I had always thought drowning would be a terrible way to die. Surely something quick would be better. A beheading, maybe. Or poison, if it were the right sort. But floating under the burning surface of the lake, it was hard to argue with the dark and comfortable sleep that beckoned.

I closed my eyes. I had been in the water for several minutes already and my lungs were giving out. I was ready to let go. Maybe, wherever you go after death, maybe there they wouldn't care that I'm half monster. My lips parted, the water flooding in. I could feel myself fading. Leaving. That is, until something splashed above me.

I tried to pry my eyelids open, but they wouldn't budge. The underwater sloshing rippled through my foggy conscious. The heat of a body wrapped around me, and pulled. Up we went. The water grew hot from the fire that floated on it, that burning oil ready to boil us if we came too close. We broke the surface, and I blacked out.

~

I woke with a start, and expelled all the water I had swallowed. Violently. A warm crackle at my back soothed my frozen bones, and told me I was near a fire. My hacking cough didn't subside for what felt like ten minutes, though I'm sure it wasn't actually that long. I listened, but the clanking metal of the raiders no longer rang through my ears. My heart sank. The plainsman raiders had made it to the mountains. And I was thrown to the lake to survive their attack.

I turned my face to the fire, darting my eyes around the bodies that huddled for warmth. I was laying next to women and children that lived by Silver Lake. I wasn't surprised to find that none of them met my gaze. Moans of the injured and dying murmured under the crackling of the fire. 

We may as well have been a pile of dogs crowding the hearth for warmth, we were so piled on top of each other. Some watched me from the corner of their eyes with terror. Others stared ahead, gray faced and motionless. Sitting, watching with hollow eyes as their world burned. And it did burn. I looked over my shoulder to see what remained of the settlements by the lake. The smoldering ruins that held a thriving village an hour ago was now a black, stark contrast to the light snow around it.

An old woman, Gerdie, I think her name was, fell in a heap from where she was sitting on a sack of grain. Almost immediately I smelled the piss. The woman next to her leaned over to confirm what I suspected; she had died. They rolled her out of the way and two more took her place by the warm fire without so much as a word. I said a silent prayer to whoever was listening. Gerdie hadn't been nice to me, but at least she hadn't been mean either.

Surroundings confirmed, I took a deep breath and concentrated on my own body. The first thing to notice was that I was still wet. I couldn't have been there long. Even the ends of my hair hadn't dried out yet and they slapped the ground wherever I moved my head. My plain grey dress clung to my bony frame, still soaked through. I would have a bruise where Bryn grabbed my arm and threw me in the water, but I was otherwise unharmed. I sat up quickly, dizzy from the sudden movement.

Bryn!

Where was he? I looked around, my heart raced with panic but my face kept still as stone. Know your surroundings, my head echoed with old lessons. Knowing can be the difference of life and death in the mountains. I stayed quiet, and observed.

The war band had finally come east of the mountains, that much I could see. The village burned. The lake burned. The dry autumn trees burned. The dead burned.

"Everember oil, they called it." Shanna, the fisherman's daughter, whispered nearby. "It's on everything." Her body and voice both shook, stubbornness being the only thing holding her in one piece. Always the proud thing, she carried herself like a duchess. Even though she had the same plain brown features that I did. That every girl within a hundred miles of here did. Shanna glanced at me with those sharp eyes, and then as if she had realized who she was talking to, she turned up her nose and stared ahead. The sights before her haunted her. Still, no one wants to talk to the half monster. Especially not Shanna.

My hair dry and my face warm, I turned my back to the fire, taking in the remains.

The blacksmith and his boys were pulling people from the lake who had tried to escape the fires. Most had jumped in. I was thrown to the lake right before that putrid oil coated the surface and set it ablaze. That couldn't have been more than a moment ago. Where were the raiders? Where was Bryn?

My eyes drifted. An old woman hunched over the lake, the villagers giving her a wide berth. An ancient raven perched on her shoulder, his one clear eye turned towards me. I sat up. I didn't feel like throwing up any more, and aside from being a bit dizzy, I could walk. I abandoned my warm place by the fire and approached her with gentle steps. A woman in rags was happy to take my place, almost stepping on my fingers as I got up.

The smells were terrible, assaulting me as I walked towards the water. Burning flesh. It seared my nose and teared my eyes. I would remember it for the rest of my days. A fiendish aroma of cooking meat, a familiar scent corrupted by the reality of it. This was no prize of game meat caught and roasted. It was people. The burning dead. Cold streaks ran down my face in clean trails through the soot, the fat tears dripping off my chin. I tried not to look around me as I kept walking. I focused on the watchful raven sitting on the old woman's back.

She shuffled a few feet and dipped back to the water as I drew near. She wore all black. Feathers and bones adorned her neck and hands. The air around her was heavy with old magic. A friend to the mountains, a comfort to me. Mila the witch, she was called.

"Wren, I see you survived." She didn't even turn to me as she collected a sample of oil that floated on the water.

"Where is the woodcutter?" I asked, a slight tremor to my voice.

She looked me in the eye, her face soft. Some part of me knew already that he didn't make it. If he were alive, he would be hard to miss. Yelling, helping, at my side. But Mila only needed to glance at me with her ancient eyes to bring my new reality crashing down on my head.

My heart tightened in my chest, my stomach dropped. I crumpled to the ground, my knees hitting the rocky lake shore hard. My vision blurred and the tears ran, cleaning more of my face as they dripped to the ground. He was gone. I took a steady breath. He was gone. My only family, and he was gone.

"I know he was as a father to you," Mila's words were soft, but her tone was the same as ever. "But at this time danger is still in the wind, and we need to prepare ourselves."

She was right. Work first, mourn later. I cleaned my face on my sleeve.

"Do you need help?" My voice shook.

"No. If you want to help someone, see what you can do for the village." She grunted as she stood and dipped an empty bottle a few feet down the lake. "Though I am the last one to blame you if you would rather not help them."

"Where are the raiders? How did any of us survive?" I asked, trembling. I wiped my cheeks again with the driest part of my sleeve.

"Something from the northern Wyldes came through here, and slaughtered them all." Mila stood, brushing her knees. "It has been an age since I last lay eyes on a fae."

"A fae?" My heart sputtered. "In the mountains?" I had only heard stories. The fae were not a force to be trifled with. And if one could take down twenty bloodthirsty horsemen in only a moment...

"Do not bring fear of the fae into your heart, child." Mila stroked the hair hanging over my left ear. "He killed only the plainsmen flying the banner of that war-monger. If he wanted to do the same to the village he would have done it, not pull you from the lake."

My body froze, but my eyes darted wildly. I looked at the lake, then the path to the small fire for the injured. I looked to the remaining buildings, and to the men scrambling with abandon to save what they could. The blacksmith still stirred the waters for more people.

"A creature from the Wyldes carried me to the fire?" Mila nodded. "A thing from the north pulled me from the burning lake, but not one of the villagers?"

"They would not save you. The fae saw this, and pulled you free himself." Mila rubbed her bad wrist. "They may have saved you last, but only after their own had been saved. Is this unexpected to you?"

"No." Was my cold reply. My cheeks burned, I felt the anger ripple through me. I took a calming breath, and watched the people at work.

"Bryn would have saved anyone." My voice cracked.

"I know, child." Mila sighed. A tear trickled down my face. I ignored it and steeled myself away from more. More would come, but not here.

"He is yet here, the fae. None have dared to approach him." Mila scanned my face. "There is fear in the hearts of men of what is unfamiliar to them. You have no reason to fear him, and at the very least you owe him your thanks."

I looked to where she pointed. South of the village a dark figure moved among the dead. A pile of horses and plainsmen bled as he slit their throats. A mercy kill, I suppose, for the injured. My eyes darted again to the village; some threw worried glances behind them. They were most certainly staying well out of his way.

Bumps coated my arms, and my breath came fast. Mila would not lead me astray, and she was right about owing him thanks. The people of the mountains may not trust the fae, but they didn't trust me either, not really.

Mila gave me a rare smile, and I approached the figure to the south. The pine needles crunched underfoot in rhythm with my beating heart. I drew a quivering breath when I was only steps away.

"Hello, um, sir. Can you understand me?" He looked down at me, I drank him in.

He was huge. His skin was blue as midnight and looked to have the texture of velvet. His shaggy hair, just long enough to tie in a ponytail, was a shade darker. Almost black. Blood speckled him like stars. His eyes were as sharp as his horrible teeth, and scars draped his arms. None were recent. His chest heaved for air, and sweat shone on his brow. He stared at me until I was about to flee, then he gave me a slow nod.

His clothes were simple and black. He wore gloves as he ripped a dagger from the belly of a horse, throwing it onto a pile of bloody weapons. It had pierced the intestines. I could almost taste it in the air. I was lucky that my stomach was already empty. I resisted covering my nose. Something feral about him told me not to show any signs of weakness.

"Thank you, for saving me." I swallowed. "I'm going to help you with your task." Please don't attack me.

He grunted and went about his business, and I let my held breath escape. As I breathed, I inhaled the taste of the hunt, the essence of battle, a promise of violence. Something animal still rolled from him, a musk of the Wyldes.

I chose to start a safe distance from the wild fae, but even at my back I was aware of his presence at all times. I bent over a warrior. His face had frozen, contorted in death: he didn't pass on peacefully. Gingerly I pulled at an arrow shaft. It wasn't budging. I looked at the fae, he had moved onto another body and with a quick jerk he ripped out an arrow.

I sighed down at the body before me. I yanked the arrow free, and tossed it to the pile that the fae had started. We worked for a long time in silence. My heartbeat threatened to deafen me. Every touch of wind on my skin, every rustle of grass sent my belly into my throat. The creature beside me was like nothing I knew in this world, and his every breath threatened to consume me with fright. I tried to remember Mila's words and shove my fear back down.

We wove between the bodies and I stole glances at him. He moved like water. His face remained like stone. I may never see another fae in my life, and I drank up everything I could. Did my father or mother look like this? Otherworldly and fierce? I had heard the fae were beautiful. This one was just dangerous.

Our pile grew tall from arrows, spears and blades. My thumb had split open, dry and cracked. I would have a couple new calluses forming as well. When we finally finished, he approached the hill of weapons and began to arrange them on a large canvas. Taking each one, breaking off wooden shafts and keeping only the metal. I watched as he worked with a few pieces, fascinated at his speed and precision. My task was finished though, and my thanks shown. I turned to find Mila once more.

A hand shot out and grabbed my shoulder. I turned, my heart thumping like a rabbit. The fae's rippled arm was an unmoving shackle on me. He had stopped me where I stood, and I nearly fainted. The look on his face was not a pleasant one, and he turned his nose to me like a wolf scenting his prey. He brought his other hand up, still gripping my shoulder, and delicately brushed the hair from the side of my face. He exposed my ear. My shame. He knew what I was.

The tips were cut off in a horrible, jagged line. Puffy and scarred, and a glaring reminder that I was only half a human. The bane of my existence. The misery of my life with the people of the mountains. My inhuman half.

Tears burned my eyes, and a hate warmed me from the cool air. Before they spilled over I pushed him away, as deep an insult as I could muster. I tore from his hands and ran for the woods.