Maeve's eyes narrow. "What?"
"Their leader. He... he said the 'intel was right.' He called him a 'pet for the monster-keeper.' They didn't just stumble on us. They were here for him. Or for me. Someone... someone told them."
A new, colder silence falls. The villagers look at each other, their fear now mixed with suspicion. A traitor.
Maeve's face hardens. "Then we have even less time than I thought."
"What do we do?" I ask.
"You must leave," she says. It is not a request. It is a judgment. "Both of you."
Threk growls, sensing the threat in her tone.
"Where?" I cry. "Where can we go? The mountains? We'll freeze! He's... he's wounded!"
"You will flee to the mountains," Maeve says, her voice low and urgent. "There is a legend. A rumor. A place of old magic, from before the Elves. A... a Wildspont. I’ve heard travelers speak of it. A place where the world is... thin. They say its magic is raw. They say it can undo... that. It can undo any magic."
She gestures to Threk. To the Urog magic. A cure.
The word is a spark. A tiny, impossible, painful ember of hope.
My gaze shifts. My guilt, my all-consuming, paralyzing guilt... it pivots.
I failed my family. I ran from the fire, and they died.
Now, the fire is coming again. And Joric was right. I brought it.
But this time... I can save someone. I can do my penance. I failed to save my mother, my father, my brother.
I will not fail to save him.
I look up at the monster beside me. He is covered in gore, his red eyes still simmering with rage, his body tense as a bowstring. He is a nightmare. He is a killer.
And he is mine. He is my responsibility.
My hand, the one that isn't tangled in my hair, clenches into a fist at my side. A small, hard knot of resolve.
Threk looks down at me. The red haze in his eyes recedes, replaced by that familiar, burning, possessive focus. He is watching me. Waiting for my command. My anchor.
I take a breath of the smoke-filled air.
"We'll go."
9
BETTY
The hovel door clicks shut, a sound no louder than a sigh.
It is the softest, most final sound I have ever heard.
The predawn air is a blade in my lungs, so cold it feels like breathing in powdered glass. My small pack is a pathetic weight on my back: a half-loaf of stale bread, a skin of water that is already starting to freeze, my father’s old skinning knife, and the small wooden star I’d dropped, now tucked deep in my pocket.
It is not enough. It is not enough for me, let alone for him.
Threk stands beside me, a mountain of shadow in the blue-gray dark. He wears no pack. He is the pack. He is the weapon. He turns his massive head, and his red eyes glow, cutting through the gloom.
No one is here to see us go. The village is silent, huddled, and afraid. Hiding from the monster I have saved. Hiding from me.
