...
"What, gypsies' stories don't interest you? Hah! And to think Claudia read you her fancy Borcan stories that the old man brought over. They're more or less the same, except the Borcans don't got flair."
"Nothing fancy about a horror story coming from a Vistani's mouth."
"It ain't funny, either. Your broth's getting cold while you're playing with those stupid cards."
"Aw, whatever. You girls just don't like fun... thinking about it, neither did that gypsy."
"We don't need to hear that stuff around the dinner table. Cut it out before you make Claudia queasy."
"You're the one that goes to bed early when I talk about work, Lucía."
"Am not."
"Sure are."
"Enough, you two. Just eat. Lucía, did you read your pages?"
"Yes, sister."
"Recite to me what you learned."
"Bet you all the gold in the cellar that she didn't."
"Oh, you're just asking for it now...!"
"ENOUGH!"
...
"You think this'd work?"
"I practiced the incantation and measurements a hundred times because you've asked. Are you sure you want to do this...? Because I'm not."
"Weren't you the one that read about this? Didn't you tell me that these things can give us what we need? Legion or not, if it's true, they'd help us more than Ezra ever has... besides, I got my sword."
"The cost is-"
"I got it the first time, Claudia. Truth is, I rather pay the cost than have us all live like this for much longer. We don't deserve it. Not you, least of Lucía."
"I rather still have a brother than live a life I never knew."
"But I knew it, and I might as well have stolen it from you. Just let me do this... are you sure it won't wake her up?"
"We're beneath a cellar hatch and a full storey. She sleeps like a dead man."
"I don't know this kind of stuff. Just... let's just get this over with."
...
There was very little that Lucía failed to hear that night. At the time, she had no idea what the issue was, nor why they kept it secret — she simply figured that if they wanted it so, then she would rather not be home while they do it. Off she went, then, for a walk out back, into the edge of the woods of outer Curriculo, the full moon shining brightly overhead. Her family consisted of her brother and sister for as long as she could remember. She knew only a glimpse of her mother, a simple peasant girl of the usual Invidian stock, and nothing of her father, other than that he was a Borcan mercenary, later militiaman and vintner within Curriculo, that fell in love with a local woman and decided to settle down with her, rather than take her home with him. They were both reaped, prematurely, by a passing episode of plague, and while their children fell ill, they were saved by the grace of a wandering Anchorite, some mere hours after the passing of their parents.
She knew nothing but seizing opportunity since those days, lunging herself at the throat of what would be likely to bring bread home. Nothing degrading, nothing glamorous, nothing unusual for urchins of the day. She had no idea, that that very night her siblings hid from her in that musty cellar, that her way of life was about to change.
From afar, she saw the first spark of flame. By the time she ran halfway through to their home, it was collapsing, the flames turning night into day, and by the time she reached it, she only caught a glimpse of a winged figure spreading its feathered wings and soaring into the sky. Within the wreck, glowed a crimson circle, inscribed with indecipherable arcana, and yet within that — two charred corpses.
...
"What's the matter?"
"The last time something like this happened, I didn't have the chance to say I'm sorry."
"That's just 'ow the dice roll."
"Maybe."
...
Every time she wakes, her heart burns. The fire from that night clinged to her body like sweat. A putrid stain that would never go away, but it would drive her onward. Her eyes watered with grief and her brows knit in a scowl, from the flashing images that enter her mind and perturb her sleep. Those of the monsters she wished to erase, and those of her now gone family.
A skin of wine reminds her of life. A deep breath restores her sight to the fresh new day. A stride out of the door, and the new family she's made would stand in greeting.
For her, there was only now.