Eliana had been stained the previous night with the precise colors of the pyre fire where her lover lay. She still had dried tears on her cheeks and her eyes were so red and swollen that she had to squint to see anything, thanks to the morning wind against her face. Perversely cold.
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The place was colored with a strange blue hue due to the overcast sky. It smelled of bonfire. The wood, almost turned to charcoal, accompanied the first drops of rain that began to soak her blue dress, contributing to the mournful percussion with its creaks and groans after the fire. Her arms bore reddish handprints; scratches from young nobles who had taken her away, leaving Xaiden to his fate, who had screamed just like Eliana, until he lost his voice. Her sobs now sounded hoarse as she knelt on the mournful grass.
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Among the remains of the pyre, she could recognize parts of paper that turned to ashes as soon as she touched them, painting her skin with tones of death where there had been love before, for Xaiden was a poet. She remembered the first poem he had written for her almost by heart and the day he had given it to her:
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With the sun of a summer afternoon forged in the sky, Xaiden approached her with a mischievous smile. A not-too-tall and slender girl, with pale skin despite being from the countryside and short hair shaved with a razor that fell over her forehead in a playful, uneven fringe. She wore a man’s shirt and pants. Eliana, with a frown and looking at him with dismay and judgments she didn’t express verbally, took the text and watched as Xaiden walked away afterward. The note read:
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You are sage dust, winter light, frost in the morning.
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You are the scales that butterflies shed when they flap their wings.
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Bread at dawn that dazzles the sun with the beauty of its toast.
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Tea from the people with slanted eyes, as red and as beautiful as obsidian.
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You are so lovely that spring screams because you stole its colors.
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Your blush stands out so much it seems you snatched it from the currants.
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You are many things, and I am only one.
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Can you guess which one before the half-moon?
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Mouth agape, Eliana searched and searched for her among the trees, surprised by her boldness and with red tinting her cheeks. But she did not find her. She stood up, shaking her dress, yellow that day, and walked through the meadows until her husband called her and she had to go back home, thinking that this girl was many things without even knowing her.
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Now, all those verses lay burnt in the mud, none of them saved. There was no trace of the letters, only dark papers reduced to nothing. Her husband, the cavalry captain, approached her as Eliana crawled among the remains of a forbidden love, dropping the wedding ring she had taken off hours ago in front of her eyes. They looked at each other in silence; he gazed at her with condescension, his blue, stern military eyes filled with disappointment and anger. And she with a fury that represented the hatred of all women enslaved by a ring and a man with money. Her face bore the awakening of a rebellion.
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It had been him who had dragged Xaiden to the pyre. It had been him who had branded her a witch. It had been him who, with the help of his soldiers, had locked his wife in her room where she could see the pyre growing among the weeds like a red pine that burned with the dawn. There were no words to describe the hatred she felt for him, but if Xaiden were alive, she would have told her many things filled with disgust and loathing. With a victorious grimace resembling a smile, the man kicked the place, looking for the girl's body.
Although her chest ached like a thousand hells, Eliana got up from the ground between tears and sobs, because she would not allow Xaiden to suffer more disrespect even after death.
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The military man's satisfied expression gradually changed from joy to confusion at not finding the body. Not even shreds of fabric that could confirm the girl’s death. Nothing. He kicked the wood, scrutinizing every corner of the field, every area, every splinter with a superficial desperation. Nothing. Eliana saw him clench his fists and wrinkle his nose, feeling amused to see her husband like that, unable to suppress a smile of pleasure.
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Enraged, he walked towards the house, shouting orders that Eliana didn’t understand because she was far away. But she did understand what was happening. With her heart overwhelmed with fear and joy, now crying with hope, she ran among the trees, as on that first day she had met Xaiden, again not finding her. A paper on the ground was the only thing, unburned. Wet and barely legible. A torn corner of an imperfect sheet with jagged edges.
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From the remaining letters, she could tell what it said. She tucked the small paper into her bodice; gathering the edges of her muddy dress and taking off her shoes, she ran into the depths of the forest.
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» Flee, my sparrow. «
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