Ethan's lungs burned as he ran through the darkening forest toward home. At first, the distant glow through the trees seemed ordinary; perhaps his mother had lit extra lanterns, or his father had returned with a large catch that required preparation by firelight.
But as he drew closer, the orange radiance grew brighter and fiercer, painting the Ashspire trunks in hellish light. The acrid smell of burning thatch reached his nostrils, and dread settled in his stomach like cold lead.
Something was terribly wrong.
He broke into a desperate sprint, crashing through undergrowth without regard for stealth or safety. The glow became a roar of flame, and when he finally burst from the tree line, his heart nearly stopped.
Their cottage, his home, his sanctuary was being devoured by fire. Hungry flames licked at every surface, climbing the walls like living creatures. Black smoke poured into the star-filled sky, carrying with it the ashes of everything familiar and safe.
And there, surrounded by a mob of torch-bearing villagers, was his mother.
"Ma!" Ethan shouted, racing toward the chaos without thinking about his own safety.
Lila's tear-streaked face turned toward him, and terror replaced the grief in her eyes. "No! Ethan, run! Get away from here!"
But he couldn't stop. His legs carried him forward even as his mind reeled from the scene before him. He skidded to a halt between his mother and the angry crowd, his chest heaving, his horn catching firelight like polished bone.
"What's happening?" he gasped, looking from face to hostile face. "Please, help us put out the fire! We can save some of it if we work together!"
The villagers recoiled as if he carried plague. "Stay back, monster!" Gareth the blacksmith snarled, raising his hammer like a weapon. "Don't come any closer!"
"We have to kill it!" another voice shrieked from the crowd. "For our children's safety!"
Ethan's world tilted sideways. These were people he had known his entire life: shopkeepers who had sold his family bread, neighbors who had nodded politely in the square. Now they looked at him with naked hatred, their faces twisted by firelight and fear.
"No," Lila stepped forward, placing herself between her son and the villagers. Her voice was steady despite the tears. "We'll leave. Tonight. We'll go far away and never return. Just please don't hurt him."
"Leave?" Ethan stared at his mother in confusion. "Why do we have to leave? We haven't done anything wrong!" He turned to the villagers, his young voice cracking with desperation. "This is our home! We've lived here all my life!"
But he was speaking to hearts turned to stone by terror. The crowd pressed closer, weapons glinting in the firelight, and Ethan finally understood with crystalline horror that these people, his neighbors, his community had set the fire themselves. They weren't here to help. They were here to destroy everything he had ever known.
"For our children," Aldric muttered, stepping behind Ethan with an axe raised high above his head. "For all our sake, you have to die."
The blade whistled down toward Ethan's unprotected neck.
Lila moved like lightning, throwing herself between her son and death. The axe meant for Ethan's spine bit deep into her shoulder instead, splitting flesh and scraping bone with a sound that would haunt nightmares forever.
She collapsed with a cry that seemed to tear the very air.
"Ma!" Ethan dropped to his knees beside her, his hands hovering uselessly over the terrible wound. Blood poured between his fingers like a dark river, soaking into the earth beneath them. "No, no, no! Ma, stay with me!"
He pressed his gloved hands against the gash, trying desperately to stem the flow, but the blood kept coming. His mother's face had gone white as moonlight, her breathing shallow and labored.
Aldric stared at his bloody axe in shock, his weathered face crumbling. "I didn't mean she wasn't supposed to, I only meant to. "
Lila gasped, blood frothing at her lips as she struggled to remain conscious. Her face had turned grey, and her breathing came in short, desperate pants. With shaking fingers, she reached for the rune stone around her neck, a smooth piece of obsidian that seemed to pulse with inner light.
"Ethan..." she wheezed, her voice barely a whisper as she pressed the stone into his palm. "Find... your father."
"I'm not leaving you!" Ethan clutched the stone while pressing his other hand desperately against her wound. Blood seeped between his fingers. "You're going to be fine! Just stay awake!"
Her eyes were already growing distant, fighting to focus on his face. "Run," she managed, each word costing her tremendous effort. "They'll... kill you..."
"No! I won't leave you alone!"
Lila's hand found his wrist with what little strength remained. Her grip was weak, trembling. "Please..." A tear rolled down her pale cheek. "Live... for me..."
Her head fell back, her breathing becoming shallow and erratic. The light was fading from her eyes, but she used her last coherent moment to mouth one final word: "Go."
Something in her tone, the absolute authority of a mother's final wish, broke through his terror and despair. With a sob that seemed to come from his very soul, Ethan stumbled to his feet.
"I'll find Father and take him back!" he choked out. "Just hold on, Ma! Don't leave me!"
He ran then, clutching the rune stone to his chest, tears streaming down his face as the mob's angry shouts rose behind him.
"He's escaping!" someone bellowed. "Don't let the monster get away!"
But Ethan had spent his life in these woods. He knew every deer path and rabbit warren, every fallen log and hidden stream. The villagers crashed through undergrowth like drunken bears while he slipped between trees like flowing water, putting distance between himself and their torches with every step.
He ran without direction or destination, driven only by grief and his mother's final command to survive. Branches tore at his clothes and scratched his face, but he felt nothing except the terrible hollow space where his heart should be.
After what felt like hours, exhaustion finally forced him to stop. He collapsed against the trunk of a massive Ashspire, gasping for breath, his whole body shaking with suppressed sobs. Only then did he notice where his flight had brought him.
A small clearing opened before him, bathed in the gentle light of the twin moons. And there, beside a fallen log, lay a sight that stopped his breath entirely.
A white fox, magnificent in life, now lay motionless with her silver fur dulled by death. But it was not the fox that drew his attention, it was the tiny cub pressed against her still flank, mewling pitifully. The kit's left hind leg was twisted at an unnatural angle, clearly broken, and when it saw Ethan approaching, it tried desperately to scramble away.
But the cub was too weak, too injured to flee. It could barely drag itself a few inches before collapsing again with pitiful whimpers, its bright eyes wide with terror and pain. The kit shrank back against its mother's body, trembling violently as Ethan drew near.
"It's all right," Ethan whispered, his voice breaking. "I won't hurt you."
The cub didn't understand his words, only knew that this strange creature with the horn was approaching, and in its weakened state, it could do nothing but cower and wait for whatever came next.
Ethan's careful control shattered completely. The parallel was too cruel, too perfect. Here was another child who had lost everything, another small life clinging desperately to a parent who could no longer help and, like him, they were trapped and terrified with nowhere to run.
He sank to his knees slowly, moving with deliberate gentleness so as not to frighten the kit further. When he finally gathered the injured cub into his arms, it was too exhausted to resist, though it continued to tremble against his chest. His tears fell onto its matted fur as he cradled the fragile creature.
"I know," he whispered to the trembling kit. "I know exactly how you feel."
In that moonlit clearing, surrounded by the vast indifference of the forest, a boy who had lost his mother and a fox cub who had lost its mother clung to each other and wept.