The dressing room was thick with smoke, and Cassia inhaled deeply -- the smell of pine and sage calmed her shaking hands as she drew on her face-paint on in careful, measured lines. Red for fervor, purple for wonder, green for knowledge and a base of yellow for the colour of life, the sunlight across waters, petals on the wind. The paint was cool against her skin as the bristles whispered across her cheeks, forehead, eyelids.

A horn boomed from outside, its timbre shaking the wooden walls around her.

Cassia pinned up her skirts and ducked outside. The fire was already burning in the centre of the lakeshore, drums beating in time with the winds. Cassia locked eyes with her brother. Karon smiled back from his seat at the head of the drumming brigade, face adorned in the same colours. Cassia counts herself in, keeping time with her palm tapping against her thigh in a steady rhythm. Eventually, after twelve beats, it came, the cue, a rapid succession of high-pitched beats from her brother's drum and she linked arms with her sisters-in-dance. Feya stood on her right, and Pittia on her left, looping arms through ribbon-adorned arm, dancing a ring around the fire, counter clockwise, into the lake, and around the fire again. Cassia closed her eyes as the rest pf the village chanted around her, feeling the dry heat of fire-warmed pebbles under her feet, then the cool, calming waters lapping at her ankles, and back again.

She had always loved the Festival of Jélere, keeper of the waters, and Goddess of life. She had danced this dance twenty-four times now, once yearly since the age of four, when she had been touched by the Goddess herself. Her and the others could see the spirit, during the festival. She felt it now, the familiar tug at the soles of her feet as they summoned Jélere once more. The drums kept time, speeding up slowly before working up into a cacophony of beat, a sonic cleansing fire to welcome the Goddess.

The drums slowed.

In the fire, a shape began to take form. Cassia stared into the embers, rippling from the centre like footsteps into the lake. Jélere stood before her, bathed in orange, and...frowning. That wasn't right. They had done everything right, kept the crops alive, honoured her as if their mother. She shouldn't be unhappy. As the Goddess' form rose from the flames, cloaked in blue satin and flowing dark hair, her copper skin shone in shades of red and purple.

It took another four beats for Cassia to realise that Jélere was bleeding. Her hair was matted to her face with tears, and her dress torn. Her face was frozen in anguish. She opened her mouth, and a singular syllable poured out, cloaked in celestial tongues and stone-deep resonance.

"Run."

And then all the world went dark.

Karon sat in his room, waiting for the ceremony to begin again. It was the thirtieth time he had attended, yet it still hadn’t lost its weight. He flipped his balisong between his fingers, the motion smooth but restless, something to fill the time that dragged far too slowly. “Each minute feels like an hour,” he thought, leaning back with a quiet yawn, his eyes drifting out the window in tired anticipation. Then the distant sound shifted—horns rising sharply through the air, followed by drums that echoed through the village like a heartbeat waking everything at once. His tiredness snapped away in an instant. It was time. He hurried outside, excitement pulling him forward. The village had already gathered, a sea of movement and color swirling around the massive flame at its center. People danced and chanted like it was something carved into their memory, practiced until it became instinct. Karon searched through the crowd and spotted his sister, Cassia, moving near the front with the others. Then the smoke shifted. It thinned just enough for him to see through. Karon froze. Beyond the fire, in the clearing, lay Jeleryn—injured, barely moving, blood staining the ground beneath her. The noise around him felt distant now, muffled like it was happening underwater. Her eyes found his. “Run,” she whispered. And the world collapsed into darkness.