“Oh my god, what the hell, Jesus Christ!” Eli yelled. By now, the plumes were peeking from the tops of the trees. They had just escaped a blanket of fire and smoke, streaks of light slipping through the branches.

Lost in the shuffle of the woods, Eli and the priest Mara were alone, though screams were still close enough to hear. He stopped, and she grabbed his arm.

“We must flee!” Mara tried to drag Eli, but he was stuck and inconsolable. “Now!”

“There are kids in there. Fucking kids!” He yelled. He misjudged his strength and pushed her, sending her flying several feet. “We can’t leave them. We have to do something.”

Mara got to her feet and sprinted to his side. “We must go, Eli. We must flee now!”

“We have to help them!”

“Damn your pleas, boy. If you have a plan to help them, then do it! Help them! But I am not stupid enough to believe we do. Your magic can hardly control itself, and if you believe with that paltry might you can take on a company of Medicalers, then you simply add to the bodies! Do not kill yourself to save women and children who will soon die, or you will be a bigger fool than I once believed.”

He snarled at her. The blaze reflected in his eyes and gave him a bestial quality. “You’re telling me to ignore the murder of women and children?!”

She grabbed his face, and her fingers dug deep into his cheeks. “I am not so cruel to tell you to turn away at injustice, but you must have your wits about you." She pointed at the fires but never broke eye contact. "Seek revenge, boy. Train yourself to seek and savour it, and sharpen that rage into ability, the ability to pierce your foes. Do you hear me? They know the way to Aura. Those who can escape the Medicalers will find a place at the fort; there are friends there. And those who cannot… are already lost, and we cannot save them.”

Eli could feel her fingers clawing into his face, but he also felt them shaking. Whether it was intentional or not, he didn't know. It didn't matter. The trembling softened his rage. “I…I don’t want to leave them behind,” Eli eeked out a reply. “I know I don’t know them, and I'm not strong enough, but I can’t just….”

“Then bottle it, let it rumble and roil and steam and fester and then, only when you are ready, come back with a real fury. Surely you can do at least that.” Mara's voice turned into a whisper.

They could hear the embers getting closer, the shadows growing deeper and longer.

His fists weakened. Strength left his arms. He burned the memory of Ilma into his mind, nodded, and followed Mara out.

They ran as long as they could. Mara stumbled quite a bit, and Eli would backtrack to carry her up. At times, the blaze would seem bright - horribly bright - and it seemed it was all over.

Soon they crossed a shallow and wide creek, and, at last, the merciful splashes of water drowned out the sound of roaring embers. It gave them the distance they needed, for they never stopped running. Eventually, they found a way out of the forest, and the fire and soot melted into speckles of red and orange on the horizon.

The two rested on a meadow of tall grass. Unable to sleep, they sat there, quiet and awkward, only for the silence to be punctuated by hissing breaths and dry coughs. At times, Eli's eyes darted back to the forest, but Mara sat still and silent. Her hands on her cross-legged knees, she scanned the darkness, but whether she was looking for something or someone, she never said.

When the fire seemed to recede, she permitted herself to bury her face in her hands. He heard through gritted teeth a muffled wail, a prayer of abject misery to be carried on cold, uncaring winds.

He was hesitant at first, but he soon placed his hands on her shoulder. With all his awkward earnestness, he wrapped his arms around her. Her screaming grew louder, and his grip grew tighter.

***

It wasn't clear how much Mara had calmed down that night, but she was calm enough to scout their surroundings. The tall grass tickled, brushed, and tugged against her cloak. She sighed. She returned to Eli and sighed again, loud enough for him to hear. “We’re taking the coast. The Winding Road from Aura to Loweight is too far west.” From her hand, Mara let drip a slender tendril of blood, viscous and thick like honey, and fashioned it into a crystalline razor. She hacked away at the bottom skirt of her robes, leaving it knee-high and her legs exposed. She took the remains of her skirt and fashioned an ascot around her neck, covering the glint of red on her spine.

Eli tried to listen for the sound of water. “Are we near the coast?”

“No, but come daybreak, I can gauge the landscape better, and if we move east, we’ll find the coast. And then, we follow the coastline south to Loweight. It’s not the fastest route, but it’s safer than risking west. Liassus told us to move to Loweight, and that’ll take two weeks by foot. Water will hold us for a little bit, but we’ll need to hunt once blood runs out.” She stared at Eli’s flask. “Well, at least I will; you’ll be fine.”

“Me?”

“Last time you mealed should’ve tided you over. I’ve not been so lucky.” Mara took the lead, her hand beckoning Eli to follow, which he did. “We’ll need to seek lodging somewhere - ”

“We’re not gonna attack them, are we?”

“What? No. No! No, well, let’s hope not.” She clicked her tongue. “I find bloodshed as abhorrent as you.”

"Oh, okay that's...wait, abhorrent as I? Like, me or the bloodshed?" He tried to crack a joke.

There was a glint in her eyes, followed by the shaking of her head. Eli couldn't help but smile, and he hoped that the night was dark enough she didn't see his idiotic grin.

They travelled along the West Siralian coast, a stretch of land that looked like God’s furrowed brows. There were few outcrops on the smooth, featureless beaches, hazy walls of pale blue meeting deeper shades of choking purple. This otherworldly moon cast lines on the night tides like white worms. The stench of seawater misted the air, forming droplets on spackled patches of waist-high grass. He didn’t mention it, but for Eli, he was glad to be out of Ilma, out of the endless trees. At Ilma, it was a hallway of straight, jutting pikes of ancient pine cresting at the tops with crowns of needled leaves. But now that they were out of the woods and on the coast, it was the opposite: painterly strokes of night-time water sloshed around glittering silt as cambers of tide-foam marched like legions. It was a cool night, so different from the hot and wavy air of Ilma.

It was also in this moonlight that he saw Mara. She didn't have the scowl that she had before. In fact, she had softened considerably. But it was not enough since her eyes, those brilliant amber-eyes whose golden sheen was still vivid in the darkness, seemed far off and tired. He paid little attention to it, at least for now.

By day, the pair trekked along the hot sands, the sun beating down on them while moonlight lit their nights. Neither of them stopped since neither of them gave up.

Yet, as days passed, it was clear that Mara’s breathing was becoming more and more laboured. For the most part, they didn’t speak; she kept a certain, awkward distance from him and an even more awkward vigil. She’d dash her stare at him now and then, but Eli didn't think it was shyness. She was casting a blank stare, a serious stare, a stare of a guard watching a prisoner. But it was strange; when Eli would falter, she'd tap his back and push him forward. Her little pushes always gave him the energy he needed to keep going. When they'd rest, he'd try to start a conversation, but her stare would always shut him up.

On one sunset, they reached a cape, and at its end, a farm. Hidden low in the grass, the two of them stayed still and quiet. Inky blots of people were in the distance, shuffling from the pens of loud animals and horses into a two-storied boathouse of straight buttresses and hay roofs. A few meters away was a barn, wide and tall with open doors and low, fenced pastures. Mara was eying the animals. “Do we have gold?” She asked Eli, her hands patting her clothes.

“I don’t have anything.” He patted his as well, in the off chance - strange off chance - that he had gold. "I don't have anything."

Mara sighed. "Do you think we can speak to them? Ask them to part with one animal? Something enough to drink."

"You want to drink blood from one of their farm animals?" Eli's eyes widened.

"My head is throbbing, and if I do not drink soon, then I will have to start finding something else, and if that is a person, then you are responsible for that."

"What if they say no?"

"Then we...you're right," She said with a nod. "We wait until night falls. We take one of their animals - you take an animal.” Her knuckles cracked. “And we go.”

“You want me to take an animal? Isn’t that stealing?”

“Of course it’s stealing, but I’d rather be a thief than dead, and unless you’ve got another answer for this blood-thirst, then this is our only option.”

“Damn it,” Eli said. “I don’t like this, not at all.”

“I understand, Eli, and if you’ve another plan, then go! Tell me!”

If the farmers said no, they'd have to steal it anyways. There was nothing else to hunt in the area, and it was better than attacking the family. “Okay, fine. But promise me something: we pay them back.” The two of them waited until midnight.

When the sun was finally down and the range was quiet, the two of them crept like rustlers over the fence. To their luck, they found a sheep sleeping by a tree, hooves kicking, dreaming. Eli shook his head, but Mara was too quick. She already conjured a knife, and in one quick motion, dug it deep into its neck and pushed the blade as deep as its spine. The throat gushed out jets of blood, and she hungrily lapped it up with loud, greedy smacks. Eli kept watch. The house was still dark. While Mara’s feed was loud enough to rustle some of the other sheep awake, it seemed nothing else was waking up.

“Mara, are you done?!” Eli asked, though she didn’t need to answer; the slurping was clear. Then, a gurgling trickle, like water filling a cup. She was filling her flask. Hands fumbling around for his, Eli gave it to her, and after she had her fill, she filled his.

It was so close; they were almost done, and then, meters away, the light of a pipe from the porch lit up a farmer’s sunken face and illuminated his weary sight. It took his eyes a few seconds to adjust to the darkness, but he eventually saw something by the tree. Two shadowy figures hunched over one of his sheep.

"Oy! Who goes there? Thieves!" He yelled. Before he could get his axe, they had already whisked off into the night. When he came across the body of his sheep with a lantern lit and an axe gripped, he could only stare with disturbed bewilderment at the sight.

***

Blood coursed through Eli. His smile was wide, and his fingers shook. “I didn’t think we’d become the chupacabra!” He laughed.

She smacked him. “You’re too loud.”

The two of them made enough distance from the farm. They were sitting on a seaside meadow, barely different from any stretch of coast before. His arms swayed like a child, the bangs of his now-unruly hair so low it kissed his cheeks. He tried to prop it up, but he found it difficult until Mara caught the bangs and tied most of it up with a strand of torn skirt.

“I’m sorry, sorry.” He took deep breaths. Since neither of them slept, there was little to do during the breaks. But tonight was different. Now and here, Mara had the energy - and spirit - to talk. “But…damn, damn. I feel really bad for that farmer. I feel really bad for the sheep.”

“Words full of remorse and a tone full of glee,” Mara said. “I thought you’d be fidgety, panicky, and unwilling to shut your mouth.”

His head fell. “Do I give that impression?”

“Well, you aren't as bad as they told me." At a shocked Eli, Mara smiled and nodded. "There’s little that doesn’t get passed around Ilma. The forest was secretive but the village was not.”

Eli nodded, opened his mouth, but then closed it.

Ilma. Ilma. Ilma. Even uttering that word was uncomfortable. The intruders turned a hamlet ringed by crisscrossing pylons into a charred pyre within hours. The screams, the running, the few survivors scattered into the blackness of the woods. They remembered streams of deep red flames and the pounding of drum-deep shields. They both heard how the footsteps of even leather greaves started sounding like the clicks of a hellish metronome.

But the silence - this silence - felt worse.

“Say, Mara, can I ask you a question?" He asked, and she nodded. "What brought you to Ilma? How’d she get you there? Where are you from?”

Mara’s eyes narrowed a bit. Even though it was the middle of the night, he could tell. But then, “How about a deal? You answer one of my questions, and I answer one of yours.”

“Okay, sure. Let’s do it.”

Without hesitation, “Tell me about this chupacabra.”

He laughed. He explained to her all he knew about the Mexican goat-sucker and its love for drinking the blood of livestock, how it was a problem for farmers, how their thievery was reminiscent of that, that they were strange creatures on the edges of civilization.

But before he could ask his, she had another. "Folktales of countries from another place." How strange, she must've thought. Another world, another place, so odd and fantastical as he must've found here. "What is it like?"

"Mexico?"

"The world you come from. How it fascinates me so. Is the feeling of grass on your feet or the taste of seawater in the air the same?" She wrapped her arms around her knees. "Is there the bite of spice and the warmth of ale?"

"There is."

"Is there war and misery? Misfortune and misconduct alike?"

"There is. People can and do die by hundreds, thousands, and millions." When Eli said that, Mara closed her eyes and whispered a silent prayer. "Weapons can kill hundreds, thousands, and millions at a time."

Mara looked into his eyes. "For a world with so much misery, you came out so soft and principled."

"Well, I grew up soft and principled, I guess."

"I'm glad you did. But, I believe it's time for you to ask me a question." She said, nodding slowly. When Eli stopped, she stretched and crossed her legs, leaning forward with her face resting on her hand.

Eli took a deep breath. "Where did you come from?"

Her brows raised. “I came from East Siral, across the Righteous Gulf. Anoria, they call it. We called it something else.”

“Who calls it Anoria?”

“The world. But, ever since the Clearfangs came in and…named a city after themselves, it’s been that and nothing else. I’m too young to remember even before it was called Anoria." Her fingers began to run along the blades of grass, plucking them at their stems. "But it was enough for us to remember it as something else. We heralded it as Vendrisse, it means "Lightbringer" in Old Siralian.

We didn’t want or agree to be part of Clearfang, so I was one of the malcontents thirsting for freedom. And as for how I met her, well, she came with a fury. An absolute fury.” Like Eli, Mara had a habit of peeling things away. Unlike his habit of picking apart weeds, she’d split the blades of grass and fail to make sounds out of them. “The Clearfang patriarch called her down. We’ve never fought Medicalers or the Ardalian army before and so it was a difficult time.

I remember her. I was tower watch when the armies camped outside of the walls. She was an absolute mess of a queen, a pockmarked woman, half-blind and scarred. I thought we were fighting a demon, a spawn of Ardal's cruel dungeons.” A small sound came from one of the blades. Mara proudly smiled. “But she wasn't a veteran or some skilled warrior. She wasn't very good at all.”

“So you guys beat her off? Like, repelled her?”

“I don't know if she was there to repel us. I don’t think they trusted her to expel us. Anoria is a city by the sea, and we’ve no ships aside from making deals with pirates or the League. God, what a stupid idea it was…to rebel with nowhere to go. And they send an idiot queen, and it worked.”

“How did it happen? How did they beat you?”

Mara shrugged. “They sent in a real general: Parasson, the Sheep-King. A wolf who deigns not to eat his flock but to rule them, and through discipline, his sheep are rams of buckling might. We didn’t have a chance once the Wentlaners came onto the scene with their armies. They took and restored Anoria, and all the glory went to Parasson. Liassus was only known as the fool's queen, a pitiful girl who tried to be this mighty general but failed. And, I fear, they knew she was going to fail, but she played her role regardless. Well, it didn't matter in some ways, since they left.”

“Left? Like, they spend all this time to take a city and then just go?”

"When the Clearfangs regained control, they hunted us down. I was lucky to survive in the arms of the Canticula, and I thought through penitence I could find solace. But a year later, Liassus came to me. She was different; she wasn’t scarred, mutilated, nothing monstrous. She came back taller and brighter, and she came back alone. She had a head of brilliant red hair, which I don't remember it being so. She tells me, ‘I’m making an army.’"

Before Mara said anything after this, a wide grin appeared on her face, "And I tell her no. I wasn't as pleasant, but no.” She laughed, and for a moment, Eli couldn’t take his eyes off her. “She returns another year, promising me she won’t be leading the army. Reveals her plan, how I was right all along, that Anoria shouldn’t have been abandoned to the Clearfangs. I thought, 'oh, she learned, she's learning, and anyone this persistent must mean it when they say this. She could have killed me, imprisoned me, but she wanted my help.' And I bought it. All of it, and by the time this orb is in my neck, it was too late. Now, the only thing that matters is making sure her vision is true because I can’t go back now.” Her reeds broke.

Eli paused, taking it all in. Mara didn’t break eye contact with him but instead, like Pernus, kept her eyes on him. “How much of that is true?” Eli asked.

Mara broke into a smile. “I can’t say,” She whispered. “But it's my turn: being in this world for a while now, what do you miss the most?”

Eli’s brows raised. He wasn’t hungry anymore. He didn’t defecate. He didn’t sleep. He didn’t have much of the usual pangs of humanity ever since that orb became stuck in his neck and infected his brain.

Except one. One last strange string of humanity. “Sex,” He blurted and expected a disgusted groan from Mara. She gave him a blank stare, a dead stare like she hadn’t expected much. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have mentioned it - ”

“No, no. I asked you, and you answered me truthfully,” she shrugged. “So, how bad is it?”

“It’s not bad, and it's not a big deal.”

“…What about now?”

“What? No, no, I swear - ”

A mischievous grin flashed across her face. “If you need my help, I am always willing.”

“I’m really - wait, what do you mean? Like, do you mean it?”

“Of course.” She stretched, and for the first time, Eli felt conscious about it. He felt something about the moonlight softly brightening her curves, and how under the stars, the two of them saw each other enough. Just enough.

He shuffled to attention, but she raised her hand. “But I want you to do something for me first,” She said. Her fingers ran down her legs. Eli never noticed how smooth they were. She wrapped one of the laces of her boots around her ring finger. “You must massage my feet to completion and my satisfaction before I will even touch you.”

“Absolutely, yes, wanna do it now?” His heart was pumping. She nodded. She slowly took off her boots, her eyes locked with his. She slid down her hosen, and Eli, hands sweating, came across her feet.

Then, a loud pop. And then, the smell.

A putrid smell, a noxious smell, a smell of retch-inducing power so sharp that he pulled back, stinging his nostrils like a strike harder than anything he’s ever been hit by. He shook his head, unable to stifle a burn that crawled into his brain and dug deep with its talons.

Mara threw her big wooden toe at him, specks of dried and dead flesh sticking to mouldy wood like cobwebs. Eli dropped them and saw - even in the night - the wriggling mass of melted skin and bone. “Come, boy!” Mara yelled at him, a smile wider than any she’d shown him before. “Come massage my feet! Tend to me!”

“No, no, I’m okay, I’m not in the mood anymore - ” He almost retched.

She pressed him. “Didn’t you want my body, Eli? If so, then take it, take all of it, but it begins at my feet!”

“No, it's okay. Besides, I have a fiancee - ” He stopped himself right there.

His eyes shot to Mara. His shoulders slumped. She patted his defeated back.

Pat. He forgot about Pat. Worse, he almost betrayed her.

Eli couldn’t wait to get to Loweight.