She awoke, carefully pushing herself up into a sitting position. She had heard her name called desperately, whispered entreatingly and finally she had stuggled upwards out of the fog that surrounded her. She looked around in confusion, the sounds in her ears muffled. Her body felt like it was burning from the inside, heat rising from her so that she could only peer dimly through the haze.

She thought she heard dully over the ringing, a sobbing, as though the person who was making the noise lay in the next room, so only the smallest sound reached her ears. She turned to gaze at a man, kneeling on the floor beside her bed, his face resting in his hands which were curled into tightly balled fists, the knuckles straining white. He was wearing a plain robe, his hair cut short and as her ears adjusted to the sound she realised he was weeping bitterly, the cries she had heard had only been the loudest.

Poor man, she thought gazing down at his trembling shoulders. She wondered why he cried so, for whom did he weep. Her heart reached out towards him, brushing at his pain with its fluttering fingers.

He looked up with a gasp, hiding behind his clenched fingers, as though afraid of what he saw.

“Valeriya!”, he cried, her name, and it flowed from his mouth like a cool liquid pouring over her flaming body.

She struggled to a sitting position as he clumsily found his feet, standing far above her so she looked up in wonder at his face. It was a face she knew well though it had changed much since she last saw it, slowly hollowed out as though time had scraped at it with his tools, chipping off pieces here and there that seemed unecessary to his artistic eye.

“Harndall”, she whispered, surprised to be able to find her voice at all.

She brought her face towards his, her whole body trembling. She could see tears forming in the corners of his eyes, pooling there and sliding down his face. She longed to feel the chill of those tears falling on her burning cheeks, relieving the aching pain that was consuming her body.

“Harndall”, she repeated, looking into his eyes, recalling that she had never called him this before, the addition of Father seeming somehow a barrier to folly. She was shocked at how easily the wall was broken, how purity and virtue could be stripped with the mere removal of a title.

He was looking at her intensely, his eyes hungry, his hands twitching like pinned insects at his side.

Then suddenly he fell to his knees at her feet his hands clasped in front of him, his eyes gazing up at her, entreating her to ease his suffering.

“Valeriya, I cannot, it is a sin. It is a sin to love you”.

His words plunged into her body like a sword, flaying her skin, scraping through bone and sinew to reach the burning centre of her, the cold steel sliding smoothly into her boiling heart.

She slowly reached out a hand, tentatively touching his own. His skin was achingly cool, the merest brush a relief to her scorched body.

She pryed open his fingers, taking his hands in her own and helping him to his feet.

He stood before her, his features written with grief, “Valeriya I cannot”.

He paused to take a deep sucking breath, “I cannot love you. I must not. It is wrong”.

The pain in her heart was so great now she thought it must combust in a fiery inferno, leaving nothing but a pile of blackened ash that would smoulder for a while until it finally grew cold. But that seemed a relief too, for a cold heart could not ache, could not feel.

“I understand”, she mumbled, the fire in her body cracking, sparks spiralling into the air, “But know this Harndall. I love you. With every fibre of my being, with every scrap of my ruined soul”.

The words poured out like flames from her mouth, great tongues of fire flaring out to brand Harndall’s heart claiming it for her own, “I love you”.

She turned to go, and suddenly felt his hand clasping at her arm, his fingertips pressing against her skin, chilling her through the flimsy fabric of her nightgown. His grip was firm and she turned back towards him, opening her mouth to tell him to leave.

She was silenced by his lips against hers, his arms wrapping around her body as the flames roared up inside her.

They fumbled with each others clothing until finally it was gone and she pressed up against him, feeling his cool skin against the length of her body. She was boiling inside while she shivered in his arms, her stomach churning, sickened by his kisses yet yearning for their searing pain.

He tipped her far backwards, so she hung above the bed, afraid to let go and fall into the waiting fire below. She clung desperately to his neck praying he would not let go and that if they fell it would a least be together as one, to be consumed forever in the torrid flames.

But they did not fall and he laid her gently on the bed, his body covering hers like a blanket so that her trembling subsided, and the fire starved of oxygen began to flicker to a soft glow. His kisses fell upon her face like soothing rain, his cool hands stroking her hair and her neck.

She turned achingly towards those soothing hands, but suddenly they were warm once more and the fire mounted in her again, moving through her body with a dull roar as she moaned in pain. The hands scraped roughly at her face, scalding her where they touched.

She opened her eyes to see Harndall’s face and with horror she saw that is was not him at all, but a massive form towered above her, his shadow falling over her burning body, the fire flaring up in glee at the dark.

She heard a muffled voice cry out far above her, a deep sound that made her teeth ache and her head throb.

“Varda! Varda! Get over here! I think she’s waking up!”.

She tried to cry out in terror but all that came from her mouth were a series of urgent animal groans. The flames were now almost unberable, the flesh curling back from her bones, agony blistering through her roasting body.

And try as she might weakly turning her head from them, she could not escape the dreadful grasping hands that pawed hotly at her screaming body.

Moraghdu, The Church