The Girl with the Fire Heart

Valentina wakes up extra early the next day to surprise her friends and family. And surprise them she did. Brielle and Callie spent the night at the shepherd’s house, worried for their friend. Neither would admit it to her, but they heard Valentina working all hours of the night, had heard her wails of relief, and knew the girl they once knew was back again.

The house erupts and causes such a commotion, people in the nearby homes are startled awake at all the noise coming from the shepherd’s house. The day is spent with the shepherd and his wife fretting about, getting everything ready for their daughter’s birthday, and Brielle and Callie running errands in town, ensuring their friend’s newly recovered identity stays a secret from the people in the village.

Valentina, on the other hand, decides she can do with some solitude and leaves the house through its back door, walking into the forest that edges along the outskirts of the fields. She walks for what seems like hours, until she finally comes to a clearing that she used to visit as a child.

Valentina remembers the last time she was here vividly. The clearing isn't big, just wide enough for a horse to have plenty of space to rest. The circle clearing is overshadowed by trees, the leaves giving just enough space for the sun to peek through its clusters`````````````````````````````. It's cool in this area and it was the same way when she had last come.

She must have been twelve years old. Her parents went into town to sell some of their things in the market that day and Valentina had been adamant about not going. They had let her stay home and when she was sure they were out of sight of the house, she had run through the backdoor and into the forest, laughing wildly to herself.

She remembers the way the wind had swept through her hair, the way her feet pounded against the forest floor, slightly tripping over raised roots and broken branches, hopping over stones and rocks until she stumbled upon this place. It had become her oasis that summer. She would come here when she was sure her parents wouldn’t need her and she spent all her time laying on the forest floor, gazing into the sky, counting the clouds that passed over the clearing.

The last time she was here, however, she had been a shell of a person. She had been playing in the village with one of the few kids who was actually nice to her. She never saw his mother coming. The village boys' mother came running out of the house, screaming and shouting and beating her until she left with her cheeks stained with tears and her face and arms hurting.

She remembers the way heat climbed up her neck as she ran, the way she could feel the flames in her necklace growing, and she headed straight for the oasis. Standing here now, Valentina wonders if that was when it had started. The need to subdue herself, to shield what her heart was made of for fear that someone would remind her more than her school teachers ever had that she was dangerous.

She pushes the memory away, sure that it no longer matters that she had fallen to her knees and cried in this very spot for hours, laying on her side until the pain subsided in her body and heart. That was a lifetime ago. She was stronger, freer, and more sure of herself than she had ever been before.

Valentina isn't sure how long she stands there before she hears the telltale sounds of a horse galloping through the forest. She turns just in time to see the boy with the heart of water come to a stop in the clearing. He is undeniably attractive, with his chest panting from the exertion, the minuscule beads of sweat coating his brow.

His shirt sleeves are rolled up to reveal very thick arms that had soothed her the night before, that had escorted her out of the ballroom to his mother’s private garden and again, out of the ballroom into the main foyer of his home to hail her and her friends a carriage.

Damon jumps down from his horse and leads it to a nearby log, tusking at the horse to stay put. All night, Damon had been restless. He couldn’t stop picturing the way Valentina's cheeks had been flushed from running, and then grew rosier by the minute while they stood in a small standoff in the ballroom.

He couldn’t stop his mind from clinging to the way that the water in his heart, the same water in his necklace, had been close to jumping out of its cage to dowse her, like she was a flame waiting to be tended to and tamed. Something in him had known at that moment that she was not simply the girl with the pure steel heart that oddly resembled a cage. So when the first rays of the sun had snaked their way through the crack in his shades, he immediately jumped up, knowing he would need plenty of time to prepare his horse for a ride.

He hadn't been expecting to find the clearing in the forest. But he was even more certain he had not been expecting to find a girl too closely similar to Valentina standing in the clearing. He approaches slowly, not wanting to startle the girl. He watches as her eyes track his movements, seemingly memorizing the way he looks and moves, slowly inching towards her. When her eyes met his, he stops.

He knows this girl. He looks at the emblem enclosed around her neck and sees the flames burning there, brighter than the sun, so plainly on display. He moves his eyes back up to hers. This girl. This girl is not a lookalike. This girl is the shepherd’s daughter. This is Valentina.

Damon staggers towards her, caught off guard by the sudden revelation. He feels his body tilt towards the floor as his mind is flooded with the even bigger revelation that his reaction to her, the ability to feel her heat, is confirmed. She is, in fact, the girl with the fire heart.