It started with the whispers. Like the faint hum of conversation in a different room. It was the steady sound that grew louder as time passed, the heavy claustrophobic footsteps from above.


    When she was first blighted, it had been a suffocating weight on her chest, but the decades had turned them into a comfort. They were always there with the sickness that bound her to the Void and her endless nightmare.


    Soft-spoken words, just incomprehensible.


    Until they weren''t.


    The whispers dripped onto the pages of her journals. They wrapped themselves around her neck. They spoke louder and louder and louder until she was drowning in them. They filled every part of her, their syllables laying heavy on her tongue.


    "Become athanasia and bear witness to the end of death."


    "Let our stems wrap around your neck, and our petals clog your lungs."


    "And let us welcome you to the endless beginning, Yvette of Naros."


    <hr>


    The pen snapped in her hand as they spoke, staining her report black with ink. Black. Like colour growing beneath her fingernails. The first signs of the Frostfall Blight to mark her as a member of the Order.


    At least, to most people.


    The gash across her back had been the real first. The twisted mess of stitches and blackened flesh were hidden by bandages, and clothes and armour that didn''t quite fit. Ill-fitting armour was better than nothing, though. It was more than she had when she''d gotten the wound.


    She pulled the ink-stained page free of her journal before the black could seep into the rest of them, tossing it into the fire before her. There was nothing truly lost. She knew the words upon it better than anything.


    I am bound to repeat the failures of my past. If the blight does not take me, time will.


    "Yvette?"


    "It''s nothing, Tage." She looked away from the fire and the burning page. "Just... You know the way it lingers in your mind. The whispering."


    She didn''t look when Tage sat beside her, his presence familiar and doomed. Though, all members of the Black Order were doomed — bound to fight until the Frostfall took them. His doom showed in the blackening tips of his fingers and the blisters that covered his arms.


    "You know, it''s usually the senior members of the order that complain about that," his voice rumbled.


    "Alongside the cold, I bet." Yvette snorted. "It''s been a while, but not long enough for that set in yet. Can''t say I''m looking forward to it. The whispers are always there, though, distorted through the Void. The cold is the least of our worries."


    Tage laughed. "Again, with the old-man talk. You haven''t even done your initiation yet, and you''re talking like you''ve been with the Order for years."


    "In a different life, maybe."


    Tage didn''t reply for a moment. "They grow clearer the longer you listen. Sometimes they speak nothing but nonsense. Other times, they make all too much sense."This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    Yvette glanced over at his greying face before returning her gaze to the fire. "Then perhaps I''ve already spent too much time with them."


    "And what do they say to you, Yvette?"


    "Things I already know. Things it''s too late to change."


    Tage nodded. "You should rest if you can, Yvette. Tomorrow is the last day of our journey. We''ll reach Daywatch by noon."


    "It won''t do much good, Tage. The whispers are loud tonight."


    "How do your people say it? Tomorrow may take us to Oblivion, but for now, this moment…"


    "Is sacred. Wilders don''t really pray. The elven gods are all forgotten for good reason," she murmured. "But for your sake, I pray tomorrow will bring us to Daywatch in one piece."


    Water was a blessing and the warm summer night was another. The chill of the Frost beneath her skin eased on warm nights. The athanasia growing along their route heralded it, small yellow flowers clustering high up on the rocks around the small pond she''d found.


    The pond was a constant, as was the song of the crickets that came with it. They chirped in tune with the endless whispers, washing over her golden skin, coiling around her pointed ears. The red of her hair spayed in the water as she submerged herself like a stain as the whispers washed over her.


    "Become athanasia."


    "Bear witness to the end of death."


    The words followed her out of the water, clinging to her bare skin.


    "Let us-"


    "Am I not already trapped in a cage of my own making?" Yvette snapped at nothing. "Am I not already bound by Void''s flowers, forgotten by the one thing I want?"


    She wrapped her arms around herself, clawing at her own skin. "I don''t want another beginning. I want an end."


    She pulled a breath through clenched teeth, waiting for the whispers to return, to say anything different.


    They didn''t.


    The loop of their demands resumed.


    Become athanasia and bear witness to the end of death. Welcome to the endless beginning, Yvette of Naros.


    The Blighted rarely showed themselves during the summer, but the area surrounding Daywatch keep was an exception. The land was tainted by the Frostfall, barren and wretched, and dotted with dying trees and persistent yellow flowers. The chill that lingered in the eastern wastes was not a literal one, but one that came with the knowledge of what was below. Daywatch was built on nests of the Blighted. The Black Order was all that kept them at bay. They were also her only way to stay the Frostfall sickness within herself — a delay to the endless beginnings, to dying from the blight.


    The problem was the variations. The path always strayed past the pond. Sometimes they made it Daywatch. Sometimes the initiation failed. Sometimes the Blighted came to them ambushing them on the road, warping the whispers that followed her, leaving her with the feeling of dread as they walked the only road to Daywatch.


    Tage had felt it too this time, the threat of Blighted beneath the surface, swarming like insects towards them. Knowing the threat was coming, and being prepared for it were two different things.


    They poured over the land like oil, a month earlier than usual. The rotting bodies of the Blighted filled the air with a nauseating smell as they emerged from the depths, only the barest remnants of who they were remaining.


    In a way, Yvette was the same, and only the whispers understood that.


    They whispered as the Bighted tore into her until Yvette was smothered in them. Until she succumbed to the violence of the endless beginning.


    "Bear witness, Athanasia."


    <hr>


    She could feel the ghost of pain when she woke. The way her limbs had been torn apart and devoured by the Blighted. The cold of their hands... Of her body as she struggled to sit up by the fire Tage had made.


    He sat beside her, blackening fingers tending the flames; the blistering frostbite up his ageing skin, the greying hair, the white crow of the Black orders heraldry.


    He glanced at her, the ever-present scowl on his face softening for a moment. "You''re a tough one, huh. Most would have died from the Frost by now."


    She frowned at the flames, her lips forming the same words she always said. "How long was I out?"


    He shrugged. "A couple days. Found you on my way-"


    "You''re going to Daywatch, right?"


    "Yeah." He paused. "Name''s Tage. You got one, wilder?"


    She paused, interrupted by the whispers. The name she''d carried for years died on her lips as they spoke.


    Tage cleared his throat. "I meant no-"


    "Athanasia," she whispered. "Athanasia of Naros."