Nyra walked until her legs stopped listening. Then she crawled. Her skin was burned from ash and fire, her fingers blistered raw. Her eyes refused to cry. There was nothing left to squeeze out.
She was alone. Korr-Vira was gone. Her family, her friends, Tyren, Aunt Kessa, Enric, all gone. Swallowed by smoke and silence. Her mind refused to replay it. To do so was to invite madness.
The dirt beneath her hands began to change. It went from blackened soot to jagged shale, then to bone-white stone. She didn't notice the slope until her foot slipped. The ground disappeared beneath her. The world tilted sideways.
She fell.
Nyra screamed, but the air stole the sound. She tumbled into darkness, scraping against rocks, thorns, and cold roots. Her body bounced like a rag doll. Then there was light. And then, water.
She hit the river hard.
Freezing. Choking. Tumbling.
Her limbs flailed. She couldn't breathe. The water pulled her down and down, cold knives cutting at her skin. It dragged her through tunnels of stone and light and shadow. Her scream was swallowed by the current.
Then, air. She broke the surface, gasping, clawing at slick stone. Somehow, her fingers found a jagged root, and she pulled herself halfway out of the torrent. Her body dangled from the riverbank, shaking violently, vomiting water.
She passed out.
Morning came.
When she opened her eyes, she thought she was dead. The sky was... blue.
Not red. Not smog-stained. Not cracked and screaming.
Just soft, endless blue with long, stretched clouds like feathers. It made her eyes hurt. It was too beautiful. Too clean. She lay there a long time. Just breathing.
Her pitch-black skin shimmered slightly under the sunlight. Demons didn't belong in sunlight. It felt wrong. Like the world was trying to scrub her out.
But she kept moving.
She limped, barefoot and battered, across hills and roots and strange grass. Her ribs ached with each breath. Cuts ran like spiderwebs down her back. She tasted blood every time she swallowed.
She found a path. Dirt, but wide. Hoofprints. Wagon tracks. Signs of life.
She followed it.
She didn't know for how long. Her body was glass held together by pain. Time meant nothing. Hunger gnawed at her. Her throat was dry as scorched bark. Every step left a piece of her behind.
Then she heard voices.
"Well, what do we have here?"
Nyra turned, slow and heavy, to see three men step out of the trees. Bandits. Ragged leather armor. Dirty blades. One missing an eye. One with a necklace of ears. The third looked too young to be that cruel but his grin said otherwise.
"Looks like we caught us a runaway rat," one of them said. "Wait... look at her skin."
All three stared. One of them leaned in.
"She's a demon. A kid demon."
"Shit," the one-eyed man breathed. "We'll get a fortune for her."
The young one grinned wider. "She's pretty for a demon, ain't she?"
Nyra stepped back. Her hands trembled.
"Let's have a little fun first. Then we sell her."
They grabbed her.
She screamed and fought, kicking, biting, scratching. But she was small. Weak. They were laughing. One hit her in the gut and she collapsed. Rough hands tore at her tunic.
"Stop moving, little worm," one snarled.
Then everything exploded in red.
A sword tore through one of their chests, splitting bone and lung. Blood sprayed across the path. The man fell without a sound.
The second tried to run. His head left his shoulders before he made it two steps.
The last screamed and raised his knife and was gutted from groin to sternum. His entrails spilled steaming onto the road.
Nyra blinked through tears.
A man stood before her.
Tall. Human. Clad in silver armor that gleamed like the sun. His sword was longer than her body and wet with blood.
She stared in awe. Her breath caught. The figure looked like a statue carved from light and wrath.
He turned toward her.
Their eyes met.
Then his face twisted.
"Demon."
He charged.
Nyra flinched, too shocked to move. The sword came down in a shining arc. She dove sideways. The blade missed her by a hair.
She scrambled up. "Wait! Please...!"
He slashed again.
Steel met flesh. A deep cut opened along her arm and another across her thigh. She screamed and fell.
"You monsters don't get to plead," the knight growled. "You bring rot and ruin. You don't get mercy."
She crawled. Her legs barely worked. Her blood painted the dirt behind her. Her breath came in short gasps, her vision blurring.
He walked toward her like death.
Another noise.
The last bandit, not dead yet, rose behind him with a dagger and screamed. He lunged.
The knight spun, impaling him through the heart. Blood sprayed across the trees.
Nyra ran.
She didn't look back.
She ran until her lungs collapsed. Until her legs buckled. Until her blood ran in rivers down her calves. Until the trees swallowed her.
She ran like a ghost chased by fire.
Then she fell. And the world went dark again.