And So, She Runs

“Wake up!”

Verena flinches as her eyes snap open to find Mosa’s face hovering inches from hers. The dying firelight from the hearth casting long shadows across their cramped bedroom, highlighting Mosa’s sharp features against her cool, obsidian skin.

“You have to leave. Now!” Mosa hisses, her breath warm against Verena’s face.

Still clinging to her dreams, Verena opens her mouth to protest, but Mosa is already moving, scrambling around their two narrow cots wedged between overcrowded bookshelves lined with tomes and scrolls on witchcraft.

Verena winces as Mosa snatches up her scuffed boots, bracing for an argument about why they are on the floor instead of in their shared cupboard—but instead the boots are shoved into her chest, hard.

Verena yelps, clutching them as she stares at Mosa in stunned confusion.

“You need to leave,” Mosa repeats, slapping aside the hanging rosemary and lavender the two of them picked late in the summer to dry.

“Leave?” Verena echoes groggily.

“Get up!” Mosa snaps, yanking the furs off her and tossing a jacket she’s found at Verena’s head.

Verena sighs and lets out a long yawn, still oblivious to the urgency in Mosa’s movements. When she’s in one of these moods, there’s nothing Verena can say or do to make her talk. She might as well get up and figure out what all the rush is about.

The icy bite in the air nips at Verena, sending a chill through her body as she sits up, her gaze drifting to the window.

Snow is rare in Falor, yet a light dusting of the fine white powder rests on the wooden sill, and for a moment, Verena believes that this is why Mosa woke her.

In her eleven years living with Mosa in the forests of Falor, she has only seen snow twice. Even at thirteen, it still feels as magical as the first time. This is worth being woken up for. Mosa is likely planning to collect it for a spell, but it’s something different from just training her magic and combat skills.

“It’s snowing!”

Verena presses her forehead against the window, catching glimpses of the fine dust sparkling on the branches outside; her breath fogging the glass.

“Verena!” Mosa snaps impatiently.

She flinches, then rolls her eyes and lazily grabs her boots and jacket before plopping onto her sleeping cot.

“What’s going on?” she asks, tugging on the boots without bothering to untangle the laces. Mosa has tested her magic in strange ways before, but never like this. The urgency must be a new tactic.

One Verena is fond of if it means getting out of bed on a cold morning, wasting what could have been a magical day in the snow. How can Mosa expect her to concentrate on a day like this?

“He has found you,” Mosa says, gently peeling back the thin curtain above their kitchen sink, careful not to disturb the dried orange and lemon slices hanging there.

Verena’s hands freeze as Mosa’s words sink in.

“Who has found me?” she asks meekly, even though she knows the answer.

“Who do you think?” Mosa hisses, stepping away from the window.

“My father…”

Mosa’s hand snaps out before Verena can even blink, slapping her hard across the face.

“Don’t you ever call him that!” Mosa growls. “He doesn’t deserve the title.”

Verena reaches up to touch the sting on her face and turns to Mosa, tears welling in her eyes. Guilt flashes across Mosa’s own face, but her stern expression never wavers.

“I need you to listen,” she says, tilting Verena’s chin to meet her gaze. “This is the end of our story.”

“Mosa—”

“But it is the beginning of yours.”

“No,” Verena protests. She knows what Mosa is asking of her, and she… she cannot! “We go together! Everywhere—that’s our rule. That’s how we stay safe. That’s…”

Mosa shakes her head, tears threatening to spill from her deep brown eyes. She then loses all her harshness and lifts a hand to Verena’s cheek, tracing the red mark left by her slap. Her calloused fingers feel warm and comforting, a stark contrast to the reality that is about to shake them both.

“I want to thank you. I’ve always wanted a daughter,” she says, and the corner of Verena’s mouth twitches to something like a smile. “Thank you for showing me what a terrible idea that would have been. If it weren’t for who you are, I would have killed you.”

Verena’s expression hardens as she clenches her fists at her sides.

“You’re coming with me!”

“So stubborn,” Mosa snaps. “All my grey hairs came the day you learned to talk back!”

“But—”

A thud rattles their front door, and their eyes snap to it.

They wait in tense silence.

“I can portal us out of here,” Verena whispers.

“No. You have to run.”

“But this is what you’ve been training me for! We can get to the edge of the forest and run.”

“No!”

“Mosa, I—”

“This is not the time to argue with me!”

“What is the point of having all this training if you won’t let me help!”

“I didn’t train you to die in a cottage. I trained you to take over your realm,” Mosa hisses.

“I’m not leaving you!”

“Stubborn! Hard-headed!” Mosa mutters, abandoning their argument to rummage through the bookshelves, tearing pages from tomes and shoving them into Verena’s hands. “Spoiled! I’ve spoiled you! Now you think you can act like an adult,” she continues to mutter, tossing papers to the floor as she snatches up herbs and a bag for Verena.

“I’m not spoiled! I want to help.”

“These are protection charms,” Mosa says, ignoring her. “You know what to do!”

“Mosa!”

A second thud slams through the cottage, and dust falls from the wooden beams above, coating Verena’s fiery copper hair.

“Let me portal us.”

“You can’t.”

“I can. I did it—”

“No,” Mosa breathes out, her defeated face turning to face Verena. “He found you because of the portal you opened. He’s got a witch working for him now. She’s managed to put a trace on portal magic.”

“Then I’ll fight!”

“I have failed you. You have no survival instincts,” Mosa hisses as she continues her rummaging. “You are going to die, and Delrik’s ghost is going to haunt me!”

“But—”

“Verena, for the sake of the gods, listen and stop arguing!” Mosa snaps, grabbing her shoulders and flicking her forehead. “If you don’t learn to control this fire inside of you, it’ll get you killed!”

“But you are not listening to me!”

Mosa opens her mouth to argue, but another thud rattles the cottage. They both freeze, holding their breath. The single blow turns into relentless pounding, and Mosa’s magic wavers—the invisible protection bubble shuddering under the force. The door finally bursts inward, splintering across the floor, and both Mosa and Verena recoil on instinct.

A High Fae fills the doorway—broad-shouldered and impossibly muscular—moving with a predator’s precision as he stalks just beyond the entrance. Every step is deliberate as he paces. His wings spread wide in a silent display of dominance.

Verena’s eyes drink in his flawless form. But there’s nothing beautiful about him. His sharp, symmetrical features seem carved from marble, frozen in an expression that promises nothing but danger.

He doesn’t just fill the doorway—he dominates it.

But he cannot step into the cottage, not with all of Mosa’s protection charms and the magic she has layered around them. He knows it, too. So, instead of focusing on Verena as instructed, the High Fae turns to Mosa.

If he kills her, he kills the magic protecting Verena.

Mosa braces herself, calling more of her magic, feeling it sting and hum through every nerve as she wills it around the cottage. The High Fae meets her glare, and the room shudders—their battle raging silently behind their eyes. He pushes with his magic, trying to break her, but she resists, holding firm.

“Run,” Mosa manages through gritted teeth.

“No!” Verena snaps, planting herself beside Mosa, calling her own magic into existence.

Mosa swipes at her arm, trying to pull her back, but Verena does not budge.

The cottage shudders violently, beams rattling overhead. Verena braces herself, eyes darting between Mosa, the intruder, and the dust falling from the rafters. Frustration and the need to protect burn deep in her chest as she focuses on her magic and the escape she envisions.

A swirling mist of purple and black sparks to life beneath their feet as she pulls on her power, ready to portal them out.

The High Fae smirks and lifts a brow.

Mosa’s eyes widen when she sees Verena’s intent. She grabs her arm, shattering her concentration—and it’s the split second that is exactly what the High Fae has been waiting for—his magic lashes through the tiny crack in Mosa’s protection charm, erupting across the cottage.

Mosa lunges for Verena, wood splintering across the room as she throws herself over her to shield her as the cottage is torn apart.

The High Fae seizes his opportunity and charges at them, but Mosa is a High Fae herself, just as fast, just as powerful. She shoves Verena out of the way, causing her to slam onto her back and head, pain radiating as stars dance in her vision.

Mosa can’t focus on how hard she shoved her; she needs to protect. Her hands rise, summoning her blinding light magic, forcing the High Fae to stumble as he shields his face.

“Verena! Run!”

Through the searing glow, the High Fae calls on his earth magic, gathering the splintered shards around him. They twist together, forming a jagged, arrow-like piece that he hurls straight into the light blinding him.

Mosa doesn’t see it coming. It embeds itself into her shoulder, knocking her off her feet as she screams out in pain, tears threatening to spill.

“Mosa!”

But the High Fae isn’t done. He twists his hands, commanding the shards, and they obey—willing and eager. Breaking apart. Slowly. With deliberate cruelty, they crawl through Mosa’s body, tearing her from the inside out.

Verena panics and grabs the nearest thing, the bottom of a vase, and hurls it at his head.

It’s enough. A half-second of his attention it pulled to her, and Mosa wrenches free of the spell, drags the pain into her hands instead, and a sword of light burns into existence.

She drives it into his shoulder.

Verena scrambles back, scooting on her palms, putting distance between herself and the High Fae as he drops to his knees. Staring at her. Just her. A shard of the vase she threw slices open her hand, but she doesn’t feel it. She can’t make herself care. Not with him this close.

Mosa is grunting, swaying, and nearly goes down, then catches herself. The High Fae pulls a stone from his pocket, black as the space between stars. Twists it. Once, twice, three times. His lips part around the first syllable of the spell that will take him and Verena somewhere she can’t follow.

She doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t think. Conjures another blade in her empty hand, spins, and takes his head off in one clean stroke.

Her knees hit the floor. The shards in her body wake up all at once, and every nerve she has screams.

Verena screams.

She has never watched someone die.

She was too young to remember the day her father killed her mother. Too young to remember Delrik tearing the wings from her back, as an offering to the malevolent goddess of curses.

This is the first time. The first time she’s seen, up close, what she’s always been told: that she is hunted. That she is unsafe.

She stares at the pool of gold blood spilling from the High Fae’s neck. Then, slowly, her gaze finds Mosa—hunched over, barely holding herself up, staring back. Gold blood covers her too, soaked into the tears where the splinters ripped through her.

Gold, not red. It’s why the High Fae are so dangerous. Blood that conducts magic just as easily as giving life.

Snow trickles in from the broken roof above, the sky utterly oblivious to the horror in the cottage.

Verena moves to Mosa’s side, finally overcoming her fear and reaches for her wounds, but recoils upon seeing the blood on her own hands—her palm is cut deeply, oozing golden blood… with swirls of red.

“Mosa!” she cries.

Mosa reaches for her, then collapses.

Holding the wards around the cottage and conjuring the blades of light has bled her magic nearly dry. She needs her potions to heal, now all reduced to ash and splinters around them.

“You need to leave!” she cries.

“My blood! Look at my blood!” Verena yells, panic breaking through her voice.

“I know—”

“It’s red. There’s… there’s red in it. My blood. My blood!”

“I know. I know. I know!” Mosa shouts, grabbing Verena by the sleeve of her sleep shirt and yanking her closer.

Verena stares at her, realisation crashing down.

“You know?”

Mosa nods.

She thinks back to every scraped knee Mosa distracted her from and every bloody nose she wouldn’t let Verena see. She had always thought that Mosa was trying to shield her from the pain, but in reality, she was hiding the truth.

“He’s not my father,” Verena murmurs.

“No.”

“And he wants me dead so he can take my mother’s realm.”

“Your realm,” Mosa corrects.

Verena swallows hard.

“Does he know? Does he know that I’m not his? Is that why he wants to kill me?” Her voice breaks. “Is that why he killed her?”

Mosa sighs, reaching up to brush her fingers gently against Verena’s cheek, her thumb softly wiping away the tears staining her young, confused face. A warm, tender smile breaks across Mosa’s lips as she studies Verena’s scar… one… last… time.

A jagged streak of white, sharp as lightning, slashes across the left side of Verena’s face, creeping over her chestnut skin like frost upon a frozen lake. It carves its way through her brow, into her lashes and turns strands of her copper hair as pale as the freshly fallen snow outside.

Verena’s curse.

“There will be more High Fae guards.”

“Mosa, please answer me,” Verena begs.

“Run. Fast. Far. And wild. Don’t stop until you know you’re safe. Don’t stop until you can no longer hear them. Until you can no longer feel me.”

“No,” Verena chokes out.

“You are strong,” Mosa says, tracing the cursed mark on Verena’s face. “And you will survive.”

Verena covers her mouth, trying to stifle her sobs so she can speak. Mosa turns away—because if she doesn’t, she’ll break too, and there’s no room for breaking now.

Shouts echo from somewhere in the forest. The familiar sweet hues of magic trail into the torn cottage.

“Go, now! Out of the window,” Mosa says, gesturing to the window behind them, still clinging to the half-dilapidated wall. “Live, Vee.”

“I can’t lose you,” Verena says, tears spilling down her face.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Mosa says, trying to ignore the ache in her chest, her voice wavering as Verena breaks into sobs. “Lay low. Use the protection charms. Wait. The gods have plans for you, child. Listen for your call. Only then will you be ready.”

Verena grips Mosa’s hand, curling her fingers tightly around hers.

“I’ll be with you. So will your mother. Your aunt. Your uncle. And everyone else who died trying to protect you. You are going to be great, Verena. But remember who you are,” Mosa says, pointing to the blood on Verena’s hand.

“I can smell their magic!” A voice slices through the chill in the air.

“Go! Now!”

“Mosa!” Verena cries as Mosa shoves her toward the window.

“Go!”

Sniffling back her tears, Verena pushes the window open and creeps out. The voices grow louder behind her, and she glances back to see Mosa getting to her feet and conjuring another sword, duller than those from earlier.

Verena knows with every fibre of her being that this is the last time she will ever see Mosa. It feels like an animalistic instinct; she can smell it and feel it. The burden of being a fae with heightened senses.

She doesn’t want to leave. Her body even struggles to turn. Mosa glances over her shoulder, and Verena almost breaks at the tears streaming down her face.

She can feel Mosa’s fear intertwining with rage.

There’s always a price to pay for hiding someone a powerful fae wants.

And Mosa has no regrets.

She only hopes that Verena knows that too.

Magic pops in the distance.

Mosa readies herself.

And Verena forces her body to turn, bursting onto the dewy grass.

Her feet pound the chilled earth, frost biting her boots, the frigid air cutting into her lungs like shards of glass. She doesn’t slow, even as her tears freeze to her cheeks.

Behind her, the forest shifts. Fierce magic ripples through the air—sharp and unmistakable.

Shouts echo.

The breeze turns bitter.

The ground trembles beneath her feet.

Then, the sweet tang of magic slams into her.

And Mosa shrieks.

But Verena doesn’t stop. She doesn’t turn back for Mosa. No matter how much she wants to.

Heart pounding.

Mind racing.

She runs.

Even as her legs ache.

Even as her lungs burn.

Even when she hears Mosa’s final scream…

… Even when she feels the moment Mosa’s essence dies.

Verena runs.

And runs…

… and runs.