The worst happened. Zara crossed paths with the Lords woodsmen.

She trekked only a little while from the brook when she found a game trail that snaked between the trees towards the Dragon spine. The sun was half way towards setting when she took a few moments to rest. She ate what was left of her rations and was starting to plan on how to catch anything with a sling. She never hunted anything, ever, least of all with a sling. The boys in her village used to go out and play hunt in the nearby woods, they caught squirrels sometimes or small birds. Zara always thought it was cruel, to kill an animal. She loved to eat meat, but the kill always felt barbaric. She found it interesting how starving put things into perspective, suddenly the critters that lived in the woods weren’t innocent and cute. If she was hungry most of them were too, so they ate each other. She will eat them too, if she could catch something. But that was for tomorrow, she ate enough today, despite what her body was telling her.

The game path made it easier to travel. She felt she made good distance before the sun started to dip behind the Dragon spine and the first Houses of Stars started to open into the twilight sky. She was watching for The Stars she could name when she tripped and fell into a mud puddle. It took her a moment to process what was going on. It didn’t rain in the last few days so how did she fall into mud? She lifted herself to her knees and looked at her hands. What was on them was no ordinary mud. It was blood. Blood and dirt mixed together to create a horrifying blend. Then the smell hit her nose. A combination of iron and coper and emptied bowels.

She screamed and bolted to her feet, she wasn’t on them long. As she tried to backpedal she tripped again on the woodsman she tripped before and found herself on her back. She pushed against the ground to move away from the body when she looked to the side and another woodsman stared blankly at her. The dead man’s stare froze her in place for a moment. She was thought that dead people were peaceful, there was nothing peaceful in that face. Only shocked horror and sadness. Her stomach wanted to empty itself again, it almost succeeded. Her meal reached her throat before she managed to swallow and not lose all her food again today. She stood up and looked around. It was… so bloody. She never realised that people had so much blood in them. The scene was almost beautiful in its brutality.

Zara looked away from the green clocked men and looked to her chest. It was covered in bloody mud. She started to fling it off as fast as she could. It took her some time and the rest of her water but she couldn’t find any traces of the blood on herself. The smell was still there. A part of her remembered that that would mask her scent. But that small thought was quickly pushed out of her mind by other questions. What killed these men? Would it kill her? What kind of animal could kill such skilled huntsmen and rangers? She looked at the bodies again. No, this was no beasts doing. Their wounds were to clean and most of all their bodies were not eaten and there was no monster to attack her the moment she disturbed its meal.

No this was the work of a murderer. He killed and left them to rot in the woods. Even soldiers that returned from battlefields knew to honour their fallen foes, if they were able. They weren’t turned on their backs so their souls could find the Stars and join them in their numbers. They were just left there, to rot. She knew these men would have been the ones to look for her when her disappearance was discovered. It must have happened by now. The idea of Him raging at His father for not sending his men after her right away lifted her spirits. But the men He would have sent were dead at her feet.

She had no recollection of them from the castle. And the fact they worked for the Lord made her hate them on principle, but the idea of their souls not reaching their Star Homes won over her hatred of their master. And turning their bodies to the emerging Stars would set them on their way and wouldn’t be too hard. She was wrong.

Dead bodies are heavy, Zara found. Especially bodies of men that spent most of their time hunting and stalking in the woods. By the time she was done she was covered in sweat. Again. And her hands were bloody. She invoked the Star names she could remember to ease the journey of the souls to their rightful place among the Stars.

“Why did you do that?” A voice asked her from behind.

Zara froze in her place and her body vibrated with the need to run.

“What were you doing to the free shells?” It asked another question. It sounded like a man’s voice, but it held the curiosity of a child. With what she saw today it was unsettling to a degree she couldn’t put to thought.

“What were those words you were speaking? I don’t know their meaning.” he kept on talking to her back as if the bloody scene they were witnessing was as common as grass growing.

“Can you understand me?” he asked. “I am still learning the language of your people.”

‘What?’ the bubble of curiosity her mind found turned her body towards the sound without conscious thought.

What she saw was not what she anticipated. Before her stood a boy no older than her with dark eyes the shape of almonds. His hair was an unkempt dark mess but despite that his hair never obscured his eyes. He was dressed in stitched together furs that didn’t cover his hands further than the shoulders. He was also a thumb shorter than her. She wasn’t petite like all the concubines the Lord kept in his employ, but she wasn’t tall either. His hands were long and she could see tight steely muscles wind its way from the tip of his fingers to the fur west he wore. The last thing she noticed was that he was bear-foot.

“Who are you?” the words exited her mouth before she could stop them.

The boy cocked his head to the side in confusion then answered as if the whole world knew.

“I am me.”