i. the ardat-yakshi


Accidents happen.

She'd cried at first. They took her at a crossroads, a time when Mirala could have meant anything; she had dreamed vastly, a hundred different people to be and all the years she'd have to know their shoes.

They died gasping with the girl she murdered.

(She didn't mean to. She never did.)

Dear mother,

I'm writing you to


Mother,


Samara,

she writes.

She's not built for gardening, sewing, brewing; her hands aren't made for marketplace novelties. She paces and screams. She leaves her marks in the monastery stone.

You did this, she writes.

Her sisters thrive. Not happy, but peaceful; content in repetition, in the ditches dug for them. She screams and they wrap her tight, keep her close. She fights and they suffocate. She drifts and they anchor. Their minds can hold hers and she loves them dearly and desperately for it, for the chance to touch without burning.

It's not the same, but it's all she has.

I am not an accident, she writes.

She makes a quiet show of leaving-notes passed under the breakfast table, secrets spoken under blankets with fire in her lungs. She steals food, packs clothes, hides her bags in the ceiling tiles.

But Rila sees the intent and tries to hide her anger with reason, true face burrowed under thoughtful ridges. Falere sees into all Mirala's dark gulches and snuffs her anger with tears. They love her too much to watch her go.

Mirala could never hate them for trying to keep her, and she cannot stand to see them hurt.

This is not for you, she writes.

In the end, she stays.