Some incredibly weird thing I wrote about Ithea’s childhood also featuring Ithian and Anthem. 1,792 words.

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Ithea’s life was defined by fires: the threat of burning that
hung over her, the fire that burned the demon, the fire that burned the
monsters, and the one that finally burned her.

The priestess said there was a god who ruled, and a goddess
who obeyed, and all of the women in the temple agreed. They bowed their heads
and murmured the wives’ prayer and confessed their small sins and transgressions
to this unseen entity.

Ithea did not believe in gods.

The priestess said there were demons who walked the world,
tempting people away from the holy path, and all of the women in the temple
agreed. They thought themselves sly, but Ithea always felt their eyes on her.

She did not believe in demons either, at least not until she
saw the Gaspar boy again, years after sticking a knife in his gut. But that was
later, much later.

The priest said, according to Ithian, that there were
monsters in the woods, like the wolves, whose eyes blazed with unholy fire, who
sang evil songs in the night and killed the sheep. It was a man’s duty to hunt
and kill monsters.

Ithea did not believe in gods or demons, but she did believe
in monsters. She did not think the wolves were the monsters.

Gods, demons, monsters, or otherwise, Ithea was practical.
She knew the way of things. She and Ithian, with their unnatural purple eyes,
were something evil, according to the villagers. And according to their father
who, long ago, had taken them onto his knees and implored them to be pious and good because demons, monsters, and witches were burned.

Ithian, submissive and sweet and gentle, did not have many
problems being good. Still, he was harassed by the priest, reviled by the
villagers, and bullied by the other children.

In some ways, Ithea could be good. She could cook well, and
she was gentle and patient with her younger siblings. Her spinning, weaving,
and embroidery was neat, and the small room she shared with Ithian was always
spotless. But it was impossible to contain her in the house and when she left,
any time she left, there would be trouble.

By the time she was ten she was the victor of a hundred
childhood brawls, and the village children knew better than to bully her,
singly or in groups. Instead they took it out on Ithian and Ithea was merciless
in her pursuit of vengeance. She could wait for weeks, seeking just the right
moment to pounce. But eventually, sooner or later, every insult, every bruise,
every scrape was paid for in full.

Ithian was sweet and nice and not like her at all. Ithea was
practical, and she knew the way of things. She was a monster, though not a
demon, and Ithian was not. At least, that’s what she thought until after the first fire. But that was later.

It was sudden. The priest caught a demon, and the
priestess agreed, and the entire village turned out to watch it burn.

To Ithea it looked like a rabbit, ordinary and scared. It
screamed when it died and people made signs against evil even though every one
of them had heard a rabbit scream before.

Ithea did not believe in demons, but she did believe in
monsters. She saw them there, that day, watching a rabbit die for no purpose at
all. But she had always seen them. Not only in her own reflection, but in her
mother, whose eyes always wandered over handsome male merchants who came to
town. In the priest and priestess, who kept the town in thrall with scathing
and judgmental remarks. In all the villagers, and their children, and most
especially the Gaspar boy.

She hated him, in particular. His smug grin, the way he
lorded it over the other children, and the way the other children begged for
him to do so. The bruises his fists left on her brother’s skin infuriated her. He
had a particular grudge against Ithian, so Ithea had a grudge against him. Up
until the day she came upon him hunting in the woods and put an end to it. At
least, that’s what she thought at the time. That was long before the fire.

It was still before the fire when she saw him again, older
and more rugged, and up to his bloody elbows in the wayward sheep she had been
sent to find. It was not always wolves who killed the sheep. Everything was
different – arrogant confidence had replaced the simple cruelty that had
motivated him before. The coloring was off, his skin too pale, his hair silvery
white, his eyes impossibly blue where they had been dull brown. But he smirked
at her, and she knew that smirk, and she knew it was him.

Ithea remembered when the knife had been in her hand, and he
had been in the place of the sheep, and that was supposed to be the end of it.
He did not seem to recognize her. The moment that held them was infinite, and
only a few seconds, and every amount of time in between. Ithea had never
believed in demons, but surely if such things existed they would be like this.
She felt weak and breathless, and it was not from fear.

But then she saw the bloody symbols painted on the ground,
the candles, the herbs, and understood. He was a witch, not a demon, and
whatever spell had held them was broken.

“They’ll burn you if they catch you,” she told him.

He only laughed.

That was shortly before the fire. It was shortly after when Ithian tipped his hand.

At first sharing a room was not a problem. At night, Ithian
could tend to her wounds and she to his, and they could stay up late whispering
hopes and fears and plans. But that was at first.

Ithea loved Ithian, her shadow, her twin, her sweet younger brother.
She protected him, coddled and cosseted him, and never refused him anything.
When they were children he had looked at her as if she was the sun and he was a
flower, wholly dependent on her.

After the fire, for some reason she never understood, he began to look at her differently. The
things he asked, no, demanded, were not things she was willing to give him.
Ithea had to defend herself, the way she had always defended him, and for the
first and last time she admitted to herself that the villagers were right. They
were both monsters.

Ithian yielded to Ithea’s superior strength and ferocity,
but he never stopped wanting.

Ithea stopped sleeping in their room after that.

The second fire was only a short time after the first. Her
sleep was interrupted by the screams, and the roar of the flames and she
emerged from her hiding place to watch.

It was glorious, heavenly, to watch it all vanish in flame
and smoke. Gone were the bullying children, the cruel adults, the judgmental
priests, gone were the monsters. Well, most of them.

The Gaspar boy was there too, calm and collected and
surveying the destruction with a critical eye while sparks whirled around him.
In the light his eyes glowed like a wolf’s, and Ithea hoped hers did too. Then
Ithian was at her side, anxious and pleading.

She never found out which one of them set the fire. In
truth, she never cared. It had happened and the village was gone, and the
threat of burning had left her, or so she thought.

The Gaspar boy thought he was being charming when he kissed
her hand and introduced himself as Anthem Silverwood. Ithea laughed in his
face. She did not have to ask if he’d picked out the name himself.

Ithian and Anthem did not seem to recognize one another, but
shared an instinctive dislike.

Given enough time, certainly they would have bickered and quarreled
and drifted away from one another, three little monsters in the big, unfriendly
world.

They were not given enough time.

There were always more monsters.

The man who found them, Lasifar, Ithea did not care for. She
did not think he was, as he put it, a close friend of her real father. She did
believe that her father, her true father, was someone else, or something else, not human at all
but something older and crueler. And the stories Lasifar told, of wealth and
luxury, of magic and shapeshifting and running free from the constraints of
human laws, those were a far sweeter preaching than anything the priestess had
offered her.

Lasifar was a monster too, Ithea had seen him transform himself
with her own eyes. But even if not, she would have been wary. How quickly he
had found them, how quickly he had brought them all to heel, and to compete with
one another for the prizes he dangled in front of them. They did not all want
the same thing, and yet he promised each of them what they wanted.

Ithea didn’t trust that.

She had always been practical, but this she wanted. To be
powerful, to be feared, to be herself and not be scolded or whipped for it.
Wanting, she learned then, was a powerful thing.

She did not trust Lasifar, but she still repeated the magic
words he taught her, harsh and unfamiliar. She still drank the potion he
offered her, which tasted of honey and cinnamon and other things she couldn’t
name. The potion that burned like fire, and turned her body against her.

She hadn’t ever wondered what the rabbit or the villagers
felt in the fire. After that, she never needed to wonder. It was the last thing
she felt, and the memory of it haunted her. Long after, when ice and fire could
no longer touch her, when weapons felt only like pressure and wounds like
nothing at all, she would wake suddenly from sleep and could do nothing but
wait as echoes of fire traced her blood vessels and burned to the beat of her
heart. But that was later.

When she woke up, initially, she knew it had not worked
correctly. She didn’t need Anthem’s presence to tell her what her numb and
awkward body already could.

She barely listened to Anthem explain what had happened, and
what had to be done now. She found out her limitations for herself, later, far
away and already making a name for herself as a Lord not to be lightly crossed.

At that point, immediately after waking, Ithea knew what
needed to be done. Lasifar had wronged her. He had hurt her and, like everyone
who hurt her, he needed to be punished.

She always had been merciless in her pursuit of vengeance.