It was not ideal to be on the move in the winter, but here they were. He rolled the top of the bag more tightly shut so he could tie it more securely to his father’s liana, Vetoka. “We really have to do this?”

“We are not citizens of Myraduil. They are setting up logging operations for this forest.”

Taigan wrinkled his nose. “We could just agree not to bother them and move in the spring.”

His father sighed, “No, they have made it clear that they are expecting troops of men from the nearest town to enforce their rightful claim on the woods. It is a mild winter so far, we can manage the move if we are slow and careful. We have survived worse.”

Taigan looked at the elderly and the children with them and had serious doubts about that. All the same, by the next morning, everything was packed, and they were walking northeast to get closer to the Jagard Mountains where less settled people would live.

The progress was slow and horses were shared. One night, they came across a lone trading elf, who seemed to have some kind of magic to feed everyone a warm soup from a gourd that seemed never to empty. He would not sell it though, “Sorry folks, it will only work for me,” he said in his heavily accented voice.

Still, he only took a single gold coin and fed the whole clan as many servings as they asked for. “Thank you for your kindness,” Taigan said as he held out his bowl for a second serving.

“Service is sometimes its own reward. I have been blessed, so I can share those blessings with others, Taigan.”

Taigan frowned, “I am sorry, I did not tell you my name… or ask you for yours.”

The man chuckled in a way that seemed self-conscious. “Sorry, I have overheard people calling in each other by their names, and I have a good ear for these things. I am Kartowen,” he said, holding out his hand to Taigan.

“Kartowen,” Taigan repeated back slowly, carefully trying not to miss any of the sounds, “it is a pleasure to meet you. Will you be traveling in the same direction as we are?”

“No, my journey will take me deeper into Myraduil, I am afraid. Will you head to Dyran then?”

Taigan did not want to answer what they might be doing or where they might going, no matter the amount of free food. “We will go wherever it feels open and safe,” he said.

“I met a changer on her way to Dyran. She was all alone,” he said musingly. And then he smiled almost conspiratorially, “Really pretty thing. The most unusual person I have ever seen.”

Taigan did not know why he thought of Rosalea, but he did. “Silvery hair?”

The elf grinned and clapped his hands, “Yes! She called herself Rosalea! She was very kind, but… she seemed very lonely to me. She was forced to travel all by herself, and she did not know what to do to please the Gods. I wonder what happened to her? Do you think her loneliness might have made her bitter?”

Taigan felt something like sympathy, though he could hardly imagine what it must be like trying to fulfill a vague quest. “I hope not. She’s part of a … legend, I guess.”

The man nodded sagely, “I have surmised, since you knew her appearance and name right away.” He took a sip of a flask he had on his side and made a content sigh. “Still! Even a beautiful legend is still just a person, and loneliness is painful. Hardens the soul, I think.”

bTaigan wrinkled his brows a little, “You seem like you travel alone?”

“Yes! But I have friends waiting for me no matter where I go, and I keep close to my best of friends; we are never parted for long. In fact, would you say we are friends?” he asked hopefully.

Taigan found the elf odd, but he would nod, “Sure, I would say we are friends, Kartowen.”

The elf grinned, “Excellent! All I mean to say is that it is entirely different than traveling with no destination and no friendly faces to look forward to.”

Taigan was not sure what to say about that, so he did not say anything and let the unusual elven merchant talk to someone else who wanted to beg an additional serving of food.

As he returned to his place beside his father to finish his food, he could not help but remember Rosalea sitting with reeds, weaving baskets people only wanted when they did not know she had put them together. The image of her on her own, calmly talking to the liana and looking at him with her soft eyes haunted him as he imagined her even more isolated and lost. I have not thought of you in years, he thought.

He looked away from Kiana, who smiled and waved with a sort of enthusiasm that always unsettled him. She wanted him to pay a kind of attention to her, to have a feeling for her; one that he could not imagine being ready to have.

He thought about asking Taj if he had a way to know how Rosalea was, but the hawk had never been able to share that information before now, and Taigan decided to try and let it go.

But the unsettled feeling clung to him even so.

***

Rosalea was awakened by something bumping her foot. She blinked awake, “Yes?”

It was Amalia. “Hey! Come on, little one, you’ve been moping now for days about the council meeting. I shall take you out with me. Perhaps something to do with us as a group is exactly what you need. Get up, we are going hunting. You are to partner with Miri and help flush the food toward us. Miri knows where to go.”

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Rosalea blinked blearily and yawned. She nodded, staggering to her feet. The dawn was not even here yet, the light was gray-blue from the light of the moon. She got a drink, brushed and braided her hair, and was ready to go, feeling a little more alert. She walked with Miri, the young wolf leading the way. Her tail wagged a bit back and forth, as she was quite excited to be going. “You think you will be able to keep up?”

“At the pace we are going, yes… faster… maybe not,” Rosalea admitted. “I guess on the bright side, with this body, I will scare most of the animals without you working too hard. Can you keep them headed in the right direction, do you think?”

Miri nodded. “That’s true, animals here particularly do not like humans, and yes! I can! But. have you ever hunted before?”

“I used to hunt with my liana… she was a wolf.”

Miri folded her ears back, “Oh.”

Rosalea felt a heavy band of emotion constrict around her chest. She struggled to get out of it for Miri, “Um, it means I know a little how you hunt!”

Miri perked up right away. “Yes! But, what is Amalia thinking making you come? Does she think you are going to pretend you are a mountain cat and bring it down with your teeth and fingernails?”

“Well, there are a few rocks around,” Rosalea responded good-naturedly. But she missed Fen.

They walked some time, Miri going to some previously indicated place and waiting. Rosalea moved a bit upwind of her, waiting for Miri to signal her to come forward. One of the things that Rosalea hated about hunting game larger than rabbits was all the waiting. However, this particular wolf pack would have had to eat a great many rabbits, she supposed, for their immense sizes. So, it made this kind of hunting worth doing.

As her mind wandered and time continued to pass, she grew restless… and then she heard a sound that struck her ear as unnatural, a hollow scraping, like a boot – as she turned to look, her heart almost stopped. Behind Miri from Rosalea, she saw human men obviously attempting to hunt the young wolf.

Her heart went from feeling as though it had frozen to pounding wildly as blinding wrath filled her all at once.

She bowed herself down a little, and began skirting along the trees. She made a small amount of noise as she moved quickly toward them, but she made less noise than they did.

When she could see Miri through the brush, she could see the little one crouched down. She had sighted something she thought they could flush toward the bigger mystics, and so she was not paying attention in the slightest to other sounds or things - her focus was tuning them out. She did not realize she was being hunted.

Rosalea, between glimpses of the trees, got a sense of the lay of the land between the humans and herself: she was at a higher elevation. At the slow speeds they were going and the fast speed she was, she was likely to intercept them near an old willow tree… though, at this point, the leaves were all buried beneath snow. Rosalea watched them stop in that spot, and realized they had a clear shot at Miri and were setting up to take it.

For an instant, the hunters that had shot at Fen seemed to hang in the air, taunting Rosalea. Not while I am here! This time, I will kill them! She knew Miri was not really Fen, but there was no way she could stand the idea of humans slaying another wolf ever again.

She vaulted up, catching a branch of a pine tree, and swung herself forward with a loud roar. The sound was half scream, half growl; she barely recognized it as a sound that she could make as she dropped down on the nearest of the two men.

The other reacted instantly, turning his bow and releasing. It was point blank range; Rosalea was sure she was about to die the way Fen and Ulric died… but somehow, the man missed. The arrow zipped by her arm without tearing the fabric or biting into her arm. She lunged at him, ripping the bow from his hands and turning with a fierce gesture to club him with it, but she missed. He was backing away and trying to free a knife from his belt.

The man she had crashed into was gasping on the ground, but slowly gathering his breath and bearings, and she knew that soon she would have two angry men to deal with in a few short seconds. She was armed with a bow that had no arrows. She roared again, a savage sound, bringing the bow down on the one trying to get himself up from the ground, breaking the strong wood against his chest. The second had his knife, and Rosalea yelped as it slid through the leathers and bit lightly into her side. She jammed her elbow down into his, making him lose his grip.

The next minute Nekana herself was there… and then Amalia. Amalia grabbed Rosalea by the back of her shirt and began galloping away… and Rosalea did not know what Nekana did with the two men after that.

Rosalea was carried this way all the way to the den, her shirt ripping steadily until she was deposited carefully on her old bed, in the woven grass. Mere appeared and Bazil was at Amalia’s side. “Almost lose your charge, sis?”

She sighed and gave him a look. “She was protecting little Miri from human hunters.” The other two wolves exchanged meaningful looks… and Mere pushed Rosalea onto her back, laying a paw on her chest. Bazil leaned forward, grasping the knife between teeth and pulled.

Wait, there is a knife in me? She comprehended it just as he pulled it, and she could not stop the sharp peal of pain from somewhere deep in her chest. Her vision prickled with black and red fireworks around the edges and heat began to flood her side.

Amalia put her nose against Rosalea’s side, and the burning feeling that grew there made the pained sound she had just made resemble more of a squeal, and she flailed, trying to escape the sensation. Amalia moved her head aside, and Mere shoved snow toward her side with her nose. “Pack that on, good girl.”

Rosalea gripped it and thought she was going to throw up. She clawed up her shirt, and saw a nasty burn that framed a slit-shape in the middle. She flopped back on the grass, pressing snow and shaking.

Amalia was looking very stern. “You are a lot of trouble, little one.”

Rosalea just shook her head, “I did warn,” she tried to sass, but everything hurt so much she was all shivers and cold sweat.

“It is my fault,” Miri said with her tail tucked between her legs and her ears all droopy. “I was not paying attention.”

“There’s never been humans anywhere near us in the woods,” Bazil said. “Emboldened is an understatement. It’s only been… a week?”

Nekana and Raisa arrived right after. “That was… surprisingly brave for a dragon-spy,” Raisa said to Amalia in the other language.

Amalia just huffed at her. “I told you to have faith.”

“Miri, you are all right?” Nekana asked anxiously, sniffing all over her youngest daughter to check her.

“I am fine! Rosalea saved me. Is Rosalea all right?”

Rosalea did not know, the pain was intense, she wished she was unconscious for it, but it was too intense to think or feel anything else except that the burn was awful.

“She had a knife caught in her clothes against her hip, it came out very easily, and Amalia cauterized it since it was bleeding a lot,” Mere said.

Nekana made an anxious noise. “Rosalea?”

“I am alive. Hurts way too much to not be alive.”

Mere came back into her periphery. “Here, press this to the wound,” she held ou ta plant with a vine. Rosalea did so, and oil from the plant numbed her finger and the sensation of the burn. Her teeth tingled from hyperventilating.

Nekana breathed a little easier, and Amalia laid down against her non-injured side. Rosalea gripped her fluff between her fingers and willed the softness to try and calm the rest of the agony she was in.

“Rosalea, thank you for protecting my child. Can you tell me what this is?” She pulled an arrow she had stuck in her mane out and put it into Rosalea’s extended hand.

“They are blunts,” she said as she saw the wax coated tip with no blade or stone. “They are usually used in practice.”

Her side twinged and she handed it back, pressing snow and the herb against it again.

“What would be the point of hunting with an arrow that isn’t meant to be lethal?” Bazil asked.