Elara was up before the sun, her breath misting in the cold morning air, the stable floor hard beneath her boots. The hay smelled faintly of rot, and some unfortunate goat had spent the night trying to chew her satchel.
She yanked her cloak around her shoulders and turned to Fig, still curled beneath a tattered horse blanket in the feed trough. He snored softly, wings twitching with each breath, tiny silver sparks drifting from his tail.
"Fig," she whispered. No response.
She nudged him.
Nothing.
Then she poked him with the tip of her new knife.
He screeched and launched into the air like a startled firework. "ASSASSINS! WRAITHS! I SWEAR I DIDN'T EAT THE STABLE CAT—oh. It's you."
"You were drooling."
"I was dreaming. About a nice warm nest and a life not on the run with an underfed lunatic."
"You slept like a rock."
He glared at her, bleary-eyed. "I didn't sleep a wink. Do you have any idea what kind of ruffians roam this town? I saw a man with twelve teeth, and not a single one of them in the right place."
She rolled her eyes and threw his half-damp blanket over her shoulder. "We're leaving. Now."
The square was just starting to wake. Smoke curled from chimney pots, and carts creaked into place over cracked cobblestones. Elara walked quickly, hood up, avoiding eye contact, Fig tucked low in her cloak like a sullen fur collar.
She scrounged for breakfast—mostly bruised fruit, some week-old bread, and a strip of something the butcher insisted was "cured meat" but smelled more like old boots.
She was halfway through negotiating with a vegetable vendor when two men standing nearby caught her attention.
"—village burned. Just like that. Nothing left but bones and cart wheels."
"Did they take anyone?"
"Aye. Like always. Whole families, gone. Not even a dog left behind."
Elara froze, a carrot in her hand.
"Same mark at the gates," the man added grimly. "Three circles. Burned right into the wood. It's the collectors."
"Gods help us if they come here next."
Elara turned away, jaw tight. Fig peeked up from her cloak.
"Don't say it," she muttered.
"I wasn't going to," he lied, dramatically resting his chin on her shoulder. "Except I was going to say we could investigate. Help. Be heroic."
"You really want to test fate?"
"We could just... peek. I like peeking."
"No peeking. No rescuing. We're going to the forest. We stay alive. That's it."
"Such a noble heart," he said, patting her cheek with one fuzzy paw. "So full of love for humanity."
"Stuff it."
They left the town behind as morning light turned the mist gold. The trees ahead rose like jagged teeth, black-barked and twisted, branches tangled into clawed shapes that reached for the sky.
The Dark Forest.
It was older than the kingdom, some said. Older than the gods. A place of whispers and secrets. Most travelers avoided it altogether, choosing longer paths rather than risking the shade of its canopy.
Elara had no choice.
As she stepped beneath the first arching branch, the temperature dropped. Light dimmed. The ground turned soft, like the earth itself held its breath.
"Okay," Fig whispered, wings fluttering nervously. "We've entered the 'this is definitely cursed' zone."
Elara didn't reply. Her new knife was strapped to her thigh, staff in hand. She moved silently, footsteps barely brushing the mossy floor.
They walked for nearly an hour, deeper into the gloom. The only sounds were the crunch of dead leaves and Fig occasionally muttering spells under his breath in languages she didn't recognize.
Then the forest changed.
Laughter. High-pitched and musical.
Elara stopped dead.
In a clearing ahead, soft lights bobbed like fireflies. Dozens of them—glowing pinks, greens, and blues, flitting between toadstools and flower clusters too bright to be natural.
And at the center, delicate figures danced.
"Pixies," Fig breathed, voice tinged with awe. "Wild ones."
They looked like shards of stained glass brought to life—tiny, winged, beautiful. Their eyes glowed. Their smiles were sharp.
"I don't trust it," Elara whispered. "Why are they just dancing?"
"Because they haven't noticed us yet. Don't move."
Too late.
A half-dozen heads turned. The music stopped.
The pixies stared at them, smiling.
"Oh, crumbs," Fig muttered. "They noticed."
One of them floated closer—long, silver wings shimmering like frost. Her mouth moved.
"...Velith asa nor el'shai?"
Elara blinked.
"Um."
Fig leapt from her shoulder and zipped forward, puffing up like a tiny diplomat.
He spoke quickly in a rapid language full of chimes and squeaky chirps. The lead pixie narrowed her eyes. Fig chirped something sharper.
The other pixies whispered. One hissed.
"Fig—" Elara started.
He waved her off and shouted another trill of sounds, ending with a noise that sounded suspiciously like a raspberry.
The lead pixie tilted her head, then—laughed.
The sound was beautiful. Terrifying. Like wind through broken glass.
Then all at once, they turned and vanished into the trees, lights fading.
Elara let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. "What... what just happened?"
Fig drifted back toward her, smug as a cat who'd stolen cream. "They were going to turn your bones into flower pots."
"What?!"
"Don't worry. I told them you were already cursed. By me. They believed it."
"Are you joking?!"
"And," he said, ignoring her rising voice, "I might've also mentioned you were my sworn life-mate and that harming you would invite a blood feud from the Celestial Court."
Elara blinked. "You what?"
He shrugged. "It worked."
"You told a group of man-eating forest sprites that I was yours?!"
"Would you prefer death by pixie?"
She threw a leaf at him.
He caught it mid-air, bowed, and tucked it behind his ear. "Saved your life. You're welcome."
She growled and kept walking.
"Don't be mad. It's a high honor. Some mortals would kill for that kind of bond."
"You're impossible."
"And yet you haven't replaced me."
He hummed as he floated behind her, wings glittering faintly in the dark.
As they pushed deeper into the forest, the trees grew denser, the light thinner. Elara's heart beat slower now, steadier, grounded in the rhythm of survival.
But she couldn't ignore the echo of that conversation in the market square.
Another village. More people taken.
She clenched her jaw.
This wasn't her fight. Not yet. Not until she was stronger. Until she knew who had marked her fate and torn it apart.
Still... she didn't throw away the carrot she'd taken from the stall.
She slipped it into her satchel—alongside her obsidian knife and a small, glowing feather Fig had lost during his "diplomatic" duel.
Just in case.