By Madison Banfield
I was a fire; I was blue flame consuming everyone who loved me, raging against the world, impassioned and lustful, and entitled to whatever I wanted. I thought of myself as a goddess: immortal and untouchable. I was the center of the universe—my life was a choreographed dance, a sword fight, a duet between heaven and hell. I burned so brightly. . . and I burned my mind at the stake. My knife was stopped before it could cut my throat, but a part of me still died.
I became stained glass: melted sand held aloft in a slim metal frame, breakable and removed, and more image than substance. I was nothing but a shadow of reality. It took coaxing for me to leave my place on the wall, and even then, I could not muster the strength to speak or act or live. I was alive but I was alive in the way that a ghost is alive. I existed, but I did not live. I could not live.
I was a slim metal frame away from shards of broken glass, reflecting the bright colors I used to radiate.
I would have stayed this way if not for the threat of war. Hushed voices whispering of drafting soldiers, snippets of battle plans, worries confessed in hallways. The voices fell silent at the creak of my door opening—I knew what they were thinking: I was in no state to deal with matters as large as kingdom affairs. My family would never risk me. But what of themselves? What then, when the blood and swords entered the city streets? My mother and father would be the first to fall—my sister, my brothers, they would fall second. And what of me? Would I be the last alive, cradled in a cottage in the forest, secure and shielded from the destruction of my kingdom? Of my family? My family was everything to me—my earth, my stability, my world. I would not slumber while they perished.
My fingers slid down the cool hilt of a sword buried six feet under in its own coffin. Breath staggered in and out of my chest as I lifted the blade, and for a moment the sword blurred and doubled in my vision. I closed my eyes. I am not a murderer for lust, I am not a killer for the rush, I am not who I was. I am not a fire, and I am not stained glass. I am Sapphire, I will defend my people.
