• • •
IN SPRINGS, THEIR vegetables struggled to grow. Corin helped her father plant spinach and onions, but their garden was so small it made Pa look like a willow tree, towering over the soil. He was just as she remembered, calloused palms and broad shoulders, a gruff voice that made her strain to hear his murmurs.
She recognized the darkness in his eyes as well. In fleeting moments when he thought no one was looking, in minutes when he had time for himself, his eyes grew distant, a muted sadness that came and left in waves.
Corin knew the look, because she had inherited it from him. There were some things that never went away, no matter what world they lived in. They could not avoid the raging river that called to his darkest desires, the screams that ripped from her throat as she pulled him from the ledge, his tearful apologies for attemptingagain. Perhaps second chances were burdens, too. An uphill battle where one had to fight harder to stay this time around.
One spring morning, she diced the onions and chopped the wilted spinach leaves. She added rice and sprinkled dandelion heads, an embellishment she hoped would incite her father to eat again. Pa took his first bite. He closed his eyes, brows furrowed in concentration, and chewed slowly. At first, Corin thought she must have overcooked the rice. But his lips stretched to a rare smile, and he said he could taste the onions from the garden.
Small pride surged in Corin’s veins. She did not like the mornings where sadness dug its fingers into both of them. But their little garden needed to be tended, and so, they would try again.
• • •
IN SUMMERS, THE days were too hot and the marketplace was too crowded. There were no warplanes to hide from and no bombs to rattle the earth below her. The first time Corin heard a plane roaring through the sky, she tackled Elly to the ground and covered her sister’s ears, exhaling forcibly so that the overpressure wave wouldn’t crush her lungs. Instead, the only oppressive air was the humidity.
The breeze was thick with spice instead of smoke, filled with smells of food from faraway places. People shouted to each other in different languages and wore eclectic fashions she didn’t understand. Among the chaos, she found a place for her booth, where she hung Ma’s paintings and rearranged Pa’s pottery while they worked at better-paying jobs. Corin’s own art didn’t make much money either, and she often found herself hunched behind an easel and painting whichever child asked for a free portrait.
As the afternoon sun reached its peak, she would share herlunch with other artisans, sitting in one of their booths with the most shade. There was Maggie, the seamstress with calloused hands, who often spilled fabric residue around their shoes. And Rowan, the weaver who insisted on wearing his wool no matter the temperature, which made him look ridiculous. Among their group, however, Corin often bickered with Harlow. A friend she had known for so long that she could hardly recall how they first met.
“Your stamina for always having something to complain about will never end.”
Corin had grumbled this as she helped Harlow paint protest posters for their weekly disruption at Gyldan’s town hall. Councilmembers convened every quarter to discuss the future of Gyldan under a republic, and for every stride they made, Harlow countered by arguing with their weakest delegate. The woman was never satisfied with any authority, though Corin suspected a few councilmembers liked being challenged as well.
“You are aware our lives are much better compared to other places, right?”
Corin was certainly no patriot, but she’d become accustomed to the comforts of life in Gyldan, where boring days felt like a luxury. She had seen reports about wars in neighboring countries and felt pangs of grief for faceless people, as if she’d felt this once before, the loss of a home. She did not know why these stories made her heart ache, but they made her turn to Harlow like a compass, believing in her friend’s missions.
“The fight doesn’t end when we live comfortably,” Harlow replied. “Not everyone in Zilar wants to flee to Gyldan like our grandparents did. They deserve to stay in their homes. Gyldan owes their neighbors more than one desperate choice.”
Despite their arguments, Corin joined Harlow for every duty herfriend asked of her. No matter how stubborn they both were, Corin would never leave her side. They stayed past sunset with other artists, gathering supplies and gluing thick placards for signs. One evening, Corin didn’t pay attention as she turned around to reach for a poster in her booth. Her hip collided against the table, and the ugly sound of broken ceramic rang in her ears. Pa’s hard work shattered across the cement. She cursed loudly and picked up the fractured pieces of a fox figurine.
“Make something new from it,” Harlow suggested, much to Corin’s dismay. So Corin mixed raw lacquer with flour and water to glue the pieces together. She left painter’s tape on it for weeks. The lacquer oozed unevenly from the cracks, so she shaved it off until they were jagged, dark lines. She spent the night mixing paint oils and hunching over the tiny figurine until, eventually, the fox was polished with a vivid yellow filling where the cracks once were.
When the sun came up, Corin squinted at the new figurine she had reconstructed. Under the light, it almost shone like gold.
• • •
IN AUTUMNS, THE leaves changed too often. Every time Corin found the right shade in her paintings, the trees morphed colors once more. In a cramped shed behind her family’s home, large canvases filled the walls, the old floorboards stained with spilled paint. There were drawings of white gemstones and frozen fountains, ice castles and mountains of snow. Then came more vivid colors, bright fuchsia and chestnuts, seas of wildflowers and blossoms. She sketched ripples from steep waterfalls and spilled black oil for shadows of cloudy islands.
Sometimes Elly pulled a stool next to Corin and watched herpaint. Her sister seemed to be growing every day, her limbs getting longer, her hair growing thicker. A simple chain draped around her neck, one that Corin had given her so that her sister would carry their family’s pendant next.
“What’s the story behind this one?” Elly asked, pointing at the oil painting of an ocean filled with stars.
At first, Corin could not recall her dreams or explain to her family what happened. Her mind had quickly forgotten the details, like the color of the shirt she was wearing, or the warmth of her lips meeting another’s. But when her hand held a brush, and the bristles mixed oils together, memories surged back in paint. Her hands pieced faraway lands and retold the lives of horned demons and ravens, and a girl with sunflowers in her hair, someone she had met once upon a dream.
She told herself these were not fairy tales imagined from her mind. The stories were true. What she felt had been real. In another world, she had rested her weary bones in a haven long enough to heal something broken inside her. She had found some foolish hope in that wretched heart of hers to save others, and in turn, saved herself.
There became new stories for her to tell, too. Drawings of mismatched mugs in the kitchen and crowded marketplaces full of life. Windows with slanted light and dust motes floating in the air like fireflies. Rainy afternoons and quiet mornings and Elly’s hair spilling across her pillow. These stories were not epic tales. They had no swords and dragons, no mystical lands or noble battles. Survival did not need to be grand. In these stories, there were tiny plants that survived the harshest of winters, sisters that survived the worst of arguments, and simple relics that survived generations of people, who fought for a reason to keep living.
And sometimes, like on this autumn day, Corin didn’t need to fight at all.
EPILOGUE
100 YEARS AGO
AMELIA OPENED HER eyes to a new reality. Flames ran over her skin, the smell of smoke thick and suffocating. Her hand had gone limp, a sharp spindle left on the ground. Blood soaked her dress and Malicine’s hands as the demon ‘s body sprawled over hers. She placed a gentle palm on Malicine’s cheek, her fingers slicked with their tears. Regret coursed through her body from causing them pain.
“I’m scared, Mal,” she confessed, “but I want to try again.”
