As the woman ran, the
mahr
felt her anxiety, her
desire to move faster. Stairs of uneven height lined her path, and each step
was a trap, threatening what she worried would be a fatal fall. Even though she
heard nothing but the slapping of her bare feet, she knew others were near,
coming for her. She took solace in the
mahr
, drawing on its strength
while letting it absorb her fear. With the
mahr
, she was calm.

The darkness may have made the path more difficult, but she
was glad for it. Her pursuers couldn’t see either. Each step was quick and
confident; she had given herself to the
mahr
and was following its
intuition.

The staircase was narrow, steep and had no railing, and the
rock was wet and warm to her touch. She could only guess what the cavern looked
like around her, but she stopped herself when she began imagining how far she
would fall if she tripped or missed a step. Instead, she focused on counting
stairs. From the
mahr
she knew that it would be only a few more steps
before she turned up another stairway that crisscrossed its way up the cliff.

By the time she reached the last stair, she was out of
breath and covered in sweat. Her stamina wasn’t what she remembered it to be,
and the pain in her stomach was growing worse. Feeling along the edge of the wall,
she found the crack that she knew to be there. It was the edge of what the
mahr
had seen when it was alone, before she had called for it. Until that moment,
she had focused only on getting to this crack in the wall, but she was unsure
of what she would find once she stepped through.

As her pace slowed, she felt forward with one hand and
anchored herself to the side of the cave with the other. The
mahr
helped
her take slow, controlled breaths, which helped her focus her other senses. The
air smelled damp, and the ground beneath her bare feet was covered in a downy
coat of moss. Her hand was still pressed against smooth, wet rock, and it
seemed to lead straight in one direction. She had no sense of time in the
darkness, but she knew she had been walking a while when her hand hit a
different kind of rock. These rocks were cut and jagged, like they had been
placed there. She also felt a change beneath her feet. The moss suddenly ended,
and she was walking on cobblestone. The wall started to turn slightly to the
right, and she turned with it.

When her shin hit rock, she found that the wall had stopped
turning, and that she had come upon another staircase. She was heading straight
again, up stairs. How close her pursuers were now, she couldn’t guess, but she
feared the worst and stumbled quickly up the stairs, feeling wildly above and
in front of her with her outstretched hands. She counted one hundred forty-seven
steps before she found wood above her. A trapdoor. The hinges protested loudly
as she opened it, and the sound of the falling door echoed in the large
chamber. Her heart quickened when she realized she could see. Much had changed
since the last time light had reached her eyes.

Moonlight shone through a huge, broken window at the far end
of the hall, as well as through a gaping hole in the ceiling. She stood there
stunned, but only for a moment. As she approached the window, she saw a trail
outside leading away from the building. Closer now, she saw the dull outline of
a door in a shaded antechamber. Going left, she ran to the door and pushed. It
was twice as tall as she was and its hinges were covered with rust. She leaned
into it with all her strength until it gave and lurched open.

She was outside now, and it was a new world. Everything was
a soft blue in the moonlight. There were moss-covered boulders all around her,
and she saw the statues of a man, a woman, and a box. Having suddenly realized
where she was, the woman fell to her knees and wept. Looking behind her, she
stared at the remains of the Black Keep, the broken building that had once been
her home.

Feeling a pang in her stomach, she forced herself up. She
had more than just herself to consider, and this knowledge gave her new life.
Ahead, far in the distance, she saw a man’s silhouette.

“Stop!” a man commanded. “Surrender now. You have nowhere to
run.”

She didn’t stop, but she dreaded the man’s words. As she ran
she whispered a word she knew well, and a blue-white bolt escaped her
outstretched hand. Its power was less than she had expected.

“Your magic will not work here, witch,” said the man, the
last word a curse.

“Witch? I’m no witch,” she said, momentarily taken aback.
She raised her arms and, through the
mahr
, pooled energy into her hands
like opposite ends of a pole. When she brought them together, another bolt
leapt towards the man, stronger this time, but it didn’t explode as it should
have. Instead, it reached the man and disappeared. The woman cursed and
muttered, “The hallow tree’s amber was rare in my time and only given to a
great warrior. What else has changed?”

But she kept running and didn’t slow down; she felt with her
entire being that there was no time. Again she said the word, louder now,
directing its energy to the cliff above. Rocks tumbled down the cliff and
sideswiped the man, who only had time to let out one brief shrill scream.

Over the ledge she saw the village below and was horrified
to see it so close to the Black Keep. It wasn’t until she passed the rubble and
crushed man that she saw the pass leading up the cliff. She had a choice to
make now. The desire to be free and out in the open would lead her up the pass,
but that’s what they would expect. What their intent had been in settling the
bottom of the crater, she could only guess, but she knew instinctively that
whatever she found down there would be better than what she’d find above. That
only left the option of approaching the village below head on.

The pass weaved back and forth but was easy to see. After
running for what felt like an eternity, she found herself surrounded by a small
outcropping of trees at the bottom of the crater. Leaving the trail, she ran
through them directly, thankful for the little light that made its way through
their branches. Holding her engorged belly, she ran past boulders and around
fallen trunks, feeling awakened by the clean, crisp air hitting her face.
Between the trees, she caught sight of flickering orange lights from the
village itself. They were close enough that she could smell their smoke. The
pain in her stomach was growing, and she knew what would happen soon. Although
she was breathing heavily through clenched teeth, she kept reminding herself
that she had to keep moving.

There was no wall between her and the village, but the
houses were stacked on each other, leaving her no breaks to the other side.
Following the perimeter, she ran past locked doors and blackened windows until
she hit a small alley—a vein into the village.

From her first step into the village, the
mahr’s
energy within her dampened. She worried its power might be gone, but she was
afraid to test her reserves. Any show of power would only attract attention, so
she continued on. Seeing no one, she stumbled through the empty paths with only
the slightest hint of a plan, but while it formed, she meant to lose herself
and maybe her pursuers for a short while. The pain in her stomach continued to
grow, and her steps became more labored. Turning down one road after another, she
lost track of where she was. And then, in a moment of pure joy, the woman
sensed what she was looking for. She allowed herself to fall at the house’s
doorstep and grab her stomach.

Having given everything in her escape, she was relieved to
no longer have to hold it in. Her stomach kicked beneath the weight of her
hands, and she knew that it was time for her baby to come. Clenching her eyes
shut, she gasped for the air she would need to push, but held her hands over
her mouth when she heard herself scream.

Luckily, it was a quick delivery. Not allowing herself time
to hold her son, the woman wrapped him in her shawl and whispered a word that
turned it into the warmest of blankets. Also wrapped in the blanket was a book
that she had carried out of the cave and down the pass.

With her baby born, she held him in one arm as she let
herself in the stranger’s house. Walking silently to the room where she sensed
another baby, she knelt down and gave her boy one kiss on the forehead. She
then picked up the other baby, whispered a few horrible words, and put her own
baby in its place. Knowing the book and blanket would be conspicuous, she
hesitated a moment, but there was no time to do anything else. In the gray
moonlight, the small pile of ash that had once been another woman’s baby looked
like liquid at her feet.

Leaving the house as quickly as she had entered, she closed
the door behind her and crossed the street. Looking back a minute later she saw
the outline of three figures heading towards her. Running now, she glanced
behind her and saw that they were running too. Weak and covered in cold sweat,
she ran with energy she didn’t even know she had, energy that came only from
the hope of luring her pursuers away from her baby. Taking a quick turn, she
ran down a narrow street, and houses with little orange lanterns flew past her.
Once again she was letting the
mahr
guide her, knowing that it had long
ago sensed where she needed to go.

An explosion of sound suddenly filled the air. It sounded
like a horn, and its cry carried across the village, stirring people from their
sleep. Still running, she didn’t look back, but she could hear the steps slowly
gaining behind her. In every house she passed now lights were beginning to
illuminate small windows. A minute later she found herself out of the narrow
streets and in the middle of the large village square. There in the middle she
saw what she and the
mahr
needed. It was a tree, bigger than any she had
passed running down the pass, and it marked the heart of the village. She ran
to it and stopped, and when she turned around she saw that her three pursuers
had stopped with her.

One man slowly approached and the other two moved off to her
side, keeping their distance while cutting off any escape around the tree.
Other people were also beginning to fill the square: men, women, and children, all
of them holding weapons. The villagers moved cautiously, like they knew that
she had already killed one of their own. Some people, including the original
three following her, had swords at their sides, but they kept them sheathed.
Most of the people, though, held a wooden staff in one hand and a spear in the
other. The small bloodstones at each spear’s end glistened in the moonlight.
Holding the spears above their heads, they watched the woman intently, ready to
strike.

And then, for reasons she barely understood, she started
laughing. “You think the gift we gave you will protect you? How much time must
have passed! In my time one of my kind would never be allowed so close to the
hallow tree.”

She backed towards the tree while the villagers looked on
dumbly, as though too scared to make any sudden movements.

“It doesn’t matter how long you have had to stockpile your
weapons,” she continued. “Yes, I see the bloodstones set atop your every spear.
You are a race of fools, and I shudder to think the damage you’ve done.”

At last her hand landed on the tree. Muttering a word, the
bark began to glow black and ash rained down from above. The villagers were
charging her now, yelling, but she was no longer inhibited by the tree and was
already casting a greater spell. Feeling her skin scaling, her limbs
stretching, and her teeth growing, she let out a scream, only it was a monster’s
voice, not hers. When the men grew near, green fire erupted from her mouth.
Some splashed on the ground, sending a sulfurous smoke into the air, but most
hit its mark: the many villagers before her. But even with the tree dead, the
bloodstones, fruit of human sacrifices to the tree she had just destroyed,
still retained their power and absorbed her fire.

Charging forward, the woman snapped at a row of men, all the
while trying to crush the villagers behind her with her tail. One of her claws
connected with a man so hard that he flew back into the first, the second, and
even the third villager behind him. Using her massive hind legs, she leapt to
her side and crushed many other villagers beneath her. But then she screamed.
There were too many around her, and they were releasing spear after spear, each
of which sent a wave of intense heat through her skin. The spears were poison,
made from the very tree she had just destroyed.

Releasing the
mahr
, a mere puff of smoke outside her
body, she returned to her normal size and found herself lying on the ground,
panting. Blood pooled at her side, bubbling around the spears. The
mahr
hovered before her, unsure.

“Go,” she croaked, gasping for air. “Take care of my baby.”

As the
mahr
fled, the woman cried out once last time
before she died.

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