I lift the cloth again, soak it, wring it until my grip aches.
My throat.
I tilt my head and press the fabric to the bite. Pain flares instantly—a cruel sting that shoots straight down my spine. My body jerks, but I press harder, until the cloth digs into the two small marks. My skin throbs beneath it. I scrub in tight circles, breath coming ragged.
"Cast it out," I whisper. "Cast it out."
The sting deepens. My fingers tremble but do not stop. The basin water ripples violently from the force of my movements; it drips down my neck, over my chest. The firelight flickers across my damp skin.
I do not stop.
Again.
Again.
Again.
My skin glows with cold and friction. My hair clings damp against my back. My breath comes in harsh pulls, somewhere between sob and prayer.
"Forgive me," I murmur.
The room smells faintly of iron and wet wood.
I scrub until my arms weaken. Until the cloth slips from my grasp. Until the sting in my throat feels deeper than the marks themselves.
My eyes close. For a moment, there is only the sound of my own breath and the faint crackle of the hearth.
Until something crawls along the back of my neck, a thin thread pulled taut beneath my skin. The sense of something standing just beyond my reach.
Watching.
My eyes fly open, arms clutching across my chest, body folding inward. My gaze snaps toward the door. The latch holds. The walls stand still. The curtain to my mother’s alcove hangs unmoving, the icons stare down in silence.
No breath but mine. No shadow shifting.
Still the feeling lingers, pressing against my bare skin as though unseen eyes trace every inch of it. My heart slams against my ribs.
I seize my shift from the floor and drag it over my head with shaking hands. The linen sticks briefly to damp skin before settling. I pull on my skirts, my bodice, fumbling with ties that refuse my fingers.
I am alone. The thought does not comfort.
I swallow and force myself to finish dressing. My hair hangs loose down my back, cold and heavy. I twist it quickly, knotting it at my nape. I glance again toward the door. Toward the beam above. Toward the basin.
The water no longer lies clear. It has grown dull, clouded with ash and the faint smear of my touch. The surface trembles slightly from the tremor still running through my hands.
Tainted.
I seize the basin, its weight sloshing unevenly as I hurry to the door and wrench it open. The water arcs briefly in the morning light, then breaks against the ground. It splashes against my shoes and runs outward in small branching streams, seeping between stones and roots.
I watch it sink, watch the ground drink it slowly, the wet darken the dust before fading.
I stand there long after it has vanished.
My chest rises and falls too fast. My fingers dig into the rim of the empty basin.
The earth has taken it. Yet the unease remains, as though something within me was never poured out at all.
The salt still glitters pale across the threshold when I hear footsteps.
