Nessa

She awoke with a start.

Darkness surrounded and engulfed her.

She felt no fear, which was something. She probed her mind, looking for information. This had happened before, she was sure of it. There was something she had to do.

And then pain shot up into her head like a steel lance, penetrating deep into her very soul. Her hands scrabbled for something to hold on to and she felt rough wood beneath her.

Then the darkness overtook her completely and she fell into it.


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This time, when her eyes opened, there was a soft, flickering light.

The pain was still there, but softer. It throbbed slowly, ebbing gently away. She knew it would trouble her for hours, but she had no idea how she knew.

This must have happened before. She knew that. But what had happened? Where was she?

Who was she?

She turned her head and saw a long room cut crudely from rough stone. Perhaps she was underground.

Off in the distance, she could see a stone table of some sort with a silver crescent moon hovering above it. Two candles – the source of the light – stood on the table.

She eased herself onto her elbows and found she was wearing metal… wait… armour… that was the word. She was wearing armour.

She was on a low wooden palate attached to the wall by silver chains. On the floor she could see a plate and a jug and she felt great desire flood through her. She was hungry. And thirsty.

She sat up gingerly and reached down, sniffing cautiously at the bread, meat and water that someone had left there. She didn’t feel any sense of revulsion so she drank a deep draught and tore into the food, gulping down mouthfuls as fast as she could.

Then she saw the carvings on the floor, strange sweeping lines forming a curious circle. They were beautiful and somehow she knew they were powerful.

In the centre, she saw elegant silver work, not a carving this time but an object – a moon surrounded by delicate shapes that flowed into each other.

Something clicked in her brain, and she realised. The shapes were letters. They formed a name. She squinted in the half light and found that she could read the elegant writing.

Nessa al-Kiram.

She spoke the name out loud – “Nessa al-Kiram” – and the candles flared then died. Now the room was lit only by the glow of the… altar, it was an altar. The circle at her feet reflected and amplified the altar’s gleam.

She stared at the carvings for a long time. It might have been years.

Finally, she realised. It was her name. She was Nessa al-Kiram. Nessa, the soldier, with her dented armour and torn cloak. Nessa, the healer, with her soft hands and careful fingers. Nessa, the daughter. Awake. Again.

The fog was slowly lifting. She spoke a few words and light blazed from her fingertips. She looked around and understood that this was a chapel in a crypt.

This was all so familiar. It had happened so many times before. She briefly caught a glimpse of a thousand carved circles, countless pleading faces, fields of fire, creatures of shadow.

It would all come in time, she knew. The instructions. The reasons. The purpose.

The job she was here to do.