Selene woke in a burrow, large enough to fit herself and Lily.

She looked down at herself and found she was covered in dirt and leaves, but her skin and hair were dry.

She could barely sit up in the small space, her hair brushed against the dirt ceiling. Her arms ached from overexertion, and she had bruises all over her body including her cheekbone, which she felt when she touched it to clear her eyes. She looked down at her brace and winced.

The skin around the break was a much deeper purple, the bone pushing against the skin in places. Where her ankle wasn't purple, it was a sickly green. She hadn't noticed in the dark, but a deep wound ran from the middle of her foot to the bottom of her calf. It was coated in dried blood, having clotted in the night. She was fortunate it hadn't split her tendon. If it had she would most certainly be dead.

If Arthur had bothered to buy her new boots, this would never have happened.

She flexed her toes, pain lacing up her leg.

Lily laid curled in a ball beside her, knees tucked to her chin and back pressed against Selene's side. Selene's cloak was still wrapped around the girl, the edges fraying and the cloth stiff.

The rain had washed most of the mud off her face, the only thing marking it now was a small scar on her top lip that looked a few years old.

A curl of blonde hair laid across Lily's face and Selene reached down to brush it away and tucked it behind her ear. The girl stirred next to her, awoken by the gesture.

"Good Morning, Miss," she said, yawning and stretching her arms.

"How did you get us in here?"

Lily looked around as if struggling to remember where they were.

"I had to drag you. It took me a while, but I did it. I had to leave Kadan outside; he didn't seem happy about it," she said with a voice that said she was still half asleep.

Selene looked down at her foot again, considering trying to walk out of the burrow to see where her horse was.

Lily's stomach grumbled as if making Selene's choice for her.

She sighed and slowly stood, her head brushing the roof even as she crouched.

Slowly making her way out of the burrow, Selene tested the splint. It seemed to be holding her ankle the right way, ensuring it would heal normally. But no matter the weight she put on her good leg, her injured one throbbed with pain as she crawled to the entrance.

She immediately noticed Kadan laying down in front of the burrow. She nudged the horse, only receiving an ear flick in response.

Selene huffed a sigh and climbed over the horse's flank.

"What a gentleman."

Lily tumbled out after Selene, landing in a heap. Kadan reached back and sniffed at her head, her hair ruffling against his lips. Lily giggled and rubbed his nose.

Selene smiled, finding the two to be absolutely perfect for each other. When Lily grew to be a woman, Selene had no doubt that the two would wreak havoc on whatever poor soul got in their way.

Watching them together, Selene thought about what they were to do once they reached the coast.

Selene thought about opening a forge herself, crafting tools and weapons grand enough that people all over her country would hear and flood to her. Selene snorted to herself.

If she could help it, she would never enter a blacksmith's shop ever again.

Then she thought about healing. When she was a child, she yearned to be a healer. She had met one once.

A beautiful young woman who had come to heal her arm after she had broken it. She had taught Selene how to make her splint and how to care for it. The woman had returned after Axl had gotten sick as a baby. Selene had watched her make the tonics and grind the herbs. Selene's mother had banned her from the room after Selene had knocked over one of her vials, shattering the glass.

Selene blinked the memory away, she did not have the training to be a healer, nor did she have the time to learn. She had the three of them to feed and needed a well-paying job.

The thought of food made her stomach rumble, almost a mimic of Lily's. Selene made sure her dagger was still strapped to her side and stood. Her ankle flared, tears welling in her eyes.

"Miss?" Lily called behind her.

"I'm fine. I'm going to get us some food. Don't leave this burrow," Selene turned to look at the girl, "I mean it."

The girl put her head down in shame and dug the tips of her shoes into the dirt.

Selene turned and made her way into the woods. She could barely move with her ankle and the wound the way it was now. Every animal she'd try and catch would have already heard her. Selene looked around for an idea, biting her lip in thought.

Selene walked, more like hopped, until she came across and stream and stopped, taking a drink. She looked at her surroundings, searching for a tree with a good vantage point. She spotted one about ten feet from the water's edge. Its sturdy branches hidden under coats of leaves. Selene found some dogwood, the same wood she used to make the rope used to tie her splint and set to work making a trap.

Her dagger aim was not precise enough to catch them dinner, nor did she want to miss the animal only for her weapon to land in the stream and disappear forever.

She stripped the wood into thin strands and braided them together to form a rope, strong enough to hold a struggling animal in place long enough for Selene to kill it.

Selene just had to figure out how to rig the trap. She had never built one before, but she knew the basics.

She climbed one of the nearby trees and tied one end of the rope around one of its low hanging branches, the other end falling to the ground. She jumped down, landing awkwardly on her good leg, and picked up her rope. She stared at it, unsure what to do next.

She remembered going to the old barn with all of the boys. Jack used to make traps for her to get caught in but she never realized how they worked, only that he had baited her with bread from his father's bakery. She remembered the snare snapping around her leg and how she fell to the floor as the rope tightened. Selene smiled at the thought, yet again thanking Jack for saving her ass.

She untied the rope from the tree and searched around the stream for a sapling. She found a few and decided to use the strongest one, a small pine sapling. Its stem was flexible and bent almost to the forest floor. She then gathered four sticks, two thick and medium length, the other two long and thin.

She buried the two thick sticks in the ground at diagonals, side by side, and bent them until the crossed at the tops. Then, she fetched some more dogwood and made a shorter rope to tie the sticks together. She placed one of the long sticks right behind the diagonal ones and carved a notch in it with her dagger.

Twisting the long, thin stick around the rope, she tied it to the sapling and bent the tree until she could place that stick in between the diagonal ones and secure its end in the notch.

She then tied the snare hoop and spread it out in front of the whole trap. Selene stepped back to admire her work. She lacked the bait to lure the animal and hoped the river would be enough to draw the animals to her. She limped around the trap, careful to not trip the rope, and climbed up the tree she had eyed earlier.

She found a good vantage point on one of the upper branches, its leaves parting at the right place to give her a view of the river and her trap. Then, she settled on the branch, swinging her injured leg down freely, and waited.

She saw many animals come and leave, none coming close enough to her trap to become ensnared. At one point, a doe had come up and sniffed at the rope, only to turn away, leaving Selene to hush her growling stomach.

She knew if Lily and she didn't get food today, things would begin to look dire.

Every child was taught the rule of threes in case of an emergency.

Starvation killed you in three weeks.

Dehydration killed you in three days.

Suffocation in three minutes.

And panic in three seconds.

They could go a while without food, but with Selene's ankle the way it was now, if she didn't get something in her system, she'd become too weak to hunt for more food and those three weeks would be up before they could stop it.

She sat in the tree for four hours until a large rabbit came within inches from the trap. It lapped up the water of the stream, relaxing at the lack of danger. Selene watched with a predator's hunger as it drank, willing it to move to its side.

By some luck, a noise sounded to the rabbit's left and it darted the opposite way, right into the awaiting snare. Selene was already dropping to the ground when she heard the snap of the stick coming loose from the notch.

Despite the pain, Selene limped for the writhing rabbit. She caught it in her hands, but it moved too much for her to grab her dagger and give it a clean cut.

She grit her teeth, sending a silent plea for forgiveness to the Angel of the Earth, Chasan, and snapped its neck.

It immediately went limp in her hands. She released its body from the snare and reset the trap, hoping to catch another animal to eat. Carrying it back to the camp was torture. Selene's ankle caused so much pain, she saw black spots and had to stop and rest for minutes at a time. The meat in her hands didn't help her. She hadn't eaten in three days, and the sight of a rabbit, plump in preparation of winter, almost made her devour it right then and there.

She made it back to camp, Lily's beaming smile the first thing Selene saw. The girl eyed the rabbit with hawk eyes as Selene put together a fire.

After it had begun to burn, she skinned the rabbit and hung strips of meat over the stick that sat across the fire, just above the flames.

Quickly, the smell of roasting meat reached Selene and Lily. She shifted uncomfortably on the ground next to the fire, far too tempted to reach into the flames and grab the food.

"Is your ankle okay?" Lily asked next to her, looking down at her shoes as if guilty.

"It will heal."

They sat in silence for a while, but Selene sensed there was something Lily wanted to say. Lily kept her mouth closed, waiting for the meal to finish cooking.

As soon as Selene deemed the meat cooked, they ate. Selene did not give the food time to cool before she bit into it. The juicy meat washed away the taste in her mouth, the flavor coating her tongue. She couldn't help but groan as she ate, her starving stomach not letting her pause longer than to gasp for air. Lily was the same, digging into her meal as if she were a wolf.

They finished the food, their stomachs not satisfied but contempt enough to last them until their next dinner. Selene licked her lips and looked over at Lily. The girl was staring at the fire, now their only light as night fell.

She seemed to look much older than she truly was, her eyes hollow and empty. Lily wasn't even ten years old and yet she had seen such unspeakable tragedies that would even haunt seasoned warriors for the rest of their lives.

Lily's eyes flicked over to Selene, if just for a moment. The girl put her nose to her knees as if hiding as she had in the alley when Selene first found her. The girl sighed, and Selene wanted to embrace the girl and chase away whatever thoughts clouded her head.

Then she spoke.

"The night the monster came, I had run off. I was mad at my sister for something she did. I don't remember what it was. I ran off to a barn that no one goes to. I liked to go there to play with my friends and be alone sometimes. It was dark, and I knew I shouldn't have gone, I hadn't even had supper yet, but I did. On my way back, I saw three figures in the grasses, and I crouched down to watch them, but they just walked off out of sight without doing much of anything. When I came back it was quiet. I thought everyone was asleep."

Selene knew what the girl was telling her, how she didn't look away from the fire. She looked at it as if she hoped it would burn away the memory and all the grief that came with it.

"I went to my sister and I's room and I opened the door and walked in. I didn't hear anything; I remember it being dark and cold. I was muddy and was scared that my mother would be mad at me for getting the house dirty. I didn't notice the monster standing in the corner holding my sister. It wasn't the same monster we saw. This one was big and white. It had a lot of teeth and a really big mouth."

The girl stopped her lips set in a frown and her brows pushed together as she struggled not to cry.

"When I looked at it, it made a really loud screeching noise and I had to cover my ears. Its mouth was all red. It dropped my sister and she wasn't moving so I thought it hurt her, so I ran up to her. It hit me, and I couldn't see anything for a while, and I thought I died."

There were tears falling from her chin and onto her arms as they held her knees to her chest. She looked as small as when Selene first found her.

"I woke up and it was very dark, and I ran outside but everyone was gone, even my sister. I was looking for someone to help me when you found me. My momma told me to stay away from you, that you were a child of the forest and was dangerous. I believed her because you looked so different than everyone. You had white hair and red eyes and scared me, but then you held out your hands to me and I knew everyone had been wrong."

Selene watched the girl, a knot sitting in her throat. She didn't understand why the girl was telling her this. Perhaps after having eaten, she was relaxed enough to open up.

Selene crawled to the girl, closing the space between them, and enclosed her in her arms.

"We're family now, you and me. We're all we have and there's no way I'm letting anyone take you from me. So, let go of those memories and just imagine the coast. Imagine us together when we go into the town and you meet new kids to play with and we can go to the beaches and watch the birds and even bring Kadan to swim if he wishes. Though I don't imagine that he'd be any good."

Lily laughed softly, wiping her nose with the back of her hand.

"We're sisters now, okay? I won't let anything happen to you."

Lily's blonde hair glowed in the firelight; it reminded Selene of the fire that burned in her own eyes. And, Selene realized, burned in Lily's as well.

"I'm not scared of anything happening to me," the girl said, her eyes still of the burning wood, "I'm afraid of what will happen to you."

Selene pressed her lips into a thin line, blinking against the fire's heat. She stroked Lily's hair, careful not to pull at the many tangles that littered both of their heads. They needed baths. They hadn't washed since running, which had been three days prior.

Selene didn't stop playing with her hair until Lily's breaths slowed. She realized too late that she would not be able to carry the girl back into the burrow, her ankle too injured.

So, they rested by the fire, Selene adding broken twigs and sticks to keep it burning. She listened to the songs of the wood. The crickets keeping her company in the night.

She kept alert, not trusting the beautiful forest any more than she would trust a wild beast. Watching the fire, she leaned against Kadan, the horse dozing against the warmth.

The wood cracked and popped, sparks flying. It reminded Selene of the forge, of the countless hours she spent laboring against the burning heat. This fire was different; it was comforting. Between waves of warmth, the breeze would slip by and cool her neck and face reminding her that she was free.

At what cost?

Selene bit the inside of her cheek at the thought.

She thought over what Lily had told her. She had run to the barn, the same barn Selene herself used to play at as a child, to escape from her family. And she saw people on her way back. Wouldn't they have survived the demon too if they had been out of town? Perhaps they returned before Lily and were slaughtered, or perhaps they ran. Something else wouldn't leave her head, nagging at her as if bony fingers pulled at her clothes.

There had been a second demon.

Selene knew hundreds of stories and legends. None of them spoke of demons traveling together. In fact, if they happened to stumble across one another, they would usually fight to the death. Ripping their surroundings apart as they released their inferno of power.

Selene was still baffled at her own luck, that she had not only survived a demon attack but had killed one.

She glanced over to the dagger that laid where she previously sat, at the gem that rested in its hilt. It hadn't glowed again. Selene wasn't sure if she had imagined it or not, but as she reached under her shirt to feel beneath the old bandages, she knew it must have happened. She had dislocated her joint, popping it back in place as she raised it to kill the demon. She had never healed that fast before, no human could. Yet her back felt healed, the old scars the only thing she could feel beneath her fingers. She pulled down the collar of her shirt to look at her shoulder. She didn't even see a scar for where the ax had sliced her.

She looked back at the dagger, the blade glinting against the red fire. Taunting her to wield it.

A sharp crack sounded from Selene's right, just past the line of trees the surrounded their clearing.

Immediately, she was on alert. Her muscles tightened, and her breathing turned shallow. In the pitch black, two green eyes glowed, emitting a trail of light as their owner moved through the trees. This was no ordinary glow of the animals that prowled the night, nor was it like the glow they saw two days before, but it was an otherworldly glow.

Magic.

Selene reached for Lily, about to wake the girl to run, when a figure padded from the darkness. Selene's hand fell slack as she gazed upon the creature.

A huge lynx watched her from the edge of the clearing, its large green eyes blinking at her. Its fur seemed black to Selene's vision but as the firelight flickered, she saw it was actually deep blue. Veins of silver ran through its pelt, making the creature glow against the darkness.

It flicked its ears in her direction, tongue shooting out to lick its lips. Selene blinked at the fork that split it. Selene glanced down at Lily, the girl still asleep. Though she wanted to wake the girl, she was scared Lily would get too excited or scared and make a sudden noise.

Selene let the girl dream.

Kadan released a near-silent snort, uneasy at the presence of the predator. It seemed to be peaceful, but Selene wasn't taking any chances. As slowly and gently as she could, Selene lifted Lily's head off her chest and laid her down on the soft ground. The girl shifted in sleep and the lynx's eyes darted to the girl, vulnerable on the ground.

Selene didn't take her eyes from the animal as she cautiously made her way to the blade.

She was inches away when the animal moved. It padded farther into their clearing, stopping just before the fire, and sat down on its haunches. No longer did it study Selene or Lily, but the fire. It kneaded the cold ground and released a deep, rumbling purr, savoring the warmth seeping from the flames.

Selene picked up her dagger and sheathed it at her side; the lynx still did not look up at her.