A girl and a boy stood with their backs pressed against the wall, mist curling around their faces. Each clutched sword hilts in their trembling hands. At age thirteen, Rose was a gangly girl and thin as a twig, even in her padded leather and iron armor.

This was not her first mission. It was not the first time she had faced death and danger. Her trembling hands had more to do with the unnatural cold in the air than the fear in her stomach, or so she told herself.

"Think she's still there?" Rihan, the blond-haired boy beside her, asked. He spoke in a hushed tone, one that was neither hesitant nor fearful. He knew how to keep the fear out of his voice, even then, at age twelve. He had always been an accomplished actor.

"Probably," Rose whispered back. She glanced around the corner. The hallway was dark, the mist rolling over the stone floor and past the rotting walls.

A haunting tune floated down the hall with the mist toward them, rising and falling in a slow hypnotic rhythm. Rose inhaled, holding the breath. A figure drifted into view, hunched and hazy. Shrouded in mist, her body seemed to phase in and out, one moment seeming solid and real, the next translucent and ephemeral. A mop of dark hair fell around her shoulders and over her face, some clumps hanging past her waist.

White furred hounds prowled at her side, their long coats shot with blue streaks. They were frost hounds, summoned by the banshee from realms of magic. Their eyes glowed a ghastly blue, their long snouts sniffed the air and the ground, each step leaving a frozen footstep behind them.

Rose released her breath as they passed out of sight again.

"That was?" Rihan started to ask.

Rose nodded. "The end of the hall."

Rihan inhaled a calming breath. "We need to regroup. We can't keep hiding here."

Rose nodded. If they were to defeat the banshee, they would need their entire team. The two of them stood no chance on their own.

"What's the plan?" Rose asked.

"Find the others, kill the demons, beat the ghost, go home."

"Maybe some details, Ri?" Rose asked.

"If the others were lucky, they'll have beaten the hounds chasing them by now, and they'll be looking for us too."

"So, we should just wander until"—A scream piercing the gloom cut off Rose's words. Its source came from the floor above them.

Rihan and Rose exchanged a single look before they were both running down the mist filled corridors, both keeping low and close to the walls.

"Was that Kat?" Rose asked as they ran. She kept her voice low. The last thing they needed was to attract the attention of more frost hounds, or worse the banshee herself.

"You think my sister would scream like that?" Rihan asked.

Rose shrugged. "It wasn't Kerrie."

"Might have been Daud."

"That was a pretty girly scream."

"Then that was the banshee?" Rihan scoffed.

Rose ran through the possible options. "With Kerrie being least likely, followed by the banshee, then Aaryn, Daud is more likely than Kat, yes."

"So, it was Daud."

"Don't pick on Daud when he can't defend himself," Rose said.

"Picking on Daud?" Rihan asked. He affected a look of shock and outrage, which Rose ignored. "Me? Never. Certainly not where he could defend himself."

"Certainly," Rose replied with a snort.

But it wasn't Daud they found first. Instead at the foot of the stairs they caught sight of Aaryn, a dark-haired boy, holding a pair of daggers, locked in battle with a frost hound.

It lunged at Aaryn, its mouth wide open for the bite. Aaryn sidestepped the creature, driving one of his daggers into its coarse coat. The blade left a long gash as the hound's own momentum pulled the blade through its flesh.

It snapped its jaws to the side, trying to catch Aaryn before the boy could skirt away again, but to no avail. Aaryn kept up his dance with the monster without a flaw. But then, this kind of knife fight had always been his specialty.

Rose and Rihan planned on letting him finish the creature on his own. Stepping in would only throw off Aaryn's pattern, hindering more than it would help.

A howl behind them changed that. Rose and Rihan drew their swords. Another behind Aaryn joined the fray. And then another. From other parts of the ruined building more howls filled the night. From the floor above came a wailing shriek drowning out all other sound. The banshee.

They had to deal with her pets before she joined this fight.

"Group up!" Rihan shouted, wasting no time to run to Aaryn's side.

A hound leapt at Rose as she moved to take her place beside them. She raised her shield, just barely managing to keep its jaws from clamping down on her body. It pushed her back, separating her from Aaryn and Rihan.

Half of the four turned their attention to her, the other half pinned Rihan and Aaryn.

Her two approached from opposite sides, tightening their circle around her. Their eyes, glowing a ghastly supernatural blue, watched her. Her hands trembled from the weight of her weapon and shield and from the fear coursing through her body. Still the two circled.

Wolves are calculating hunters. They pick their targets, the weak and the frail. Given their choice, they'd follow a herd for miles waiting for an ideal moment to strike. Frost hounds were no different.

They were evaluating her, looking for the best moment to strike. She knew this was to her advantage. Rihan and Aaryn had a decent chance of taking out their two opponents. The longer these two waited to attack, the less time she would need to survive their onslaught before Rihan or Aaryn could come to her rescue.

But they had decided she was the weak link.

That thought left her blood boiling.

She needed to be rescued.

It left a foul taste in her mouth, sending her heart to the pit of her stomach.

There was no shame in being unable to kill two frost hounds. That was a fact. Professionals had difficulty hunting them. A pair was more than enough to take down grown men. She knew all that. This was well recorded fact. A young girl like herself should have no chance. Reason dictated she should wait for her betters to come and rescue her.

But that left no better taste than the previous thought.

It rang with words she'd heard before. That she had no place here. That this was a battle field and no place for a girl meant for courts of silk and smiles. That she had no business in leather armor or hefting a shield up over her body.

She had heard it all before. She knew what her mother would say.

But she'd already made her choice. These echoing doubts would not disuade her.

She would make them regret singling her out.

Despite the doubts, despite reason, she didn't wait for the two circling her to lunge.

She charged.

Howling a war cry, she rushed the one opposite her friends.

The wolves, ready hunters, didn't startle, rather, they bared their fangs and met her.

She shield bashed the first, using that momentum to turn and swing her sword around to catch the second beast across the nose.

Her sword rose to strike the hound a second time, but the first jumped her from behind. It clamped onto her shoulder. An intense cold radiated out from the bite, the flesh freezing on contact with the creature's teeth.

She caught her scream in gritted teeth, biting back her pain. The second hound took this moment to bite her leg. She caught its face again with her sword as it tried, despite her pain.

The one biting into her shoulder thrashed, trying to pull open the wound. She stabbed her sword at it, unable to target its vulnerable parts over her shoulder.

However, her thrust did rip the monster from her body, taking the iron armor plate from her shoulder with it.

It was all she could do to hold onto her weapons and back pedal toward the wall. The two frost hounds watched her as she backed away, reevaluating. Both were bloodied. One of her strikes to the face appeared to have left a deep gash. The other's blue tinted fur had been stained red from blood, equal parts hers and its own.

This was bad. She'd hurt them, but they'd hurt her worse. The pain threatened to bring her to her knees, her shoulder throbbing violently. She had moved recklessly, and this is what it had gotten her. She could hear her master's lectures ringing in her head. She'd never be as strong as the boys, she had to fight smarter.

She spared a second to see how Rihan and Aaryn fared. They stood across the room from her, both bloodied, but at least one of their opponents was limping. She didn't dare to look away from her opponents any longer than that though.

Reason had reasserted itself. This time, she would wait for the hounds to strike first. There would be a time and place for foolish emotional outbursts about her self-worth, but only if she survived this. Every moment the hounds stalled was another Rihan and Aaryn had to finish their opponents off. She just had to last that long.

They slid in closer to her, their ghastly eyes flicking from her wounded shoulder to her blade. She held her position, sword raised, shield ready, although with every second it grew harder and harder to hold either there. The shield in particular, since that shoulder had been thrashed, was all but impossible to hold. But to drop it was to invite their attack, and if they attacked her again, she wasn't going to survive long enough.

So, she kept her eyes hard, gritting her teeth in a feral snarl, hoping the hounds wouldn't realize her eyes held exhaustion, not malice, and her teeth bit back pain, not violence.

"Rose!" Rihan's voice called over the battlefield. Rose didn't look up. Didn't give any indication her attention had left the still very dangerous frost hounds before her. "Regroup in: Three!"

A quick glance at the other group, she saw Rihan had his sword deep in one of their two monsters.

"Two!" Rihan roared. Rose tried raising her shield again. It was too heavy. Her shoulder in too much pain to hold in position any more.

"One!"

Rose closed her eyes at the call, but she knew a flash of light filled the room.

She dropped her shield and leapt forward, her eyes open again safe in the knowledge that the flash would last only a moment.

Panicked her two opponents had lunged at where she had been standing with the flash. But she was no longer there.

Rose struck one of her opponents as it past her, leaving a long, deep gash in its hind leg. It howled in pain as it tried to turn on her. But Rose stepped out of the way, avoiding it and its heavily bleeding partner.

Meanwhile, Rihan and Aaryn split, running on opposite sides of their limping opponent. It lunged at Rihan, who danced out of its range. Aaryn took the opening to drive his dagger into the hound's body. It turned to try to bite Aaryn, but as it did, Rihan stepped in again and stabbed it from the other side. It gave a pitiful growl and collapsed to the ground.

Rihan and Aaryn turned to stand beside Rose.

The three of them stood before the bloodied frost hounds, looking no more like children than the beasts before them looked like puppies.

"On my mark, Rose, take the limping one," Rihan ordered. "Aaryn, thread the needle."

"Right," Rose and Aaryn said.

Rihan took a deep breath, adjusting the blade in his hand. Rose and Aaryn did likewise.

"Mark," Rihan breathed. Rose and Rihan both ran at the frost hounds, Rose to the one whose leg she'd injured on the right, Rihan toward the other on the left.

The creatures lunged as the two fighters approached. Rose swung her sword as it did.

The hound managed to stop short of the blade's strike, but its skidding left it open to Aaryn who materialized out of the mist. His daggers found their marks. One embedded itself deep in the hound's back while the other slid across the creature's neck.

Rose didn't wait for the creature to fall.

In a flash she stood behind Rihan's hound. Her blade swung down in a sweeping slash, cutting deep into its hindlegs. In a panic, it turned to snap at her.

As it turned away from Rihan, he drove his sword down, through its neck.

And like that, all four lay on the ground, life gone or fast leaving. Reunite with Kat and Daud