The circle of light stopped moving. The bodaki moved closer as the light weakened and Sosa`s bubble shrank to almost nothing. They were eager, could feel her weakness, her exhaustion, her fading strength. They gathered, eager to take revenge on the one who had claimed so many of them. Sosa could feel it through the dark just like she felt the ripples, as if the dark was a conduit for their hate. They wanted her. They wanted to taste her screams. The ring of bodake closed in on every side of the fading circle of light.

　　It was a mistake. Sosa was not in the circle. She was already moving, flowing through the bodaki like fire through hay dust, her blade singing from scaled hide to plated skull and they died in explosions of black smoke.

　　She thrust the light outwards, far beyond the ring and a scream went up into the sky. The bodaki writhed and clambered over each other to flee back to the safety of the dark. A sea of black, shining limbs tangled and whipped as the bodaki squealed and thrashed and died in the burning intensity of Sosa`s light.

　　The culling of the bodaki had begun.

　　They followed her, wary of a trap, but their hatred drew them after her. She could feel it now, taste it.

　　Sosa crouched down at the centre of a wide bubble of light. This time it was no trap. She drew the bow Eleris had given her let her mind feel through the light, into the dark and find her targets. She sent arrow after arrow through the dark curtain, each one met with a rush of black smoke as another bodaki died and the others howled, helpless to touch her at such a distance. The hatred made them mindless. It made them reckless and far easier to kill. They lingered and bayed at the edge of her light as one by one she picked them off until she began to feel them pull back. Then she moved, retrieving her arrows from where they fell out of the insubstantial darkness. She could hear each one singing to her and of course could follow their glow. She took her time, enjoying how the indignant survivors in the bodaki pack grew more furious. Her muscles ached and she sat for a moment, counting her arrows. She had found them all.

　　Sosa grinned out at the circling dark, much less densely packed with bodaki than it had been when the day started. They were dripping with fury, she could feel it.

　　Good. Their attention was on her, and wholly on her which is where she needed it. She began to walk and they followed her. Slowly she led them away from Rala. Careful not to become too distracted, she also felt for the ripples from the much larger, much more terrifying thing out here. It was following too. As she walked, Sosa picked off any bodaki on her path retrieving each arrow as she past. When she sensed the thing on the other side of the ripples beginning to drift away or lose her, she doubled back, thinning the bodaki behind and stopping to retrieve the arrows before continuing once it had her scent once more. Gradually she led the bodaki and the monstrous thing away from Rala. Before too many rounds of this, she had killed so many of the bodaki that they started to drift away into the trees dissipating, the pack broken. They dispersed into the forest. Perhaps this was why the guardian`s had never tried to slaughter them all. After a while, even bodaki had to learn to just keep their distance from that they could not kill. Most importantly, too few of them remained for it to follow, even if they drifted back toward Rala. Now the only the thing it could follow was her. She waited for it, feeling the ripples that hummed through the dark. It was coming.

　　Don`t stop. You can`t ever stop.

　　The forest was huge. Sosa was ignorant of all but the corridor of forest between the two villages. To leave the area would be to get lost and likely never find her way back unless there was no limit on how far she could feel the armour she had left with Grammawe and the others.

　　She headed first for her own home. Ale. It didn`t matter if the thing found her village, it was deserted.

　　She walked and stopped and listened and walked more, making sure it still followed. If she could gain enough ground without losing it, there was something she would like to do. Actually there were two things and one of them was sleep. She could try to sleep, but wake up to, what? Halo? Or something that certainly wasn`t Halo, standing over her? No. She would go until she could go no more and then perhaps some final sleep would be allowed her. She just had to move for longer than today, take it far enough away that it would not drift back to Rala by accident. She understood now why Eleris wouldn`t answer her question.

　　Still, there was one task she wanted to try and complete before this was all over. There were two bodies left by a tree and she wanted better for them than that. Burying them was not an option as the bodaki had proven good diggers. She wanted to burn her parent`s bodies, free their ki of the bodaki forever. She only hoped there was time.

　　She could smell the smoke long before she made it, stumbling and weary, to the edge of her village and the remains of her old home. The ragged remains of a small, axe-worried stump was surrounded by fresh darktree chippings and discarded branches. Heavy gouge marks in the soil led back towards the buildings.

　　The centre of the village was on fire. Sosa slowed to stare. At the centre of the blaze was the council building, full of Sosa`s bodies. The bodies she had left strewn around the buildings were all gone. The flames consumed the building, had they consumed the bodies too, or had the bodaki taken the corpses for sport?

　　A figure stepped out behind her and Sosa span, spear pointing at its throat. It was Gris, not in his fine armour as he had appeared in the forest, but as she`d seen him before. Dressed like any other villager in only a skirt, and a few bronze bangles he wore presumably to keep his connection to the protective light. A protection they had never known he provided. A protection he had now withdrawn.

　　She`d blamed him for the death of her brother and she`d been wrong, but on Eleris` say so, he had abandoned them completely. Seeing him again, knowing he had felt so ashamed of what he`d allowed to happen to him that he would spurn his immortal lover& it made it hard to hate him. Not impossible.

　　She could not forgive what Eleris and Gris had done, but he`d lived alone probably for generations, with nothing but the dark. She could not forgive, but she could sympathise.

　　Gris leaned on a giant axe, the ground around him orange with wood chips. The remains of the trunk, still more than Sosa thought she could have lifted, lay beside him. On the other side wedges piled where he`d split the trunk to feed the pyre. Gris regarded her, expressionless then passively returned to watch the flames.

　　Did you burn them all?` Sosa asked.

　　He removed a small piece of armour, looked at it, and handed it silently to Sosa.

　　It was the piece she had left to guard her parents.

　　Had he already brought them, or were they still out there? Did you burn them too?`This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

　　He looked at her, expressionless once more. She held up the armour, then two fingers which she flicked towards the fire.

　　Gris rested his head to one side, then bent and rested it on the other. Sosa had left her parents with their heads resting together. Gris lifted two fingers and waved them toward the fire, then gently placed the hand above his heart.

　　She should be furious with him. She had hated Eleris, but here was the man who had doomed them by removing the protection none of them knew he provided.

　　Inside the building lay the burning body of the kindest, most gentle woman and Sosa had killed her when she was blind. Perhaps the moment for judgement had passed into irrelevance. There had been enough blood and enough hate. Sosa had no energy left for any of it. Thank you,` she said finally, still not sure if he understood or even heard her, but she held out a hand, touching the metal of her breast place over her heart, then arced her fist towards him. He nodded.

　　Something pressed on the dark, making it shimmer. Sosa felt it much like how she felt the dark press against her light.

　　It was coming.

　　Should she warn him, this man who had both protected and doomed her village? She could her sword and run him through. But what would be the point?

　　Why hadn`t he said something? Why had he just played the thief and let them fear him, let them drive him to exile?

　　Sosa had spent so long hating him that when she felt inside, looking for some emotion, she found nothing. She was empty, all her emotion was gone. There was nothing inside but clinging wisps of the dark, deep deep down where even her light could not shine.

　　There is something.` Sosa indicated out into the woods, with a closed fist, then made herself look big and monster-like. Gris turned dismissive, probably thinking she meant bodaki. He was not concerned by such things. Sosa grabbed his shoulder and made him face her.

　　How to make him understand? She mimed something small and snarling, held her palm close to the floor, saying, No, not little monsters, not bodaki.` Then she reared up again, holding her hands up like claws, then her palm face down but above the floor, above her own head. Big monster.`

　　Gris looked amused at her mime.

　　There were big bodaki too, she had seen as much. She stopped and thought, grabbing him again as he turned away. Sosa did the bodaki mime again, then stopped, still miming being some small monster, but now she stood still, trying her best to look terrified.

　　Gris frowned at her, but didn`t turn away.

　　She held up her hands, but could not begin to imagine how to mime what she needed to. Instead she reached for the light and pooled it in the space between them. She wasn`t sure if she could do this, but&

　　Sosa plucked at the light, not getting it quite right at first. The second time it worked. She managed to make the bubble of light ripple, then dismissed it and looked at him. She mimed the frightened bodaki again, then pointed out to the trees and drew her hand closer.

　　It is coming here.`

　　She tapped her own chest and then made a throwing gesture as if throwing herself towards the trees. I will go.` She tapped his chest and repeated the throw away gesture. You should go too. Before it comes.`

　　Gris frowned and stepped past her to look at the distant trees. The vibration and the hum in the dark was getting louder. She hoped he could feel it. She hoped he knew what it was. He held out one hand and moved it slowly as if it came from the trees and swooped after Sosa.

　　She nodded. Yes, it is chasing me. I`m trying to lead it away from Rala.` She patted the stone wall of a hut then turned to where the smoke used to rise, and beyond that to Rala - the new home of her people. Rala.` She mimicked the way his hand had snaked.

　　He looked worried. Finally, he got it. His hand pointed where hers had and he looked at her questioning, desperate. Sosa waved her hands and shook her head. No. Rala is okay, she gestured. She tapped her own chest, made the snake gesture towards herself and then indicated Rala again, drawing her hand slowly from the distance to her chest. I brought it away. I brought it here.`

　　She touched his chest then her own, then threw her hand at the trees again. You and I. We need to go.` She gestured towards the forest in the direction away from Rala, hoping he got the idea.

　　Gris tapped one fist against her chest, beckoned, and then was gone. She gave chase. They ran through the trees and into the ruins, stopping only once they were at his home.

　　He rushed inside and dug a bundle of dusty material from an old box. Some pieces of the metal were wrapped within. A few small bits of armour and also some weapons and tools, all made from the bronze coloured metal.

　　He picked out a heavy, curved sword, something that hung on a chain which he put around his neck and a few of the bronze spikes. Then he tugged the blanket towards Sosa. She didn`t understand. Were they going to fight the thing together? Was she meant to pick some more weapons to help?

　　He wasn`t waiting, as she knelt down for a closer look. He simply placed a hand on her shoulder, nodded at the things and then gave her a slight smile. The hand squeezed once on her shoulder and he gave a last nod.

　　Sosa rose to go with him, but he pushed her gently back to the floor and patted a hand on her shoulder. Stay.

　　She watched him go. In moments he had covered the distance to the trees and disappeared into the dark, running towards the thing she could sense. It was distant, still, but getting closer all the time.

　　Should she follow? No. He`d given her what was left of his belongings and now he ran towards this thing that had threatened Rala. The thing that had terrified Eleris. She stood in the doorway a long time watching and waiting and sensing,

　　The dark shifted, the vibrations changed.

　　She was getting better at sensing it. It was not easy, but she could tell it was moving still, but now it was going in another direction - away from Rala, away from Ale. It must be following something else.

　　Gris.

　　He had got its attention and was leading it away as she had intended to do.

　　You can`t ever stop.

　　Could Gris kill it? Or was he going to do as she had planned and run and run until he could flee no more. Maybe he would be better than her and lose it somewhere far away and then return to safety.

　　She sank down, realising what he had done. It was only what she had promised to do, but he had fulfilled her promise for her. He had saved her.

　　And Eleris would never know he had sacrificed himself for them. Maybe she could return and tell Eleris. Maybe Eleris could be proud of him again. But then Eleris would kill her. She wasn`t sure she still felt any animosity towards the guardian not after failing to feel anything for Gris - all she felt now was tired. But she was Eleris still felt it for her. The guardian had promised to kill her and Sosa didn`t believe the feeling would fade as it had for her.

　　If it had been Sosa out there, she would never have trusted to thinking she had lost it. You can`t ever stop. She found herself hoping that Gris would know when it was safe, that he would not have to run forever until it caught him.

　　Did she want him to make it? Or did she simply not want the guilt of knowing he had taken that burden from her.

　　Maybe he would come back. Maybe he never would.

　　#

　　Sosa waited. She waited and she listened to the dark.

　　She waited for him to return, leaving only to find food and fetch water. She waited.

　　Night drew in and the ripples in the dark grew weaker and more distant.

　　She slept. Actual sleep. In the morning the ripples were gone.

　　Still she waited.

　　Daylight peaked. Gris did not return. Daylight waned. Sosa waited alone.

　　Three more days passed and on the next morning, Sosa awoke to a realisation.

　　This was over.

　　She could not return to her people, to Grammawe, not yet. Maybe one day she could risk returning, but she didn`t trust that something out there wasn`t watching her. Or that Eleris would not be true to her word and slaughter her in the trees before she set one foot back in Rala.

　　At least she was free to leave. Though she had given some away, she still wore most of the armour and with it, she could achieve what she had once thought of being able to do; explore the unknown forest of this world. Perhaps there were other villages out there, maybe she could sense other pieces of armour belonging to other guardians and through them find their villages? Did it work like that?

　　But what if it waited, hidden, and watched? What if she led it right to these other villages? What if there was nothing there and these were the only two?

　　She could stay here, living in Gris` old home, tending the crops he had begun, living his life. It would be lonely, but it would be a life. A life only a few days ago she had not thought she would have. A life she had once thought Ego was lucky to be given.

　　Sosa sat on the grass in the shade of a banefruit tree and felt the freedom she had begun to dream of so many night ago.

　　She never imagined freedom would feel so lonely.