It was almost midnight, and the call of a coyote came from the east. Cicadas and frogs created a symphony in the night as I followed them into the trees. Even though the woods were alive and active, my throat grew tight, and a gut-deep sensation chewed at me.

I flailed in my mind for words, to say something, but I couldn't speak over the lump in my throat. Every fiber of my being screamed at me to run; to turn back; to not follow them into their world. It was like the last few hours had suddenly crashed down on me. But I sucked in a breath, gritted my teeth, and wrangled with the voice in my mind. 

You're being stupid. You have nothing of value to assist them with, and it would be safer just to run back to the house and lock the door. You're going to get yourself killed. My inner voice sneered.

I reminded myself that if I stayed, soldiers would come, and they would probably be magical. This was the only way to keep my family safe, to survive. Yet, I was terrified. Fear of the unknown, of failure, of every horrible thing that I'd read about in fantasy stories happening to me was wrapped around my soul. It burned my mind and froze my insides. A soft hand touched my shoulder, and I looked up to see Belenus had fallen back to me while Faolán took the lead.

"Are you afraid?" He asked softly. My clenched teeth were all that kept me from crying, so I nodded. "I was too, when Bella and I had to flee our home two months ago." I inhaled swiftly while tears of panic pricked my eyes. A strange, urgent sensation was teasing my spine. It was a warning, a neon-flashed instinct that something ahead was dangerous and should be avoided. "The Rift is close. Please understand; myself and my people will do everything in our power to return you home. I promise," Belenus said and took my hand in his. That tingle grew stronger. When we broke into a small grove that tended to flood during bad storms, I saw why. In the middle of the clearing—almost exactly in the center of the ring of oak trees and swamp palms—was a blazing torch. Except, it wasn't in the clearing.

The air itself had been opened almost like a zipper, from the ground to the trees. The edges of the rip shimmered like heat waves from asphalt, and the torch was on the other side, impaled in a solid, dry forest floor surrounded by ancient, imposing oaks. The longer I looked, the more my instincts screamed at me to run away.

"The Rift may be making you wary. Do not fear, for it is a spell designed to repel any who do not have magic in their blood," Faolán explained. He looked back at me. My face must have looked as sick as I felt. "By no magic, we mean pure humans." I had figured that out, but the nausea kept me from speaking. "I will enter first, and Belenus will take you through with him." In a blink, he stepped through the shimmer. It rippled, like he'd walked through water, and then I saw him turn out of sight to the right of the torch.

"Wait," Belenus said and pulled me to a stop. I looked up at him, clenching my fists. I just wanted to cross and get it over with. It was hard to keep myself from running. "I nearly forgot. There are many languages in Aranthem, and only knowing current English may cause unnecessary conflicts with some of the people," he said. Before I could reply, he bit his lip hard enough to draw blood. Then he said, "Do yours," and nodded at my mouth. I bit down, my throat still too clogged to ask why. Suddenly his fingers were at my temples, and he murmured in that strange language. Without warning, his lips brushed mine, mingling the blood in such a brief exchange that I nearly missed it. I almost jerked back, almost slapped him in reflex at the unexpected and unsolicited kiss. Then, a shock went through my lip straight to my tongue then up to explode in my mind. "There," Belenus said and released my face. "Now you speak and understand every language I do."

"What?!" I half-shouted. I froze when I realized I'd heard English, but his lips had not been forming English words. "Will it wear off?! How did you do that?!" My energy took a sharp drop, and a wave of drowsiness hit me. "Will the spell constantly drain my energy?" I asked. I didn't know how I could function like this. It was like I'd taken an allergy pill.

"Oh, yes. Here," he said. Belenus produced a clear stone from his pouch and continued speaking, "let the spell draw from the energy stored here and not from her body." Then he handed it to me. "Keep this in contact with your skin at all times, until we can procure a necklace for it." I clasped it swiftly. For a moment, I didn't know where I could store it, but then the bright idea to put it in my bra struck me. Once it was safely stored, my energy returned. "Ready?" He asked, and he clasped my hand in his again. 

"No, but I don't have a cho-" my sentence was cut short when Belenus dragged me into the Rift.

My entire body felt smothered, like I had been dunked in a pool. It felt like swimming, except through electrified velvet, and the air was squeezed from my lungs. I fell and soared all at once when the sensation of drowning passed. Tree limbs and leaves swirled over my head, and all feeling except for damp, chilly air dissipated. Breath rushed back into my lungs, and it sent stars exploding across my field of vision. My head pounded painfully. The taste of copper and ozone was thick on my tongue, like my mouth was full of bloody cotton after the dentist. My ears rang and thrummed. I tried to keep myself upright, but my knees hit the ground, followed by my hands, and I realized I was shouting something about not being able to breathe.

"Give yourself a moment, Grace, the crossing can be unsettling to those who have never known magic," Faolán's voice came to me like he was at the far end of a tunnel.

I focused on the ground before me, how it was smoothly hard, packed dirt, yet it crumbled under my fingers as I clenched them. It filled my nostrils with that unmistakable scent of fertile soil. I used it to figuratively anchor myself, to make the world stop its uncontrollable spin until, gradually, my legs regained feeling. Slowly, the pulsing and ringing subsided, and the burning in my lungs eased. I pushed myself up, staggered only slightly, and Faolán and Belenus came into focus.

"I'm good! I'm good," I huffed and swallowed hard. "What now?" I hoped I was fooling them more than I fooled myself.

"This," Faolán said and stepped forward and knelt at the opening of the Rift. He placed one hand on the ground and raised the other up, fingers splayed in midair. Then, with a firm, commanding tone, he said, "Seal this breach in the world." With a shimmer, the Rift closed in a crackle of static. I clenched my fingers into my thighs and sucked back my tears while I watched my world disappear into nothingness.

"Who's this?" The curious voice of a woman drew me from my shocked stare at the now clear air. I turned to find her leaning casually against a tree, a crossbow in her hand.

She was a bit taller than me, somewhere around five-eight, with intense brown eyes, naturally arched brows, and a pleasantly square face. Her black hair was cut short on the sides but tousled in a wavy quiff on the top. It hung over her brow just before her eyebrows began. She wasn't thin but was more muscular than anything. Yet, her stocky frame was suited for her curves, which were wrapped in black leather and soft cotton that came up to her neck. The leather bodice had a keyhole in the front that showed off just a taste of her proportioned cleavage. She wasn't breathtakingly beautiful, just attractive, but there was something about her that made me feel a twinge of cautious yearning in my chest. 

I wanted to intimately know her yet feared everything about her all at once, and I consider myself as straight as they come. Despite her relaxed posture, her crossbow was pointed definitively at a gagged man in gray clothes bound to a tree across from her. I stumbled to find words to identify myself as she raked those nearly mahogany eyes over me, her lips pulling up in an appraising smirk.

"Steren, this is Grace. She killed the shadewolves and saved my life." Belenus rested a hand on my shoulder as Steren's appraising smirk flickered to a look of shocked awe. She pushed away from the tree and stared at me like Belenus had announced I'd diffused a bomb and saved a bus full of children. "Grace, this is Captain Steren, former head of Bella's royal guard." 

"Pleasure to meet you, Captain Steren," I said, finally finding my voice, and smiled. I would have offered my hand, but I wasn't sure if she would accept, armed as she was.

Her return smile, as her crossbow stayed squarely aimed at the man, was stunning and lethal all at once. Once the dazzle of it cleared, I realized why. Her lateral incisors on top and bottom were just as pointed as her canines, though they weren't noticeably larger than most people's normal, squared incisors. Her brown eyes caught in the torchlight, dancing feral yellow when she extended her right hand to me. I shook it, and she sniffed the air.

"By The Mother, you're human. I mean, you're just... human." She sniffed again, and I pulled my hand back. That close, the warning instinct was much stronger than the attraction. Despite her smile, I knew she was a dangerous person. Almost as if she sensed my quandary, Steren chuckled and explained, "I'm a born werewolf, sixth generation." I felt my heart begin to pound anew. Werewolves? First elves, and now werewolves! What chaos had I found myself in?! The forest suddenly felt imposing, as if its shadowy depths held all the monsters of my childhood nightmares. 

"What she means, Madam Grace, is that you need not fear her," Faolán said, as he appeared from the darkness of the trees leading four horses. "She is nothing like the feral beasts from your history."

Steren gave a girlish growl of a giggle before turning back to her prisoner. I now noted he was staring at me with wide-eyed shock. Faolán asked, "Were you able to coax any additional information from our friend here?" 

"Nope. He's got no idea where Bella was being taken except to Carwyn," Steren said, and her cordial demeanor immediately melted into anger and loathing so deep that it made my spine shiver. "If you hadn't prohibited me from using my interrogation methods..." she said, letting her voice trail off. There was a lethality in her tone that told me her methods would have killed him, and she would have been fine with it.

"We needed him alive to keep the portal open," Faolán said, and he passed me the reins to a massive black horse. It was a male, and his saddle towered over my head. "Now that the only witness in the other Realm to these events has been secured, and I have closed the portal, you can do with him as you see fit, Steren." I hadn't expected that, but I should have. Elves were always described as capricious. Steren was smirking in a predatory way as she lowered her crossbow and licked her lips.

"What are you gonna do to him?!" I yelped, my heart was racing. Steren towered over the man, and her pointed nails grew three inches longer. My stomach turned when I realized she was probably about to rip his throat open.

"Don't kill-" Belenus covered my mouth.