The sun was setting, casting an orange glow on the leaves and grass of the forest and turning the trunks an unusual shade of amber. The forest was thick, with no visible path and no clearings nearby, just tightly packed trees, thorny bushes and damp grass. The only noise that could be heard was the wind moving through the leaves. The animals hadn't made a sound for more than a few days.

It was starting to get cold, and they couldn't light a fire. Not because there weren't enough materials nearby to do so, there was more than enough, but because if they tried, they would be spotted. Besides, when you're sleeping in the trees, why do you need a fire on the ground?

Elora shivered and pulled her hood over her head, hoping it would keep her warm. She sat on a mossy rock at the base of a tree, watching Ragen hand the berries he had found to Mikhail. She listened to the trees rustle, watching some fall softly to the ground. Nyal was up there, checking they weren't being followed from the air, as well as finding them sturdy branches to sleep on.

It had only taken them a night to learn they had to sleep high in the trees. Their first night had resulted in an attack from vampires searching the woods for something to drink. Elora hoped nothing could climb through the trees like Nyal did. She was sure none of them could unless they really tried, but then again she hadn't had to face anything like this in such a long time.

She was brought back to reality by Mikhail tapping her on the shoulder, holding out the berries in his other hand. "You should eat," he told her, the same look on his face he had every other night. Every night right before Nyal jumped down and forced her to eat.

Except this time he didn't, this time he stayed in the trees, watching for something most likely. He hadn't said anything, so there wasn't anything to worry about. But now he wouldn't force her to eat. She wasn't sure if she was happy about that or not.

"Elora, you need to eat something," Mikhail was saying. "Not just the little bit Nyal forces out of you."

She took a small amount of the berries from his hand, popping one silently into her mouth. Mikhail pursed his lips, dumping the rest into her hands with a sigh. "Please eat them," he said.

You should, starving yourself is hardly a good enough punishment for what you've done.

She clenched her fist with a growl, crushing the berries, the juice running down her wrist and dripping onto the grass below. Her father, Yararanje, God or Creation, had been talking to her almost non-stop since... Since she threw the realm into chaos.

"Hey! Woah! You need to eat those, not crush them," Mikhail cried, running a hard through the dark shaggy hair on his head.

"I apologise," she muttered, looking down at the red on her hand. "They're still edible."

Nyal jumped down from the trees as she began to swallow the mush she had created. Mikhail said nothing, walking back over to Ragen, who had been surprisingly silent the whole time. She had learned that he was the kind of person to never keep his mouth shut, but over the last few days, he had been quiet. They all had been.

"I've found a few good trees to sleep in," Nyal started, stopping when he saw Elora. "What happened?"

"He is... Talking again," she explained, finding no point in hiding anything from Nyal. He would most likely figure it out anyway, he was good like that.

As if he's any better than you are.

Nyal sighed. "Whatever he's saying isn't true and you know it," he told her, looking down at the red stain on her hand. "But at least you're sort of eating properly."

Behind Nyal she could hear Ragen grumbling and trying to stuff their equipment back into a rucksack and a thud as he threw something to the ground. She smiled when Mikhail scolded him, a tiny thing, barely noticeable. Despite what had happened, some things were still somewhat normal.

She stood up, stretching her arms and wings, feeling them brush against the leaves, a tickling sensation she had gotten used to after years and years and years of the feeling. She wiped the berry juice onto her cloak, no longer caring about the stains that covered it. She would have had a new one made by now, but that was impossible.

"You said you found us a place to sleep?" she questioned, not bothering to reply to Nyal properly. It wasn't like it mattered anyway.

"Yeah," he replied, and she was sure what she heard was defeat. "This way."

He turned away from her then, walking through the leaves and into the dark. The sun was nearly gone by now, everything looking more darker than the orange it was earlier. She fell in step behind the three men.

As she watched, Mikhail reached up and touched his face, touched the scars that covered half of his face. Scars from Nyals rushed healing job when they were fighting Azel, the warlock with a fire affinity that had shown up unexpectedly at the Gate. Now, Nyal could do nothing to fix it, they were permanent scars.

She looked away before her mind drifted to her own scars, choosing instead to watch the trees and leaves rustling as she walked by them. It didn't take long for her to start missing the sound of the animals, the birds chirping, the bugs calling out to one another, animals prancing through the trees. It was all gone now, so quickly. She knew Nyal missed it too, being in the trees was nowhere near enough. She knew how much he loved the animals.

It hadn't been that long either, nearly a week by her calculations, but within two days the animals had fallen silent. Elora doubted they had all been killed, she agreed with Nyal, who thought they knew what was going on and were trying to get away. Much like they were now.

They wandered into a space that could barely be called a clearing. It was a space that barely fit the five of them, surrounded by the same old trees. To the left was a hulking mass of branches and leaves, reaching high up into the sky. The leaves of the tree were so thick she couldn't see through them. A perfect hiding spot for the night.

"Come on," Nyal said, pulling himself up into the tree. "This should be good for the night. I think we'll be nearing the south sometime tomorrow."

"How do you even know?" Ragen asked, climbing up onto the nearest branch and pulling Mikhail with him. "You've never been east."

"Yes, but I have been south," Nyal replied from above them, moving from branch to branch with practised skill. Elora jumped up near him, using her wings to push herself higher in the air, relishing in the feeling of the air against her feathers. "And we've been travelling for a few days now, so we're probably nearly there."

"Probably? You're basing this on a probably?" Ragen snapped.

"Ragen, please," Mikhail started. "There's not much else we can do."

Elora ended up settling herself on a branch below Nyal, pulling her cloak over herself like a thin blanket. She leaned against the trunk of the tree, closing her eyes but not falling asleep. She was far from tired, her mind racing.

The constant nagging in the back of her head, telling her she messed up, she messed up, she messed up. Over and over and over again. She tried to ignore, could ignore it, for most of the day, but when she was idle, trying to sleep mostly, the thoughts would come, and she could not ignore them then.

Thoughts of what was going to happen to all the people in Veridun, thoughts of Darius- Darren- the dragon, thoughts of Nyal, thoughts of him dying. And it was all her fault, all of it.

And there is nothing you can do to fix it, my daughter.

The voice didn't say the words kindly, reassuringly. No, it said them angrily, as though it were disappointed (she knew for a fact that it was). It spat the words 'my daughter' like it was something disgusting stuck in its throat. Her father, if she really wanted to call him that. Yararanje, God of Creation, king of the gods of Veridun, and angry at his 'daughter' for what she had done.

By the Gods, what a thing she had done. She set the Zlohiel free, the Ancient Ones, beings of pure evil with only one goal in mind. Revenge on Veridun for locking them away for years and years. She had failed to stop the dragon/warlock hybrid that wanted them free, failed to take back the key. And now the realm was gone.

She did not know how far they had spread, how much damage had been done, how many people were dead. She did know it was all because of her.

Overhead something roared loudly, a familiar sound, she knew she had heard it long before, during the first war, but she could no longer place it. She heard someone suck in a breath, could feel the air become tense as they all hoped it would continue on. None of them had the strength to fight. They were tired, cold, and hungry.

The roar grew fainter and fainter until it finally disappeared. She let out a breath she didn't know she was holding, feeling her wings relax against the tree trunk. It was common to hear them, the Zlohiel, but by now she was used to only hearing them when they were about to attack.

"Thank the Gods for that," Mikhail muttered, letting out a loud breath in the silence of the forest.

"I wouldn't thank the Gods for much now," Nyal replied from above her. It was almost pitch black now, but when she looked up, she could see him looking down at her. She couldn't see the expression on his face, couldn't see even the most basic of his facial features, but the slight tilt of his head told her that he was looking at her, checking on her.

The stars were barely visible through the leaves and branches, bright against the pitch-black sky. They fell quiet, none of them able to find a reply to Nyal's remark, not even her. She knew he was right. As far as she knew, they would not help. Yararanje told her about his other realms, other worlds, more important than the failure Veridun had become.

She didn't know how much time had passed in the silence, the almost deafening silence, but she was drifting off. "What are we even doing?" Mikhail's tired voice asked. She startled awake, blinking rapidly. She glanced down at where she thought he was, slightly irritated at being woken up just as she was about to fall asleep.

"What do you mean?" Ragen asked, his voice heavy from been woken.

"We're only here because our queen wished it," Mikhail replied. "We could easily go back."

"You'd die if you did. I believe Fiume was one of the first hit," Elora added. The Zlohiel had been ferocious last time they were free, they would be more so now. "The Zlohiel wouldn't leave anyone alive."

"How can you be so sure?" the lycanthrope asked. voice a little louder now. There was a beat of silence before he sighed. "I know you're probably right, but it's my home."

"Mikhail-" Ragen started.

Even if the two eastern men did decide to leave, there wouldn't be anything left for them. They probably wouldn't make it back to Fiume before something caught and killed them. She wouldn't stop them if they really wanted to, but she would suggest the best possible option for them. That meant sticking with Nyal and Elora

She said nothing, however, knowing that it would be pointless. She'd tell Nyal in the morning. He was better at convincing people than she was. He could talk to people better than her. If anyone was going to convince Ragen and Mikhail that their best course of action was the stay with them, it would be Nyal.

No one said anything after that and soon the only thing that could be heard was Mikhail's loud snores, something she had quickly gotten used to over the week, finding the small amount of noise relaxing.

She didn't remember falling asleep, she didn't even know she had woken up for a few minutes after she had done so. One second, she was staring at the thick green leaves bathed in moonlight, the next she was staring at thick green leaves bathed in moonlight. Almost like she had blinked. It was only by looking up through the leaves and seeing the moon in a different part of the sky that she knew she had slept.

The question now was, what had woken her? Mikhail was still snoring, and if she listened closely she could hear the shallow breathing that meant the rest of the men were still asleep. It was when she sat up that she heard it, the footsteps, pounding and thumping along the ground a lot harder than any normal persons would. Something was coming, something dangerous, something Elora would have to kill on her own.

Mikhail snored louder as Elora pulled her leg back onto the branch of the tree. Leaving it dangling in the air wouldn't help her at all. The footsteps grew louder, still barely audible over the lycanthrope's loud snores.

She crouched on the branch, watching the ground below for any sign of whatever it was that had found them. Despite Mikhail's snores being relaxing in the quiet that had taken over Veridun, they had drawn quite a few enemies towards them over the past few days.

It wandered out from between the trees, looking around wildly for the source of the noise that had attracted it. It took Elora a minute to recognise what it was, what had found them. A wendigo, tall and skeletal, pale from the lack of light. It thundered towards the tree, arms out to its side, claws glinting the moonlight.

It let out a growl as Elora spread her wings, jumping from the branch. Her cloak flapped about her and she landed on the ground with a thud, right in front of the hungry wendigo.

Killing one wendigo won't make up for what you've done.

Elora shook her head, ignored the angry words, gathered her magic, and struck.