Burning Night: A Tale of the Everburning City

Epilogue I: Caitlin

A small, bright red bead on the bottom of Caitlin's hand was fed from a tiny stream that trailed down from her knuckles. Slowly, imperceptibly, that steam would feed the droplet of blood until it was too heavy to cling to her skin, when it would fall into a small glass.

A small glass full of whiskey, which Caitlin probably wasn't going to drink anymore.

Probably.

"Not that I think she didn't get what's coming to her," the surly, balding man on the other side of the bar said, as he dried a glass. "But that's the second broken nose you've given out this evening."

The Barkeep of the Howling Minstrel had a grumpy, irritable disposition that didn't fully conceal his amusement. The edges of his mouth twitched as he threatened to smile, even as he tried to glower at her. As Caitlin watched another slow drop of blood fall from her hand, she reached with the other and took the small glass of whiskey and raised it to her lips.

"At some point, it will be the last," Caitlin remarked, as she took a sip. The drink tasted like iron and burned like molten metal as she swallowed, but it hurt less than leaving herself alone with her thoughts.

"Not yet, I suspect," the barkeep remarked drily, as he set another glass down on the back counter. "You seem like you're looking for a fight."

"Nah. I'm just medicating," Caitlin replied, the bitterness in her thoughts seeping into her words.

"I gathered," the barkeep said. "You have a look in your eyes I don't see that often. It's usually the shadows that stop by occasionally. Smart blokes, Oversight never lets their members drink alone. Their lottery tokens have to be spent in pairs."

"That's a stupid policy," Caitlin said.

"It helps them cope with their job. Murdering people, even when they deserve it, that's a brutal thing to ask of someone," the barkeep said, staring pointedly at Caitlin.

"What the burning hell would you know about it?" Caitlin asked.

In response, the barkeep reached into a pocket and drew out a small rock. It glistened like glass, was as black as an unlit cave, and seemed to shiver as it sat in the old bartender's hand.

Obsidian.

"You were a shadow," Caitlin said.

"Yeah. So when I see a young kid like you walk in with eyes like those, the old wounds in my side start to twitch and I begin to hate the City again. What in the blighted abyss did the City put you through?"

"I..." Caitlin sighed, and finished her whiskey. "Hear about the Cavilla Incident?"

"Spite of the ash," the bartender cursed. "You were there?"

"Yep. I lost friends, murdered poor fools doing their jobs, and lost the rest when I couldn't keep doing the job. I can't touch a burning Salamander anymore," Caitlin said, as she pushed her glass towards the bartender.

"And I made an abyss-touched promise to a woman my parents respect more than anyone in the City that I'll return with the Sixth. But I can't burning do that if touching a sword handle feels like trying to put the tip through my palm," Caitlin said, as the barkeep poured another glass for her.

"Oh, throw me in the Bore," Caitlin said.

She watched another drop fall from her hand, another drop of the blood she left on that field, with the three dozen people she killed on that morning.

She couldn't touch a sword or Salamander again, even to bash Cavilla's head in.

"How the burning hell am I supposed to look my parents in the eye again? How am I supposed to read my grandmother's name on the rolls, or look at my grandfather's likeness on the Fifth Tapestry?" Caitlin asked.