RYSON WATCHED AS Alina flattened her hand against the door outside her cottage, facing the road behind her with a mischievous smile. She gripped the brown sackcloth she wore, the fabric a perfect complement to her tanned skin and dark hair. With her back pressed against the door, she slid down into a sitting position. It were as if she were guarding the exit, the Veilin asleep inside. Alina said nothing to Ryson but made the silence painful as she picked away at the long locks of matted hair resting over her shoulders.

Ryson hadn't seen Alina in decades, and she'd said little when he'd appeared at her doorstep at sunrise, a Veilin slung over his shoulders. Alina had first thought that the girl was a peace offering, and despite him telling her otherwise, she had become transfixed with her anyway.

"This is quite an interesting predicament." Alina's words brimmed with a level of speculation that was unbecoming of the child she appeared to be. Of all the forms she could've taken, she had the nerve to stuff all of her guiles and scheming into something so small.

"Not as interesting as you think, I'm sure," Ryson replied from beside her. He rested against the outer wall of Alina's clay cottage, his arms folded. From such a point, one could look out at the destitute city and its dry, crumbling walls. Huts of the homeless and impoverished huddled close. Alina had no doubt chosen this cottage for its proximity to pain and desolation.

Of the three human cities spanning across the continent of Shambelin, Virday had experienced the most decline. Decline seemed to be everywhere these days, so much so that it was often simply referred to as The Decline by the collective population. Humanity was gasping for its last breaths, dying for some glimpse of a brighter future. It was a long death, two centuries in the making since the forest beasts had first appeared. There was perhaps another century or two left before extinction, but all living things seemed to sense its approach, like the earth was tilting down under their feet.

"Judging from the crest on her wrist, she's the princess of Loda," Alina said. "She's in the wrong city. Better yet, she was running away from this city—from humans who should have been protecting her. Something is wrong."

"There could be a thousand explanations, none of them scandalous," Ryson lied almost on reflex. The last thing he wanted was for her to latch on to a scandal. She'd never let go until she unraveled it. The cost never mattered.

"Of course not," Alina replied, rolling her eyes as she threw her arms out. "She was escaping back to Loda! It's obvious!"

"She was disoriented. The forest does that to people. She probably thought she was running toward this city," he argued back, stiffly.

"Why would she have left Virday in the first place?" Alina huffed, clearly frustrated by his reluctance to conspire with her. "You said she was alone. Why would Veilin royalty be alone in the forest running away from safety? Something is wrong. That's why you couldn't help but save her, right? You want to know." Alina searched his face for a glint of emotion that might support her claim.

He couldn't tell if she'd succeeded; he remained locked in place, unwilling to reveal any sign that she was right.

She looked back at the ground, curling her bare toes in the dirt playfully. "Don't even try and stifle that desire now and tell me you did it out of compassion." She grimaced as if the word tasted sour.

"And what if I did?" Ryson attempted to deter her attention from the princess.

Alina gazed up at him with dark-brown eyes that always saw more than he wanted. Even though his were bandaged, he felt inclined to look away. His cloak and coverings couldn't hide him from her, though they made him a faceless shadow to everyone else. It had been months since he'd even seen his own reflection, but in Alina's eyes he was painfully aware that he had one.

Her expression softened like she'd found what she'd been looking for. Her face rounded with a smile. "It's in your dark nature to be curious. The more you know, the more control you have, and control feels so divine." She clenched her fists and shivered in excitement. "Oh, Ryson." She reached out and stroked his sleeve. "You'll never have to hide that part of yourself from me."

He knew better than to think the words were meant to comfort him. She was rubbing salt in his wounds.

"I brought the girl here so that she could rest and then leave. I don't want anyone to know we had anything to do with her," Ryson said, now trying to distract Alina's focus from himself. It seemed his plan to bring the Veilin here was already backfiring. Alina had welcomed him with open arms, but now she was ceaselessly spinning webs.

"Ugh! What pleasure is there in that?" she whined, dragging her hands down over her face before crossing her arms in defiance.

The switch was sudden, like she had forgotten to discuss him at all. He thanked the darkness for her unstable mind.

"You can't take this opportunity away from me! These past years in hiding have been much too boring. I need a mystery to solve, a game to play, a story to tell!" She threw her hands up as she exclaimed, "Oh, I need something! Life is simply too dull here—terribly dull! I don't even have to use all of my fingers to count the things I do every day"—she pointed to the severed appendages on her left hand—"and I only have seven!" She mentioned her missing fingers casually, as if he hadn't been the one to cut them off.

"Things have changed, and we must adapt like everything else," Ryson replied, urging Alina into some sense of normalcy, despite the fact that she was far from it. He could tell that her human container was tearing at the seams, and from it dripped something unnatural and distorted. He was assessing her, reading her, gauging what lingering power remained in that tiny, deceptive frame.

"We were never meant to adapt; you and I are different from the rest," she whined, gripping the neckline of her dress. When he didn't reply, she pressed her back to the wall and folded her arms again. "People's fears have long forgotten us. I refuse to rot from existence!"

"People have plenty of other things to be afraid of these days. Being something frightening hardly makes you an object of worship." Ryson looked out at the woods beyond the walls. He wondered how long it would be before the entire world just looked like those woods. The trees crowded around the city like they were begging to come in. "Refrain from sticking your nose into trouble or else the Veilin will see through your guise. I doubt you want to flee for your life again."

"Oh, don't mock me! You treat me as if I don't even know why you're here. You think I'm a fool?" She laughed, nudging him with her elbow. "There's only one way for either of us to settle down, and it isn't living quietly in some pitiful human city." Launching her body off the wall, she danced into the street, her fingers pinching the end of her dress. She swirled around, her eyes closed, face lifted to the sky like she were enjoying the sun. "Oh, Ryson, we've known each other too long."

Ryson didn't respond, and the silence grew thick between them. The bustle of rattling carts and beckoning salesmen seemed to fall still in the distance.

"You're running out of power and you want to use what's left to kill me," she said, opening her eyes and releasing her dress. "You want to put me out of my misery—free me from my insanity." She returned to the shadows, each step dainty, and practiced as if she were dancing. She whirled around and pressed her back against the cottage so that she faced the city. "Every day, you grow weaker. I can already tell you what you're trying to figure out right now. You don't have the strength to finish me off, trust me."

He felt like a statue under the sun, and somehow, her words unraveled something in him. Looking out at the city, struggling on, his sense of age extended far beyond the reach of his memories, and he felt as old as the world itself. "I'm tired, Alina. This entire world is tired. Do you really want to keep living?"

"You're lucky." She allowed her words to hang on the tension between them. "Life has become a bore. I'll die with you, but now that I have you, I might as well make good use of you. It would be a shame for me not to get a final laugh out of this dreary life before I kiss it goodbye." She watched him with a glint in her eyes. "How about I make you a deal?"

* * *

Clea sat on the edge of the straw bed, staring down at her bare feet in the dirt. She combed her fingertips through her hair, pressing them against her scalp to restrain her wild flurry of thoughts. She didn't know where she was in the city, but it didn't matter. The familiar stench of rot and smoke filled her nostrils. The blinding sunlight depressed her, flickering into the room as hot breezes waved tattered rags nailed over the clay windows.

She'd been saved miraculously, but she wasn't happy to be back in Virday. This place had become as much a prison as it had once been a home. In the wake of last night's terrors, every sign of the city was only a reminder that today she'd have to try to escape all over again.

Clea winced as she turned on the bed, her back facing the door as she tested the mobility of her bandaged arm. The claw marks would only be scars by the afternoon, and soon those would be gone too. Rapid healing was a benefit of the energy in her blood, or ansra, as Veilin called it. It was a miraculous thing, but a bit less miraculous now. Her blunted energy had dramatically slowed her rate of healing.

Her hand felt for the silver chain around her neck, tracing it under the hem of her shirt until she clasped the cold medallion against her chest. Tendrils of darkness pulsed from it, eager to slip through her fingers. Glancing back at the door, she pulled it out onto her palm, tracing the intricate silver designs that framed a deep, black jewel.

It was the Deadlock Medallion, a scourge from centuries past. With mysterious origins but a deadly legacy, it was one of the few cien objects still in existence.

Cien was the perversion of the benevolent ansra energy that gave a Veilin's skin its luminance and fueled their life force. The two energies had manifested when forest beasts first appeared, and continued to fuel humanity's struggle today. Cien was what infected the forest. It accumulated around tragedy and suffering, whispered dark deeds to hurting people, and inspired violence and hatred.

Clea traced her thumb over the medallion and created a cage with her fingers, channeling ansra through her palms. A flickering orb of light manifested around it. The medallion levitated in her palm, repelled on all sides by the ansra she channeled to repair the seal on its influence.

She was already drained of energy, and the effort made her so lightheaded she caught herself against the bed, crumpling when her wounded arm buckled under her. The medallion slipped back into her shirt as she rubbed the sweat from her forehead and steadied her breathing.

She had to get the medallion out of the city. It had taken most of her energy to place a seal around it, and already the seal had broken down. She didn't have enough energy to repair it.

"Feeling any better?" a girl's voice sounded from the door as it opened.

Clea pushed herself up to face her young caretaker. A new figure stood in the background, a shadow against the clay wall. Clea remembered that someone had carried her last night; she'd woken up just long enough from her exhaustion to recognize that she'd been saved. Had this man been her savior?

Inspection of his appearance revealed little about him beyond the fact that he wanted little revealed. A black hood shadowed his face, and a strip of cloth covered his eyes. Ash-dusted bandages concealed his hands. He appeared to be of a strong and nimble figure, judging by his shoulders, but she could scarcely tell beneath the cloak he wore.

"Thank you for saving me," Clea replied, examining the dark-haired child who looked to be about the age of nine. She was dainty and beautiful and perhaps in all traditional ways should have been delightful, but there was a strangeness about her Clea couldn't place.

The girl gave her a polite smile and a curtsy as she picked up the edges of her sackcloth dress. "My name is Alina. I am pleased to make your acquaintance. What is your name?"

"Clea," Clea replied, pleased that Alina didn't recognize her. Veilin had a tendency to gain some celebrity in their respective cities. Clea had mostly kept to herself while in Virday, but that never stopped chatter.

"I don't know what would have happened to me without your help," Clea added, stealing another glance at the cloaked figure near the door.

"It is a Kalex's honor to assist the Veilin warriors," Alina said. "The survival of civilization does rest on your shoulders, they say. It's a heavy burden."

The acknowledgement of Clea's duties as a Veilin felt strange and ill-fitting, especially since Alina also admitted to being a Kalex. "Kalex" was generally a bucket term for anything that was close to human, and Veilin and Kalex had a history wrought with friction. Kalex were illegal in Clea's home city of Loda.

"I hope you don't mind staying here for a short while," Alina chirped, hands folded politely in front of her. "I know it's filthy, but I will pass along news that you're here. You deserve a better resting place."

"No," Clea said more forcefully than she'd intended. She regretted her tone of voice once she saw the shock register on Alina's face. "I'll do it myself."

Alina smiled. "Oh, please, it's no trouble. Ryson can have the king's soldiers here in minutes." She turned to the man near the door. "Ryson!"

"No, please!" Clea pleaded.

Alina spun toward her, startled. "The royal families are all Veilin, aren't they? I'm sure you've been acquainted. It isn't good for you to associate with those of bad birth. We're forbidden to ask about your business, but based on your journey last night, you must be in need of help."

Bad birth. Clea paused at the term. It was typically used as a derogatory term for Kalex, based on the superstition that they were tainted by evils done around the time and place of their birth. Kalex could be human born, but such births only happened around a death or tragedy. Higher rates of poverty, theft, and murder in Virday meant that one in every six children born to a human couple had the chance of having a Kaletik mutation. The rates would be at risk of increasing even further if The Decline continued.

That said, Kalex never referred to themselves as "badly born." Veilin had created that term decades ago, and seldom used it now.

"It's..." Clea hesitated, getting the sense that this girl was toying with her. "It's complicated." The nagging feelings of Alina's strangeness evolved, and every second changed Alina more from a little girl to something like a puppet or marionette, with lifeless movement. She found herself convinced that she was watching the performance of an object, and continued to sift through the feelings, searching for a threat.

"I see." Alina's voice jerked Clea back from the thought. "Your accent is Lodain. You were running away from Virday. Do you need to go back to Loda?"

Clea nodded, trying to pull herself back to normalcy. The more she tried to tap into her Veilin senses, the more her head throbbed. Not only was Clea drained of ansra, but the medallion seemed to be interfering with her ability to recover. She lifted a hand to her temple.

Alina continued on as if she hadn't noticed the change in Clea's demeanor. "Then we can help you," she said, swaying back and forth with her hands in her lap. "We will return you to Loda."

Clea's thoughts lapsed entirely at the girl's proposal. It took her a moment to recognize that she wasn't being mocked. Her eyes flickered from Alina to Ryson, and she released any struggles to interpret her senses and centered her thoughts on the offer.

Watching this little girl now, moving and breathing with a timid expectancy in her eyes, Clea questioned her own sanity. How could she compare a young Kalex to something lifeless and malicious? A pang of guilt shot through her, and she wondered if her old Lodain biases were rearing their head again. She'd been raised to fear Kalex, to fear that she could be tainted by them. It was a common teaching in Loda that a Kalex's mutations were the result of cien, and thus meant they also had inborn deficits in character. Her experiences in Virday had proved her own prejudices to be entirely false.

Now, these two Kalex were offering to help. Their intentions would need to be her target of speculation next. They had managed to rescue her once and bring her all the way back here. Kalex had been known to venture out into the woods, less likely to be hunted by beasts than their human counterparts, but still. What were they doing all the way out there in the first place?

"How?" Clea asked, pressing up against her temple to pause her thoughts. She tried not to sound incredulous in her tone.

Alina thrust an eager finger in Ryson's direction. "Ryson will take you! He knows the woodlands better than any soldier. He is the one who saved you from it and was just on his way back from transporting someone else safely."

That confirmed Clea's suspicion that Ryson had saved her. She examined him, and got the sensation that he was doing the same despite his bandages. So, they were smugglers? It would explain how he managed to get her back into the city so easily, likely using some secret underpass.

It was clear that Ryson knew the forests, but she would have to be insane to agree to such a proposal with what little she knew. Then again, was this even a risk in comparison to the first attempt she'd braved? She was desperate and she sensed nothing malicious from either of them. Veilin could sense the cien that evil intentions invited. They both appeared to possess none, despite how unsettling Alina seemed.

"Of course, you would have to pay us in return." Alina interrupted her thoughts.

"I don't have money," Clea replied. No money, no security, and no way back to Loda. She tried to avoid swimming in the desperation that felt like it was pouring steadily into the room.

"Ryson can handle the costs when you arrive in Loda. I'm sure it won't be a problem then," Alina said, allowing her eyes to linger on Clea's tattoo. Clea turned her wrist over in her lap, realizing the mark was exposed.

In the ensuing silence, Alina added, "It is a game of trust. You can go with him, or you can go alone."

Clea nodded but didn't respond.

Alina stood up and brushed off the back of her sackcloth dress. "Ryson will take you to the market for supplies. You can sort your thoughts there."

The door closed. Ryson was gone.

Alina approached a small wooden table in the corner of the room. She retrieved a second set of clothes and rested them on Clea's lap before leaving the cottage.

Clea watched the door in the ensuing silence, ignoring the chill that fought to shiver down her spine.