Crickle-crackle.


    Erin woke up in a familiar room, leaning back in her chair with books surrounding her while a fire burned in the fireplace nearby. Her cat, Midnight, jumped off of her lap as she opened her eyes and darted off into the shadows. Erin''s heart raced in her chest. All of this was wrong. Every bit of it was wrong.


    She stood up from her chair and looked out the window. Moonlight played shadows across the dark forest around her hut. She let out a breath as she looked over her home. She was home. She was on Erys. She blinked her eyes slowly before trying to rub the sleep away and checking again.


    "It isn''t possible," she said as she walked over to her chair and picked up one of the books.


    The pages inside were blank, and she understood it then. It was too good to be true. No, she wasn''t back on Erys, resting in her home with her books. She focused back on what had happened before. She had to fight a haze that blocked her memories, but she could piece it together.


    Alex.


    He had been fighting Mister Deadman, and she had been on the brink of collapse. Her curse had been ready to change, and she had collapsed behind a wall to start the process. It had been either that or collapse in the open in the middle of the fight.


    She hoped that she could trust Bargen to keep her safe.


    "Jean said something about this." She looked around the room, focusing on each part.


    Everything felt like she had left it back when she first left it all behind, even Midnight. However, that wasn''t quite right either. Midnight had died long ago, a victim of the fire that claimed her home while she ran for her life. Erin looked at the door, and her heart sank. She knew where she needed to go now but wasn''t sure she had the strength.


    Creak.


    Erin approached the door slowly, step by step. Each time she stepped on one of the floorboards in the cottage, they creaked under her weight. She clenched her teeth for each one as she made her way forward. She couldn''t let herself be scared away. This was her world. She needed to know that. Everything in this small place was a part of her.


    She stopped at the door and put her hand on the door handle. Images of fire, people yelling, and the smell of smoke rose in her. She pushed them down. Her home was gone, and she knew it. She wouldn''t be called a ''witch'' by the townspeople anymore.


    She opened the door and stepped outside. The stone path she had always remembered led off through the clearing and into the forest. It would have taken her into town if she had followed it back on Erys. Her water well rested in the center of the clearing, the stone rising until the wooden makeshift roof took over the rest. Everything was where she had left it before the attack. Everything was in place.


    She fought to keep the tears from coming to her eyes, and she snorted in the snot that started running down her nose. She never thought she would see it again. After she ran away to the Coven, after the sisters took her in, she never thought she would come back.


    "It isn''t real," she lied to herself, wiping away the tears on her sleeves. "It isn''t real."


    Midnight came up beside her, knocking against her leg before running off into the night. She didn''t chase after it. Again, she reminded herself it wasn''t real. However, part of her just wanted to stay in this make-believe world forever.


    "Do you think this will last forever?" a child''s voice whispered from the forest, and Erin froze.


    She looked out into the darkness, squinting her eyes as she searched for the source of the voice. It was a voice from her past, all too familiar and all too heartbreaking to hear. She was at a crossroads. She wanted to see it, to confirm what she thought it was, but at the same time, she dreaded seeing that little girl''s face once more. Erin took in a deep breath as the shadowed figure walked out into the moonlight at the forest''s edge.


    She wore rags, but it was the same girl she had seen in the Coven years ago—the same girl Erin had befriended while feeding her behind bars—the same girl that the other witches had killed right in front of her on the night she ran away from her second home.


    "This isn''t possible," Erin whispered, tears falling down her face as she fell to her knees.


    Jean had warned her that someone would come to aid her in her curse''s growth, but she never imagined it would be Mara.


    "You''re here for a reason, don''t forget it," Mara said, her black eyes watching Erin through the yellow slits of a shade.


    The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    Mara was a child, but at the same time, she was a shade. Ram''s horns grew out from her head and through her short white hair, and her skin was a dark red. She looked in many ways like a human child, but at the same time, too different to be called anything but a shade.


    "I''m so sorry," Erin said, covering her mouth with her hands as she looked up at Mara.


    "Don''t worry about me." Mara smiled, revealing two pointed teeth. "Right now, we''re here to talk about you—to talk about your curse."


    A sudden thought twisted inside Erin''s body, and her gate opened on its own. The energy of growth twined its way through her arms and legs from her heart. She could feel it like roots stretching beneath her skin. She planted her hands on the ground, tears still streaming down her face as the curse twisted its way through her.


    "Your curse is changing," Mara said. "How will you control it?"


    Erin took several short breaths, her mind racing as she fought to control the curse twisting its way through her body. She had no idea what she wanted, and she didn''t know what to do with her power. It wasn''t until recently that she had made more use of it. She thought back to all the fights she had been in, and a thought came to mind.


    "I have an idea," she whispered out through clenched teeth.


    "Then imagine it," Mara said. "Make it your own."


    Erin focused her mind on her curse, shaping it into something new. Her greatest weakness was the problem, and she would fix it. She would turn herself into her own garden, ready to take in the seeds from all over the Erth and grow them to suit her needs. She imagined how the power would work in her mind and then embraced it as pain ripped through her arms and legs all the way up to her heart.


    <hr>


    Sayed stood up, letting the sand fall from his body as he looked out over the desert night around him. The air was cold and cut across his skin as he smiled. He was home, if but for a time. He looked out to the east and saw the grand walls of Hajh rising in the distance, taller than a mountain. Even from his place down at the bottom of the dune, he could see their height shining in the moonlight.


    "It is good to see you again," Sayed said. "But I fear that I will not be home for long. I know what I have come here for. I face a choice on how to move forward with my blessing. I now need only find the place where I must make that choice."


    With that in mind, he trudged up the sand to the top of the dune. As he reached the dune''s apex, he looked down to the west. Below, the red fields stretched out along a wide river. Sayed''s breath caught in his chest as he looked out over the Crimson Fields.


    Truly, the Crimson Fields were a real place. They referred to the fields that stretched out north and south of Hajh along the great Sirine River. However, there were the Crimson Fields of the world and the Crimson Fields of the next life as well. The fields of the next life were reserved for the dead.


    Sayed made his way down toward those fields, instinctually knowing that was where he must go. The cold cut at him, but he pushed forward. The pain was a numb thing in this world, and Sayed did not have to worry about it. He walked until he was at the edge of the fields, where the red stalks of the many plants rose high above him.


    He could see shadows moving inside the plants, but Sayed was not afraid. His destination was in front of him.


    "Come out and face me," Sayed said to the shadows. "You will find that my will is as strong as my heart. I will not falter."


    A shadowed figure walked out from the red grass, a dark man with a great black beard and hair similar to Sayed''s own. He wore no clothes, for he was walking out from the Crimson Fields, but Sayed knew him. He knew him the same way he knew all of his brothers. Abed stood before him, a smile on his face as he looked Sayed over.


    "You''re growing, Saint."


    "Abed!" Sayed rushed over, wrapping the man in a hug.


    Or, he attempted to. Sand scattered around Sayed as he passed through Abed, and Abed reappeared moments later behind him again. Sayed sighed. Abed was a part of the dream, not a real tangible thing. He had wanted to see Abed again after Glory Plateau, but this was not truly Abed. He was not truly in Hajh. They were all just part of the dream.


    "I am sorry, Saint," Abed said, shaking his head. "We are not in the Crimson Fields because you are still alive."


    "I know," Sayed said, turning to face Abed again. "I was just overjoyed at seeing you again, brother. I could not help myself. We are here for entirely different reasons."


    "Yes." Abed nodded. "Your blessing is changing, Saint. It is time for it to grow, for it to become something new."


    Sayed put his hand over his heart, closing his eyes as he felt the heat of his gate open up on its own. Fire raced through his body as he stood there, roiling through his arms and legs from his heart and causing heat to rise out of his body. Sayed looked down on Abed as he opened his eyes.


    "I have given this much thought," Sayed smiled. "When I was first told that this would happen, I was told that it would be up to me to make the decision, but I think that is not quite right."


    "It is your blessing, Saint." Abed frowned. "It is up to you what to do with it."


    "See, this is how I know you not to be Abed." Sayed shook his head. "Abed would feel the same way I do in this. I appreciate that you have let me see him again, but Abed and I both know what the real answer is."


    "And what is that, Saint?" Abed asked.


    "It is not up to me how my blessing changes," Sayed said, tapping his heart with his fist. "That is up to God. I have prayed, night and day, since I was told that this could happen, asking God for what it thinks I should do. I know how to change my blessing, and God will see it through."


    "Then are you prepared?" Abed asked.


    "Abed, again, you reveal you are not truly Abed. Again, I appreciate being able to see my brother again, but Abed would know the answer to that question without even asking. I am always ready."


    Abed smiled as pain ripped through Sayed''s heart, and heat flared across his body. Like a great furnace, his body burned, and Sayed collapsed to his knees in the sand. In all that pain, he focused on what his blessing should be. He focused on shaping it and creating the power that he wanted. Images flickered in the heat around him as the world changed, and Sayed knew he had succeeded when he was surrounded by the hazy images of every person who had fallen.


    "I have done it," he whispered as the pain ceased and darkness took him.