Chapter Text
Prologue
I ran until I lost track of where I was. I had learned my way around most of Seheron while I’d lived with the fog warriors, but the jungle had a way of getting me turned around, especially at night. All the leaves and vines blended into a mass of shadows with no forms so distinct as to serve as landmarks. Worse yet, the sky was masked with thick clouds and rain poured down in sheets, drowning out any sounds that might have guided my way.
Not that I had a destination in mind. My companions were dead and I would never return to Danarius. The image of their corpses burned in my mind, but I knew I couldn’t dwell on it now. I was armed, of course, but the jungle was still dangerous. If the wrong predator ambushed me, I’d still be vulnerable, but between the dark and the storm, I might not see an animal in time.
That was why I spun so quickly when something stirred the leaves to my right. From the height of the movement, I expected a leopard or perhaps a tiger, but instead a woman emerged, standing to her full height. The shape I had seen did not make sense, given her proportions, but I dismissed the discrepancy as my mistake. It was difficult to see her clearly even when she stepped out of the foliage; I did not want to believe that this woman was a mage or something worse while I was so vulnerable.
Though she was not ugly, nor were her looks stunning. A thick mane of waist-length black hair and a dark, tattered tunic veiled a tall but stocky human figure. I noted her visible lack of shoes and weapons more than her pale eyes, though the latter seemed quite striking in the dim light.
“That magister is after you, isn’t he?” She nodded, presumably towards where I had left Danarius.
I tightened my grip on my sword; I would not hesitate to kill an unarmed woman if she proved to be a threat. Although I did not know for certain, if she acted so calm alone, in the wilderness, she was probably more dangerous than she appeared. Probably a witch.
“I don’t see why that’s any of your business.”
The woman grinned and stalked further out of the foliage, circling me for a few feet so as not to move within range of my sword. I noticed as she walked that her left leg moved stiffly and she had a slight limp. A flash of lightning showed that the knee was gnarled and scarred, but somehow she seemed no less dangerous despite the wound. “I mean you no harm. If you’re being hunted, you cannot stay here— for your sake as much as mine. I have coin, I can barter passage South, and I can get us to a ship.” She turned to pace in the opposite direction and stumbled on her bad leg, leaning against a tree for a moment to recover.
It didn’t sound like she planned to do this out of kindness. “Why do you want to help me?”
The woman rubbed her sore leg as she replied, “I can’t do this alone. There are those who might recognize me— not that you are particularly nondescript, but I don’t wish my journey to be easily traceable. You cannot avoid that.”
“You think that I am too dim-witted to disguise myself?”
“No,” the woman explained quickly, “I just meant that you do not have the skills that I do. We both need to leave this island and we need each other’s help to do so; will you help me?”
I stayed silent for several seconds as the woman regained her footing and squeezed some water out of her mass of hair. I did need to leave Seheron, and I did not have the funds to barter passage right now. Whatever the danger she posed, she was right, and I had few options right now.
“Fine. I will arrange passage for both of us if you can fund it and guide me to a port.”
Grinning, the woman tossed me a coin purse from her pocket. “I’ll do one better. I know a ship within a day’s walk. It leaves tomorrow.”
Before I could reply, she had changed. She was indeed a mage, my suspicion had been correct. Where the woman had stood, there was now a large grey cat with the same now more natural-looking pale eyes.