Chapter One

It was the smell of smoke that woke her.

Thump, thump, thump. Faster, faster!

Forest fires weren't strange, especially at this time of summer. But something about this had seemed… wrong.

Vault the log. Gasp, gasp. Come on, faster!

She'd re-packed her fishing gear into her leather satchel and pulled on her gauntlets. Not because she was worried, of course—not then, not yet—but because the stream was several miles away from the Wildscar Tribe's village, and it was suicide to walk through the forest in between unprotected. She had been walking for some time when she had noticed that the smell of smoke was getting stronger. Much stronger.

Lungs hurting, heart bursting, is this as fast as you can go?

Even so, she hadn't worried much. The Ivywild was a big place—that fact that it was in the same direction didn't mean anything. She was only walking faster because she was eager to get home. That was all.

Almost there. Oh, Goddess, I need to go faster!

She had emerged from the trees onto the cliff marking the point that meant she was halfway home and glanced down at the village, just to make sure. Only then did she see it. The smoke, white like dirty wool, filling the sky between summer-wisp clouds, and the red flames fueling it, filling up the gap in the trees through which she should have been able to see her home.

Without a second thought, she had been scrambling down the steep slope, stumbling on shale and slipping on scree. The mad dash after that had been a blur of whipping branches, gasping breath, crashing feet, and the endless mantra ,i>faster faster faster</i> as she fought to think of nothing else beyond forcing her body past its own limits. She couldn't let herself think, or she would panic (and she refused to think that she already was). Panicking was a weak, human response to danger, and even though she was in fact a human, she'd been raised by virtorva. And virtorva were never panicked. She barreled out of the trees and was about to race on when she realized she'd arrived. When she looked up, she almost wished she hadn't.

Her village was indeed in flames. Burnt halfway to the ground already, in fact. Her mind stalled, trying to reconcile the image in her head with the one in her eyes. Gone. Gone, gone, gone. As she stood there, shocked, gasping desperately for air, the smoke slipped into her lungs, choking her breath half-way down. Pain ripped through her esophagus as she doubled over, coughing, coughing, coughing until it hurt, coughing until she thought she'd never be able to breathe again.

Struggling for breath, she plunged into the hazy miasma, her feet leading her down familiar paths as quickly as she could. The worn dirt path beneath her bare feet was so familiar that she could walk it even blinded by smoke and stinging fire. She knew where it turned and where it was smooth and where there were holes. She navigated it without thought, leaving all of her thoughts free to chant at her legs faster faster faster. There was no one around. Had they all fled? No, not all. Those dark shapes dotting the roads and doorways blurred by pale smoke… She wasn't going to look at those and nothing on this earth could make her.

All thought halted when she came around the last bend, even her mental voice going mute with surprise. Her house, her home, the wooden building covered with creeping ivy where she had lived for the past twelve years of her life—it was not burning. Every leaf on every vine wrapping the façade was as pristine as when she'd left it that morning. Or, perhaps not—most were curling in the heat. But it was still standing.

She took two hesitant steps and stopped. An unfamiliar shape was moving in the smoke by the door. It didn't look like an animal; it was the wrong shape for that. For a moment, her heart leaped, until she realized that it was also the wrong shape for a virtorva—the shortest of which towered over her by at least two feet.  She squinted and shifted her stance, prepared in case the whatever-it-was attacked. The smoke between herself and the thing's back thinned just enough for her to make out its outline as it lifted an arm and placed it on the door of her house.

With a deafening roar, her home was swallowed by fiery teeth that gnawed away the vines on the front, the thatched roof, the wicker shutters within a matter of seconds. The heat was incredible. It came in a wave that swamped her already-sweat-slick body and stole the moisture from her eyes.

The smoke thinned even further then, and the indistinct shape suddenly took on sharp clarity. If it was a virtorva, it was a kind that she had never seen before. It was shaped like a human male in his late teens, but covered in bright red scales. White horns jutted from its temples, its spine, its elbows, its tail. The tattered pants around its hips were worn completely through in places, torn apart by the rough scales they covered. As she noticed this, the being turned around to pierce her with yellow eyes glowing like sparks beneath a haze of smoke-pale hair.

He smirked.

"A human, huh? Not the one I was looking for, though." His voice was a medium tone with a slight husk to it, incongruously calm and amused when set against the furious crackling of the house he had just set fire to.

"You did this…!" Her face twisted itself into a snarl as she spoke, her body dropping lower into the crouch she used to hunt in unconscious response to the fury coursing through her veins. "Why?!"

"Why?" the creature tapped a claw against his chin and cast his gaze upwards in mocking thought. "Because what I'm looking for isn't here, of course," he spread clawed hands as if in epiphany, his face darkening with annoyance. "Didn't I just say that?"

"Who are you?" she demanded in a choked voice. "Where is my family?" She knew the answer to that, she really did, but she wasn't thinking about it because she'd been slow and stupid all her life and she couldn't be right now!

"Man, you're annoying." The beginnings of a scowl twisted his face. "Obviously, your family is dead. You'll be with them in a few seconds." That thought sapped the last of the amusement from his face, leaving vicious bloodlust in its place. "Tell the devil Zircon sent you!" With a lash of his tail, the scaled creature swiped at the air, as if to slash her from yards away. Fire spun from his clawtips, shooting for her head.

It was pure reflex that dropped her to the ground as the flames shot above her, scorching the tips of her choppy red hair. It was also reflex, beaten into her from years of training, to dart off of the path and into the trees, where her opponent's eyes would be too blinded by the firelight to see her. Unfortunately, it was not reflex that had her scrambling deeper and deeper into those trees, away from the sound of fire and the creature that had started it. That action was fueled by the feeling in her veins which she was only now coming to realize wasn't fury at all, but contemptible, all-too-human fear. The metal of her clawed gauntlets and of the decorative bands around her throat and arm burned like brands of cowardice. A virtorva warrior may not have panicked or run (and clearly they hadn't, judging by the number of them piled up in the streets behind her), but she was just a weak human, and every fiber of her being was crying out for her to ignore her coughing and the trembling in her muscles and run because that thing was coming for her!

After the glare and swelter of the fire—her home, her village—the forest was as icy dark as the moonless night sky. But it wasn't night, it was just past noon, and the sun was only filtered by grasping branches and drifting smoke, and not disappeared around the edge of the world. Her eyes darted from tree to tree, bush to bush, searching for any surviving members of her tribe. Everything was a blur of green and brown and white. Her feet crashed across broken twigs and pieces of rock, leaving dark smudges behind. Trailing twigs traced lines across her arms. She didn't notice any of it; she just ran, searching desperately.

A fallen tree trunk loomed ahead of her, around waist-height. Without slowing, she planted her gloved palms onto the rough surface and swung her legs up and around on either side, catlike, her own momentum carrying her over the top. She had lived in these wilds since childhood—her friends and parents had taught her tricks such as these every day for twelve years. So there was no reason for her legs to have shot out from beneath her upon landing on the other side, sending her rolling head-over-heels into a crumpled, groaning heap.

Except… she wasn't the one groaning.

She hurriedly disentangled herself from the groaning… thing she had landed on top of. Another fire-maker? A surviving virtorva? She regarded it with narrow, suspicious eyes.

It appeared to be neither. This stranger was human. A child, by the looks of him, just about to enter his teens. He was curled up on his side with his arms wrapped tightly around his abdomen, groaning in pain. Tangled around him were thin blankets, as if he had been sleeping in the shelter of the fallen log before she had dropped from the sky to land on his stomach.

"I'm up, I'm up…" the boy uncurled slowly, prying his eyes open. He blinked at her with wide violet eyes. A moment later, he smiled. "Hey, there! Good morning!"

The girl stared at the boy without comprehension. Her chest was heaving and her head was spinning and she just couldn't take in such an incongruous scene when the smoke from her village was still in her nostrils. "It's not safe here," was what she managed to get into words, though that was only a piece of the screaming urgency in her body to keep running.

"Hm? I guess not. It is the Ivywild." The boy rolled onto his knees, stretching his arms out and giving her a good look at him. He wore practical clothes in ridiculously flashy colors, in a style she had never seen before—a black tunic over baggy white pants tucked into the tops of black boots with pointed toes, with white bandages wrapping his arms from wrist to elbow and a flowing red sash around his waist. But his garments hardly registered next to the simple fact that his hair was blue.

His hair was blue. Not blue-black or even dark cobalt, but the vibrant blue of robin eggs. It was tied into a braid down his back which swung as he climbed to his feet and began gathering his scattered belongings.

Living amongst virtorva for as long as she could remember, she did not have much working knowledge of humans, despite being one herself. She was fairly certain, however, that they did not have blue hair, or purple eyes, either. But aside from the odd coloration, he seemed completely human—no extra appendages like the fire-thing from before or mannerisms stranger than sleeping in the Ivywild in broad daylight, and none of the animalistic features that would identify him as belonging to a tribe of virtorva.

"What are you running from?" the boy asked as he shoved his things haphazardly into a worn cloth bag. The question froze her in the act of rolling to her feet, defensive pride scraping at the edges of her fear and confusion.

"I'm not…! You need to run, too! This place isn't safe for humans!"

"You're human, too," he casually pointed out, slinging his bag over one shoulder and turning to regard her with his odd eyes once more. His nose wrinkled. "Is something burning?"

She nearly attacked him then and there, and only the thought that he was a defenseless child was able to hold her back. It wasn't his fault. He was in danger, too. "That's what I said! That Zircon thing is setting everything on fire and we have to run!" She seized his wrist, intending to make the idiot run if he wouldn't do it himself, only for him to spring into movement at that very moment, yanking her along behind him by her own grip.

"We can run together, then," he called over his shoulder. She dropped his wrist and hurried to keep pace, only managing to keep to his heels. Her mind was clearing just enough for her to focus on the issues of immediate importance—namely, getting herself and this lost human safely as far away from that Zircon creature as she could.

That's it, she rationalized. She wasn't scared for herself. But humans had no business being caught up in tribe business, and he was just a child, too! The Wildscar Tribe had taken pity on her when she had been found as an even younger child than him, covered in blood next to the corpses of her parents deep within the wild forest. They'd raised her to be one of them and taught her to fight and hunt as they did. There was no shame in a warrior of the Tribe protecting a defenseless human from danger.

Concentrate on that. Concentrate on your duty as a warrior and nothing else. She focused all of her thoughts on pushing all extraneous thoughts and fears out of her head. Just duty. Just a warrior doing her duty and helping this human to safety. Absolutely nothing else.

With this in mind, she struggled to take the lead. This child was surprisingly fast. "Let me go first," she managed to get out between hard breaths. "I can't protect you from behind."

"You mean from the soldiers?" Wide violet eyes blinked at her over his shoulder.

"What soldiers?" she demanded harshly. That wasn't right. There shouldn't be any human soldiers in the Ivywild.

Unless… Unless they were with Zircon.

"I dunno. They're not the colors of any country I know. They didn't look friendly,
though."

She couldn't process that any more than she could any of the rest of it. Soldiers, fire-starters, wild monsters… They were all just added danger to herself and her new charge. She pushed it all out of her head and just focused on the rhythm of running, keeping her eyes and ears alert for trouble, whatever form it took. After several minutes of burning legs and noisy breathing, the human boy slowed down fractionally so that he was running beside her instead of in front, and offered up a wide grin.

"I'm Xurik Luloriss. It's nice to meet you!" he declared. She spared him a glance as quick and sharp as the flick of a sword.

"I didn't ask."

"That's not polite!" The boy, Xurik, protested. "You're supposed to tell me your name now!"

"It's Vire of the Wildscar Tribe. Now shut up and save your breath."

The grin grew brighter. "Nice to meet you, Vire!"

"Be quiet and run!"

ϾϾϾϾϿϿϿϿ

"Where are you leading us?" Vire hissed, placing her feet carefully in the wake of her clumsier companion. The forest seemed still around them now, but they had already come across several armored figures lumbering through the underbrush, and she wasn't about to take any chances. Though she'd seen no evidence connecting these intruders to the scaled boy from earlier, she had to take Xurik's word for it that they were to be avoided. He was the one who knew most about humans, after all.

"Bymount Crossing is this way." The boy jerked his blue head towards the west.

"And what is that?"

"It's a town—the closest one, I think," Xurik paused to tap his chin, casting his gaze towards the tree canopy overhead. "Um, yeah, probably. Anyway, I'm starving. I hope we get there soon!"

Vire grimaced. She couldn't imagine eating anything for the next several weeks. Anything cooked would just taste like the ashes of her family and home, and anything raw would remind her of the animals probably feasting on their bodies now… Her stomach rolled, and she pushed the thought out of her head. Hungry or not, she had help the dumb human get somewhere safe, and herself, too. Somewhere she could regroup and figure out what the hell she was going to do next.

After several hours of traveling westward, they came across the border of Wildscar territory. The border was, unfortunately, marked by a deep ravine whose slopes were lined with brambles. It ran for miles, north to south, directly across their path. Vire resigned herself to yet more scratches. Xurik gloated, his smaller frame enabling him to crawl beneath the worst of the thorns. He crawled ahead to clear a path for a softly swearing Vire.

When they were three-quarters of the way down the slope, Xurik came crawling back, making shushing gestures with his hands. He leaned in close to Vire's ear and murmured in the merest thread of a voice, "I think those soldiers are camped at the bottom!"

The scarred girl continued gamely forward, trying to make as little noise as possible. Soon, through a gap in the woody branches, she caught sight of black metal. The soldiers were indeed camped at the bottom of the ravine, in an area cleared of thorn bushes. Several men and women were hacking at the brambles, trying to clear a way up the slope that Vire and Xurik had just descended. Luckily, they were several yards to the right. Directing them was a tall, handsome man not much older than Vire. He wore the same black armor emblazoned with a simple golden circle that the other soldiers wore, though a cape also flowed from his shoulders. He turned towards Vire, and the girl held back a surprised noise.

The man's hair was as violet as wildflowers. Though short, it stuck up so that the ends fell in his face, held back by a leather strip bound around his forehead. Vire wasn't sure what to think. The other soldiers seemed to have normal hair colors… Were this man and Xurik somehow connected? Xurik didn't seem to recognize him at all.  But what were the odds of coming across two different people with such unnatural coloration on the same day?

"…so the rest of us can get through!" the purple-haired soldier was barking. "As soon as you can, I want a net sweeping the forest; no one gets through but Zircon himself!"

"Lieutenant General Spinel, sir, has Lord Zircon gotten through already?" one soldier spoke up, confused. The caped man laughed somewhat bitterly.

"As always, he flew ahead. Never mind waiting for his own army… But never mind. Tourmaline's contingent should already be through as well. It's our job to make sure that no outsider interferes this time." He grimaced, as if remembering some unpleasant event. Vire mirrored the expression. So these soldiers were working with that thing… More than that, they were working for him. Her lips drew back from her teeth, gauntlet claws scraping the earth as her whole body tightened up as if to pounce. Zircon. She'd remember that name. She'd remember it long after she'd sunk her claws into his scaly red hide and torn him apart the way he'd eviscerated her tribemates, leaving them sprawled in the roads like birds with broken necks, their carcasses smoking and scenting the air, blood glinting wetly in the firelight…

"Hey, you okay? What's wrong, Vire?"

…And why was the ground shaking like that? If it didn't stop soon, she was going to tumble right down the slope and alert the entire contingent of soldiers to their position. She tried to hold on, but the thorns were tracing patterns in red across her skin, and soon they'd turn into ivory claws and sink in until her skin was painted with the color just like her friends' fur…

"Snap out of it!"

A piercing whistle cut through everything, and the dark veil that had fallen over Vire's eyes was suddenly torn away. She looked around wildly for a moment, bewildered. What had she been doing? Her claws were sunken deeply into the ground, anchoring her in place, and for some reason her head had been hanging with her eyes squeezed shut. Her jaw ached from the force with which she had been clenching her teeth. The world was stable and still. Why had she thought it had been shaking…

The whistle sounded out again, painfully loud and shrill. It dipped and rose in three repetitions of the same simple tune before twittering into silence. Vire turned to see Xurik with his lips pursed, his eyes fixed on her. When she turned, his mouth stretched sideways into a smile.

"Glad to see you're back. You went weird there for a minute, all furious and shaking, and you weren't answering me!" he exclaimed quietly.

"So you whistled?" Vire asked dumbly, still not quite caught up.

"Uh-huh! I thought I had to make a loud noise, but with those guys nearby, I had to be sneaky." He winked one violet eye and whistled out another quick birdcall. Vire glanced at the soldiers hacking away at the brush. Not a one of them had turned. The Ivywild was full of birds calling at all hours of the day. One more was not suspicious in the least.

"…Oh." Vire shut her eyes and took a deep breath, shaking her gauntlets free of the dirt. She had to keep it together. Xurik was depending on her to get him to safety. She could fall apart once they reached Bymount Crossing. After a few moments, she opened her eyes and set her shoulders. "Okay. When we get to the bottom, we'll make a dash across while they're not looking. On my mark, take off, as low and fast as you can, got it?"

"Yes, ma'am!" Xurik snapped off a goofy salute. Vire ignored his levity and led the way down the last leg of the slope, moving as carefully and quietly as she did when hunting prey for her tribe. Xurik did his best to imitate her, and despite his distinct lack of success, they somehow made it to the bottom without alerting the soldiers.

"Ready? When I say go…" The red-haired girl focused all of her attention on the armored backs. "…Steady… GO!" she hissed. Almost instantly, Xurik was halfway across the ravine. He dove into the thorns on the other side with a less-than-silent crunch, the tails of his red sash remaining in sight for a moment before vanishing into the shade. Vire tensed, but once again, the soldiers were far too focused on their work to hear. It wasn't long before there was another opening, and Vire sprinted out into the open, aiming for a gap in the branches that looked big enough. It took less than a minute to cross, but every second that passed was another second Vire expected one of the armored figures to turn and spot her.

Despite her fears, she slipped into the darkness of the underbrush with a relieved breath, undetected. Without a word, she and Xurik began the arduous climb back up, away from the industrious soldiers.

ϾϾϾϾϿϿϿϿ

Their luck did not hold.

Hours later, just as the two were reaching the outer borders of the Ivywild, they stumbled across another group of black-armored soldiers. By that time, Vire had relaxed, thinking that they were past the last of the danger aside from the usual unfriendly wildlife. Xurik had been striding along, bold as brass, his arms crossed behind his head, chattering loudly about the flora and fauna around them while Vire half-listened. In retrospect, the purple-haired man, Spinel, had mentioned something about another contingent of soldiers that had gone ahead of them, so it was not impossible for there to have been a third contingent bringing up the rear, but Vire hadn't thought about it then. She cursed her distraction, however justified.

Fortunately, this group consisted of only two men and one woman. They, too, had been caught off guard, beating at the underbrush with their spears and complaining to each other as they forced a path through the forest. The two groups froze as they caught sight of each other, and a mutually shocked staring contest began.

The frozen moment was shattered as the lead soldier drew his weapon and shouted out, "Intruders! Attack!"

Vire snarled, dropping into a fighting stance. "You're the intruders!"

Without any further ado, she sprang forward to meet the charging man. He jabbed forward with his spearhead directly at her chest. Her left hand came up, deflecting the point of the weapon with the metal covering the back of her hand with a piercing screech. Her right hand came around to rake her claws at his face. Unfortunately, the man's left arm supported a large metal shield, which rose to cover her target area, her golden clawtips drawing another earsplitting shriek from the metal surface. The man staggered back a step, off-balance from the deflected weight of the spear in his right hand. Vire continued the momentum from her horizontal slash, dropping into a spinning crouch with one leg out straight, sweeping the soldier's legs out from beneath him. He fell back with a crash. In an instant, Vire was on him, stabbing her claws downward into his exposed throat. The blood splashed up, warm as fire and smelling of smoke and she could almost hear the crackle of her burning village…

Just in time, a glint of light warned her of the impending danger. The girl jerked her arm out of the soldier's corpse and used the force to help herself into a backflip, just barely dodging the spearpoints coming at her from either side. She landed with a snarl, glaring at the remaining two soldiers who had just tried to skewer her.
Suddenly, a blue and black blur came out of nowhere, and the soldier on the right toppled over with a ringing crash. The blur resolved itself into Xurik, his metal staff springing back from the impact with the man's head. There was a single instant in which Vire stood a few yards away while Xurik's eyes met those of the final soldier woman from a foot or two apart.

Vire sprang forward again, reaching for the woman's neck with her claws, but she was too far away. The woman's fist came up in an arc towards Xurik's head—a blow that, if connected, would stove the boy's skull in against her solid steel knuckles. Vire would reach her precious seconds too late, just like she'd reached her village too late.
Xurik didn't even attempt to dodge. His own arm lifted as well, but not to deflect or strike back. Inches away from the woman's face, Xurik's fingers came together in a snap.

An incredible BOOM ripped through the forest with a physical shockwave, tearing leaves and twigs into the air in a maelstrom of debris. The soldier was sent flipping backwards through the air like a doll tossed away by a child in a fit of temper. She hit a tree many yards away with a sickening crunch and fell still at its roots. Vire herself stumbled backwards as the shockwave slammed into her like a solid wall, sending her crashing onto her butt in the leaves. She remained there, stunned, as shreds of green and brown drifted down like snow around her in the wake of the unexpected storm.

Xurik lowered his arm and turned to grin at Vire, his eyes scrunched up and his teeth blindingly white.

"That was a close one, huh? Really caught me by surprise!"

"You…" Vire choked out before her throat closed up. She cleared it and tried again. "You… can use magic?"

"Uh, yeah!" Xurik laughed. Vire shut her mouth and thought. Well, at least this partly explained why some lone human was just wandering brazenly around the Ivywild. A trained mage would still have difficulty in the harsh, unforgiving forest, but at least he'd have more of a chance than a regular boy armed only with a stick. Then again, the way Xurik was grinning didn't exactly mesh with the idea of a trained magic-user.
Vire took her time standing up, brushing off the leaves and twigs thrown up by Xurik's attack with slow movements, taking care not to slice herself with her own claws. Finally, she looked up and narrowed her eyes calculatingly.

"What kind of magic is that?"

"Sound magic," Xurik answered, snapping his fingers again. Vire flinched, but the sound was a normal click this time.

"Is making shockwaves all you can do with it?" she continued, trying to pretend she hadn't moved. Xurik snickered, but answered without comment.

"Nah. I can do all kinds of things! Like, when I'm running I can propel myself with shockwaves so that I can run really super fast! And I can imitate voices, too, and, uh… a lot of other stuff, I think. I try not to use it much." He rubbed his nose sheepishly.

What he was saying, Vire realized, was that he could control vibrations in the air. By doing so, he could control the volume of any noise he wished, as well as create whatever sound he wanted out of thin air, suppress a sound if he wanted to be quiet, or increase the vibrations to the point where they were concussive blasts. Why in the world would he avoid using such a useful skill? She asked as much, and the blue-haired boy shrugged.

"I use it to run a lot, but I'd rather not fight. I don't like fighting."

Vire conceded the point. Human life from what she'd heard was a lot quieter and more peaceful than virtorva life. In the forest, you had to rely on every skill you possessed to protect yourself against rival tribes and marauding monsters, as well as to find food for yourself and your tribe. Many humans, on the other hand, lived in communities so large that monsters didn't dare attack, and bartered for food hunted for them by more capable humans. What was odd was that Xurik didn't live in one of these 'cities' where he wouldn't have to fight if he didn't like it instead of running around in the Ivywild preaching pacifism.

Then again, who knew anymore? Vire had been sure that humans couldn't have blue or purple hair, and for some reason she'd thought that their magic was severely limited. Apparently, she knew even less about humans than she'd thought she did.

"Alright, then. At least I won't have to worry so much until we get to Bymount Crossing," she sighed, placing her hands on her hips and throwing her head back to scan the sky. It was getting late. If they didn't reach town soon, she'd have to find them a tree to camp out in for the night. When she returned her gaze to her companion, she found him beaming fit to burst.

"Aw, Vire, I'm touched! You'd worry about me?" he cried out dramatically. Vire honestly couldn't tell if he was teasing her, but she snarled anyway.

"Shut up! You're just some stupid human kid; you'd get slaughtered in here without me!" And despite his magic, it was true. Concussive blasts wouldn't help against a feline dropping out of the trees above him, or a swarm of wolves from all sides. He needed Vire to get him safely back to human civilization.

That's it. Hold yourself together, girl. Stay strong until you're both out of danger. He's counting on you.

The voice sounded like her father's steady rumble, which didn't help in the least in keeping her calm. Vire pushed everything away except her determination to see this human safe among his own kind and set her shoulders firmly. She strode forward, seizing Xurik's elbow as she passed and pulling him along behind her.

"Let's go. We're losing daylight."