Azuma and his friends had chased after Ryu into the trees, where Azuma had cut open a large gash in his side with his magic.
Ryu had retaliated, managing to knock his attackers off their feet. He’d known they hadn’t expected his magic to be so powerful, to be able to incapacitate four of them at once, and he’d smirked to himself as he’d limped into the woods.
Now, Ryu leaned back against the tree, holding his side and trying to make the world stop spinning. A sudden rustling of the leaves had him sitting upright in alarm.
A moment later, a young girl stepped into the clearing.
Ryu nearly growled, exposing his fanged teeth. The girl’s blue eyes, paired with her hair, brown tinged with gold, gave her away as a human. His age, maybe younger.
Those blue eyes moved over his long black hair, which was falling forward into his face, his kimono, stained with mud, and his pointed ears.
Finally, they moved to the blood on his side, and widened with alarm.
“You’re hurt!”
“Goaway,” he hissed, but she ignored him, creeping closer.
“You need help,” she said slowly, and he shook his head.
“I do not,” he muttered, and watched as the girl frowned, a mulish light entering her eye.
“But you’re bleeding! And who knows how deep that wound is, you need to bind it to—”
His vision started to tunnel as the girl babbled on. Her accent was Merovian, familiar to him from the years of listening to his mother speak, and he drifted into unconsciousness with her voice in his ear.
When he came to, his wound was bound, and a there was a salve on his injury. His hair had been bound away from his face, and he could tell the sweat and dirt had been rinsed away.
He heard the girl puttering around, and pretended he hadn’t woken. He observed her through slitted eyes, wondering what her motive was.
Why had the girl helped him?
What did she want from him?
Erlan had told him that the Middle Kingdoms had changed, that they would not welcome the Elves. But this girl seemed unafraid.
As if feeling his gaze on her, the girl turned to look at him. When he stayed still, she came a little closer.
“You just stay here,” she murmured, as if she knew that he was inclined to argue with her. “I’ll get you some food so you can regain your strength.”
He would’ve told her not to bother, he could feel the sun setting without even needing to see it, the rise of the twilight like a call in his blood.
Soon, his magic would be at its peak, and he would heal himself. He just had to hold out for another hour or so.
Ryu drifted off again once the clearing fell silent and he was alone.
When he awoke again, it was with a pounding heart and fear in his veins.
A scream cut through the night, a twin to the sound that had woken him up.
What was happening?
Stiffly, he got to his feet, calling upon his powers without a thought, he healed the wound in his side, and for a moment more, he stood in the moonlight, soaking up the natural magic as it renewed his body and revitalized him.
As the only son of the Twilight Prince, Ryu grew stronger in moonlight, and now, he was at his full power.
He caught the sound of running footsteps on the forest floor—two hundred steps away—was it his rescuer returning with the promised food?
No, these footsteps were unsure, panicky.
