Even as she said the words she knew it would be difficult to live by them. The duplicity of her nature demanded secrecy and misrepresentation, but she too would know pride; know love. That is what made her current assignment so difficult. She was forbidden by her master from discussing certain topics, or uttering specific words. This was in addition to the words that were forbidden her as sacrosanct and beyond utterance for the damned.

The introduction was informal. She observed him as he took stalk of her assets. Even beneath the bulky coat, her proportions would not be denied. He diverted his attention back to her master. There it was again, the spark of pride. She cursed her anatomy and summoned the tissue to form a semblance of a beating heart in her own chest.

"Oh, to feel a real beating heart. To know the passions and the desires of the mortals." Too much time in the game, but with no chips on the table. This time would be different. Her ante was her promise, for that was all she possessed.

The fire offered it's warmth, though she didn't feel it as others did. The twisted faces of the Grimme engaged in their dance surrounded her now. Beyond the rippling flames perched high on a throne of bones and wood sat Stahl. The ripple of the flame gave him a a look usually reserved for the nobility of hell. Pirched on his make-shift throne he basked in his own glory oblivious to the enemy in his camp. He was like a thousand other tyrants. They all looked the same. Regardless of race or culture. Hate and greed for power were magnificent tools for her master's dark adjenda, of those who achieved power few were uncorrupted by it.

The dance consumed her now and she became one with the masses. Sweat and ash formed a gravy that painted the dancers. Moving through them she was jostled and shoved. Hardening her resolve she began moving with the flow of bodies. Closer to the fire she moved.

The heat welcoming her. Somewhere over the roar of the fire and the chants of the grimme she felt the rhythm of a drum. Closer to the flame. She urged herself onward. She was close now and the burning corpse was easili visible now among the rising flames. Dropping the facade, her skin came alive with its natural red hue. Then she began to weave the words that would open a gate. Her words pressed against the seals of this world, bending the flame backward like a door. The blackness beyond the breach seemed to tug at the living flame. The bodies nearest to her began to shrink from from the door, but it was too late. The initiative was hers and the punishers were already here. Through the void stepped creatures as familiar to her as bothers, but they were only kin in the respect that they too were born of hell. She turned her back on the grimme and her attention to the pyre. Behind her she heard the shrieks of creatures surrendering their lives to her unholy harbingers.

Spreading her wings, she climbed the hissing stack of logs oblivious to the inferno that spat and lashed at her. Looking up at the boiling skin of the dead man. She had known his fate before she arrived, but HER love had asked her to claim some part of him so that he may be reclaimed. She would not fail in that mission.

As she looked upon his molten form now there was nothing of the man she had known. His head had been severed hours ago and was nowhere in sight. His clothing and skin were one. All that was required was a small measure of his flesh. Her hands hardened subconsciously to the equal of the finest steel of Castille. A few more steps and then it would be done.

As she stretched to take a piece of his body a wooden shaft pierced her shoulder. The head of an arrow gleamed in the fire. The fletchings caught fire almost immediately. Her arm shrank back defensively, against her will. Bracing her feet against the burning wood she urged herself higher. More arrows pierced her flesh. The punishing attacks served more to inhibit her movements than to threaten her mortality. Never-the-less she was feeling the urgency of the moment.