Dozens of bodies covered the polished stone floor, each of them coughing, hacking, dying. Some grabbed their throats as if choking, while others just writhed about in agony. A few managed to make it to one of the two doors connecting the hall to the rest of the palace and clawed desperately at them but both were locked tight. In the middle of it all stood one confused, terrified, and despairing child who barely noticed any of this; she was too busy staring at the blade of the only person she’d come to trust in the last year as it dripped with the blood of her king.

A shrill, high-pitched shriek of terror pierced through the cacophony. “Ramad, no! Guards! Guards!” the Queen cried, backing away from Sebastian as he used his foot to shove her husband’s lifeless corpse off his sword and onto the ground.

“Your guards are dead, woman. I killed them myself when you were busy gossiping about who had the best hair,” the towering knight sneered. “Screech all you want, nobody’s going to show up.”

“Sebastian, you traitor! After all that we did for you, this is how you repay us?”

“And what, exactly, did you two do for me? Give me the honor of being a glorified nanny? That’s what I always hated so much about you, you pathetic woman. To you, serving the nobility is the greatest height any commoner like me could ever hope to achieve. I regret to inform you that I humbly disagree.”

“I’ll have you strung up by your own entrails!”

Sebastian just laughed. “A little bit late for that, wouldn’t you say? It’s already over. The Ubran Legions will begin their assault on the border at any moment, and anybody who had even the remotest chance of organizing a resistance is now dead. The death blow has been struck. Ofrax will end.”

“You...! Die!” Queen Terassi howled, pulling a decorative sword from a nearby wall and she exploding towards the now-former bodyguard. She moved so quickly that her body practically blurred in Arlette’s vision, but Sebastian seemed entirely undaunted. The royal mother’s strikes came at him in a flurry as she unleashed her full fury towards him, but not a single one struck. While the Queen’s body was moving so fast that Arlette could barely keep up with her countless blows, Sebastian’s movements were steady, deliberate, almost slow. His sword floated about lazily yet was always just where it needed to be to parry the woman’s blade.

“Such power is wasted on you,” Sebastian groused as he easily ducked beneath a sword slash. Suddenly the fist of his empty hand slammed into the Queen’s gut just under her ribs, dropping her like a rock. He casually kicked her sword from her hand and across the room. “If you’d bothered to train yourself, well... you still wouldn’t have touched me, but you would have at least made this a little entertaining.”

His foot shot forward and delivered a brutal kick to her stomach, causing the woman to vomit up her last meal all over her face and dress.

“You bastard!” she coughed. “You will rue the day you-”

“Give it up,” Sebastian interrupted. “You’ve already lost.” With casual ease, his sword flicked out and sliced the tendons in her left knee. The Queen screamed, then screamed again as he did the same to her right knee. She tried in vain to get up, but no longer could move her lower legs. He smiled and sliced her arms at the elbows as well.

“Kill me and get it over with then, traitor, so I can finally join the daughter you took from me,” she hissed, an unending hatred burning in her eyes.

“Oh no, I couldn’t do that,” he replied, grabbing her by the back collar of her outfit and dragging her roughly across the room like a sack of grain. He stopped right in front of Arlette and dropped the Queen’s crippled form in front of her. “That’s a task for little Arlette here.”

Surrounded by the dead and dying, with nowhere to run and no idea what to do, Arlette’s mind had in some ways shut down from the horror it was witnessing. Unable to fully process or act upon the death of King Ramad or Queen Terassi’s fight with Sebastian, she’d just stood still and stared with vacant eyes until the use of her name roused her from her stunned stupor.

“Ah?” she managed to squeak out, still not able to fully comprehend what was going on.

“This is a gift, a thank you for everything you did. I could never have succeeded in my plan without your help, Arlette; you were the perfect tool. Which reminds me...” He sheathed his sword and bent down on one knee beside her, grabbed her hand and pulled the princess’s ring off of her finger and flicked it across the room. “Wouldn’t want you accidentally killing yourself now, would we?”

Arlette’s mind finally was able to put two and two together, at least for one thing. The ring! It had disappeared the night before, and then he’d been the one to “find” it just in time for the party. He must have swiped it from her and coated it with that poison he’d talked about. What had he said about it? Right, that it couldn’t be absorbed through the skin but a cut or an opening like the mouth meant certain death, and everybody had kissed it! She’d helped him by bringing all these important people together, and then helped murder them all!

The weight of this sudden revelation threatened to crush the poor girl’s soul. But even as her spirit was swamped with guilt, she still found that she wanted, nay, needed, to understand.

“W-why?” was all she was able to ask, but it was enough.

Sebastian seemed to understand her need and smiled. “Because this country cannot serve my needs, that’s why. Ofrax is a cage willingly built by its own captives. Prized farmland, overflowing treasuries, an abundance of people and a strong military. And what have the rulers of this place done with such a boon? Nothing. They just sat here and did nothing for centuries. Ofrax could have conquered the Droajan clans any time in the last two hundred years with ease, but did they even think about it? No, they were too content with the way things were. It’s pathetic. A waste.

“The Ubrans, on the other hand, they understand ambition. They realize that those who are superior deserve to stand atop the rest. Delivering Ofrax was merely my way of showing my worth and entering their ranks. Ranks which I will climb to the very, very top, until none in all of Scyria can stand above me!”

He rested his palm on her shoulder, sending a shiver down her spine. She didn’t dare move, though her body likely wouldn’t even if she’d wanted it to.

“I want you to join me, Arlette. We could do amazing things together, you and I. Only I understand the incredible things you will be capable of. Haven’t I always been there for you? Haven’t I treated you well when nobody else would? Come and work for me, and together we can accomplish things that would astound the world!” He gestured towards the Queen laying on the floor and struggling unsuccessfully to get up. “Look, I even saved her as a present for you. You know what she thinks of you. You remember how she treated you. She says you’re not even a person.”

Arlette felt him press something into her shaking hands and looked down to find herself holding a dagger. The cold silver of the blade gleamed with a terrifying lethality.

“Go ahead, take your revenge,” Sebastian continued, gently encouraging her. “There’s nothing left for you here. This place is done for, so take some small satisfaction now while you have the chance. Embrace it. If she thinks you’re a monster, then show her what a monster can really do.”

He wanted her to kill the Queen, she realized. The woman, still struggling to get up even with her limbs unable to support any weight, glared at her in a way that Arlette had never seen before. It was a loathing so strong, so encompassing that it threatened to swallow Arlette whole.

Sebastian was right, she realized, about a lot of things. It was true, the Queen really did hate her down to her core. It was true, Sebastian really had been the only person to treat her nicely since she’d arrived in this place, always being there for her with a kind word, friendly advice, or a helping hand. And it was true that she was profoundly guilty of deeds which could never be undone, horrible deeds that would follow her for the rest of her life.

But this was wrong.

“N-no!” she replied with what little courage she could muster as she shook herself free of his hand. “I promised to be a good girl! I won’t!” She turned to point the quivering knife toward her former trusted friend.

“A shame...” he said with a disappointed frown. Quickly his hands grabbed the nearby Queen’s head and twisted until a gruesome pop came from her neck and she fell still. He stood back up with a reluctant sigh and looked at her with cold, hard eyes. “It pains me to waste such potential, but if you will not follow me, then you must follow them. I’ve already killed one princess, what’s one more?” He reached out towards her.

Arlette had learned many things since arriving at the palace. She’d learned history and language, etiquette and the arts, dancing and riding, and many other things. But one thing she’d never been taught was how to fight. The poor girl had no idea what to do with her little blade as the scary man bore down at her, and so she did something stupid: she threw the knife up at his face as hard as she could.

As a young girl just turning eight years of age who wasn’t a Feeler, “as hard as she could” didn’t amount to much. The knife sailed upwards almost lazily, slowly spinning as it traveled the distance between her hands and Sebastian’s face. The knight was already leaning back just slightly as if he’d known she would throw it before she’d even thought to do so, his chin not even a fraction of a finger’s width from the blade’s tip as it spun by.

But then something unexpected happened. With a start, Sebastian rocked forward as if pushed in the back. The push lacked power, almost as if it were barely there, but it was enough to move his face forward just a little—just enough for the tip of her knife to slice into his jaw.

Sebastian froze, and a terrifying stillness fell over the scene, with the clattering of the knife against the floor the only sound to be heard. The man’s eyes were wide and unfocused in shock as his hand rose to touch the wound on his handsome, clean-shaven face. Slowly he pulled it away and stared almost uncomprehendingly at the blood that oozed over his fingers. “You...” he muttered, his hands beginning to tremble.

“Arlette!” a familiar voice called as somebody she hadn’t seen in seasons ran around the stunned man from the other side. “We have to run!”

“Peko?” she asked, confused. Why was he here suddenly? What was he doing on the other side of Sebastian?

Shouts could be heard coming from outside the room behind her. Somebody banged on the door. Sebastian seemed to pay the commotion no mind. He was far too consumed by whatever was going on inside his head, muttering to himself.

“My face... my perfect face!” she heard him say. Sebastian’s breath came hard and fast now. His face was growing redder by the moment and his eyes had taken on a wild quality that Arlette had never seen in him before as he stared into the middle distance, seeing something only he could see. Then, suddenly, his eyes, still filled with a wild rage, regained their focus and clarity. They were pointed right at her.

“You little BITCH!” he howled. “You ruined EVERYTHING!”

Arlette turned away from Sebastian and ran towards the nearest door as quickly as her little legs could move her. She could hear her ex-bodyguard’s demented breathing closing quickly behind her, and knew that even if she made it to the door, she would never have time to open it before he caught her.

But then the voices coming from the other side of the door all grew louder and the door burst open. A dozen guards poured through the doorway and halted, aghast at the scene before their eyes.

“Stop her!” Sebastian shouted, but the guards were too slow to react as Arlette desperately slid and crawled her way through their legs and out into the hallway. She heard a roar of pure fury, followed by the sound of a blade slicing into flesh, but she didn’t dare look back. Instead, she ran as fast as she could, heading for the closest entrance to the secret tunnels with Peko just behind her.

The nearest entrance was in fact only a few rooms away, in a room that contained a small library and some tables and chairs. She’d always assumed it was some sort of room where the King could spend time with guests, perhaps play a game or have a conversation in relative privacy. Now, however, it was blessedly empty. Quickly she pushed in the stone entrance and crawled inside, with Peko following her.

Suddenly a large hand pierced through her friend’s body and reached for her, coming up just a few finger’s widths short of her foot. In the dim light coming from the outside room, she could make out the crimson shade of fresh blood covering the hand and arm. Arlette screamed and pushed herself hurriedly away from the seeking appendage.

“Hear me, you little worm!” Sebastian shouted after her as she manically crawled her way down the passage. “I will not forget this! No matter where you run, no matter where you hide, I will hunt you down and I will show you suffering the likes you cannot even imagine! You will pay for what you have done! I will never forget, and I will never forgive! Mark my words, Arlette Faredin! Mark my words! When I am done with you, you will know the true meaning of despair!”

Arlette scrambled as fast as she could through the maze of passageways, wringing her memory for every bit of the layout that she could remember as she frantically searched for a way out. But no matter how far away she got, she could still hear his voice, as what once echoed through the passageways now echoed instead inside her mind.

----------------------------------------

Somehow, the city had received word of the invasion. Brenridge roiled in chaos, as what seemed like everybody in the city simultaneously rushed about. Arlette rode atop her favorite vekkel, who she’d affectionately named “Sir Growly”, with Peko’s insubstantial form sitting behind her, surrounded by a swarm of terrified citizens that were flooding every street and slowing her down drastically.

Sneaking out to the stables and stealing Sir Growly, along with a saddlebag filled with vekkel food, had proved much easier than expected. There had been almost no guards outside to notice the two children or stop them from leaving. As they made their way out, she could hear many shouts coming from the palace proper, which explained where everybody had gone. The prospect that they were related to Sebastian’s rampage had spurred her onward and she’d ridden Sir Growly through the sparsely-manned gate before they’d even realized what was happening.

This mass of people, however, was a much larger problem. Every few moments, Arlette couldn’t help but twist about to check behind her, fearful that Sebastian would be right on her tail. She could feel his presence in her mind, a non-specific but incredibly disconcerting feeling of threat that wouldn’t go away no matter how much she tried to banish it. She needed to be away from him—far away, like back in Nordhom—and she needed it as soon as possible, but the teeming crowd was far too thick and frenzied for easy passage.

“Arlette, tell them to move out of the way,” Peko urged. “You’re the princess, they’ll listen to you.”

“But then everybody will see me,” Arlette replied. She still maintained her disguise, largely out of simple habit after doing so non-stop for over a year. Still, that didn’t mean she wanted everybody’s attention. Right now, thanks in part to the panic that had fallen over the populace and the fact that she was alone when normally Princess Rosalyn would be accompanied by a large procession of dozens, few people had seemed to realize that she was more than just a girl on a vekkel, an admittedly unusual sight on its own.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“We’re dead if we don’t go faster,” Peko insisted.

“But-”

With an annoyed grunt, Peko stood up on the saddle with his hands on her shoulders for balance. “MAKE WAY FOR THE PRINCESS!” he shouted as loudly as he could manage. “MAKE WAY!”

A commotion spread amongst the nearby crowd as suddenly hundreds of people took notice of her for the first time. Cries rang out to her, calling out to her, asking her to save them. Dozens of gazes bored into her, their eyes filled with a pleading hope that she would be their promised savior. Arlette shrank in her seat as those eyes weighing down on her very spirit. She would be saving nobody but herself this day. She was a lie, a cheat, a fraud. Avoiding those desperate stares as best she could, Arlette urged her mount forward.

Peko’s cries did the trick and the pair made much swifter progress from then on. Soon they made it to the very gate where Arlette had first entered Brenridge. Order around the gate had broken down entirely, with wagons and beasts of burden clogging the area as far too many people tried to leave than the gate could manage. Luckily for her, vekkels were mounts meant for one or two people and thus were much smaller and thinner than the large garophs and wagons all around. It took a little time, but she was able to work her way through the shifting maze and find a way to the gate itself. The guards there gasped when they realized her identity, but she sent Sir Growly rushing through them before they could utter more than a few words, causing those in her path to throw themselves out of her way or be trampled.

They were out. Quickly they gained tremendous speed, rocketing across the land outside the city as only a vekkel could. As the distance from the city walls grew, Arlette spared one last look back at the city which had been her home for the last year and her blood ran cold. He was there, she was sure of it, standing atop the wall and watching as she left. The distance between them was so great that she could barely make out the speck of a person, but she knew it was him. She could feel it in her bones. She urged Sir Growly to run even faster.

----------------------------------------

“We need to stop, Arlette.”

Arlette didn’t reply, too busy looking about the darkness.

“Arlette. Arlette!”

“We can’t stop yet,” Arlette insisted. “Sebastian is coming.”

“Arlette, listen to reason,” Peko sighed. “You’re about to run our vekkel to death. You remember the teachings, you need to let them rest or they’ll run until they fall over dead. Look, he’s panting and everything. If we have no mount then we’ll be caught for sure!”

“Alright...” she replied, pulling Sir Growly off the road and into the nearby forest. Once she could no longer see the road, she stopped and dismounted. Stumbling on the uneven forest floor in her fancy shoes, she sat down and rested her back weakly against a tree. As she did so, she couldn’t help but think about all the dirt she was getting on her already filthy dress. She was thankful that it was summer so she wasn’t freezing in her clothes late at night. Still, the mental image of a little child in a lavish, delicate, ornate outfit covered in dust and dirt struck her as strangely hilarious. The Queen would have had an absolute fit if she could see...

Tears were pouring down Arlette’s face before she even realized it, the lifetime’s worth of trauma she’d accrued that day finally bursting forth now that her young mind didn’t have anything to keep itself away from thinking about it. The gaze of the kind old woman as she’d gasped her last breath, the desperate clawing of some of the victims against the hall doors, the rage and bitterness, the shocked expression of the King as his life ebbed away, the raw hatred of the Queen... she saw them over and over again as she rocked back and forth, trying her best not to cry too loud so as not to attract attention.

“Shhhh...” Peko said, sitting down beside her. After a few more moments of watching her weep, he cleared his throat. “Hey... I need you to do something for me. Do you remember the place we first met?”

“Y-yeah...”

“Good... I need you to close your eyes, alright?”

Arlette stared at him through tear-filled eyes, not sure what he was talking about, but decided to do what he asked and closed her eyes.

“Okay, now keep your eyes closed and imagine that place. Imagine how it was when we first met. Imagine that you’re there on that hill, just like that time.”

Arlette dragged the memory of that day four years ago to the front of her mind, recalling all the little details of that time and place. She imagined herself on the lone hilltop near her village, sitting against the large, gnarled tree that sat all alone atop the hill. She imagined the whole world being engulfed in fog, the grey-white mist that blocked off her vision beyond more than a few paces making it feel like the entire world was just this hill and its tree. She imagined the stillness of that day and the way it had matched the emptiness in her heart...

Arlette opened her eyes and gasped, looking about in confusion. She and Peko were suddenly on that hill! “What’s going on? Where are we?” she asked.

“We’re inside your mind,” Peko said from beside her, looking about with a small smile of satisfaction on his face.

“Inside my mind?” she repeated, still confused. “How? Why?”

“Because you brought us here, and because if you’re in your mind, I can do this,” Peko replied. He turned to her and gave her a strong hug.

Arlette nearly jumped. She could feel him! For the first time, Peko was actually touching her! Quickly her arms shot out and wrapped the boy in a reciprocal embrace. “Peko... I...” She sniffed and felt the tears return, but tried to force them back inside.

“It’s okay, cry,” Peko whispered soothingly.

“But I’m a big girl now and big girls don’t...”

“Shhhhh... Everybody cries, even big girls. Don’t hold it back, empty all your sadness out until you feel better. That’s why we’re here.” He patted her on the head softly.

Arlette couldn’t hold back any longer. She cried for herself. She cried for the Princess. She cried for the King. She cried for the Queen. She cried for her kingdom and for everybody inside it. She cried for what felt like days until she had nothing left inside of her.

“Feeling better?” Peko inquired. He’d held her the entire time, never once letting her go, for which she was grateful.

She sniffed. “No... a little...”

He let go of her and took a step back. “That’s good, because it’s time for you to wake up.”

Arlette’s eyes flew open and she sat up in a panic. She’d fallen asleep? How? When? Looking about, she let out a relieved sigh. The glow of daybreak filtered through the trees, so she hadn’t slept for too long. It seemed that nobody had found them during the night, either.

Taking a piece of food for Sir Growly from the vekkel’s saddlebag, she fed him and gave him some affectionate pets along his neck, getting soft trilling growls of happiness in return. The growls of her mount mixed with those of her stomach as her body reminded her just how little she’d eaten. She looked at the vekkel food but remembered the warnings she’d been told about how eating it would make you sick. In her rush to leave, she hadn’t had time to pack provisions for herself, so it looked like she’d have to see if she could forage a breakfast quickly before heading out.

“Hey Arlette,” Peko said, appearing out of thin air beside her as she walked a little further into the forest, “I need to talk to you about something I’ve been thinking about.”

“Yeah?” she asked as she spotted some mushrooms growing beside a nearby tree. She remembered her mother telling her that these ones with the bright blue caps were safe to eat.

“Where were you planning on running? Back to Nordhom?”

“Well, yeah, of course,” she replied as she bent down and began picking the mushrooms, scraping the dirt off the bottoms, and biting into them. They didn’t taste very good at all, but they were much better than nothing.

Peko frowned. “We can’t go back there. That’s the first place that Sebastian would guess you’d go. We have to go somewhere else.”

“What?!” she gasped, nearly choking on a mouthful of mushroom. “But what about Mother?”

“If we go home, we will put your mother in danger. Do you want Sebastian to kill her too?”

“No!” she cried. “But... I want to go home so much!”

“I know! I want to go back too, but we can’t. You know I’m right.”

Maybe it was because she’d used up all her tears, but as upset as Arlette was, she didn’t cry. She only shook her head, forlorn. “Then where do we go? Droaja?”

“No, if the Ubrans can conquer Ofrax, they can just invade Droaja next and we’ll just have to run again. And Sebastian would probably be able to find us there.”

“Then where?”

“We have to head for the Divide. We need to make for Redwater Castle and get through to the other continent.”

“But won’t the soldiers at Redwater Castle attack anybody who approaches? They surely know about the invasion by now.”

“If you can keep up your disguise as Princess Rosalyn, they might let you inside. I know it’s a long shot and it’s dangerous, but it’s our only hope of being safe.”

Arlette gulped. She didn’t want to admit it, but Peko was right.

----------------------------------------

Crunch.

Crunch.

Crunch.

Slowly, laboriously, Arlette took one step after another through the freezing snow, slowly climbing what she hoped to be the last leg of her trip to Redwater Castle. She was close now, she believed, because she’d finally reached a high enough altitude that the land was covered in snow even though it was the hot summer season. At least, she hoped she was close. She didn’t know how much longer she could keep going.

Sir Growly had refused to enter the snow when they’d first come across it, so she’d been forced to leave him behind. Vekkels were very weak in the cold snow, which normally wasn’t a problem since snow was rare in most of the world, including Ofrax. The most snow she’d ever seen in her life had been after a big snowstorm when she was five, when the ground had been coated in snow as deep as an adult’s hand. At the time, she’d thought snow was fun and wonderful.

Her opinion on the white menace had changed drastically now. Everything here was covered in snow deep enough to go up to her knees or higher. Every step stole more and more of her warmth. She’d ripped off some of the more tattered parts of her gown and used the strips of cloth to wrap her feet and legs, but that could only do so much. She shivered uncontrollably now, and she couldn’t feel her feet.

She was so tired. She knew that she needed to push forward, that if she were to stop now she would never be able to start again, but her exhaustion threatened to drown her from within. She couldn’t breathe. No matter how much she gasped for air now, it never seemed to be enough.

To make matters worse, she had to keep up her disguise constantly. For the first time in seasons, she’d gone full days without using her disguise. The idea had been that while two kids on a vekkel were definitely noteworthy, if one of them was the princess then it would far more worth remembering. Anything that would help hide their escape was worth doing. But now she had to use it again, since she didn’t know when she’d encounter the fortress and she needed to look like the Princess from the first moment they saw her if she wanted a chance to be let in. Peko had vanished for that same reason.

It was strange how empty the pass was. Her tutor had taught her that the way trade worked with Nocend was that merchants from Obura would bring their goods to the fortress but were never allowed inside. She’d said that they would have to set up shop outside the fortress, where Nocend merchants would emerge and buy whatever it was they felt was worth buying. Afterwards, the goods would be meticulously inspected for hidden compartments and the like to make sure that only people from Nocend re-entered the fortress. The Nocenders were very wary of spies trying to sneak into their continent, it seemed.

While the journey was harsh, it was possible to make a decent amount of money trading Obura-specific goods with the Nocenders, enough at least that a few merchants specialized in it. Not many, but a few. Strangely, Arlette hadn’t run across anybody whatsoever on the way up. She could understand not meeting anyone headed her way, but she’d expected to run across at least one merchant heading back down to Obura by now. Where was everybody? Were the Nocend soldiers capturing the merchants over fear of some sort of trick from the Ubrans? What if they’d all just been killed instead?

The snow was getting deeper every step she took now, and a freezing wind whipped about, sapping away every last hint of warmth that the snow hadn’t already stolen. Cupping her hands together, she tried to Observe a flame between them to warm her just a little, but the tiny drop of fire fizzled out immediately. She couldn’t manage a flame under these conditions. She was just too tired. Her body pleaded with her for rest, but Arlette shook her head weakly. She had to keep going. She could barely keep her eyes open, but she had to. Only death would come of stopping.

She looked up the path, desperately hoping to see something other than mountain cliffs and snow, and noticed something else far off in the distance. She squinted towards the thing. Could it be? It was! There, high above, stood the great walls of Redwater Castle, the strongest fortress ever built.

Desperately she summoned up every little bit of strength she still had. It wasn’t much—she hadn’t eaten in well over a day and had barely slept the last two nights—but she took what she had and continued to climb. Her tiny hands struggled against the omnipresent snow as she pushed herself to keep going. She was so close.

Thump!

What was that? Arlette’s cold-addled mind couldn’t immediately figure out the source of the sound that had come from off to her left. Was somebody there, hidden in the snow? She took another few halting steps.

Thump!

Another one, this time off to the right and farther away. What was going on? She continued, afraid that if she stopped she could never be able to take another step again.

THUMP!

She saw it clearly this time and despaired. An arrow had come streaking from the castle and embedded itself into the snow just paces in front of her. The people in the fortress were using her for target practice. She could see it now, they were each taking turns to try to shoot her through the wind as she approached.

Arlette's foot caught on something beneath the snow and she fell forward into the powder. Cold. So very cold. She tried to push herself back up but failed. Her limbs were moving slower than molasses and no matter how hard she pushed herself to get up, she couldn't find the strength to push herself all the way to her feet. There was simply nothing left. She collapsed back into the snow and her mind slowly faded away, accompanied by nothing but the howl of the wind and the muffled thumps of arrows embedding themselves nearby.