Adam placed his hands on either side of Kera's head. He began to concentrate, a sense of concentration heavy in his dark eyes. It was almost as if he was looking right through her. “Each piece of these blades will be a strip of your soul,” he said softly. "By the time we're done here, you will have learned your real name." Kera felt as if something inside her was rising to the surface. It was like watching the swell of a wave from the shore. Instead of giving way, the wave exploded through his essence as Adam's hands retreated from his head. Kera screamed. Bright flashes of light flashed across his vision. Her ears rang with the sound of her own voice and a sense of dizziness overtook her, causing her to teeter against her own balance, sending her spiraling into nothingness, falling. Kera fell to her knees, clutching her head. It was like someone was trying to whisper something while screaming in her ear. The sound echoed in her head, strange and familiar, like the sound of an old friend calling her name, but she couldn't understand. The pain was blinding and seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. It was as if she were being burned alive from the inside. He fell forward onto his hands and knees, panting, desperately trying to catch his breath. Bright flashes danced across the grain of the stone floor. When he looked up, Adam was standing in front of the forge. He wasn't a tall man, but today he seemed to tower far above her; taller, older, stronger. And what was he working with? He was holding what might as well have been a thin piece of glass in his hands. Placing the material on the pad, Adam knelt down and looked at Kera. "Kera." He said in a firm tone, as if calling her back from far away. She coughed. Her throat was dry... middle of paper... lying on her side, covering her face with her hands. He was cold but his hair was drenched in sweat and his throat burned as if he had swallowed burning embers. Adam knelt down and held a stone cup for her to drink from. It soothed her throat and quenched her desperate thirst. “Are you ready to leave again?” He asked her when she would be able to hold the cup herself. Kera emptied the cup and handed it back to him, wiping the strands of hair stuck to the sweat and tears on his face. She coughed and then nodded, preparing herself for what she knew was coming. “Yes,” Adam nodded as he set the cup aside and picked up the hammer. "It's going to hurt." The blow of the hammer rang out like thunder, making her stagger again. The pain was exquisite, cleansing, sacred. And for the first time, in the 5 long years since Lucian's death, she felt truly alive. Kera screamed.