Dusk of the Realm

23

Hours passed, and Serena dozed.

She dreamt about the time she spent with the people with the country home. They had had an apple orchard in their backyard, and on nice days, they would take Serena and the other children by the hands and give them baskets to carry in their free ones. After filling up their baskets to the brims, Serena's foster mother would thank them for the work, and reward them with warm apple pie after dinner with a dollop of vanilla ice cream on top.

The time she spent with that family was the time she was most content, up until she met the Murphys. She had some scars, but during her time in the blue house, she did not add to them. She was given hugs, and there were people willing to listen to her and help her, to support her, even though she hardly ever spoke, and certainly did not often smile.

When the social worker came to take her away from them, Serena felt a sense of hopelessness greater than anything she had ever felt - or at least, she had thought so then. If even those foster parents, who wanted to keep her, could not stop her from being dragged away into a new life, what hope could she sustain for the future? Even when she was happy, happiness would be stolen from her. That was the impression her life had given her: that she had no chance at a life of laughter and love.

She would never forgive the Infernals for those years.

"Princess. Princess!"

The whisper was insistent, and so Serena squirmed and forced her eyes to open, though her eyelids were heavy and eager to drop closed. She met Will's gaze, and he gestured for her to remain quiet.

"I found the Infernal's scent. Try to follow me without a sound."

Serena's body obeyed him, as he immediately began to move, though her mind was still trying to catch up. I found the Infernal's scent... ah, yes: she had asked Will if it would be possible for him to track the Infernal that the rebels were stationing in Lymeryth each night as they waited for her to be surrendered to them. After all, that was probably what Tarin was going to do: pick up the trail of the Infernal, and follow it to its source. And if she and Will were going to have any chance of making it to the base, it would not be from following Tarin; he would sense that he was being pursued, she was sure of it. That was why she had left so much earlier than him; so that she and Will could get a head start, and hopefully make it to the base before Tarin did.

They darted through the forest at lightning speed, and though Serena's stomach was roiling with nervousness, she could not help but relish the feeling of letting the gifts of her heritage free like this. They allowed their magic to work through them, for the most part, and to part from them if that was what it wished. However, they tended to constrain their natural abilities; after all, there is rarely call for going full-speed, or pushing one's hearing to its limit, or testing just how far one can leap in one bound.

"It's almost morning," Will murmured as they went. Serena looked up, and indeed the crescent moon was dipping lower and lower towards the horizon.

"Tarin will be leaving Azure soon," she murmured back. Will just nodded and went faster. He had tried to explain to her just how fast Tarin could move; while Will had taken hours to figure out where the Infernal had been waiting each night, Tarin would be able to find the trail almost instantly, she was told. On top of that, once he found it, he would be at their base in probably half the time it would take the two of them. She knew that Tarin was not somebody to underestimate, but at the same time, it was hard to comprehend such abilities in her mind.

She knew that Tarin had trained Will, just as he had personally trained all of the other Wolves, so that they were prepared to face any situation. They all had their specialties, of course, but they should all be able to do a little bit of everything, or else he would never have selected them for such important duties. While Will was not the best tracker of the group, he should at least be able to get them where they wanted to go. Therefore, she simply trusted Will to lead her along, as she could not smell anything but the pine needles and soil of the forest surrounding her, making a mental note to add 'be able to smell people like a dog' to her list of things she wanted Tarin to teach her.