There was no hope. I couldn’t think of anything. Fire magic didn’t work, motion magic didn’t work, even freezing the monster in place only bought us a couple of minutes. My arms were aching, blood and sweat kept getting in my eyes, and the pain in my head was beating on my brain like a war drum directing me to wave the white flag.

My clothes felt heavy. They were drenched with water from the stream and sweat from my tired body. Noel sat besides me, panting as heavily as I was. Her body was battered and bloody, too. I was sure her mind was as messed up as mine was. There was no way either of us were going to be able to cast a single bit of magic, let alone something that could get us out of this mess.

The Farro Bird trudged over to us, leaving scorched talon-marks on the ground. It wanted to get close so I couldn’t put out its flame with motionless magic, like last time. It didn’t need to bother, though, since I was too tired to cast it anyway. Its feathers perked up, like a peacock unfurling its plumage. I could see the muscles underneath, and they were massive and taut. Embers and sparks appeared around it like before. The red star glistened.

As the monster stood menacingly right in front of us, I couldn’t help but chuckle. How in the world had I convinced myself I could fight this thing? Why did Noel and I spend so much time practicing magic if the battle was going to be so one-sided? I kept thinking about other things we could have done. We could have learned water magic, maybe water could beat fire? No, we wouldn’t have been good enough to beat this thing. What if we had focused more on improving our own bodies? Being faster, stronger, tougher might have helped us survive a little longer. No, this thing was a tank, it would roll over tiny elves like us no matter how many push-ups we did.

We should have listened to the Oracle and ran away. I still didn’t trust her, especially because she wanted us to go to the cave of the Terrible before we went to the highlands, but she was right. We couldn’t fight this thing. Even if Noel and I had taught our magic to all the other elves and practiced together. Even if we had come with an escort or a hunting party, this monster would have turned us all into barbecue. In fact, the difference between us was so massive, the question that came to my mind as I sat on the verge of death, was a rather surprising one:

Why didn’t this monster fly into our camp and crush us all days ago?

It clearly could have done so and it wasn’t afraid of fire like the other monsters were, so it had nothing to fear from our camp. If food was scarce and the elves were easy prey, why hadn’t it gone for us? Especially if it knew Noel and I were the ones who burnt it in the first place. I doubt it felt any gratitude towards me for having apparently awakened it as a starred monster!

The monster leaned over us, opened its mouth, and prepared its fire-breath once again. Noel and I couldn’t move, and my mind was so tired it had wandered all over the place as if it was preparing to replay my whole life in front of me. Would my previous life also flash before my eyes or would I only get to see everything that happened since Noel found me in a pond in the Forest of Three? Either way, time seemed to slow down as the end approached. I almost wanted it to speed up to get it over with quickly and painlessly.

The monster’s eyes flit to the side as a shadow appeared overhead. The shadow brought his hand back, readying to launch a familiar wooden weapon. The flames in the Farro Bird’s mouth spilled out as it moved to attack the shadow, but the shadow was quicker by a hair’s breadth. The Dragon’s Tooth whistled through the air and skewered the starred monster’s second eye.

Sharun dropped to the ground next to us, his tunic burned in places. His torn ear and scarred chest made him look grizzled but powerful against the backdrop of the sea of flames. The monster thrashed about, drowning the world in its screams. Sharun ran up to it, his legs stomping on the earth, leaving naked prints of his feet behind him. He jumped up, grabbed the Dragon’s Tooth from the monster’s thrashing body, and wrenched it clean with a fountain of blood.

The monster’s wails were overpowering. Sharun rolled to the side, deftly dodging the razor sharp talons that wrenched open the earth where he had been standing. Fire spewed out from the monster’s beak for a little bit, but it began to sputter, falter, and fade. The embers on its body winked out of existence. The red star on its forehead flashed brightly just once, more chaotic and wild than ever, before dimming forever.

The starred Farro Bird slumped against a smoldering pile of charcoal that had once been a tree trunk. A spark fell on the monster’s body and its feathers caught on fire. The forest around us began to close in with its flames as an unbearable heat filled the air. Sharun grasped the Dragon’s Tooth and ran back to us. As my vision swam amongst the flames and fatigue, I felt a strong arm pull me up from below my armpits. I was plopped on a hard shoulder, soot and sweat filling my nostrils, as the ground beneath me swayed and I blacked out.

---

I woke up with a headache. I put a hand to my forehead and felt something gritty rub against my skin. I had something on my hand. I brought my hand in front of my eyes and saw that it was charred black with ash. Everything that had happened rushed into my head.

Sharun! He rescued us!

I tried to sit up, but my body was sore all over. My throat was so dry I couldn’t even speak up. I could only croak lamely like a toad. Something rustled behind me after I made that lame sound. Sharun appeared in my vision, with a small hollowed gourd in his hand. He brought the gourd to my mouth and I sipped the water inside. My throat felt a little better but I still couldn’t get up.

“You are lucky,” said Sharun as he moved to the side. From the soft sipping noises I heard, I assumed he was giving Noel something to drink. “I heard Noel’s scream while out scouting for the starred monster. If I hadn’t left the rest of my party behind, little Caspian would’ve been skewered on a bird beak.”

“Thank you,” I managed to say. I heard a garbled noise that was Noel’s attempt to say the same.

Sharun nursed us in silence for a little bit. “That thing was terrifying,” he said. “If it hadn’t been distracted and injured in one eye, it would have seen me coming from miles away. I only managed to kill it because I came in from its blind side.”

At least our magic training hadn’t been completely useless then, I thought to myself. If we had managed to pull off our original plan of revealing our magic to the elves and forming a hunting party, we wouldn’t have had as miserable a fight as we ended up having. I quickly countered my hubris by admitting that this plan would have led to a lot of casualties. Noel and I had only been able to dodge the starred Farro Bird’s attack because we were small and could jump behind trees or into the underbrush. We’d underestimated the monster’s speed and power, and overestimated our own. And we almost paid the ultimate price for our mistake.

“I don’t think I can heal your injuries on my own,” said Sharun. “We are halfway to the Oracle’s haunt. I’ll take you to her, she has amazing healing powers.”

My aching mind started racing. I couldn’t let him take us to the Oracle or he’d find out we were lying about working with the Oracle! The fight with the one star monster had made it painfully obvious we weren’t powerful enough to oppose the Oracle yet.

“You can’t,” I said, weakly. “The Oracle is resting. She helped us prepare for the fight against the monster. I think she knew we would defeat it, even if she didn’t know it would be because you came to rescue us.”

Since we’d been using the Oracle’s name to get away with our magic training anyway, why not keep going? It made sense that she would have to pay some sort of price to predict the future in such a specific way, otherwise she would be able to predict everything and the elves would never face any problems at all.

“I see,” said Sharun, slowly. “So it was the Oracle who gave you the power to use magic, after all.”