"Raine." Aspen said her name slowly.
The girl's head snapped up. "Yes?"
"What do I smell like?"
Raine blinked. Her brow furrowed. "What?"
"My smell. My name-smell. What is it?" Her hands gripped the silk sheets. "High Priestess smells like flowers. Quinn smells like grass. What about me?"
Raine's mouth opened. Closed. Her fingers twisted together. The familiar gesture made something in Aspen's chest crack.
"There's… nothing." Raine's voice came small. "I never smelled anything on you besides the Hermit title, which smelled like light and flame."
"That's it?" What a sick joke.
"That's it."
Aspen exhaled slowly. "But what about you? Now that I think about it, I've never actually smelled your name. I only know it because everyone else said it. Is that because you're—"
"Yes, I'm Namelost." Raine sighed. "I still haven't fully grown into my name. At least, not enough for the spirits to acknowledge."
"Acknowledge?" Aspen's jaw tightened. "What do you mean grow into it? Wait—no, how exactly did the spirits give you your name?"
Raine's wings sharpened a little, growing tense. "I kept seeing it. Nobody else would, just me. And it seems that you too are... "
I see.
Aspen's blood went cold.
Forghatin.
The world, or spirits, aren't recognizing my name.
And think about it, Raine's name is the only one that sounds just like an object. Rain.
The spirits named her, and now they're treating me like a Namelost. And the names they give are so… basic. Like we're just functions.
And the council, all of our names are tarot. No wait, more than that, the spirits could show me that name even in my dreams about my old life.
They knew about my world.
The spirits knew, they gave the council their names from what they saw in my world, and they... A sick vertigo scooped out her stomach. She wasn't a person lying in bed anymore; she was a glass slide under a cosmic microscope.
She glanced at the prismatic triangles, the infinite eyes all around her. Were they always watching? How much did they see of my old life Why did they choose me..?
Her heart hammered like a piston in her ribs. Her thoughts began to flicker and burn, snapping through her mind in disjointed, blinding frames. This council has existed far before I came here. What if I'm not the only one who's been brought to this world?
We were all just going about our lives while they watched, invisible to us.
But why do these people know? And why do they have magic while we didn't?
What's happening? Are they mocking us?
Are they laughing at me right now?
The prismatic threads were crisscrossing the room. Dozens of them. Each one tied to another thread, a thread that was anchored to an ash bowl, an ash bowl placed in tandem with the ash circles.
And every triangle properly oriented. Open. So yes, the spirits could see her. Could read her. Could file her away like a flavor already chosen.
"They want to name me." The words were dredged up from the bottom of her lungs. Heat bloomed in her sternum.
Heat.
Not a tremble.
Raine managed a smile, small and tired. "That's… great." A tiny attempt to bury the dead while cheering for the living.
Great? Aspen let out a giggle. Seriously?
A thin layer of ice over a lake. That's what Aspen felt represented Raine.
Something fragile. Always a little distant. But turbulent. It didn't help that the spirits seemed to agree.
Fitting, to name the weeper after the rain.
That realization brought tears behind Aspen's eyes. How could you call this great?
This?
Do you even understand... oh god.
"No. No, Raine." Her voice cracked—a hairline fracture running through the center of that frozen lake.
Raine flinched back. Aspen pushed herself up. Her muscles screamed in protest but she shut them up. She swung her legs over the edge of the silk basin and planted her feet on the floor. Tssss... The wood was cold. But real. Hers to stand on.
"My name isn't Forghatin." Her voice was steadier. "It will never be Forghatin. I don't care what the spirits want. My name is Aspen." Yet her hands shook.
"Don't—" Raine shot up from the chair, hand reaching toward Aspen's mouth. "The curtain's torn, the spirits can hear—"
Aspen slapped her hand away. Raine stumbled back, eyes wide.
"I don't care if they hear." Her breath came faster, voice hoarse. "I don't care about their names or their titles or their stupid fucking rules." The heat spread from her chest, burning in her throat. "I don't want to be forgotten or treated like I'm this stupid fucking Hermit person. And I'm especially not—"
Her voice shot. Crap. She winced and took a pause.
What am I trying to say?
I'm Aspen, yeah, but... why am I so mad at her?
No, what am I saying? I know why I'm mad. I'm justified in this, think about everything I've gone through for fucks sake!
"I'm not Lyra. I'll never be Lyra."
This time, Raine's face didn't just crumble.
It shattered.
Her jaw worked, straining against a sound that refused to be born. For a moment, Aspen wondered what sound she'd make. A scream? A sob? Or maybe a curse?
All she got was a silent, jagged O.
As if that was all she deserved to see. Then came the tears—escaping Raine's lashes in perfect, floating spheres. They were transparent and weightless, mocking Aspen with a lightness. A fantasy quality to them. An artistic flair.
Disgusting.
Raine's grief was art, while her own was a hot chest and rushing thoughts.
"I'm not her." Aspen's eyes burned. "I know you're grieving and you keep looking at me and seeing her. You keep calling me her. But I'm not—"
"Stop." Raine's voice was barely audible. "Please... if you have Pith, then please, stop."
Pith?
Aspen got it in a second.
If I have a heart. That's what you're saying. If I have morals.
Her molars ground together, a friction so hard she felt the vibration deep in her temples.
Morals? You want to talk morals?
"I had a family." The words tumbled out. A sharp, dry click echoed in her skull. "I had a mom and a brother who kept messing with me and a real close friend. I had a life, Raine. I had a bedroom with none of this stupid fucking wood!" She slammed her foot into the ground, it huyrt her more than it did the floor.
Her hands clenched into fists. Into claws. Her new nails dug into her skin.
"And then you know what? I woke up here. IN HER BODY. In her room. And everyone wants to treat me like her."
"Y-You're just confused—" Raine took a step back, shaking her head. The ice was thinking. "I… I just—I can't deny... but how could you—"
"Then where is she?!" Aspen stepped in, all teeth and heat. "I don't smell like her! Why do I remember Jamie? Why do I remember MOM?" Another step in. Danger made flesh.
Raine stepped back. The ice was thinning.
Stop running from me. "You know it. I smell different, I act different. I know myself, so why do you and everything else in this place…"
Raine's back hit the wall. Her wings flared defensively. "I don't—I can't—"
"Say it." Aspen's voice dropped to a whisper. "Say my name."
"No."
"Raine."
"No." Raine's mouth pulled tight, like she was holding something back with her teeth.
Her gaze climbed to Aspen's.
"If you're not her—then why?"
Aspen froze. For a few seconds, she was silent. Utterly silent.
"W-What? Why? What do you mea—"
"Why did you lie to me? Why did you tell me you wouldn't go?" Raine's voice thinned to a fragile thread. So soft it was more secret than sound.
W-Why are you making me seem like the bad guy?
Aspen's breath hastened, the air was trying to run from her lips.
She was a sinner. I'm making this girl cry.
But... but what about me? Why do you look so hurt?
For a moment, she pictured her own expression. The tears that welled at the corners of her new yellow eyes. The ruffled gray hair she must have ruined by now. The way she was biting her lips. The tremble in those lips.
The words that left those lips, words Lyra would've never said.
She pictured her soul on Lyra's face.
Oh.
So that's it.
Why am I in this body? This persons life?
Her next breath came quiet. Her pupils trembled.
What have I done?
Raine turned her face away. How much have I hurt you? Both their shoulders shook. The prismatic threads hummed around them, hundreds of triangular eyes.
What am I doing? Tears screamed at the rims of her eyelids. "You won't even look at me?" Aspen's voice cracked. I wouldn't look at me either. Raine didn't move. Her silhouette was stark against the web of watching light. Her seafoam hair glowed in the mushroom-light. Her wings trembled.
And there—caught in the folds of her hair where it fell across her shoulder—was a name carved in that same aqua light.
Forghatin.
Written in Raine's hair.
Something in Aspen shattered.
"Pft…" her chest quivered like a bowstring. "How fucking pathetic can you be?"
Raine nodded, letting more tears float from her eyes. You coward. I'm a coward. This whole situation is just…
"N-No, not you. Me. Me, Raine. How could I? Don't you see it?" Aspen reached out and grabbed Raine's arm. Raine flinched but didn't pull away. Aspen pulled her forward, forced her to turn, to face her.
Their eyes met.
Lemon-yellow meeting verdant-green.
Aspen held her hard enough to bruise. "Why? Why am I so disgusting? How could I do this to you? Is this why I was chosen? I took her body, I took the person you—"
"Shut up! If I look at you and see a stranger, t-then she's really gone!" Raine bit her lip hard enough to draw blood. "How am I supposed to grieve for her when you're using her body?!"
Tears flooded from Aspen's eyes. Her lips tingled. Fire surged through her chest. "You're right! I'm disgusting! How are you supposed to grieve?! When—when someone like me..."
She didn't finish those words. Couldn't. Her throat closed. Died. I deserve this. Liquid fire spilled down her cheeks.
Raine's eyes widened.
She saw it. That liquid fire. Those tears.
Tears that couldn't be Lyra's.
So again, she crumpled. Her arms wrapped around Aspen, far too small to encompass her.
Aspen collapsed into it. It had only been one day. A lifetime compressed into hours. But she didn't hug back.
Sinners don't give hugs.
Raine held her tighter. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry" she choked out. "I kept—I wanted—"
Aspen went colder. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
Should I just...
Raine glanced at the prismatic triangles. The spirits' eyes.
She glanced at Aspen's new gray hair. At Lyra's old hair. She bit her lips.
But she came close to Aspen's ear.
"Aspen, I'm… I…"
Aspen gave a chuckle—or half of one. It died too fast. Her fist clenched, nails digging deep enough to draw blood.
They stood there in the middle of the room, surrounded by watching eyes, and cried.
The prismatic threads pulsed.
And something shifted.
The air changed. Thickened. A new scent bloomed in the room. Faint. Vaguely salty. Not yet formed but carrying the breath of the sea and flames and stubborn things that refused to die.
The taste of eyes that never saw the sun set. Of burning flesh.
Raine's breath hitched. She pulled back slightly, eyes widening.
"What?" Aspen's voice was raw.
"I can…" Raine inhaled shakily. "I can smell… you."
Aspen froze. The threads hummed a different note now.
The spirits were watching. Drawn by the act of naming, tasting the syllables like seasoning.
Listening. Recording. Remembering.
The spell worked.
A mind would have to fracture.
Forghatin would die.
Aspen would flinch.
For she is.
For she was.
For she always would be—
A sinner in the sand.