Flames were all around her, she could feel the heat and it brought tears to her eyes. A sickly sweet smell filled her nose and she knew, she knew what it was. She cried out and immediately began harshly coughing as acrid smoke left her lungs stinging. She could see the door out into the dooryard. Heat radiated from the floor under her back and she tried to flip herself over, to get to her feet, but she was so weak.

Instead she crawled towards the door, and through the smoke she could see it getting closer, but it seemed to take an eternity. Spots swam before her eyes, as she coughed and coughed. Finally, her fingertips touched the door frame, but she couldn’t seem to open the door.

“Adria!” her Ma’s voice, choked in pain. “Adria, please!” She couldn’t see, she couldn’t breathe. The door swung open under her fingertips, and cool night air washed over her face for a moment before the flames billowed around her.

“MA!” she screamed, even as she felt someone grab her hand and begin to drag her out.

“Adria! ADRIA! You must wake up!” A man’s voice, full of urgency. She was cold, and confused. Her head pounded painfully. The dream again.

“I’m okay…I’m awake,” she muttered. Her eyes wouldn’t open, it was too bright. Adria covered her face with her hands and tried to sit up. Anders’ hands helped her. Finally, she was able to squint into the light. She looked around, vaguely remembering arriving at a fairly secluded glade and helping Anders set up a small camp before she finally succumbed to exhaustion.

“You seemed to be having some bad dreams,” Anders said quietly. She looked up at him. He was hunched over a meager fire. He looked extremely worn. She realized he probably hadn’t slept at all.

“They’re nothing, I’m fine.” Even now, her skin was clammy with drying sweat.

“How’s your head?” he asked gently.

“It’s okay, it hurts-but not as bad as last night,” she replied. He pushed a bowl of stew into her cold hands, and the smell wafted up to her. Her stomach growled loudly, and her mouth watered. It smelled amazing. She began to shovel the stew into her mouth, burning it painfully.

“Slow down,” Anders laughed. His laugh was kind and she couldn’t help smiling. Ma warned her about falling under a faerie’s spell. “It’s been a few nights since I slept last. We should be safe for the time being. I wonder if you’d mind watching over me, while I rested a bit. No more than a few hours.”

“Of course! You’ve been so kind to me. You even saved my life last night.” Her Ma was squawking in the back of her head, about using this as an opportunity to escape. Adria almost shushed her out loud but instead stuffed another spoonful of delicious stew in her mouth. “What kind of spice did you use on this? It’s so good!”

Anders smiled and just shook his head. “Nothing you’ve ever heard of. Perhaps I’ll show you if our path continues together.” He laid back against a nearby tree, and shut his eyes. One of his hands rested on the hilt of his long curved knife. He sighed with exhaustion. It was only a moment or two later before his breathing slowed.

Adria ignored her Ma’s voice and stared at Anders. It was hard to believe he was what he said he was, but there was definitely something about him that was different. She was not a worldly woman by any stretch of the imagination, having only been off her family’s farm on a few dozen occasions. And most of those trips were to the nearby village of Orsk.

As she looked closer, she noticed that his clothing was not made of linen, wool or even silk. While it was worn and obviously had travelled far, it was still finer than anything she’d ever seen, including at Iomen’s finery store in Orsk, where she’d spent hours dreaming of owning one of the fine gowns. Even the curved knife he had sheathed at his waist seemed to be an unfamiliar metal. The hilt was inlaid with some of the most intricate metalwork she had ever seen.

Adria finished off the delicious stew, wishing that there were more. It had been a tough few weeks, and her meals had been very few and far between. Her last meal had consisted of a few wild onions that she’d found before entering the Fardeep, yesterday morning. She turned to cleaning up the remains of the meal, washing out Anders’ cookpot and bowls, using the last of the water from skin. She looked around the impromptu camp, wondering where she could get more. Standing up, she steadied herself for a moment. Moving back towards the trail cautiously, she listened carefully. She heard no sounds other than the twittering and the wind rustling the trees.

The sound of the creaking trees made her shiver in memory, but the brightness of the day dispelled most of her fears. Looking up and down the trail that lead out of the Fardeep, it appeared to be deserted. Even as her Ma told her she shouldn’t be doing this, she made her way further down the trail, looking carefully to both sides for signs of a stream. As she walked and looked, her thoughts turned back to her family, which brought stinging tears to her eyes.

Her poor Ma, her Dad, her brother Dorry, their home –all gone. She had no idea of how the fire had started; she had woken in the room she shared with her brother surrounded by flames. She hadn’t been able to see or breathe, and she remembered making it to the front door, and her dad pulling her out even as she lost consciousness. The last thing she recalled seeing is her father rushing back into the flames.

When she had woken next to the still burning remains of her home, she was alone. She had screamed her brother’s and parent’s names over and over until she couldn’t any longer. She had tried to get into the mostly collapsed pyre but the heat and flames kept her back. Her family was gone, burned to death. Frantically, she had run around and around the house, trying to find a way in. Exhausted, weeping uncontrollably, she had stumbled into the barn, which hadn’t burned and collapsed in the hay. Completely drained, she fell back into unconsciousness, haunted by burning dreams. Her Ma’s voice calling to her from behind the flames echoed through her. She saw Dorry in his bed, engulfed and screaming in fiery agony. Her father dashing headlong in to save the rest of his family and being consumed. So many horrors, even in her sleep, tears trickled from her closed eyes.

She had no idea how long she had slept, but when she woke it was dark again. She could hear something moving in the barn, and her heart nearly stopped with panic. Then she heard a braying noise and realized it was the donkey that her father had brought back from Orsk last week, to replace old Ike that he’d found dead in his stall a month ago. It was probably hungry. Dazedly she stumbled through the barn in the dark, towards the stall holding the beast. She painfully scraped the tips of her fingers on one of the wood saws her father hung on the wall, making her wince. Finally, though, she found the door to the stall, and the feed bucket hanging outside of it. She lowered the bucket into the stall and the donkey buried its head inside and began to munch away. Absently, she scratched behind its ears, gaining a tiny bit of comfort in this.

A distant sound brought Adria back from her memories. It sounded like hooves on the trail. Her heart thudded in her chest, and she quickly scurried into the underbrush. She wasn’t sure if she should hide or not, but this once she listened to her Ma’s voice and took cover behind a tree. Why, oh why had she wandered away from the relative safety of Anders’ camp?