The village wasn’t a village anymore, and the city it had become offered no sanctuary. The Deerling’s corpse lay as evidence of that but the true testament was spoken by the lack of concern any of the guards showed once the Deerling lay still.

“Aww, do you know how much you just cost me!” the merchant Filgar complained, his voice full of annoyance but absent of any outrage or anger.

“Should have branded him,” Onoxo the guard said. “That just proved you can’t control the beasts. Now, are you going to brand the rest or are you going to turn around and head back to Embervale?”

Filgar grumbled and ordered his people to turn their wagons around. “Can’t afford not to sell them now. Gonna be a rough season if all the towns are acting like you idiots.”

“Take the body with you if you’re going. Can get some coin for that if his bits aren’t too old and weathered.” Onoxo waved a hand towards the fallen Deerling and Jaye took a step forward.

“Best not to draw their attention,” Shadow said, holding an admittedly insubstantial hand in front of her. “In fact best perhaps to move on to the next town. We do not like the reception they give travelers here.”

Jaye stewed in that thought for a long moment while Filgar’s wagons were turned around the Deerling’s body was collected. Far from being treated with ceremonial dignity though it was simply strung up by the feet off the back roof of the trailing wagon. Within no more than ten minutes, the merchant’s wagons were rolling back up the road and the guards had returned to postures of idle boredom. 

Everything was back to normal.

Looking at the red stain on the open ground outside the wall and the disinterest in it shown by the guards, Jaye saw something worse though. Everything had always been normal. They showed no interest or remorse for what had happened because it was what was expected. It was how things were supposed to be.

“Come, it will take somewhat longer, but a proper repast can be found elsewhere,” Shadow said.

Jaye’s feet however stayed planted where they were.

“No.” She offered no explanation at first, grappling with the disgust, and fear, and rage she felt. “They won’t know what I am.”

It was more than that, of course. Within her there was a hunger to take something back from them. An instinctual desire to poke the predator she saw before her. To prove it couldn’t catch her, couldn’t take her life like it had so many others.

“I want their food,” she said, the vengeance of taking what was theirs rising in her from a chorus of ancestors.

“We promise you it is unlikely to be worth coveting,” Shadow said. “But, yes, let us see you properly sustained.” Was he speaking of merely physical sustenance? Or perhaps the more spiritual nourishment of seeing some small spec of justice delivered? 

Jaye began to set off towards the gate but Shadow directed her attention to the remains of a small bridge which spanned the river at a point where it narrowed most.

“We see no reason to allow such paltry walls to stand against us,” Shadow said. “Head there,” he pointed towards a spot on the nearest side wall, “to where shade still rests, and we needn’t interact with any of the hapless defenders the town may possess.”

“They’ll see us when we cross the river though, won’t they?” Jaye asked, wondering if Shadow meant for her to fly them over the walls. It wasn’t a terribly appealing thought given the twin facts that birds seemed somewhat absent from the sky and the archers, at least, had proven their skill was adequate to hit fleeing targets.

“Passing unnoticed is rather second nature to one such as we are,” Shadow said. “We could likely cloud your presence were you to simply stroll through the open gate but notice there? See the silvery glint which wreathes the stonework around the gate. That is an enchantment for unveiling the invisible. A mediocre one, sufficient we believe to thwart simple spells of invisibility and misdirection, but not beyond our skills to deceive.”

“So we can use the front gate?” Jaye asked.

“Can, but possibly should not,” Shadow said. “Were it our gate to protect, we would layer defenses upon it, as we’ve done with your Seeming. That there is an obvious remedy against unseen intruders on the gate does not preclude the possibility that there are one or more hidden measures as well.”

“How do you get in then?” Jaye asked, scanning the battlements in search of a spot where the archers would not be able to spy a clever bird.

“Magic!” Shadow said, wiggling his fingers.

Jaye offer him a scowl in place of words to complain of how dubious an explanation that was.

“The shaded area,” Shadow said, pointing once more at the wall which was nearest to them.

Without audible complaints, Jaye picked a path through the forest’s edge, and walked carefully to the old bridge to find that, without traffic passing to the forest for a century, the bridge had been left to rot away in several places.

“There are spells of mending that we can…” Shadow began to say but Jaye didn’t wait for him to finish.

With a few quick hops, she used the still intact bits of the bridge to navigate to the other side of the river and then crept close to the shaded walls, expecting that at any moment a Hunter’s cry would ring out to reveal her presence.

“So what can magic do…” Jaye started to ask before she found herself standing in the shadows on the other side of the wall.

“We can continue the concealment spell, but within the city it will perhaps do more harm than good,” Shadow said as he took stock of their surroundings.

“How did you do that?” Jaye asked, her gazing flicking everywhere around her to get her bearings back.

“A bit of natural ability,” Shadow said, “and one or two decades of study. Passing from one shadow to another was what the witch designed us to do. In truth it’s easier than walking alongside you or possessing space as a body might. Bringing along another however was a rather different story. That was something we spent quite a while working on.”

 “Where are we?” Jaye asked. She was in a small, dark alleyway between two tall wooden buildings, beyond that though everything was strange and foreign to her.

“Near as can be to a traveler’s room,” Shadow said. “Let us tend to your hunger and see what information we can discover as to how we might make that a less perilous endeavor for the meals to come.”

Jaye nodded, flipped the hood of the cloak up to ward off the slight chill of the early spring day and left the alley to find herself at an open door which led to room that was already half full of other travelers.

She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do inside, but the moment she stepped past the door, a server who was carrying a tray of bowls directed her to an empty space at the room’s bar, and she’d barely finished sitting down when a bowl of stew slid in front of her.

“Six bits,” the server behind the bar said. Jaye glanced up to find a large man, human though if there were traces of Tauren blood in his ancestry Jaye would not have been surprised.

Jaye felt coins drop into her hand, a gift from Shadow. She rebelled for a moment against paying for her meal when she’d meant to pilfer it to put some tiny hurt back on the humans. 

Was it justice to steal from someone who hadn’t been present or a part of the crime she’d witnessed? Her mother wouldn’t have thought so. 

Jay placed the coins on the bartop before taking the spoon that was offered, hungrier perhaps for whatever elusive measure of justice she could grasp than for the food in front of her, but for the time being, the food would do.

“You sure you want to use these?” the man said, holding one of the coins up to light from the nearest window.

“Yeah,” Jaye said, giving the stew an appraising sniff before risking a repeat of her earlier experience with Shadow’s cooking.

“Let me guess, you’re an adventurer? Just got back from some monster ruins?” the man said. “You know you can get these old coins converted at the guild right? Even copper bits like this usually go for more than the copper their made of.”

“It’s okay,” Jaye said. “The stew was quick. It’s worth it.”

The man gave a disbelieving laugh at that, but his smile was soft.

“Careful saying anything good about the food here. People will think you took a few too many hits to the head from the monsters. I’m Boltran, if you need anything else, just shout. I still got half an ear that can hear good sometimes.”

The stew was quick. Whether it was cheap or not, Jaye didn’t really know since she’d never used human money to buy anything before. Good was also a debatable quality, though her hunger, which had returned with ravenous force, gave it a seasoning and spice which elevated it to a level it perhaps would not have reached otherwise.

“You’re an adventurer too?” a thin young human lad said as he claimed the seat next to Jaye’s. “Did you get to see the Uprising down around Dawnfield?”

“Yeah,” Jaye said, truthful on the second question at least.

“Sounded like it was pretty awful. They lost Dawnfield?”

“And more,” Jaye said, remembering that the Hunters had talked about Cropshare falling as well.

“Are you here with your party?” asked the boy? Man? He seemed to be somewhere in the middle, but Jaye remembered Shadow’s claim that casters rarely appeared as their true selves.

“Don’t have one,” Jaye said, and couldn’t fight to keep the wince out of her voice at everything else she didn’t have.

“Oh, ouch, I’m sorry. My name is Telman. I’m part of a new party, and I was wondering if you could tell us what it was like?”

Jaye glanced around, wondering if Telman subscribed to the same regal set of personal pronouns as Shadow did. The group of other humans clustered around a nearby table who were all staring in Telman’s direction suggested that was not the case however.

“It was bad,” Jaye said, keenly aware of both her inability to convincingly speak of the battles as an adventurer would and how little she cared to recall the experience she did have with the Uprising and its aftermath.

Telman looked as though he was going to ask for more information but paused with a pained expression.

“Oh. I see. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have bothered you,” he said and got up to leave.

Had she still been in the Refuge, Jaye would have assured him that nothing he’d said bothered her, and if she’d still been in the Refuge that would have been true. With no kinder option occurring to her, she simply let him go without further discussion and got back to her stew.

“It would seem our ruse is having the desired effect,” Shadow whispered to her. “With your staff and cloak, people are naturally assuming you to be a caster.”

“Is that really a good thing?” Jaye whispered back, leaning a bit further over her stew so the hood of her cloak would hide her whispering better.

“That will be for you to decide. Denying one’s true self carries unpleasant costs, but that is not the same as allowing any and all access to secrets they would harm you with,” Shadow said.

“Why did you give me old coins before?” Jaye asked, a memory of the dead Deerling flashing through her at the thought of all of those who would wish to do her harm.

“We presumed you had none of your own,” Shadow said. “The barkeep’s suggestion for converting them may have merit however. All of the currency we carry was struck at least a century ago if not more. Newer coinage, struck by one of the local lords, would attract less attention.”

“He said ‘the guild’ could change them?” Jaye asked, unclear on exactly why one coin would need to be exchanged for another.

“The Adventurer’s Guild we imagine. Riversbough was too small a century ago to host one but at its present size…no even at its present size, it is odd that there should be a chapter of the guild here. We were given to understand that as freelance agents who sought their fame and fortune among perilous enterprises, the population of adventurers in the Free Dukedoms amounted to no more than a dozen or two active parties at a time. Riverbough has grown but not so large as to maintain a facility on the off chance an adventuring party should wander by?”

“There’s a party over there though,” Jaye said without glancing at the table where Telman had sat down.

“Something has changed,” Shadow said. “There simply should be the need for so many adventurers that we could run into one by chance during our first meal in the city unless…”

The first of the screams from outside the tavern cut Shadow off. 

“Whatever could….” Shadow was at a loss, but Jaye wasn’t.

She knew what screams like that meant.

Jaye had always liked her eyes and was more than a little concerned that she was going to have to lose them.

“But it won’t hurt, right?” she asked, shying backwards as Shadow leaned in to inspect each of her eyes closely.

“It won’t hurt you, of that you may be certain,” Shadow said, bringing his hand to where a chin would be on a face with more features.

“Wait, who’s it going to hurt then? Not you?” Jaye wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea of changing her eyes so she could pass as human but she could understand the value of it. Shadow suffering some injury to accomplish it though made her feel ill. She didn’t want anyone else to suffer for her. Not again.

“You need have no fear about that,” Shadow said. “No, there are simply certain precautions we believe would be wise to take.”

“Precautions like…?” Jaye asked, still wary of what Shadow might have in mind that involved harming anyone.

“The obvious candidate for a disguise is to cloak you in a simple, self-sustaining illusion,” Shadow said, stepping in close again to measure the distance between the outside edges of Jaye’s eyes. “They’re quite common for many different types of caster to employ. From our readings, we believe it is in fact more common than not for casters to appear as something other than who they truly are. It makes certain spells more challenging to affect them with, and there is quite definitely no lack of vanity amongst those who are reasonably gifted in any of the arcane arts.”

“How would that hurt anyone though?” Jaye asked.

“Because Seemings are so common, it is also quite common for casters of all stripes to possess spells, gifts, tools, or abilities to look through simple illusions.”

“So they would see I was a Ravenkin no matter what?”

“If we relied on only a single simple illusion, yes, without a doubt, and that would raise all sorts of questions that would be best avoided for the good of all involved.” Shadow stood back and made a few practice gestures which Jaye knew would have to be a middle piece of a spell. “Instead, our thought is to layer several illusions, and incorporate guards against scrying into the inner layers. Thus if someone is content not to pry into your secrets, no harm will befall them. Those who peer past the first level we imagine should suffer no ill effect either. Looking past a simple glamour is too common and accepted. We shall make the first layer they would see past the outer shell one which suggests you are usually your glamour for simple beautification as many casters do. Pushing past that level will carry a price though, and pushing past the next will carry a greater one. Should they get through those layers, we believe showing your true appearance would be the best course. They will disbelieve a Ravenkin could cast a spell that elaborate and should they try to push further they will find themselves stymied by what they imagine to be the ‘final illusion’. Perhaps one last guarding spell in place, setup to protect nothing, that way they will either admit defeat or struggle through increasing amounts of pain uselessly.”

“Aren’t there casters who could wipe away all the illusions at once though?” Jaye said, thinking of Shadow’s witch and the others like her.

“Yes. Should we run into such a one, we will need to either evade their notice or accept that no magic we possess is likely to avail us.”

“Okay,” Jaye said, acknowledging that as both obvious and a simple fact of life. Some people held a vast amount of power but they were typically far away and unconcerned about people like her, so it made sense to be as unconcerned about them as possible. “And all this won’t hurt you or me?”

“See for yourself,” Shadow said and conjured a mirrored disk for Jaye to observe his work.

The young woman who looked back at Jaye was a few years older and a completely different species. Gone were her night black eyes, replaced with brilliant blue human eyes set in a face framed by Jaye’s black hair but with softer cheekbones and a thicker lips. 

Jaye touched her face, because what else could she do, only to feel that the illusion was more than just visual.

“We made sure the tactile sense was covered as well, in case someone should have reason to make a closer inspection,” Shadow said, inspecting his work with a critical eye.

“What do the other layers look like?” Jaye asked.

“The one below the visible layer is the same visage though well past the bloom of youth. Anyone who spies that will be likely to assume that you are a woman aging into the middle years of adulthood who is unwilling to let go the charm she held as a youth. Below that is the visage of a Grove Tender, and below that is you. The Grove Tenders are known to travel under other appearances when outside their grove, especially ones who have been exiled for one reason or another. We considered another human guise, but if someone has pushed past two human visages, it seemed likely that would believe you to be something other than human. On that layer, your hair will feel like the softest of leaves and your features will take on a warm and polished wooden texture.”

“You did all that without any words?” Jaye asked, stunned at the complexity of the spell.

“We have had little to nothing to do for the last century but practice the arcane arts,” Shadow said. “Disguising only one person was something we mastered early on before we learned that we couldn’t enspell ourself to be able to leave the forest on our own.”

“Well, that’s what we’re ready to do now, right?” Jaye asked. “Or is there anything else we need to do?”

Her stomach grumbled at the thought of more delay, which brought a chuckle from Shadow.

“We are as prepared as I believe we can be,” he said. “Come let us get a proper meal to sustain you.”

Jaye was tempted, once more, to take wing and simply fly to the town, but the staff in her hand and the cloak she wore were armor and a shield she was loathe to part with, and so she followed along on foot as Shadow resumed leading their trek though the forest.

Aside from her growing hunger – the Hunters hadn’t exactly been generous with their meal – the trip was pleasant enough. Jaye could feel her neckhairs prickling as the witch’s curse brushed past them time and again, but she was a welcomed guest so it was merely curious rather than homicidal. Without an implicit threat weighing over her, Jaye got to appreciate the vibrancy of the unspoiled woods. The trees and other vegetation were in their own dance of contesting with each other for light and soil, but there were harmonies and cooperation as much as there was competition and a slow sort of warfare being waged. Most of all though, Jaye noticed how the witch’s curse wasn’t a blight upon the land but rather its shield. The witch hadn’t left the wood twisted and mired in hate, she’d left it a guardian.

Seeing that was a powerful temptation to follow Shadow’s words and stay within the forest’s safe embrace. For a part of her, it was what Jaye needed more than anything. The rest of her rebelled at the thought though. She didn’t want to be tied down, not anywhere, again. She’d been hidden away her whole life with the promise that the constraints on her world, on her truest nature, were there to grant her safety. And they hadn’t. Even if the witch’s curse could, she didn’t want that to be the legacy she followed.

Jaye had no illusions that the world needed her, but she could feel with each step a growing awareness that she needed it. Maybe not the people in it, but the space of it, the freedom of it. The…

There were walls.

As she stepped crested the last rise at the forest’s edge, she saw walls waiting for her.

“It would seem that Riverbough has grown considerably since last we visited,” Shadow from within Jaye’s staff.

At the forest’s edge the land sloped downwards towards a river which defined its natural boundary. Perched on the other side of the river the largest city Jaye had ever seen loomed over the landscape with battlements which rose at least five times her height. She’d been expecting a simple farming village, similar to the Refuge she knew, but was instead confronted by a far more intimidating metropolis and that was more than enough to check her steps before she left the forest’s comforting canopy.

“This may work to our advantage,” Shadow said. “A small city such as this will be more used to accepting travelers than the village it once was. Yes, we believe that blending in and procuring a meal should be quite simple!”

“Small?” Jaye asked. “This is small?”

“Indeed. By comparison to a Ducal seat, Riverbough is barely a more than a minor fort. Look and see those walls? Only the bottom half at best is stone. And note that there are no defensive fortifications outside them. Were an army to lay siege to such a town it would fall within a week at most, or so our history books would claim we believe.”

Jaye tried to envision an army approaching the walls she saw. If it were an army of Ravenkin, they would just fly over the walls, but an army of Ravenkin would also be shot from the skies en masse, or carved apart once they landed. An army of Tauren though? Yes, that she could see. With a few dozen of the bull people, an army could probably tear those walls apart in an afternoon.

“So we can go in?” she asked, her stomach grumbling once more and her knees feeling more wobbly than she’d preferred.

“Let’s watch that group,” Shadow said and Jaye spied a small group with wagons trudging down the road which ran on the far side of the river.

The arrive at the entrance to the town and paused for a discussion with the guards stationed there. Jaye caught the glint of metal coins being handed over before the group was lined up for inspection. Most passed without comment or complaint but a small number were held aside which caused some consternation.

“What are they arguing about?” Jaye asked.

“Would you like to hear?” Shadow asked and wove a spell which carried the distant sounds to them on a tiny breeze.

“Listen Filgar, if they’re not branded, they’re not coming in,” one of the guards said, speaking to a man who was clearly the group’s leader but looking at the people who had been kept back.

“They’re temporary servants,” Filgar, the leader of the travelers said. “Branding would ruin their resale value. You know that Onoxo! ”

“That’s not our problem,” Onoxo, the guard, said. “If they’re not branded, you can’t control them and we don’t want any of those problems.”

“You can’t just turn them away, what am I supposed to do with them?” Filgar asked.

“Brand them. I told you. We got irons and a fire here. Would take less than a minute. Or you can turn around, take your spices and beans and peddle them back in Embervale.”

“I told you, we’ve already been the Embervale. Duke’s already stocked up. Can’t sell him anymore spices for at least a month.”

“Sell him the servants then,” Onoxo said.

Behind the men, Jaye heard the smallest of whimpers from one of the Nature’s Blessed who’d been singled out. She wasn’t sure if it was from the prospect of being branded or the prospect of being sold to the Duke of Embervale. Whichever it was proved sufficient motivation for the Deerling man to act though.

His first leap carried him far beyond arm’s reach from the guards and his second improved on that. Jaye started forward to meet him, but froze when his third leap was the man’s last. His speed had carried him beyond the gate guard’s reach but not beyond the range of the bowman on the walls.

Whatever appetite had been bothering Jaye vanished as she watched the man twitch and bleed out beside the road, sagging down into death before he could pull himself so much as an arm’s length further towards the forest.

While the road (and breakfast) beckoned for immediate action, Shadow held them from leaving the Witch’s hut for a few rather practical concerns.

“Whilst we cannot gift you with the witch’s belongings it seems – or rather we are unsure if we would be risking one of her many, many curses in doing so – she did give us a small sum of coins to use in the various errands she would ask us to run,” Shadow said as he led Jaye to a what looked like a coat room and pulled a few pouches off the shelf.

“Where could you run errands?” Jaye asked, attempting not to fidget and largely failing.

“Within the forest and to its edge,” Shadow said. “We remain within the embrace of her magics so long as we are in her domain, and it was convenient for her to send us to treat with the merchants and adventurers she would employ from time to time.”

“Are those pouches magic? I thought you couldn’t hold anything outside of the hut?” Jaye asked.

“Our existence is more complicated than that,” Shadow said. “That which is the Witch’s, we may interact with freely, for the most part. We could not take your hand because you are not sworn to or under obligation to her. Beyond the bounds of the forest, there will be very little which we may interact with physically. We are, of course, not limited to physical interactions, though we would be inclined to keep our presence unknown to the largest extent possible.”

Shadow lifted a cloak from the rack as well as a staff as tall as Jaye and presented both of them to her.

“These are tools the Witch gave to our use – it was occasionally useful to appear as a hooded figure and the staff leads people to assume the bearer has an arcane bent. That is not a magical effect, it’s just an assumption most will make. As they are for our use, and we shall be traveling with you, they should be free of any curses the witch may have placed on taking her other belongings.”

“Okay?” Jaye said wrapping the cloak around herself and finding that it was as comfortable as a warm hug and heavier than she’d expected. 

She took the staff as well and could feel a quiet thrum of magic sleeping within it. It might not mystically compel people to think of its bearer as a caster of some sort, but they wouldn’t be wrong in assuming it was a caster’s tool.

“Just to be certain, you are sure you wish to do this? There are other means we might find to keep you fed, and there is safety of a sort for you here. We can see the world has not been kind to you, and we doubt we can make any promise of safety for you should we venture beyond the forest’s borders.” Shadow wasn’t blocking the path from the coat room to the door, but he was standing closer to it than Jaye, ready perhaps to face the world outside before her if need be.

“I don’t want the monsters to come here,” Jaye said, the solidity of the staff in her hands as comforting as the current of magic that flowed through the wood.

Shadow chuckled.

“We believe you have heard what happens to monsters who dare venture within this domain,” Shadow said. “Consider that it has been a century since the Witch was last in residence here and yet her curses still stand and no forces have found it worth the trouble to try to lay claim to this land in her absence.”

“She was that powerful?” Jaye asked, having little problem believing that someone who could turn a hut into a seemingly endless library might be someone regular people would just leave alone if they could.

“From the accounts we have read? Yes. She appeared in several historical tomes you see. She and her few sister-witches. They most often appear as monsters, though notably we feel that is because they are subject to no lord or god. Occasionally a tale is written of a foolish noble or overly confident adventurer who tries to rid the world one witch or another. Those which are cautionary tales tend to be rather graphic in terms of the fate which befalls those who rise against the witch, including whatever army they might muster to aid them. Those written as bits of propaganda wherein the witch is vanquished seem to always have addendums penned years later as to the grisly demise of the tale’s author and whomever they were aggrandizing.”

“So what will she do to me when she gets back?” Jaye asked.

“Pay you no mind we would imagine,” Shadow said. “You accepted the hospitality of her home, which we are authorized to offer on her behalf we should note, and behaved as a proper guest. Had she been here to receive you, she might have offered you an apprenticeship, or perhaps simply employed you as an errand girl. In our experience, our witch was largely concerned with issues outside the mortal realm. Those mortals who did not trouble her, she was more than willing to leave untroubled as well. Those who ventured in her domain with ill intentions on the other hand? They were a resource to be converted from their mortal lives into object lessons on why no one should bother her.”

“We should definitely leave then,” Jaye said. “If I stay too long, I’d be a bad guest, and I don’t want to be an object lesson, even if she doesn’t come back.”

“The Witch’s hospitality, once offered, would come with a warning before it was withdrawn. You need not flee her wrath preemptively,” Shadow said.

“We should still go,” Jaye said. “My Dad said it was safer to be on the move, but the other people in the Refuge said we’d be safer staying there, and they were wrong. I want to…”

The pain that twisted her expression showed how recently her Refuge had been attacked, but Jaye forced it away, adding only, “we should go.”

“Then go we shall!” Shadow said. “As we said, it is but two miles to the nearest village we know of, should it still stand. They had seasonal crops the witch was quite fond of a century ago and so we were sent to barter with them once a month or so.”

“We’ll practice casting while we go?” Jaye asked, and nodded towards the door.

“Indeed. In fact, we believe you would do well to practice a few different spells,” Shadow said, stepping aside so they could both venture outside the hut at last and begin walking. “As we mentioned, casting the same spell repeatedly can be dangerous because the path the Awakened Aether takes through the caster can lead to overchanneling accidents, even if each individual cast is well contained. A clever caster however can work with different spells which flow along different paths to allow themselves greater flexibility and more casting capability within a given period of time.”

“Should we start with the shadow spell again?” Jaye asked.

“A variation, yes. Let us see how close you can come to casting me. That will suggest what other spells might be efficacious for you to balance your inner harmonies with.” Shadow lead Jaye down a new path, drifting backwards to keep his attention on her while remaining perfectly aware of what lay on the path as well.

Jaye paused as she mentally prepared for the version of the spell she’d been taught, but Shadow beckoned her onwards.

“You demonstrated enough proficiency last night, let’s move on to a more useful level of casting,” Shadow said, continuing to lead her onwards at a comfortable walking pace. “For great and terrible spellworking, complete stillness may be required but for common casting, and more importantly, battle casting, being able to work a spell and remain in motion is essential. It is of course also more challenging, but the sooner you begin practicing it, the sooner you’ll achieve the mastery you need.”

“Battle casting? You think I can do that?” Jaye asked, a note of hungry hope in her voice.

“We would pray that you never need to, but we are aware that there are no gods who would receive our particular prayers and we would rather see you prepared with a skill for which there is never a need than faced with a need for which you lack the skill to survive.”

Jaye was delighted with that idea and listened eagerly as Shadow described the small variations to the spell she’d cast the previous evening which were needed for her to claim him as her shadow.

Predictably her first try failed. As did her second and her third. And her fourth and fifth.

None of that diminished her glee though. She’d messed up casting her first spell plenty of times and, like Shadow had said, each time she failed to cast the new one, she could feel she was learning something.

“Shadow Be Mine.”

The surge of magic that went through her on the sixth casting was like no other she’d experienced. Rather than being swallowed in darkness, she felt herself bursting with light, to the point where she lifted from the forest floor without shifting to her avian form at all.

“This is more than WE expected!” Shadow said, flowing like smoke from where he stood to swirl around Jaye’s floating form.

Jaye said nothing, feeling a connection form only partly through the magic she’d called forth. There was more there though. Deeper threads that ran between her and the lost and lonely person she’d called out to.

Would she offer him a pact? Was he offering her one?

She would have felt guilty claiming him if it had been to fill her own need to be cared for, but there was more than that. The companionship he was offering was the same as the companionship she had to offer. Together? Together they wouldn’t be ‘whole’ or ‘complete’ but they would be better than they were alone. 

As the magic spun down and Jaye settled gently to the ground, she found herself…well alone wasn’t quite the right term was it?

“Our lady Jaye,” Shadow said from within the staff. “We believe you have more than successfully cast our spell.”

“Was I supposed to do it like that?” Jaye asked, not in the least bit regretful of the outcome.

“You cast the spell flawlessly,” Shadow said. “So well in fact that we believe you won’t need to cast it again.”

Because they belonged to each other. Jaye was sure the Witch could call Shadow back, anyone who could enchant a whole forest was definitely more powerful than Jaye could ever hope to be, but barring Shadow’s original creator, no one would ever be able to tear them apart.

“You said you needed to stay hidden?” Jaye asked. “Why was that?”

“We are not what one might call a ‘natural entity’ and as such many of the usual binding and wards the powerful use to keep themselves and their possession safe are not proof against us,” Shadow said. “As a result, if we are discovered the reception we are given is usually a poor one and involves overwhelming amount of spellcraft being lobbed upon us.”

“Is that going to be a problem? Will you be able to stay hidden if you’re stuck with me?” Jaye asked.

“Being with you is a better shroud than we could ever have hoped for,” Shadow said. “Just look at all the places we can hide! We can be here,” his voice came from the staff, “or here,” his voice came from behind Jaye, where her natural shadow lay, “or even here!” his voice came from under her feet. “More than that though, we are not what those who’ve dealt with things like us would imagine us to be. In a century of study, we have learned more than a few techniques to hide ourselves from the tricks of arcane sight that allow casters to pierce our natural abilities to shroud ourself. No, we shall not be discovered unless we allow ourselves to be. Our only concern now is for you.”

“Why for me?” Jaye asked.

“You have said they now employ hunters to track down unbound Nature’s Blessed, and your eyes, all solid black as they are, carry your heritage too clearly for anyone to miss. What do you say we do something about them?”

The shadows which clouded the practice chamber weren’t anything extraordinary. A simple dimming of the lights with a bit of playful flickering which suggested movement and lasted no more than three breaths before ebbing away.

“It worked,” Jaye said, amazement robbing her of the certainty of her senses.

“Quite well in fact,” Shadow said. “It looked for a moment as though the spell might get away from you, but it seems the reordering of the basic casting form worked a treat.”

“Can I do it again?” Jaye asked, eagerness appearing in her voice for the first time.

“Most certainly, though we must counsel against casting again too soon. We can speak from personal experience on how unpleasant that can be.”

“What happened?” Jaye asked pausing in mid-practice of the gestures.

“Recall that we explained it took us five years to succeed on what you just achieved in under five hours? As you might well imagine, we felt as though we had finally broken through to power without limit! Surely if we could cast one spell, we could cast them all! We wish we could claim that it was the hubris of youth which drove us to such folly, but while we do not recall all of the years we have walked down, we were in at least one sense quite old enough to know better by that point.”

“What happened though!”

“We froze our fingers off.”

“But, wait, don’t you have fingers still?” Jaye looked more closely and Shadow held up his hands to display a clear set of ten digits.

“We are fortunately quite malleable. Restoring our fingers took only a few days of work, but, it is not an experience we would recommend to anyone.”

“Why did they freeze though? There wasn’t anything cold about that spell, was there?”

“Quite observant. There are no aspects of ice, cold, or anti-fire in either the gestures or the words. Casting the same spell in quick succession presents special dangers for entirely internal reasons. The magic which is drawn in washes a pathway through the caster. Especially early on it is very difficult to gather sufficient Awakened Aether to fuel the spell, control and channel the aether, and restrict it down to a small a channel through you as possible.”

“We’re supposed to do all that? I thought it was just words and breath and gestures?” Jaye seemed, quite reasonably, disappointed to learn that overcoming the challenges she had to cast a spell was only the beginning of the obstacles before her.

Shadow pointed to one of the lights on the wall which turned a ghostly green and bounced from it’s everburning candle to land in his hand in the form of a tiny fiery rat.

“The basic forms, the Words, the Gestures, and the Breath aren’t required, they are simply external tools which make the task of casting a spell easier. There are other, less convenient, tools which casters make use of as well – long periods of meditation, aspected locations, burnt offerings, the list goes on and one. All of them serve to augment the natural capabilities of the caster. The actual casting of the spell however? That happens solely within the caster. That’s one of the reasons cited by the humanocentric instruction manuals for why the Nature Blessed ‘can’t cast spells’, because within you there is already magic and the instinctual capacity to shape it. They claim that those instincts would prevent a Nature Blessed from channeling the energies of the spell into general effects. They think that you should only be capable of channeling it towards the transformations your instincts are honed to provide you with from birth. As we can see however, that is quite incorrect.”

“I kind of did use my instincts though,” Jaye said. “I had to think about transforming to make the magic come.”

“Using one’s instinct is very different from being constrained by them,” Shadow said.

“That part wasn’t hard. It was holding it all together I couldn’t do,” Jaye waved her hands and twitched her fingers like the magic was still threatening to fly from her grasp.

“And yet you did. Did the Words help with that, or was it saying them that completed the spell?” Shadow asked.

“I didn’t know what else to do,” Jaye said with a shrug.

“That will come in time. This isn’t the clumsiest you will feel as a caster, but all of the sources agree that proficiency will come in time.”

“Not the clumsiest?”

“As one learns a skill, it’s common to find that you get worse at it before you grow better. There are many reports of promising students who abandoned the casting arts because they felt as though they’d only been lucky the first time they succeeded when their subsequent attempts proved to be less adept or outright failures.”

“So I might not be able to cast you then?”

“Able to? You are absolutely able to cast us. The issue is not one of capability, it’s one of self assessment,” Shadow said. “When we froze our fingers off, do you know what our thoughts were?”

“Oww, oww, that really hurt?” Jaye asked with a teasing smile.

“Okay, yes, but after that? After that our thoughts were ‘we will need to practice that some more’.”

“But you’d just frozen your fingers off.”

“Indeed. And that did make our efforts noticeably more difficult. The key however was that we did not take the failure as an indictment of our capacity to do the task, only as proof that there was more that we could learn.”

“I don’t think I understand?”

“The key is whether you look at something you don’t know as something you want to simply do, or something you want to practice. Wanting to ‘do’ something focuses you only on the output. If you can get the output, then it’s worth doing. If you can’t, then it’s not, and failures can quickly reinforce the notion that even things you’ve managed to do are things you can’t do reliably enough to be worthwhile. Desiring to ‘practice’ something is the opposite focus. The goal is not the end result, it’s understanding and learning. Do not mistake us, failures are still just as aggravating, but they also stand as opportunities. They raise curiosity; why did we fail, what can we try next time, how does this really work?”

“I want to practice then,” Jaye said and failed to suppress a yawn.

“Then practice you shall, but the hour does grow late and today has been taxing for you. There are guest rooms, though the we cannot recall the Witch ever entertaining anyone in them, but nevertheless, they shall be at your disposal.”

“I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep at all though,” Jaye said and smiled with delight. “I cast a spell!”

“And tomorrow you shall cast more, but rest your head here for a moment whilst we tidy up one of the rooms for you,” Shadow said, waiting for Jaye’s shrug and nod before departing.

Somewhat predictably, by the time Shadow returned a few minutes later, Jaye had fallen into a nearly comatose slumber.

With a gentle wind spell, Shadow lifted her up and floated her to the bed that was waiting for her, turned the lights in the room down low, but left a few dim flames going so Jaye would be able to get her bearing when she woke.

It was well past sunrise by the time she finally stirred though, the toll of the previous day demanding restitution and being only partially satisfied with even a long night’s sleep.

Or perhaps it was the waking world in general her subconscious wished to avoid? The room she woke to was pleasant, but it wasn’t her room. Wasn’t in her house. And she wasn’t with her…

Would crying have been appropriate? Would it have made her feel better? She couldn’t answer those questions because somewhere in the week of travel as a prisoner of the Hunters it felt like she’d cried out the last of her tears. Waking in a new place should have been either terrifying, or exciting, or both, but in rising and wandering off in search of a bathroom, all Jaye could feel was fuzzy, hungry, and numb.

Hunger won out as soon as she was done in the bathroom, which proved to be opposite her room, and she followed her nose towards a new room which was a different kitchen than the one she’d had tea in the night before.

“We guessed you might be somewhat ravenous this morning, so we are experimenting!” Shadow said.

He was just as much a fuzzy patch of darkness in humanoid form as he’d been the night before, but his apron was new. 

“Good morning,” Jaye said, and took a seat at the table Shadow gestured to with the pan he was holding.

“With the tea having proven the efficacy of witch’s preservation spells, we thought that perhaps her general stockpile of foodstuffs might prove to be palatable for you as well,” Shadow said and slid three cakes from the pan he was holding onto a dish in front of Jaye. “There is more tea, fresh conjured water, and some cider newly wrung from apples we are reasonably certain were not magical before we enspelled their juices from them.”

Jaye took a bite of the first wonderful smelling cake that Shadow had provided her and spit it out almost instantly.

“Ugh, it tastes like a swamp,” Jaye said, reaching for the water to wash the taste from her mouth.

“Oh dear! Our apologies! It…hmm…no the food should still be as it was when the witch departed, so then why?” Shadow began to pace the kitchen, while Jaye leaned forward to take a sniff of the other cakes.

“These smell the same,” she said. “I don’t think they’ve gone bad. I think they started like this.”

“Why would the witch want…oh,” Shadow said and deflated. “It’s witch food. And doesn’t that sound obvious now they we say it?”

“Why would witches want bad food?” Jaye asked.

“It’s not bad, or it’s not bad for them,” Shadow said. “We read about it in a book, perhaps fifty years ago, so our memory may be somewhat inaccurate, but apparently many casters enjoy ‘Witch’s Food’; that is food which is readily enchantable for taste, consistency, and even nutrition. We believe accounts were mixed as to whether actual witches had anything to do with the stuff. Apparently, at least our witch did. Or perhaps she only favored it for the food which needed to be kept in long term storage? It would explain why it was still fresh we suppose.”

“Can you enchant it, if that’s how it’s supposed to be eaten?” Jaye was visibly unhappy with the idea, but hunger can be a persuasive voice.

“Our apologies. We have studied those spells in the rather distant past, but we have never had the means to determine if the results we obtained were what was intended. It might be rather risky?”

“Well, maybe you could try and I could take a tiny bite of one of the cakes?” Jaye suggested.

“We shall make our best go at it,” Shadow said. “Do you have any favorite flavors we might aim for?”

“Summerberries? If you can do that?” Jaye said and her stomach growled in agreement.

“Summerberries it shall be!” Shadow said and spoke a word in one of the ancient Human languages followed by a series of gestures so complicated that Jaye lost track after the first three and could only guess that there were something more than twenty in total.

When Shadow at last finished there was a brief spark of light and the scent of Summerberries wafted up from the plate just as Jaye had hoped.

That was her downfall though, as it tempted her into taking a much larger bite than she’d intended and was left wretching the moment it touched her tongue.

“Ugh, uck, that is so much worse!” she said, taking the glass of water over to the sink so that she could alternate between taking gulps and spiting them out.

“Did it taste like berries at all?” Shadow asked, cringing in embarrassment.

“No. It was meat. Rotten, spoiled meat. Uck, I can still taste it,” Jaye said.

“Oh dear,” Shadow said and conjured more water so Jaye could continue washing her mouth out. “We could try again?”

“No. No, please, thank you. Is there other food? A village? A farm? Real berries?” Jaye asked.

“Things that grow in the witch’s forest are not generally safe to consume unless she gifts them. Apparently we are not recognized as allowed to gift on her behalf. The nearest village is, or was, perhaps two miles to the west of here.”

“I can walk for two miles,” Jaye said. “Let’s go.”

“But you were going to practice casting more?” Shadow said.

“We’ll practice while I walk,” Jaye said. “I can’t stay here and, you said you’d come with me, right?”

“You mean it?” Shadow asked.

“You saved me, I want to save you too,” Jaye said, turning from the table and setting her feet towards the road.

Shadow casting was the simplest of magics and yet, as Jaye fumbled her eleventh attempt at it, she began to suspect that the human’s claims at simply being “superior to the Mongels” might be annoyingly true.

“We can pick this up tomorrow if you would like,” Shadow said. “Today has not been especially easy for you we imagine and sleep can be a wonderful restorative.”

“No. Let me try again,” Jaye said, her fingers tingling with misspent magic.

“Let us see your hands,” Shadow said and took Jaye’s hands in his own. 

Shadow’s touch was warm and soft though the surprising part of it was that there was any touch at all. Jaye distinctly remembered her hand passing through Shadows when they first met. Inside the witch’s hut though the rules seemed to be different.

“We don’t like the redness at the tips of your index fingers,” Shadow said, the frown in his voice clear despite the lack of other features to convey it.

“I’m okay. It’s just a little tingly. You said to let you know if it started hurting, it’s not yet,” Jaye said.

“Very well, but we will be resuming this tomorrow regardless, presuming you remain inclined to, so worry not over much about any progress we do or do not make before you’ve rested,” Shadow said, releasing her hands and stepping back.

“I don’t get why it’s not working though?” Jaye began to twist her fingers through the basic gestures of the spell.

“A moment then,” Shadow said. “Let’s examine things from a different angle. What do you recall of the spell’s details? The issue may not be in what you are doing, but something we have not explained properly.”

Jay sat back and let her hands drop into her lap. The practice room had all sorts of ornate carvings on the walls which beckoned for her attention but she dropped her head and stared at the hands she was beginning to consider ‘useless’.

“The spell begins with the Words. The Words establish a channel between the caster and the Aether,” Jaye said reciting the instruction she’d been playing over and over in her head with each attempt.

“And the gestures?”

“The gestures come third,” Jaye said. That one was slightly aggravating because she wanted to get right into working the magic, but Shadow had been right that skipping steps led directly to failure. “Before gestures, we breath, to draw in the Awakened Aether and make it a part of ourselves. Wait, do you breath?”

“No,” Shadow said. “The process is similar for us though, breath is simply a tangible method of guiding the influx of Awakened Aether into oneself and retaining an awareness of its presence.”

“So you don’t need to do the gestures either then?” Jaye asked, curious about how Shadow was able to work magic at all.

“Neither Words, nor Breath, nor Gestures are required, but forgoing them requires considerable practice, and in some cases special attunements,” Shadow said. “For instance…”

With neither words, nor breath, nor gestures from Shadow, the lights in the practice room began to spin and swirl, leaping forth from the Continual Candles which adorned the walls and dancing in the area like a ballroom populated by tiny tongues of flame.

“We have, obviously, a particular relationship with light and its sources, so tricks like that are naturally easier to us. There will be similar effects which you will find easier to grasp than others.” Shadow gestured, purely for dramatic effect, as the swirling lights all settled back into their proper holders.

“This is supposed to be easy though, isn’t it?” Jaye asked.

“The instruction book seems to think so. It is why, in part, we thought you might be able to carry us beyond the borders of the forest,” Shadow said. “Perhaps that is where the fault lies though? All educators have their own biases, and it would not be hard to believe the authors of this work failed to consider it might ever have an  audience other than humans.”

“But you’ve worked it out, right? So it can’t be good just for humans, can it?” Jaye asked, not certain which answer she preferred.

“We are…we may be a unique case,” Shadow said. “To begin with, we have had rather a large amount of time to spend on study and refinement. To be quite honest, it took us roughly five years to cast our first spell.”

“I thought the book was supposed to teach you how to cast one of the simple spells in a day?” Jaye asked.

“That is the claim it makes, but in our case, we were not even certain we were meant to be capable of casting spells,” Shadow said.

“And you kept trying?”

“It’s no sign of great virtue,” Shadow cautioned. “To begin with, we had very little else to do. Also, from the moment we were called back to the world, or perhaps even before, we have been fascinated with all forms of magic.”

“Is it going to take me five years then?” Jaye asked, certain that it would not be worth spending five years to learn how to cast a little baby spell.

“You are quite a bit closer to what the instruction manuals have in mind than we were, though…” Shadow said, and looked away as though to find another manual

Notably, there were no manuals in the room, or any other books at all. As a Practice chamber, the decorations on the wall were intended to contain any magic effects which got out of hand. That would preserve the contents of the rest of the hut, but things left within the chamber did not enjoy the same guarantee of safety.

“Though what?” Jaye asked, sensing she was not going to like the answer.

And she wasn’t.

“There are some manuals which claim the Nature Blessed, such as yourself, are incapable of casting spells using ‘human methods’. They are, of course, quite incorrect, but there may be some added hurdles you will need to overcome. Or the tomes may simply be pointing us in the wrong direction?”

“How do you know they’re wrong? The Hunters had all kinds of magic that we didn’t,” Jaye said, sick at even mentioning them again.

“All writing is done for an audience,” Shadow said. “The instruction manuals we’ve found so far have all been written by human authors for a human audience. Some are more thorough than others, but none of the ones we’ve turned up seem to have much awareness of history.”

“History? Did things used to be different?” Jaye tried to remember the tales her people had told. There’d been a variety of Nature Blessed in the Refuge and each had their own traditions and tales. ‘Rootlings’ they’d called the stories because they were the roots to what came before and they nourished the communities to keep them together even when they were apart. None of the ones Jaye could remember though spoke of human magics.

“Things have been different, and they will be different, it’s the promise time makes to us all,” Shadow said. “In this specific case though, what the authors seem to be missing, or more likely willfully ignoring, is the fact that there have been several Archmages who were Nature Blessed. Several who were other species than human too.”

“But then that means we can cast like they do?” It was yet another thing to be angry about but Jaye’s plate of anger inducing issues was so overfull that another entry had little added impact.

“Can? Yes. Perhaps. We have only read about such casters though, so we can only speak to the effects which were attributed to them and the titles granted. It is possible that they followed a different path to their prowess than the human Archmages did.”

“But if there is a path, then how could they…” Jaye wanted to say ‘hide it from us’ but the answer was to plain to be worth the words.

The Mongrel-born were too useful to be given the idea that they could be the equal of humans.

“I believe some have,” Shadow said. “There are some works the Witch collected before she left which suggested a growing sentiment against the treatment of the Nature Blessed in the Free Dukedoms of the Holy Towers. We gather from your condition however that matters have not improved overly much?”

“No. Nothing’s changed,” Jaye said. “We either live in Refuges, or the Hunter’s snatch us up.”

“Hunters? And Refuges? Those, you may be interested to learn, are perhaps new additions. From the volumes we have found on the treatment of the Nature Blessed, there would not have been a need for Hunters as the Nature Blessed were hobbled, either physically, or magically, or both, to remain in service to the house which owned them.”

“They can still own us. And they can still track us. Unless we’re in a Refuge,” Jaye said. “The Hunters look for the Refuges, and they collect any branded people who get loose when a village is destroyed.”

“When a village is…do you mean to say that villages are routinely destroyed?” Shadow asked.

“They get built back up,” Jaye said. “Sometimes the monsters get them though.”

“Monsters? Have the Holy Towers fallen?” Shadow couldn’t look astounded but he was certainly capable of making it clear when he was.

“No? I don’t think so? That’s where the Dukes and Duchesses live right?”

“That was the case. The rulers were of secondary significant however, or at least they used to be. The primary purpose of the Towers was the suppression of incursions, both from invading armies and other realms. Also rebellions we suppose, though the only records of those showed the ones which had an impact were supported by outside agents.”

“Outside?”

“Neighboring lands. The Kingdom of Walls, the Baronies of the Tempest Seas, and the others. We are uncertain of course where such political entities stand today. Alliances and animosities can change greatly over the course of a century.”

“What were they like?”

“Different, and the same, people are largely people throughout the world, though each group will have important differences from each other.”

“All with humans?”

“Not at all. The history books speak of more species of people than you can imagine. We have longed to see some in fact – the Quiet Walkers seem similar to ourself, and we may be able to learn quite a bit from them.”

“But for that I need to be able to cast you right?”

“It needn’t be your burden to bear, but if it proves within your capabilities, it would be much simpler than the alternatives,” Shadow said.

“Let’s try again then,” Jaye said, drawing in a breath and centering herself.

“Perhaps a change in form this time,” Shadow said. “Begin with the Breath.”

“But the order matters doesn’t it?” Jaye asked. Her worst attempt had been when she’s tried to move directly to the gestures and that was where the residual sting in her fingers had come from.

“It does, and we are guessing that might be what is wrong,” Shadow said. “The Words begin a connection to the Aether for a human, but the Nature Blessed do not need Words to call upon their magics, do they?”

“No. Tauren are strong all the time, and I can change without saying anything.” Jaye was tempted to shift to her bird form but hesitated. Anything that spent her strength felt unwise under the circumstances.

“As we imagined it would be,” Shadow said. “We posit that you already hold a connection to the Aether and the Words are simply tangling things by establishing a conflicting one. We may be entirely wrong about that, but see if simply breathing and performing the gestures is sufficient. You may be able to awaken the Aether merely through your natural connection to it.”

Jaye liked that idea and closed her eyes to find the right moment to begin.

Breathe.

In and out.

Slow.

Deliberate.

Mindful.

Was there magic in her breath? She didn’t think so, she did it all the time after all. The human steps made sense. The Words called the magic into the caster.

But she already had magic.

Breathe.

She thought about what it felt like to shift. The sparkle in her nerves. The fluidity of her body. The shift in perspective.

That was it.

She breathed out.

It was about her perspective. She was always breathing, and she was always in touch in her magic. Drawing in the world’s magic only required that she be still for a moment and feel it.

She breathed in and felt a stream of Awakened Aether follow her breath, filling her and overflowing from her hands.

With rapid twitches, she moved her hands through the gestures to shape the spell before the magic ran away from her control completely.

It didn’t work.

Not exactly.

She’d found the right hand and body positions but the spell wasn’t fully constrained. Worse, this was the most magic she’d managed to gather so far and if it went wild she was definitely going to get burned.

But she didn’t have any gestures left to control it with.

Speak.

And she did.

She still had the Words and so she used them. Defining with intent and sound what she wanted the magic to do.

“Shadows Rise.”

And they did.

Jaye was dead. She knew that. All of the light, what little there had been, was gone from her world. If she was still drawing breath it would take only a moment for that to change.

She hoped it would only be a moment.

She’d heard of witch curses. They were subtle and awful things. Much like witches, supposedly. Jaye had thought she wouldn’t mind stumbling into something generally awful since it would be an improvement from the awfulness which was being specifically targeted at her. With the last of the world’s light gone though, she found herself keenly aware that however bad her plight had been, it was always possible for it to get worse.

In the darkness, she felt something moving around her. The thing that had spoken to her. The instrument of the witch’s curse?

“That is most definitely not right,” the bodiless presence said, and Jaye felt a tingle shoot up her broken forearm. In the distance, she heard a scream followed by the fatal punctuation mark of a squelching sound no body could voluntarily make. “We are faced with a conundrum it seems. That arm is, unless appearances are deceptive, quite decisively fractured. Not a complex break to be sure, but still fixing it without a simpler subject to practice on does admit the possibility of grievous error. No other subjects are present however, and allowing it to remain in its present state would be a cruelty and an injustice.”

There was another scream, somewhat farther away, cut off just as abruptly by a wet tearing sound, which should not have been as loud as it was.

Jaye didn’t hear any notes of menace in the presence’s voice, but that did not mean she was safe.

“Will it heal on its own?” the presence mused in a clear but whispery voice. “Perhaps if the bones were set and put into a cast? That would take months though, or weeks? One of the books would probably have notes on natural bone healing, wouldn’t they?”

Jaye tried to move her arm and flinched at the pain. The pain from the break was radiating through her as her panic diminished and her breath returned. 

“Apologies. Here we are rambling and the answer is perhaps resolved with a simple question; shall we tend to your injury?”

Was that a fishhook being dangled before the presence struck, a lure towards hope only for it to be crushed all the more cruelly? Jaye shouldn’t have cared. She’d run into the forest ready to accept death and, even if this could be a cruel death, her wish to ‘not die to the Hunters’ would be fulfilled.

But she did care. Her arm hurt, and her home was lost, and she was being chased, but she still wanted to live. 

And she didn’t think the presence’s words were a lie.

So she nodded, and held her injured arm with her good one.

The darkness around her was beyond anything her eyes could penetrate, but the presence didn’t seem troubled by it.

“We are unsure how this will feel,” the presence said. “We are not practiced with Vitamancy but, this seems simple enough, we hope. Should it prove painful though, we do apologize.”

A warm glow bloomed in the darkness, illuminating Jaye’s injured arm apart from what looked to be fingers of shadow that were held on either side of it.

Far from pain, the spell that was cast felt blissfully wonderful. The pain which had been radiating up her arm and throughout the rest of Jaye’s body was washed away and replaced by a surge of strength and energy. The healing magics didn’t take anything from her, instead they gifted her with the restoration of pains and injuries throughout her body.

“Thank you,” she whispered, more intent than ever on not being discovered either by the Hunters or whatever was hunting them.

“Delightful! It worked! Perhaps you might enjoy some shelter and, hmm, well I believe we have tea? Yes, I think the tea stores should still be good! Maybe? Follow me if you would!”

And the darkness withdrew into the fuzzy, indistinct shape of a person.

Who bowed to Jaye.

Had they been sheltering Jaye with their…it seemed odd to call it a body? That was the closest Jaye could come to describing the patch of shadow which beckoned her onwards. She started to follow and then turned to listen for the Hunter’s pursuit. The was no sound of anyone moving through the forest though. Just the steady drum of the rain which had let up slightly and was further diminished by the trees.

“We would offer you an umbrella but…” the shadow person shrugged and waved a hand through a nearby tree limb. “We are somewhat limited in that regard.”

Jaye nodded and followed along the thin path she would have certainly overlooked otherwise. She wasn’t sure how far they walked, her sense of time grew a bit fuzzy, and the twists and turns the path took had to have been laid out as a spell of confusion. When her head started to swim and she began to wander off in the wrong direction though, the shadow person would pause and call out to her, waiting to be sure she’d regained her senses before continuing on slow enough to be sure Jaye could follow.

Late afternoon passed into true twilight and then to night before they arrived at what was clearly a witches hut.

A very nice and well lit witches hut though to be sure.

But even before stepping into the clearing Jaye could feel a tingle of magic woven deeply into the ground and flowing through the air. It was not a place people were supposed to come to. It was a refuge, but only for its owner. Anyone else could run afoul of a hundred different protections and charms.

“Oh, yes. We formally extend to you the hospitality of this house in our role as guest and guardian.”

“Why?” Jaye asked without stepping into the circle

“There’s all sorts of enchantments placed here. We wanted to make sure the house knew that it didn’t need to use any of them on you because you’re a friend.”

“But I’m not,” Jaye said. She very definitely wanted to live and stepping into a pile of strange witchery gave her no guarantee that would happen.

The Nature Blessed were useful for many things and while Jaye hadn’t heard that ‘being chopped into ingredients for a witch’s soup’ was on that list, she had heard that witches were creatures unbound by all holy laws, most definitely including the laws of hospitality.

 “Not yet!” the shadow person said. “You were fleeing from some very unpleasant people though, and, unless we miss our guess, they were either directly or indirectly responsible for that injury.”

Jaye said nothing. Giving a witch anything was supposed to be the height of folly when they could take things like your name, your face, and your heart.

“Most of all though, it looked like you could use a friend,” the shadow person said. “As could we.” They deflated by an inch at the admission. “If you would prefer to move on however, we can also show you the path to the far side of the forest. Those who were chasing you, won’t be any longer, but doubtless they have friends and allies. That sort always do. Even so, those allies won’t pursue you through here, so you will be safe, or safer than you were at least.”

“You need a friend?” Jaye asked, already aware of how tenuous her own circumstances were.

“Need is too strong a word. We shall be fine. It has simply been a while since we had anyone to speak with and while study and practice and study and practice and study and…you see where that is going? While all that can be interesting, it does lose a bit of its charm a century on.”

“You’ve been alone for a century? What about the witch? Or, are you the witch?” Jaye asked, tilting her head to try to find a different perspective to view the shadow from.

“Not at all! We have a delightful Imp friend who stops by when they are free from their duties. He’s just been a bit busy this decade or so. Oh, and we are certainly not the witch. If you’ve seen her though, we should be intrigued as to what she’s been up to for the last hundred years, not to mention the question of whatever she had in mind for us.”

“So you’re not the witch?”

“Correct. We are not.”

“And you need a friend?”

“We…a friend would be most welcome.”

“And you have tea.”

“We do. There is also the possibility that it is still in a brewable state. The witch’s preservation spells remain entirely intact, and we are uncertain if tea leaves even require that. They probably do we imagine, but century old tea seems like it might be viable on its own? Again, she likely has a book on that. Shall we go see?”

The shadow held out a hand, which Jaye attempted to take put found to be as insubstantial as the tree limb had.

“We have odd reflexes,” Shadow said. “We don’t know why we thought that would be useful, but still, please, join us.”

It wasn’t so odd that the witch’s hut had lights on around it and more shining inside it. Several buildings in the hidden refuge Jaye grew up in used magical lighting. A hundred years was thousands of times longer than any of those lights would have lasted without recasting and maintenance though, which called the shadow’s words into question but as they stepped through the threshold no witch emerged to contradict the claim that she was absent.

The absence of the witch wasn’t what caught Jaye’s eyes though. It was the books she first noticed. There were more than there were stars in the sky. 

“Sit wherever you’d like,” Shadow said. “We shall see about putting a kettle on.”

Jaye glanced behind her to find the small clearing still there. Emphasis on ‘small’. The space she was looking at not only couldn’t possibly have fit into the small hut she’d entered, she was reasonably sure it couldn’t have fit into the clearing or even the woods themselves.

Shadow passed down the short hallway to the endless library area and turned at a small door which led into a more constrained kitchen and dining area.

Part of her told her to run. The next step was her last chance to avoid stumbling into something much bigger than herself. A little bird girl had no business meddling with the doings of witches and magic forests after all. She would be much better off if she went back to hiding in safety while the rest of the world…

Jaye stamped her foot down and marched with determination into the kitchen.

“Mint Breath tea or Bitter Earthroot?” Shadow asked, holding up two jars which were covered in carvings of animals at play.

“I don’t want to stay here,” she said, more to herself than anyone else.

“Rest assured, we understand the feeling,” Shadow said.

Jaye didn’t pause taking the seat Shadow offered, but she did puzzle at his words for a moment as her tea was poured.

“Not that we would have you tarry here,” Shadow said, pouring a second cup and taking the seat opposite Jaye.

“You don’t want me to stay?” Jaye asked, understanding that the confusion stemmed from blurting out her thoughts.

“We’d rather if neither of us stayed,” Shadow said and leaned over the tea to draw in its rising steam.

“Why? What’s wrong with this place?” Jaye sipped her tea (Shadow had given her the Bitter Earthroot) and a memory flickered up of a winter day when she sat at the table in her home, drinking tea with her mother. 

That table was smashed and she would never see it again.

No more mornings with it.

No more tired evenings before bed.

Just pieces. Horrible, horrible pieces. 

She wondered how the other kids were doing. Had she bought them enough time? Had they gotten away? Was there even anyone chasing them or had the forest ripped apart all the Hunters?

“There are memories here,” Shadow said. “Cherished memories. Painful ones. Even a few silly ones. After a hundred years though, we think it might be interesting to make some new memories, rather than living trapped in the ones which belong to the past.”

“What if the past was better though?”

“It will always be with us. If we linger in it though, it fades, as do our futures.”

“What if our futures are worse?”

“Then who else can make them better than us? They are our futures after all.”

“Why haven’t you left already then?”

“Because we have no one to cast us. No one, unless you would be willing to that is?”

Jaye didn’t care that the haunted forest held death for all who entered, all that mattered was that it wouldn’t be at the hands of the Beast Hunters who pursued her.

When she’d started her run, it hadn’t been for herself. There had been a Prize Wagon transporting her and the several other children her age which had slid off the narrow hillside road thanks to the storm that was still lashing down. Jaye hadn’t been thinking anything about the other until there’d been a scream from outside of the road starting to give way and the hurried cries of the Beast Hunters who’d cut the horses loose from the wagon so they wouldn’t topple down the hill with the wagon.

Jaye fought through a moment of confusion try to understand why the horses were being free. It was the children who were the Hunter’s prizes? Why weren’t the Hunters trying to save them? Children, after all, were too small to fight back, relatively easy to transport, and, in this case, bereft of rights for the crime of being Mongrel Born. In theory, that should have guaranteed their safety, at least until they reached the market in Embervale, but some god of mischief had perhaps been listening to Jaye’s prayers and chosen to grant them in as typically cruel a fashion as the gods are wont to respond to prayers.

Not that it had seemed cruel at first. At hearing the Hunters yelling in panic and disarray, the anger which burned in Jaye’s heart had leapt into a flicker of fierce joy.

But then the wagon had tipped and the screaming at had started.

She hadn’t screamed with the rest of the children. She didn’t feel any braver than they did, she was simply too focused on not being hurled into anything, or anyone, that would shatter her bones to dust.

That was the world for Ravenkind. Humans were born from the dust of stones and the words of the gods. They were durable in form and mighty as vessels for magics of all types. The Mongrel Born, or Nature Blessed as Jaye’s father had insisted was their proper title, carried blessings from the creatures they shared a lineage with, and the magic which let them walk the would in the guise of either of their two halves.

Jaye’s people, the Ravenkind, were gifted with a lightness of body and the quick minds of the cleverest of avians. Her magic made the skies her domain, but it came at the cost of bones that could not weather the shocks most others could.

Bound in short chains within the captive’s compartment of the wagon, she’d been keenly aware of the size and weight of the other children around her. A Tauren boy had been thrown in beside her and took up most of the bench on their side, with only a bit of room which a toddler-aged Catkin girl had been stuffed into.

Across from her, the knees of a Deerling lad had left her with little choice but to pull her legs up to her chest to allow him room to fit at all.

Beside him sat a Mulekin girl and a Foxkin girl, with another toddler, this one a Foxkin boy, filling in what little space was left before the thick and sealed door they’d been tossed in through.

Jaye hadn’t learned their names, in part because the Hunters had ‘discouraged’ conversation, and in part because she knew none of them would ever see one another again once they’d been sold.

That didn’t mean she didn’t know them though. The Bull boy, or Tauren as her father would have insisted, already bore the marks of a labor collar. He was old enough, and Tauren were strong enough even when very young, that he’d already been part of a labor crew. How he’d escaped Jaye couldn’t tell, but crew managers weren’t renowned for their diligence and runaways did happen from time to time. No one kept the binding spells renewed perfectly, especially not on ‘naturally slow ox boys’.

He wouldn’t sell for as much as he could have, since anyone with enough wit and will to run away once might do so again. The Hunters had to know that already though, and with Embervale only being a couple of days away the price of transporting him was clearly less than whatever they thought they could get for him.

The others, apart from Jaye, had come from the fallen villages of Cropshare and Dawnfield. The Hunters had gotten lucky there. The same Darkshard Uprising that had sent enough monsters pouring forth to ravage Cropshare had uncovered the nameless refuge Jaye had been raised in. 

Jaye didn’t like to think of that.

She’d seen the losses the people of her small village had taken in turning away the monster from beneath the earth, only for the ones who walked its surface to arrive and carve a bloody swath through the remaining men, women, and most of the children. Those they’d spared, like Jaye, had been divided between the three parties of Hunters, with Jaye being consider a top prize for the rarity of a captured Ravenkind child.

As the wagon slid down the hillside, Jaye felt the sharp pain of her left arm snapping as the Deerling boy’s legs lashed out to brace himself.

“Hold onto me!” the Tauren boy said and braced himself between the roof and the floor which had become the new walls of the wagon after it tipped. 

With the wagon gaining speed as it flew down the hill, Jill tried to throw her good arm around him but the short chains held her back.

For another five seconds.

Then she was in freefall for an instant.

An instant when she was able to call out to a spark of the Ravenkin magic within her. She wasn’t able to float everyone. The Tauren boy was too heavy, and the Deerling had already braced himself solidly. The toddlers though we effortless and the other girls were only agonizingly hard to lift, but she was already in agony so what was a little more?

The crash of the wagon impacting on the streambed below the short cliff sounded like standing inside a thunderbolt, but from its wreckage all of the children emerged, though decidedly not in one piece in Jaye’s case.

The storm above them had turned the late day sky to a solid wall of shadow, leaving only the dim illumination of twilight to cover the land. Visibility was damped even further by the rain itself, to the point where it took a moment for Jaye to distinguish the water which beat down on her from the swollen stream that roared past the wreckage of the cart.

“Is everyone alright?” the Foxkin girl asked.

“Yeah, somehow,” the Mulekin girl said.

Jaye look down at her broken arm. The bones were still inside it, but the shattered wood had torn a long, deep gash in that arm as well. 

Her magic had protected the rest of them though. She didn’t feel good, good was out of reach after all that had happened, but she felt something at that knowledge nonetheless. Something she wasn’t ready to name or examine.

“We need to go,” the Deerling lad said. “They’ll be here soon.”

“We can’t,” the Mulekin girl said. “They’ll just find us again, and what are we supposed to do if we run off now?”

“Live.” 

Jaye hadn’t meant to command everyone’s attention, but they all turned to her, so she continued.

“They can’t transport us alive anymore.” She didn’t need to add that the Nature Blessed were also useful dead, to the right human casters. The only question in her mind was whether they would bring back the children’s corpses or just the most valuable bits?

“But they can track us,” the Mulekin girl said.

Jaye looked back are her arm and let whatever her earlier feeling had been guide her.

“Not us. Just me.” She held up her arm, unable to hide the wince of pain at moving it at all.

“Oh no! How did that happen?” the Deerling lad asked, no recognition of his role in her injury showing in his face.

“Ravenkin,” she said, which was enough to explain it all. Everyone knew the avian-blooded were fragile. No need for the Deerling to bear the guilt of something he hadn’t chosen and which no amends could be made for.

“What are you going to do? Stay behind and fight them off with one arm?” the Mulekin said. “I’m not leaving you like that.”

“No. I’m going to run,” Jaye said. “They’ll track my blood. You all go the other way. Be safe.”

“What about you though?” the Tauren boy asked.

“I’ll lead them into the forest and get them lost,” Jaye said.

“You can’t. The forest is haunted. There’s a witches curse on it. Everyone who goes in dies!” the Foxkin girl said.

“Good. If they follow me, then they die,” Jaye said.

“What about you?” the Mulekin girl asked.

“I can fly away. They can’t catch me again,” Jay said. “You have to go now. There’s no time.”

And there wasn’t. From far up the hill, they all heard the distant yelling of the Beast Hunters organizing to retrieve their prizes.

“Go!” Jaye said, any feelings of doom were pushed away by the frustration at the others wasting time they did not have.

Lightning crashed behind her, shattering one of the trees and sending flaming chunks out into the forest.

That was enough to break the other children’s reticence. The Tauren boy picked up the two toddlers and the six of them took off at a run, disappearing around a bend downstream before Jaye’s defiant stance could waver.

With them gone though, a voice whispered how easy it would be for her to simply collapse into the wreckage. The Hunters were going to find her anyways. There was no flying away from them. Even if she’d been willing to chance to tumult of the storm, taking her other shape was not going to fix her broken arm. 

That voice was stupid however.

She was not going to let the Hunters capture her. For one thing the longer they chased her the farther away the others would get. For another, if there really was a witches curse on the forest, then the further into the woods she could draw the Hunters the better the chance was that it would get them too.

Most of all though?

Most of all she just didn’t want to die to them. A death in the forest wouldn’t necessarily be pleasant but it wouldn’t be the abomination the Hunters would inflict on her.

And so she ran, racing through the undergrowth, being as intentional as she could about leaving her blood on smeared on trees and dribbled onto the forest floor. Even under the shelter of the trees, the rain was still pouring down and a brief fear sang through her that it might wash away her scent as well as it did the others. That fear was banished though and replaced by another when she heard the shout of Hunters entering the forest behind her.

They had her scent, with whatever magics they employed, the Hunters had found the trail of blood leading them to her and none of them had broken arms slowing them down.

That was when she started running for herself.

Was she making noise? Was she leaving a more obvious path than she needed to? Was she missing places she could have hidden?

It didn’t matter.

They were close and she had to be far, far away from them.

For the second time, she prayed, and for the second time she was answered, though once more not as she’d hoped to be.

“Take us all Curse,” she’d prayed, trying to imagine a witch powerful enough to fell a team of irate Hunters.

There was no witch to hear her plea.

Not within the forest.

Not for many, many years.

But there was a Curse.

And it answered with a silence that stilled even the raindrops.

The Hunters had been drawing near. They should have caught up to her. 

Instead something else did.

“Well, well, what have we here?” a shadow said as it blotted out the fading twilight and enveloped her.