Chapter Index

Chapter 1: Bluff

It wasn't the sort of place that she normally found herself, nor was it the sort of place that she was supposed to be anywhere near to begin with.

Branches slumped over the crumbled wall before her like tired, overworked men. Cracked bricks peeked through snarls of dark green, stubborn bits of the dilapidated wall showing through.

She walked carefully, mindful of the prickly grass high enough to poke her knees. If she kicked hard enough, she'd see clouds of red dust billow between the blades.

Put up after somebody else's war and neglected once those sides had reconciled, the wall had been left to the whim of the elements. They didn't need it anymore, so why maintain it?

What had once been an impressive imposition, something that could function as a blockade stretching wide and far, was now a pathetic pile of bricks that nature was in the midst of digesting.

Swallowed up by nature, it was a border known more by name than anything else.

Shreya knew it best by the sharp warnings her mother Pravaah gave her about it. Don't go near there. I better not catch you near the border. You remember what happened to your sister, don't you?

Shreya remembered the fat lip Shanti got for that better than her sister did. Then again, Shanti had a tendency to conveniently forget anything that got in the way of her having fun. Punishments didn't work on her.

Shreya, like others of her kind, was expected to stay on their side of the border. Few were brave enough (or careless enough, in Shanti's case) to cross it alone.

Although a nonaggression treaty existed between her people, the Marjani, and the humans of nearby Stockbrunn, there wasn't much trust in it. Humans were notorious for going back on their word.

...which was why she wished she'd brought a knife with her. All she had was the dried gourd she kept her water in, the one with her father's etchings carved into it.

Shreya hadn't exactly prepared for this border-hopping trip. She'd pulled a Shanti—got angry, said damn-it-all to the consequences, and did something she was probably going to regret later.

It was one of Pravaah's rants that drove her here. She'd been talking on and on about how it felt like Shreya was some place else lately, like she was floating away without her body.

If that sort of thing could happen, then, believe her, Shreya would let it. She'd float up into the clouds and never come back. She'd give nothing more than to be away from Pravaah, away from the other Marjani wolves, and away from what they were and who she was. Things weren't that easy.

Knowing her luck, even if it were possible, she'd probably get tangled up in a tree on the way up and never reach the sky.

Her wolven ears laid flat to her skull, hidden beneath her cap. The flaps on the side of it were long enough to reach her jawline, a string dangling from each one. Her dark, thick hair was just long enough to go past her chin, flipping outwards slightly from its volume.

Over her shoulders, she wore a deer-pelt cape to further protect her from the wind. From what the Marjani Elders were saying, they were on the edge of a cold season.

It wasn't until she made it out of the tall grass that she stopped moving. She took in the sights. Tall trees, some with branches knotted together, others reaching out to the sky. Trampled plants. Bushes stripped of their fruits. The tiny bones of an animal, picked clean.

Her ears picked up on flapping wings, no doubt belonging to the scavenger that finished off the animal.

A path of dirt and gravel stretched leftwards and rightwards, cutting through the woods. Where it'd take her was Shreya's guess. It didn't matter to her.

She knew her fit of rebellion was going to end here, with her doing nothing more than just standing in a spot where she wasn't supposed to be.

So much for that consequences-be-damned rebellion that she was going for. Too much of her anger had faded, leaving her in her natural state.

She could hear her sister's chiding already. You hopped the border and only rubbed your shoes in the dirt? You're pathetic! Who does that?! There was enough material in that to keep Shanti laughing for weeks.

Doing anything more than messing with the dirt would be risky. Standing in the path was more than enough of a risk. Anything could happen, and there wouldn't be anyone around to save her.

That's why she was doing her best to ignore the body laid out prone, face-down in the path. She tuned in to the soft sound of breathing. Whoever it was was alive. Unconscious, but alive.

She didn't need to get herself involved in whatever had happened. It had nothing to do with her. What Shreya needed to do was tip-toe out of there. Someone else would have to be that person's hero. She needed to go home and get an earful from both her mother and sister, and go back to her every day life.

But what if something bad happened because she left this person in the woods? Clad in a red cloak, the passed-out human girl was a clear target.

Any animal could come by and take her, and it'd sort of be Shreya's fault in an indirect way. Shreya would be the last one to see her alive. If that was going to happen, Shreya didn't want anything to do with it. Let it be known that she tried, and didn't give this human up as a forest buffet.

"Hey! Wake up!" Shreya cupped her hands around her mouth. "You can't sleep—oh, um," she realized mid-sentence that she needed to speak in a language the other girl could actually understand. She switched over into the Casternian Common language, the words feeling clunky and unnatural in her mouth. "Up, please. You can't be here."

To her surprise, that's all it took to get the girl to roll over, finally awake. Her face was dirty, no doubt from face-planting to the ground. The otherwise clean dress she wore had a streak of dirt smeared down the front. Sweat painted her chestnut brown bangs to her forehead, the rest of her neck-length hair sticking out in multiple directions.

From what Shreya guessed, this girl had been running, and running hard. The girl's wide-eyed stare further tipped Shreya off that this girl didn't belong in this part of the woods as much as she didn't.

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A/N: This is an interactive fantasy serial. Voting takes place on Thursdays through Sundays on the story's main site. The most up-to-date chapters can also be found there, but uploading will happen in parts on RRL as well.