose flinched, instinctively shielding the woman and child as shrapnel whipped past her face.


    A pair of wiry arms encircled her from behind, dragging her backwards into the sheltered alcove.


    Rose thrashed against the iron grip, feet scrabbling for purchase. "I won''t abandon them! Let me go!"


    "We have to get you out of here!" It was Fatin, one of the younger acolytes. Terror shone in his dust-streaked face. His thin face was streaked with dust and tears. "They''ll kill us all if we don''t run!"


    "I won''t run and leave them to slaughter the innocent!" Rose snarled, slamming an elbow into Fatin¡¯s sternum. He wheezed, doubling over as she wrenched free and stumbled back toward the open courtyard.


    A piercing shriek split the air, so unbearable that Rose instinctively clapped her hands over her ears. One of the soldier''s projectiles had punched through the stone archway in a spray of debris, missing her head by a hair''s breadth. Muzzle flashes flickered like dragonfire behind the rippling haze of heat distortion.


    "Sister Rose!" Fatin shouted, voice barely audible over the din. He lunged for her, straining to drag her away from the hail of bullets chewing through the crumbling masonry around them.


    "We can''t¡ª"


    A brilliant lance of crimson plasma seared through the smoke and dust, striking him square in the chest. The young man''s eyes went impossibly wide, mouth frozen in a silent scream as the fire consumed him from within.


    For an endless second, Rose saw Fatin''s skull burn against the blinding flare. Then with a horrible rush of heat, he disintegrated  to ashes as his remains scattered on the wind.


    "No!" She lashed out at the swirling smoke and debris, torn between the urge to scream and collapse into hopeless weeping. How many more would die this day?


    Her hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. Through bleary eyes, she sought the form of the murderer who had immolated Fatin. There¡ªa darker silhouette at the vanguard of the column against the billowing smoke, rifle already realigning.


    As if sensing her gaze, the trooper swiveled to face her, raising his weapon to present another shot.


    In that frozen moment of clarity, the two locked eyes from across the shattered ruin of the courtyard. Rose saw the glint of the soldier''s dark visor, the merciless lines of his faceplate and double-prism insignia. She bared her teeth in a feral snarl, letting all the anguish and hatred roaring through her soul blaze in her eyes.


    The rifle blazed again, but Rose had already pivoted into the smoke-shrouded shadows. Let them come. Her foot squelched in a pool of blood as she fled deeper into the ruined temple.


    Next time, she will destroy them, and not care for their lives and not see the terrors in their eyes.


    Blistering tears blurred her vision. Fatin¡¯s broken body was swallowed behind her, along with the screams of the dying and the charnel reek of scorched flesh


    She promised that when the time came for retaliation, she would not spare a shred of mercy.


    Her foot squelched in a puddle of blood, and Rose bared her teeth in a savage grin. They would regret this day, regret coming to shed innocent blood on these consecrated grounds.


    She would make sure of it.