“Fuck you,” she screamed as she pounded the mess in the snow that no longer resembled anything human. Hardly even bones remained to resist her ax’s finely honed edge. She was carving cracks into the cobblestones. “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck all of you, damn it, fuck… fuck…”

A hand grabbed her shoulder. Stasia lashed out, and her fist found purchase. Regret immediately followed. Through the red, she saw Clarissa clutching at her swelling cheek and cut lip, yet her lover did not pull away.

“Clarissa,” Stasia said. A thousand words formed and died upon her tongue. “I-I’m, I—”

Clarissa pulled Stasia close and forced her into a kiss. The rage seeped away, and in its shadow remained only emptiness and exhaustion. Stasia tasted blood on her lips, and it was her own fault. Her own sin. What apology could she offer to wipe that guilt away?

“Let’s get you home,” Clarissa whispered. She carried Stasia’s oversized coat, and she gently slipped it over her shoulders. As it covered her body, the last of her fury dwindled. The fire left nothing in its wake. She could barely lift her arms, let alone her great-ax. She leaned against the smaller woman, this person who was so much better than she deserved, and whose love she would sacrifice all the world to protect.

Stasia paused at the door to her house. Now that her blood had cooled, and Clarissa was safely home, she had spent her walk debating her future. She was not done fighting the empire, that much was clear, but neither would she leave the island of Thanet. So what option did that leave her? When her father and sister embarked for a new rebellion, a new nation facing the conquering wrath of the empire, what might she do? To stay was to abandon her family. To go was to abandon Clarissa. Neither was acceptable.

Mood sour, future bleak, she paused at the front door to her home. Soft voices leaked through, and faint candlelight shone in the window.

“Hello?” Stasia asked as she slid the door open. “Have we guests?”

The well-furnished entry room was surprisingly crowded. By the fire stood her father, Thorda, alert and stern as ever despite wearing a purple bed-robe. With him was an older, muscular man she recognized as the paladin, Rayan Vayisa, who had been their closest confidant in planning Vallessau’s liberation. The two older men conversed, drinks in hand. Her sister, Mari, tired and ragged from her time as the Lioness, smiled at her from her chair. Most unexpected of all was a third man sleeping on the couch. He was young, and she didn’t recognize him.

At least, not at first.

“Impossible,” she said as she stood in the doorway, unable to take another step inside. Her eyes locked on that cherubic face, and she remembered him now, remembered his panicked scream atop the wooden platform as the goddess died.