Page 16 of Crown of Flame

She hasn’t said much since we left the tower. I gather that the creatures we encountered might have troubled her as much as they troubled me.

I could feel the merged souls in those unnatural creations, not ‘evil’ or ‘tainted,’ just driven into madness by sheer incompatibility.

I have more questions than I know what to deal with, but I ask the most basic one on my mind.

“Where are we going?”

At first, I fear I might not get a response.

“I don’t know,” she says eventually. “Somewhere safe.”

I look out at the bleak horizon. Nothing about this place feels safe to me, but I trust her to know her home realm better than I do.

The wind rages even more aggressively, and I see faint hints of worry starting to take hold of her.

“Perhaps you’d be safer back at the tower?”

She stops, looks down at the ground, then pauses to laugh.

“Yeah,” she says. “I’m not going back there right now.”

Her resolve in this matter is almost concerning.

We walk longer, neither of us saying anything. I’m finally beginning to appreciate the uniformity of this place. Like my home realm, the world seems to all be more or less the same. There are cliffs, ‘trees,’ and long expanses of flat land separating it.

“Then perhaps we should talk to pass the time,” I propose, glad to have a companion to accompany me. The other creatures back home were typically better rivals than conversation partners.

Not that this place is anywhere near as good as home. As much as I’d like to learn about it, I’ll be glad to be rid of it as soon as possible.

She looks blankly ahead. Her stare suggests emptiness and a million thoughts all at the same time, and she still carries a deep sadness that screams at me.

“Okay,” she says.

“Okay?”

She nods. “You have questions for me, I have questions for you.”

We reach the side of a cliff, and she leans down, digging uncertainly through the snow.

“What are you looking for?” I ask.

She’s growing increasingly frustrated at her inability to find something. “Is that your first question?”

“I was not aware we were limited to a set number.”

She stops digging long enough to address me.

“On the way here, I found a dead body left discarded in the snow,” she says. “Since I haven’t been able to bury any of my friends or loved ones today, I thought maybe I’d bury him. Is that okay?”

I puzzle over the concept of burying dead creatures.

“Why would you do that?”

She sighs. “It’s frustrating talking to you sometimes,” she says. “Do you know that? Sometimes, I feel like we’re speaking the same language, and you still don’t understand anything I’m saying.”

I move closer toward her, scouring the ground for traces of a body resembling her species. The powder, which she explained was ‘snow,’ is stacked high.

“Then help me understand.”