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Chapter 4 - Chapter 4: Whispers of Acceptance

The smell of char and blood clung to the air long after the beast's carcass was dragged from the square.

I sat on the dirt, still trembling, smoke curling faintly from the scorched ground around me. My body felt both too heavy and too light as my chest rose and fell like I had been running for miles. Every breath hummed with something too alive.

The villagers circled in an uneasy silence, their fear like static in the air, until the elder's cane struck the ground.

"I said, Eriden," his voice rang out again, surprisingly steady for his age, "will stay! The Saint has blessed her new life, and the Goddess Sylphi has blessed us all with her presence. Any objections?"

The villagers murmured, some still suspicious, others curious and a few even hopeful. "Blessed…?" they whispered. "The elder said blessed." The tension bled from their voices, though unease still lingered in their eyes.

The elder leaned heavily on his staff. "Without her, the beast would have slaughtered us. She risked herself to save even our smallest child. Would the cursed one do that? Or is it not more fitting to see her as the chosen one?"

The villagers shifted uneasily, exchanging looks. Mothers and fathers pulled their children closer, not out of fear this time, but out of shame as if realizing their cries for my death had been too quick, too cruel.

"She saved my little Moren," Delsey, the herb-gathering woman, said firmly. She stepped forward, with Moren. "Saints strike me if I lie. I saw it with my own eyes. The girl stood in front of that beast when none of us could."

"She's my hero, grandma." Moren said, running with her arms wide open and until she impacted her little body against mine, giving me the biggest hug ever. 

A few heads nodded.

"Dalnia, give her thanks." Delsey demanded from her daughter. 

Dalnia emerges from the crowd and walks up next to Delsey and Moren. "Thank you, Eriden. I am terribly sorry I reacted to you the way I did. Please forgive me. May the Saints forgive us all." She drops to her knees, begging for forgiveness. I reached my hand out to pull her up, but suddenly, everyone around me began to fall onto their knees to join Dalnia.

"She saved us…"

"Blessed by the Goddess Sylphi, herself…"

"Maybe… maybe not cursed after all."

I sagged against myself, relieved and yet in complete disbelief. Only moments ago they had been calling for my death. Now, like reeds bending in the wind, their voices swayed to the elder's word.

It unsettled me. How quickly people's fear could shift, how their truths seemed as fragile as glass under heat.

But for now, I was alive.

*

By evening, the square had been scrubbed clean. The beast's body was hauled to the edge of the forest and dismembered and salvaged for sellable parts and the rest burned, its smoke rising as an offering, or perhaps a warning to the other beasts.

The villagers worked in silence, casting sideways glances at me as I stood with the elder near his cottage. They didn't approach, at least not yet. I'm just glad they no longer spat curses under their breath. Some even dipped their heads in acknowledgment as they passed by.

The elder broke the silence first. "You did well, Eriden."

"Did I?" I asked bitterly, arms folded. "I impaled a wolf the size of a horse and half the village nearly pissed themselves in terror. That doesn't feel like 'well.'"

His thin lips twitched in something close to a smile. "The fears will fade and the gratitude will grow." He paused, leaning closer. "Especially when I remind them."

I stared at him. "You turned the entire crowd around with a few words. How?"

"Age," he said simply. "And faith. They trust the Saints speak through me, giving me a direct link to Sylphi herself. So tonight, they will believe Sylphi has blessed you."

Sylphi. The name burned on my tongue. "That goddess," I muttered, "has a twisted sense of humor."

The elder chuckled softly. "They often do."

His cane struck the ground again. "Come. You need food. And rest."

The elder's cottage smelled of dried herbs and woodsmoke. He sat me at a long, rough wooden table and pressed a bowl of broth into my hands. It was thin but warm with a fragrance of earthy roots, licorice and garlic.

I sipped slowly as the heat grounded me. My body began to shake less with each swallow.

"You… you are not Eriden," the elder said suddenly, watching me with those sharp-clouded eyes.

I froze.

He continued, unbothered by my silence. "You wear her face. You rise in her body, but your eyes are not hers. They burn with knowledge too heavy for an eighteen year old girl."

My throat closed and I set the bowl down slowly. "You are not wrong, old man."

"Luther." The old man corrected. "So tell me, who are you, child?"

I hesitated. Telling him the truth felt dangerous, but lying seemed pointless. His gaze pierced deeper than most microscopes I'd ever stared through.

"Luther, my name is not Eriden because it was Andy." I whispered. "I was a scientist… where I came from… you know… from another world."

The elder tilted his head not surprised nor horrified. Merely, thoughtful. "I don't know the work scientist or its origins…but you say that you are from another world..." He breathed the words like they were a prayer. "I do believe that. The goddess has woven her hand here, once again to test me." Luther chuckled.

He leaned back, the chair creaking. "Eriden," he said with great exaggeration, "keep this truth closed. The villagers are not ready for such tales. For them, you are Eriden reborn, blessed and protected by the Saints themselves. That is more than enough."

Reborn. The word scraped against me. "And what happens when I can't control… this?" I gestured with my hands that thrummed with unstable power. "I can feel everything. Every atom, every molecular structure. And it's not just what I know. There are… other things. Things I don't even have names for."

The elder's eyes flickered with something unreadable. "Then you will learn…"

His certainty shook me, because at that moment, I wanted to believe him.

*

The days that followed were strange.

At first, the villagers avoided me, slipping into silence when I passed. Children peeked at me from behind fences, whispering before being shooed inside by their mothers. Men gave me wide distance, avoiding me on the road, and some muttered prayers under their breath.

But gradually, hesitation softened.

It began with Delsey and her husband, Walren. Delsey introduced her husband to me and took me on a tour around the village. 

She would often come to the hut where I'd been lodged with a bundle of herbs clutched tight. "For your burns," she would always say. "You… know how to use them, yes?"

I've done it enough to know how to do it, however, on this day I really don't want to be alone. "Can you do it, Delsey? They all kind of look alike." I lied.

Her brow furrowed. "But you knew the beast's quills. You named their metals. That kind of knowledge is the same, is it not?"

I almost laughed. Instead, I accepted the bundle. "Okay… fine. I will just do it myself."

Word spread quickly after Delsey's frequent visits. Soon others started to come around. First cautiously, then with growing trust. A broken pot for me to mend. Rusted tools gleaming again as I pulled iron out to free it of corrosion. A child with a weak lantern smiled when I coaxed oxygen into flame.

Fear gave way to awe. Awe turned to whispers. And whispers became something else, hope.

"She fixed it with a glance…"

"She speaks to the very world…"

"The Saints must favor her indeed."

I told myself not to care. I wasn't their Saint, their chosen, their blessed girl. I was Andrea, a scientist. An imposter squatting in a dead girl's body. Dead Eriden.

And yet, a part of me warmed when their gazes no longer carried hatred. When mothers no longer pulled children away, but nudged them forward with shy offerings of bread or berries. When men greeted me with nods instead of prayers for my death.

Maybe, just maybe, this was what Sylphi had meant by "a new life."

But not everything bent so easily.

At night, when the village slept, I laid awake on the straw mat of my hut. My lungs hummed, restless. The air in the room pulsed faintly with molecules whispering their names. Carbon. Iron. Nitrogen. Oxygen. And something else. Something unnamed. Helium. Argon. Hydrogen… The noble gases swayed back and forth around me. What is that element? Its crimson glow taunted me.

Reminding me of the wolf's crimson eyes as it haunted me. Its body had carried traces of that same resonance, like an element not of Earth, vibrating outside the spectrum that I knew by heart. I could feel it in the forest beyond the village. Waiting. Watching. Pushing and pulling around me as it enticed me to wield it.

The elder's wink replayed in my mind, too. A silent reminder that Sylphi's hand was just moving a pawn in this game. That this wasn't random. I had been placed here. For what purpose, I didn't yet know.

But the villagers were beginning to accept me. And that, perhaps, was the first step.

I rolled onto my side, pulling the blanket tighter around me.

"New life," I whispered into the dark. "Let's see how long I can keep it."

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