Meanwhile, on the other side of the undercloud…

In the town square, a man was fighting his horse.

“Come on,” the man growled. As the crowd split around them, passers-by turned their heads to stare at the commotion. “What’s wrong with you? Just move already!”

However, no matter how he tugged and strained at the reins, the horse stood stubbornly in place, nickering. Behind its flicking tail was a cart full of supplies, blankets, a tent and food. The man was packed for a long trip of several days. However, it didn’t seem like his trip was going to get started anytime soon.

“Come on, my daughter is waiting for us,” the man was shaking in frustration. “If I’d known you were going to be this worthless, I'd’ve just sold you to the glue house a year ago.” He stormed to the back of the cart, retrieving a wooden paddle. Whacking it in his hands, he strode towards the horse. “If you won’t listen, then we’ll just have to-”

Just then, the man was stopped by a tapping on his shoulder.

“Heyy, mister.”

Stunned, the man turned around.

There was a hooded woman standing behind him. When the man raised his brow, she pointed at his cart and said:

“-Can I have one of your bagels?”

“Screw off, beggar,” the man spat. “I already have enough to deal with here. Make yourself scarce before I put you in the ground.”

“Um, kinda rude,” chirped the woman. “Anyway, you should really gimme that bagel.”

“And why the hell would I do that?”

“Because I’m hungry,” the hooded woman shrugged. “Also, because I can help you with your horse.”

“There’s nothing you could do that I haven’t tried already,” the man huffed. Wheeling back, he smacked the paddle hard into the side of the horse. The animal brayed, but still it did not budge. “I’ve tried being gentle, I’ve tried being harsh. Nothing works.”

“Look, you’ve got somewhere to hurry to, don’t ya?” gestured the woman. Her dark eyes were hidden in the shadow of her hood, but they glinted. “Then let’s cut to the chase. Give me a bagel and a ride to Archizoun. If I don’t get your horse moving, you can shoot me in the face yourself.”

For a long moment, the man stared at her. Finally, he relented. “Fine, missy. I swear, if you waste my time, that bullet won’t be a quick death.”

The woman merely smiled and held out her hand. “I want the apple bagel.”

~~~

Ethon had been down on his luck until he met the woman.

Look, it wasn’t his fault. He had just been fired from his job on the farms because he was ‘getting on in his years’ and ‘becoming too slow’. When no other farm would take him, and money and food at home dwindled fast. He sought help from a temple, but they looked at him and said he was an able-bodied man that could go into the forest and hunt for himself. But it seemed like everyone else in Fenlin had had the same Medusa-damned idea: the forests were packed with hunters, and no game. Not to mention that Ethon was years out of practice. His wife had taken to stealing leftover breadrolls from the bakery she worked at, until she’d eventually been caught and fired for it, too.

Now, he forlornly packed supplies to travel to the big capital, Archizoun, to pick up his daughter, for whom they could no longer afford school fees. But just as his cart was about to leave through the western gates of Fenlin, the transport jerked and suddenly came to a stop.

He jumped off his horse to see what had happened to the cart—only to find out that the problem wasn’t with the cart. His horse had simply stopped moving, and refused to go forward no matter what he did. Just his luck.

Just then, a hooded woman had come up to him and offered to fix his horse. In exchange, she wanted to hitch a ride to Archizoun. She hadn’t seemed entirely sane—not with the way she casually offered up her death if she failed—but Ethon hadn’t had any other choice. The sun was about to set, and every day his trip was delayed was another day of food supplies gone.

He didn’t know what exactly the woman did. She just bent by the horse and whispered something in its twitching ear, rubbing soothing circles on its head. In a moment, the horse cantered forward once again, and Ethon was too relieved to care. So, in the back of the cart the hooded woman went as they made the path to Archizoun.

As they entered the thicker parts of the Cascan forest, the woman seemed relaxed enough to remove her hood. She appeared to be in her late twenties. Her hair was a curly riot, gold and shimmery under the dying sun. Most striking of all were her eyes, narrow and deep violet in shade. She said her name was… Gem? Jemmy? It sounded more like a nickname, for Gemstone or something. Whatever; he didn’t expect the stranger to give her real name.

But Ethon’s gaze swept over the rich, well-fitted clothing under the woman’s brown cloak—visible, for she sat with her legs swung up over the cart edge—then once more at her unnaturally-coloured eyes. This woman was not just any filthy beggar. She was most likely from a noble family. Had she run away from home?

Just then, suddenly, the woman said something for the first time since their trade. It was this:

“Hey, can I get some carrots?”

“I’m sorry?”

When he refocused his attention on her, the woman was prodding at one of the food baskets he’d piled in the back. “I saw, you’ve got carrots in there.”

“You wanted a bagel and passage. I gave you both,” Ethon gruffed.

“But it isn’t for me. It’s for the horse.”

“What for?”

“He’s hungry, too,” the woman cocked her head. “I don’t think he’s eaten very much at all in a while.”

“Listen, kid, I only have food on this cart for one mouth,” Ethon snapped. “You don’t know what I’m going through. You just sit tight and shut up.”

“Prometheus damn,” the woman sighed. “Thought you’d say something like that.”

Ethon cast a glance backward. The woman continued to sit perched on the back of the cart, grinning sweetly back at him. As mentioned previously, she did not sit properly; one of her legs was stretched out over the side, swinging in the air, while the other leg was propped up on the edge so she could rest her chin on her knee. She was clearly as naive as she was rebellious. She’d probably run away for fun.

“Not even one carrot?”

“No,” Ethon said sourly. “None of them.”

“Wow, why the long face?” she held her hands up. “I asked nicely!”

Ethon said nothing, but inside, his blood boiled. Here he was, fighting for his and his family’s life. His daughter, forced to leave school, while the kids of noble families could run from their well-sheltered, well-clothed lives, and rely on strangers to give them rides back once they had adventured to their satisfaction.

It was when the cart approached the Phoenix’s Nest that the idea struck Ethon. The Nest was a portion of the forest ravaged long ago by wildfires, left nothing there but dead vegetation. Nothing had regrown there ever since. It was said to be a bad omen. Travellers steered clear of the place.

No travellers meant no witnesses.

“Where are we going?” asked the woman.

“It’s a shortcut,” Ethon said. Technically he wasn’t lying.

The cart’s wheels rattled they entered the Nest. Around them, charred trees were bent over, blackened trunks and flaking boughs intertwined with each other, almost like the woven wicker of the baskets his wife used to carry bread home. The ground was silt, powdery and formless beneath them, shifting in the wind in such a way that any tracks left as the cart passed over it disappeared almost immediately. His horse snorted, tensing up below him, as if it smelled something in the dry air. This place is a bad omen. Ethon’s skin prickled with goosebumps, as if he could sense the ghosts of flames lapping at the cart’s wheels, crawling up the sides.

He looked back at the woman. She remained as nonchalant as ever, running her hand through her unruly gold hair, plucking at the tassels of her red scarf.

Well. No time for hesitation.

In one motion, he sprang off the horse and onto the cart. He lunged and grabbed the thin woman, swinging her around and slamming her stomach into the wooden boards.

“!!!!!!” The horse screamed at the impact, shaking the cart fiercely, but Ethon ignored it as he reached for a loop of rope from his supply box. He bound the woman’s hands together.

“Sorry, girl,” he said. “Everything will be fine. As soon as we reach Archizoun, just tell me where your momma and papa live. As long as they pay up, you’ll be safe and sound.”

A brief guilt stabbed him; he imagined that she, too, was another father’s daughter. But her nobleclan father wouldn’t miss the money, while Ethon’s family needed this. He had to put his family first, and this was his only chance to. A chance like this wouldn’t come by again.

“I’m not a monster,” he added almost thoughtfully. “I won’t hurt you, yeah? Just give me the money, and you’ll be fine, I promise.”

Having said that, he gagged the woman with a rag and some more rope, then put her in the back of the cart under a tarp. Then he went back to the horse.

But if the horse hadn’t been spooked before, it no doubt was now. Frowning, he tried to whisper nothings at it and pat its head in the same way the woman had, but got no response.

“Come on,” he grumbled. The sun had just set, and he wanted to get out of the Nest as soon as possible. “You listened to her, why won’t you listen to me? I’m your owner.”

Nothing but the cold rustle of wind. The air swirled, empty. A chill ran down his spine.

Then suddenly—impossibly—he heard the girl’s voice from behind him. Singing:

“It knows better than to listen to you, dummy.”

He whirled around. Some primitive instinct spurred him to free his gun from its holster and shoot.

The bullet soared. But, centimetres from her sparking violet eyes, it halted in its tracks—suspended, as if the air itself had frozen into ice.

Behind the floating bullet, a smile curved across her face. It was also just then, that Ethon noticed that the reins on the horse were gone. The animal cantered, drawing to its full, lumbering height. It swung its eyes on the man… its meek gaze turned to one full of hunger.

“You know…” the woman said idly. “You really should have given him that carrot.”

~~~

Somewhere in the undercloud, far away…

There was a banyan tree.

With a massive, hulking trunk, and branches like tendrils sprawling into the sky, it was an imposing figure. The banyan was a parasitic fig that germinated on large trees, growing out blankets of aerial roots that gripped the trunk on all sides. These would suck out nutrients from the tree underneath them, until the host tree, choked of sunlight and sustenance, starved to death—decaying within the fig’s deadly embrace. The resulting structure was what one called a banyan tree.

It was a truly majestic tree. However, it was only one of many thousands that grew in the tropical marshes of Fenlin. To the unknowing stranger’s eye, it would’ve looked just like any other ordinary banyan.

Only that, if you pried apart this banyan’s strangely cold veil of roots, stepping inside the hollow space where the original tree had once lived, you would find a set of stairs disappearing down below the dirt. Walking down those stairs, just below the surface of those great mats of roots…

You would find the door to a cabin, constructed of wood and stone pillars, holding up the dirt around it.

Inside the cabin, it was warm, thanks to the massive, crackling fireplace in the back. The place was alive with chatter and the clang of spoons. Several steaming pots of a hearty soup were laid out on the long, wide table, which was packed on every end with chairs. Ladles dripped broth and bowls were passed around, over the sounds of murmuring conversation. It was much like a hunters’ cabin. A secret cabin, you might think, hidden away beneath this banyan tree.

The soft glow of the wickflame, captive within their oil lamps, danced upon the hunters who shared their dinner inside. Danced upon shining exoskeletons, hooved limbs, and flicking tails.

This was when you realised that this was no hunters’ cabin. It was, in fact, quite the opposite: it was a den.

This den was the home of the Moon Queen’s army, the Beasts.

Though the fire was warm and the food enjoyed, a tension hung over the the cabin like a cloud. Even the occasional sounds of banter seemed muted, the laughter a little forced. Some appeared restless, tapping their limbs on or below the table, while some simply slouched or slumped around, their expressions tense.

The door burst open.