She kept on walking, and walking….

Until both females arrived in front of a building. A strange one, consisted of only wooden boards lined up perpendicularly. With no door nor a window, how would they even enter it?

Calmly, Theana went and knocked the fifth board from the left. The rhythm was orderly, it sounded like a code.

Not too long after, the sixth and seventh boards opened inwards like an ordinary door. Two scary looking men came out to welcome her. “Welcome home, Madame.”

Madame? Maven gasped. This shed was her home?

The reality was far cry from what she had hoped. Who was to blame?

The priests back home? They didn’t know anything.

Father Nigel? He couldn’t prove his own suspicion and prevent his superiors from giving her to the ‘new mother’.

Declan? If he was in the Maven’s shoes he would’ve chosen to run amok and die in Vadis’ light, rather then living in the darkness.

Yet for some reason, Nigel’s warning had prepared her for this situation. Other kids would’ve lost it and run screaming back to the monastery, or rather, into their graves.

Even Theana seemed to notice Maven's reaction as she briefly took a peek. She smiled and then continued walking. Without saying anything, Maven simply kept following her.

”This is the chamber of traps, the last defense against outside intruders,” Theana explained to Maven without looking her way. “Watch closely. Remember my steps if you want to remain alive.”

Maven turned pale instantly. She already expected a tough life waiting for her, but not this harsh. From now on, she had to rely on her own abilities to survive. She was now a beast in the wild.

Theana immediately made her move, while still wearing her long aristocratic dress. Her feet lightly treaded stone tile after stone tile. Occasionally she had to jump to reach one tile. She rotated, jumped back and forth and to the sides, as if she was dancing.

The elf’s vision and memory quickly recorded Theana’s every move. Within the field of twenty tiles in width and length, most humans would find it difficult to remember the positions of fifteen safe tiles to cross the room.

Theana arrived on the doorstep towards the next room. She then turned around and put one hand on her hip. “Your turn, Maven.”

For a moment, doubt struck the little elf’s mind. One mere mistake and she would lose her life. Try to run away, and she'd might end up even worse.

In the end, Maven chose to close her eyes and calm herself. Don’t be scared, me. You know exactly where the tiles are. You can do it. Like Declan and Father Nigel have said, you’re destined for a special kind of destiny. Let’s keep going!

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Maven regained her spirit that way, reflected in the sparkle on her eyes.

The next second, she began her move. All the training in martial arts she had received had honed her body’s flexibility and agility.

Slowly but surely, Maven treaded on a right tile after another right tile. Nothing happened after a while.

However, as Maven stepped on the eleventh one, she was greeted with needles flying from both sides of the wall. One of them almost pierced her chest. Maven quickly blocked it with her left arm. Alas, another one pierced her shoulder from the other side. Maven screamed. It was the worst pain she ever felt in her whole life.

Theana kept watching her "child" without expression on her face.

Come on, Maven! Just four more tiles and you’ll make it! Those cheering words came from her own mind, not Theana's.

It was however more then enough to keep her going. Slowly, Maven reached the twelfth and thirteenth tiles. Then with all her remaining strength, she jumped for the fourteenth. She almost tripped and stepped on another trap.

She struggled to balance herself, but ended up stepping on the tile in front of her. Not a single needle came out for her. It was a safe tile. She took the last step out of the trap field and fell in front of Theana.

“The meeting hall lies at the end of this tunnel. We’ll treat your wound there.” Again Theana returned to walk as if ignoring the bleeding girl altogether.

As she was crying from all the pain, Maven kept crawling forward. Her body grew weaker from the blood loss she was suffering. Her greyish white dress was now dyed red. She kept dragging on her body towards the light at the end of the tunnel. She was slower than a snail.

When she finally arrived at the next room, her vision began to blur, yet she could still hear hazy voices of a man and a woman yelling. She lifted her head to see. It seemed that Theana was arguing with a strange-looking man.

“… But I want her, Calhoun! You know for how many years I’ve been longing for a child. And now, finally I’ve found a really special child.”

“I don’t care if she’s special, you have let an outsider enter our hideout!” retorted the man who turned out to be Calhoun Cavendier, leader of the Viperwolves. “I shall not risk her leaking our presence to the outside world! Kill her now!”

“No!” Theana loudly refused.

Calhoun sniffed, then turned his sight towards Maven. His scarred face looked aghast. He then immediately drew his dagger and thrusted it toward the poor, bleeding girl.

In response, Maven tried to roll on the floor to avoid him, but her body refused to move.

Suddenly Theana threw herself between the two. It forced Calhoun to bend his attack away from his wife. His dagger ended up stabbing the air right beside her.

The scary man began to curse, “You’re mad, Thea! How dare you defy your own husband, risking your own life for an elf kid?!”

“Our kid, Cal!” The wife insisted. “Elf or human, she deserves a parent’s love and care! I believe, should we put her under our rigorous education, she will one day become the most loyal Viperwolf. And then, we’ll have a successor.”

Calhoun was silent for a moment, then shook his head. “Tsk, an elf…. I don’t like this. Suit yourself, Thea. She can live here, but the moment she betrays us…”

“I will kill her myself,” Theana interrupted.

“Hmph. Very well. I must now prepare for tonight’s job.” As he said that, Calhoun went straight to exit the room.

Theana then quickly changed her attitude. As she knelt beside Maven, she was panicking. “Heavens, I almost forgot!” Theana then turned towards a middle-aged bandit standing in the same room. “Polgar! Quick, we must treat her now!”

Maven couldn’t hear Theana or anything anymore. She lost too much blood. Her consciousness faded as her vision darkened, leaving her with just one thought.

It was fear, fear for not being able to wake up ever again.