Tina had made a horrible mistake. Now she was suffering for it and hoped the ultimate price would not be her very life.

Her feet were bloody, her free arm hung lifelessly by her side, and she could feel the coldness creeping into her body, amplified by the dry, sour sweat. Her arm wasn't broken or anything like that, Just so numb she could hardly feel it. She counted every step forward in an attempt to remind herself she was very slowly making progress. Her cell phone was suffering from a severe lack of signals, and the darkness of night was creeping in, slowly but inevitably.

According to Google maps, the walking distance between the town where the bus stopped and her destination was a little over three hours. To the Tina sitting in front of the computer doing her research yesterday, it sounded easily doable: Martin had experienced countless times that Google maps seemed to overestimate the time it took to walk. With a break in the middle, he planned to split the walking into two sessions.

The Tina of today had a few objections to that plan. Turned out having your height decrease also affected your walking speed. In addition, the only pair of shoes she currently owned was pretty new and had yet to be broken in. As a result, they had chafed and caused blisters rather quickly. Even worse, being fairly cheap slip-ons, they were not suited for long-distance hiking in the first place. Finally, a bag was pretty far from the ideal type of luggage to chug around for a long time.

She had considered ditching the bag, but came to the conclusion that she needed the clothes when she arrived at her destination. Failing that, the contents of her bag might be the only thing saving her from freezing to death at night. She felt she had come too far to die from temperature exposure now, but she was not sure the world agreed with her on that point.

At first, it hadn’t been so bad. Her optimism soon turned into pessimism. After having to take a break before even a tenth of the distance had been covered, she realized this might not be so easy after all. Two breaks later, she had lost signal. She could still see her GPS position, but it mattered extremely little when she was incapable of downloading the map. To save battery, she had closed the app each time she checked, denying the phone the option to store the map between each time. Boy, did she feel clever now. And sarcastic.

She sat down for the umpteenth time and undid her shoes, allowing her sore feet some fresh air. The blisters had long since popped and then been further chafed until blood seeped out. Walking barefoot was not an option: The ground was uneven, littered with sharp stones hardly visible in this lack of light, and cold as fuck.

By this time, it was definitely a lot more night than day. She was at no risk of getting lost. Even in the meager light the moon and the stars provided, it was easy to distinguish the part in front of her without trees from the ones with trees. For a while, she had hoped to meet a car on the road which she could hitchhike on. Now that seemed extremely unlikely: Who would drive around in the forest in the middle of the night?

She redid her shoes, wincing as they hugged her feet in all the places where the skin had been chafed away. Since she had no clue of how long she had left, it was better to prepare for the worst-case scenario: Having to spend a night outside. At least she wasn’t wounded this time.

In order to not freeze to her death, she’d have to make some sort of makeshift bed which would keep her warm. She also couldn’t leave the road, or she might not find it again later. Unlike last time, there were no leaves to build a bed out of; this forest —  or at least part of it —  consisted only of pine trees. She’d have to use the only available items at hand: her available spare clothes. Shame ruining them like this, but hopefully, she wouldn’t tear them too much.

While putting on extra layers of clothing to add to her insulation, she noticed someone approaching. It was still pretty far off, but she could see flickers of light in the forest further ahead. Someone out in the middle of the night? Finally, luck was on her side. At least if they somehow spotted her. She fiddled with her cell phone for a few seconds, turning on her own flashlight. Waving it back and forth, she tried to catch the attention of whoever carried the light.

It turned out to be no one, at least not in the literal sense: The source of light was actually a pair of front lights. As the car approached her, she picked up the sound as well. The dark forest had allowed her to notice the flickering lights at a pretty large distance, much more than the distance the noise of the car spread. That solved one of her fears: according to the map, there was only a single road here, so the car was guaranteed to pass her position on the road.

Thanks to her own cell phone flashlight, it was impossible for the driver not to spot her. Indeed, the car, which was in the first place not moving very fast, slowed down to a halt as it approached her. Once it stood still in front of her, she turned off her light and ran with a limp towards the passenger door. Before she arrived, the door opened, and someone stepped out. She stopped before passing the front lights. It was hard to distinguish much about the person with the headlights in her eyes, apart from his general shape: A man both tall and wide.

“What you are doing out here in the middle of the night, miss?” he boomed in a deep voice. It almost sent chills down her spine. He wasn’t actually threatening her, but she still had the feeling he probably placed her best interests pretty low on his priority list.

During her first sessions of walking, Tina had spent quite some time imagining what she would say when arriving at the village, as well as suitable answers to any questions she could think of. This was not one of them. Then again, she hadn’t actually planned to overstay her welcome on the road in the first place.

“Right now? Rejoicing that I don’t have to spend the night here,” she made an attempt at a joke to disarm the situation. “Assuming I can hitch a ride with you?”

She could see the silhouette of the man turning towards the car and saying something to the driver. The engine was still running, drowning out the words. Tina got the impression she was not what they expected to find here. That was strange. Wouldn’t that imply they were actually looking for someone here in the first place, then?

After a short exchange back and forth, he turned to her again: “Okay, hop in, girl.”

Tina was all too eager to comply. “Thanks, I really appreciate it,” she exclaimed. She realized she might be sounding like a bubbling teenager, but it was not actually an act: She was really genuinely grateful right now.

Picking up her bag, she walked past the glaring front lights. This allowed her to actually see her two benefactors. The impression was somewhat overwhelming.

The one that had stepped out the passenger door reminded her of a bear, and not in a cuddly way. Receiving a bear hug from him looked almost as dangerous as attempting to hug a real bear. What surprised Tina was how old he was. His hair was all grey, and his face sported a good amount of wrinkles. Tina estimated him to be somewhere in his sixties, based on his face. For a man at his age to have such an immense physique was downright astonishing.

The driver looked significantly younger. Late thirties, maybe? He looked rather muscular as well, though nowhere near the bear. More like what she'd expect from a farmer.

Neither looked particularly happy. ‘Judging’ and ‘suspicious’ would be the best description of them Tina could think of.

The car was a pickup truck with three front seats and no back seats. Tina would have to sit between the two burly men.

She asked for a minute to remove the extra layers of clothing. Sitting in a heated car with all of it would have been a good way to achieve a heat stroke, or at the very least sweating like a pig. This also gave her a bit of time to evaluate her situation.

She was still happy not to spend the night outside, but an uneasy feeling was starting to creep into her mind. The two men were huge, and she was practically defenseless. She wasn't afraid of being raped: for some reason, she was reasonably sure that was not a risk with these two. On the other hand, they did give the impression that they were quite willing to kill and hide a body to keep a secret. Not a lot better, everything considered.

She was also fairly sure she didn't really have a choice. If she hadn't asked for a ride, they would probably have insisted anyway. And there was just no way she could run away from them, even if she had a head start.

Once she was finished, the bear threw her bag and backpack onto the cargo area. With no real alternative available, she made her way to the middle seat. The driver glanced suspiciously at her and then turned his head away without even greeting her.

Behind and above the headrests, there was something that looked like a horizontal, open cabinet with two long guns in it. From her minuscule knowledge of guns, she guessed one was a shotgun and the other a rifle of some kind. The peculiar part was that the cabinet was open, implying the two men had been ready to pull out the guns at very short notice. The driver noticed her staring and reached his hand back to close the gun cabinet.

She fastened her seatbelt, extremely nervous at the situation. The bear sat down next to her, causing the seat to tilt towards him from his sheer weight. Compared to the two men, she was positively tiny. The car started moving in the same direction she had walked from. She was not about to point out the fact that she was actually headed in the opposite direction.

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“You took a big risk there, girl,” the bear gruffed at her. “Fancy a cold death in the forest?”

Needless to say, his words did nothing to alleviate her nervousness. She had a strong feeling he wasn’t intending to, either. “Y-you’re right,” she stuttered a little, “that was really stupid of me.”

His lips moved ever so slightly upwards. Was he actually pleased with her reaction? That she admitted her mistakes, or that she was afraid of him?

“Why were you out here anyway?” he asked and glanced her way. She could feel something between the lines, but didn’t quite catch what it was.

“I was trying to reach Marblemanor village,” she explained, “I’m reasonably sure this is the correct road.”

The two men shared a glance. Something told her this was not the correct answer.

“The village is not open to tourists,” the bear said, even more gruffly than before. “In fact, visitors are not allowed outside of very special circumstances.”

“Well, I have some special circumstances,” she defended herself. Since they were currently speaking and not trying to kill her, it was possible to change their mind. Despite the inherent uncomfortableness in the situation, she was not totally out of her game.

“I’m looking for a hiding place. And since I know about the Veil, I’m allowed entry, right?”

The two men shared another look, a lot grimmer than before. She could feel their suspicion. If she wasn’t already completely in their power, they’d probably have taken steps to ensure she had nowhere to run by this point.

“No idea what you’re talking about,” the bear lied. He was not a complete stranger to lying, but there was just no way he was going to fool her. It was a feint, to test her out. Well, then she’d just have to put up a performance.

“You know, the Veil, how… “ she stopped and hesitated for a moment before reaching a conclusion. “I’m sorry. If you don’t know anything about it, just forget it.”

That was the trick, being subtle about it. Forcing them to pull the information out of her rather than push too much. As long as they did not resort to physical means to convince her.

“You’re not fooling me, girl,” the bear took the bait, “It’s obviously not nothing. Speak up, what is this ‘Veil’?”

No Oscar for his performance. “I’m not allowed to say,” she simply stated and kept her eyes staring at the road ahead, signaling that the discussion was over.

Despite not looking at them, she could feel the two were having a non-verbal discussion. They were unsure what to do about her, and how to proceed. The only certain part was that they could not allow her out of their sight until they had learned what they needed to know.

The bear cleared his throat. “Let us put aside this ‘Veil’ for a moment,” he said, significantly more inviting than before, “Why did you think that Marblemanor was a good place to hide? And from what?”

She pretended to be thinking for a moment, and looked somewhat nervously at the bear. “I ran away from home,” she revealed, “And I don’t have any good places to stay, so I thought I’d try something Aunty told me about.”

“What did she tell you?” the bear demanded threateningly.

She shook her head. “C-can’t tell you,” she maintained, faking a shudder.

The bear was obviously frustrated. He was not at the point where he wanted to bash her head in — thankfully —  but he was looking for other approaches without revealing too much himself.

“Let us for the moment assume we know about the Veil,” he offered, “Can you tell us more then?”

“How do I know you’re not trying to trick me?” she demanded back, sounding like a defiant child. Which was pretty much what she was going for.

“We could say the same to you, girl,” he pointed out, “Besides, you owe us for saving your life.”

She pretended to consider this. This was going exactly how she had envisioned. As for how she’d play the bear next: She couldn’t outright reveal that she knew about magic, that’d be too obvious.

“Aunty showed me her… gifts,” she tried phrasing it, “certain skills.”

The bear was intently listening to her. “Go on,” he encouraged her.

“If you don’t get what I’m talking about, you’re not getting anything more out of me,” she stated, still upholding the false bravado.

The bear hesitated and looked towards the driver. He shrugged, and then nodded. Not a man of many words. No, that was not it. He was afraid she’d discover something if he opened his mouth? What could that be?

“I know what you’re speaking of, girl,” the bear opened up a little. “There are several such individuals in the village.”

“Well, I’m not saying anything else unless you can guess what sort of skill I’m talking about,” she said, “otherwise I might be encouraged to believe you were just trying to coax me into talking more. It’s your turn to reveal something now.”

The bear grew even more frustrated with this and looked towards the driver again. He also appeared to be losing his patience, and finally opened his mouth. Tina was vaguely aware that there were words coming out of his mouth, but her mind completely blanked out. For some reason, she could only imagine she was sitting next to the grim reaper, and the grim reaper had decided that torturing her for a few eons sounded like a good idea.

She was suddenly aware that her eyes were firmly shut, and that she was gripping something as hard as she could. There were voices in the background, but they barely registered in her mind. She could only feel an unimaginable horror gripping her tightly. Something touched her back and her arms, giving her an odd feeling of comfort. Not enough to counteract the dread, but at least a source of light in the darkness.

After an indeterminate amount of time, she felt her distress lifting ever so slightly, allowing her rudimentary control over her body again. She opened her eyes ever so slightly and realized she was actually hugging the bear. At some unconscious level, she had believed the bear somehow be the less scary one among the two, by an extremely significant margin. Even now, she felt that to be the case. His arm was flung around her back. Despite suspecting this should have felt uncomfortable in normal circumstances, right now it gave her a sense of security.

The two men were still speaking, and she could gradually make sense of what they said.

“... still think you went overboard,” she heard the bear say with a lot of annoyance in his voice.

“Deal with it,” another manly voice replied. By the process of elimination, she guessed this to belong to the driver. But unlike earlier, his voice wasn’t scaring the living shit out of her. In fact, it might be described as a rather nice voice under different circumstances.

“What do we do with her now?” the bear asked, sounding a bit tired at the discussion.

“Place her in the school. They probably have a spare room, and security is tight there,” the driver responded, barely concealing his lack of interest.

Her feelings, apart from complete dread, were gradually returning to her. Enough that she was starting to feel less than comfortable hugging a sixty-year-old man. She pushed away his arm and sat straight up, rubbing her eyes. They were wet, as were her cheeks. Had she been crying? Even worse, there was a feeling of wetness in her underwear, and not in a good way. She had actually peed herself in fear? Considering what else her feelings told her, it was not extremely surprising. Even now, she could not bear to look towards the driver, in case he turned out to actually be a real monster.

“Feeling better?” the bear asked somewhat rhetorically. “I’m sorry about that. My friend was a bit… overly enthusiastic in his demonstration.”

Surprisingly, he sounded a bit shaken himself. Was he also affected by whatever the driver did, or was there something else he worried about? She nodded, but gave no other response.

The bear paused for a moment before continuing: “Now that you’ve gotten your demonstration of a such a ‘special skill’, perhaps you can tell us more about your Aunt?”

Tina nodded hesitatingly. She had definitely gotten them to listen to her, the problem was just whether they would believe her or not. If they didn’t, she had no doubt that the grim reaper next to her would give her another demonstration, something she dreaded above pretty much everything else. Even Uncaring was less scary than him.

“She’s dead,” she started. That was actually true in a sense: Martin’s real aunt, or at least one of them, had died in a car accident when he was fairly young.

“Aunty taught me about magic, but I never succeeded in getting my own,” she shared. Also true in another sense, she mused to herself, except this time ‘Aunty’ was referring to Caroline. Tina found this strange game of lying oddly amusing considering the situation.

“She also taught me about the Veil. I learned that if I needed a hiding place, I could go to the village of Marblemanor and share that I knew of the Veil.”

The bear snorted gruffly. “Your aunt was both reckless and irresponsible,” he decided, “but not completely wrong.”

He turned to the driver, and after getting some sort of visual confirmation seemed to reach a decision. Tina didn’t follow his eyes when he looked at the driver: She wasn’t intending to ever meet his eyes if she could help it.  

“What your aunt omitted to tell you was that Marblemanor Village is closed to those that have a frozen mana pool,” the bear explained, “Though yours may not be completely frozen, it’s bad enough that you’ll disturb the magic of others around you. If you ever intend to go the village, you’ll need to control your disrupting waves.”

“You can tell that so easily?” she wondered out loud.

The bear glanced at her as if that was one of the most stupid questions she could have asked, but quickly recovered. “I’m not sure how much your aunt taught you, but … yeah, you stick out like a sore thumb. So much so, we were out specifically to look for the source of the disturbance.”

He was not telling her everything on the topic. Even without catching any relevant signals from him, she could piece together two and two based on the guns in the car. They were ready to take care of spies or any other undesired elements they’d come across.

“But I can learn to control the disturbances?” she asked, pushing aside the more disturbing thoughts.

“Given time and effort, yes,” the bear nodded. “It’s possible even for those with completely frozen mana pools, though it is easier for you than them, considering your age. In fact, we’re taking you to an institution which has people specifically training for that purpose.”

That was probably not the only purpose of the institution, but she didn’t bring up that point.

“And then I’ll be accepted into the village?” she asked hopefully.

The bear slightly shook his head. “Not my decision,” he muttered. But he sure as hell was going to speak to the people in charge. She was pretty sure this decision was made on a significantly lower level than the Council. Hopefully not even involving the regional office.