Where the alflower blooms

Alka has red curly hair, a freckled nose, and a gentle disposition.

Alka is a witch.

But a failure in love made her choose a path far from witchcraft. A familiar job in publishing; a hectic but predictable life in the capital, year after year — what more could one want for happiness? But when the Bone Hunter goes out and gathers a bloody harvest, Alka escapes to her native Krasnolesye, where the roadside is overgrown with cornflowers, where the very earth still remembers the old times.

She escapes — and falls from the fire into the flames.

…but it seems she wouldn't mind burning in this fire.