As the wise ones say, trouble comes in threes.

One year into their marriage, word came of a Demon War, which took place to the south of the kingdom's capital of Lyons. There could be a whole other book written about the war (and maybe one has been), but for the villagers of Wilkin, it was merely another piece of interesting gossip about how the mighty King Dane led great armies into a fearsome war against monstrous creatures from the bellies of hell.

As a little village tucked away in Central Asis, with rolling hills on one side and dense woods on another, it was too far from the action, too small to house any refugees escaping the war, and too poor for any bandits to bother raiding. In other words, life went on in Wilkin, as unchanging as life had always been in Wilkin.

See? Being ordinary wasn't so bad.

A year later, the war came to an abrupt end. But as anyone who knew their two coppers' worth of history would know, the effects of war never ended with the war itself.

On top of the grieving of lost families and rebuilding of destroyed homes, the kingdom's economy came to a standstill. For an entire year, the country had diverted all of its resources towards the war efforts; food went to feed the soldiers, leathers and iron went to produce weapons and armour, textiles went to craft bandages and war tents, and so on and so forth.

To make matters worse, many of the working men in the Southern Lands—farmers, fishmongers, millers, blacksmiths—either threw themselves into the war or died protecting their homes.

Even at the end of the war, with so many cities and towns flattened to rubble, the survivors couldn't simply return to their life before the war. A farmer who no longer had his farm couldn't simply turn to fishmongering, just as a miller who no longer had his mill couldn't simply turn to blacksmithing.

A war, confined to one part of the kingdom, had far-reaching consequences for the entire kingdom and beyond.

Soon, the famine hit.

For years, Cain had sold his vegetables in the nearby town of Torith for a copper per pound, then buy a bolt of linen for five coppers. As the war dragged on, five coppers could no longer pay for a scrap of cloth. So like all the other farmers, Cain had to start selling his carrots and yams at fifty coppers each. Even lettuce, which was mostly water and wholly unfilling, would sell for twenty coppers per head.

There came the day when that wasn't enough, either. By the time people went from offering five silvers for each carrot one day, to ten silvers the next day, Cain stopped heading into town.

Whatever Lottie and Cain could pickle and preserve of their own produce, they did. The rest, they traded for goods within the village and donated to families in the village with the young and elderly.

Couldn't they have stockpiled the food, you ask? Well, not even the royals sitting in the palace had magical boxes that could deep freeze the meats and vegetables and preserve them for weeks and months.

Guarding the home became one of Cain's priorities, though he never explicitly said so. Each morning, he rose with the sun to tend to the farm and livestock. But after that, he chopped the trees, built a taller fence around the perimeter of their land and added traps intended not for wild animals but two-legged intruders.

"Is this really necessary?" Lottie asked one day. "I can't think of anyone here who would steal or hurt us."

"They will," Cain said without a shred of doubt, "when they're hungry enough."

❆ ❆ ❆

Not two moons went by before Cain's prediction came true.

While the pair had tried their best to share their produce, it was not enough to feed the mouths of a whole village. Especially not when winter came and they hardly had enough to feed their own livestock.

One by one, the chickens and cows and sheep went to the village butcher in exchange for meat, and with the animals went the milk, the cheese and the eggs. By the last month of that winter, all they had left were sparse winter crops in the fields, an empty barn and hen house, and a few grains left at the bottom of the barrel. With barely enough to feed themselves, the sharing of their produce came to an end.

"The Uglies have a farm," the cobbler said at a small village gathering one day. "I been watchin' that Cain. He was still workin' on the soil yesterday. Can't trust them foreigners, especially those brown ones. They must be hoardin' food they won't share wit' the rest—" His lengthy speech led into a wracking cough.

Life had never been easy in winter, and this year, with a shortage of everything, there was less to stave off hunger, less to keep them warm, and less to keep them healthy.

Lottie's grandmother might be getting up there in age and frailty, but she would never back down from defending her granddaughter. "Nay, I know Lottie. You know her too. She wouldn't let us go hungry if she can help it."

"Aye, Lottie grew up here. How 'bout her man? He just came in here one day, sayin' his uncle Bernie left him that farm and moved right in. Bernie's been dead for twenty years." The tailor walked up to the blacksmith. "Did ye ever hear ol' Bernie say he's got a nephew?" The blacksmith shook his head. The tailor turned to the woodcutter. "Did ye?" The woodcutter shook his head. Then a whole lot of heads were shaking and shaking.

"That doesn't prove anything," Grandma insisted. "Cain has been working hard. I know it. I've seen it. They've shared what they have with us all these months."

"They must have more. They must," the cobbler muttered with conviction. He had to believe it, because it was the only hope for his family and countless others to survive the last month of this harsh and brutal winter.

This time, a whole lot of heads were nodding and nodding.

❆ ❆ ❆

That evening, the villagers who previously thanked Cain and Lottie for their gracious donations of food attended the farm with torches and pitchforks, just like that night sixteen years ago when they banded together to hunt a monster.

"What are you doing?" Lottie yelled at them from the other side of the newly-built fence. "Adam? Tom? Brenda? Why are you doing this?"

"If you won't share the gods' bounty, then you don't deserve any!" a man yelled.

Amidst the clamour, Lottie could not tell who it was that spoke, but it did not matter. The villagers, overtaken by a hunger-filled frenzy, began to hack away at the fence. It was tough work, for the fence was taller and sturdier, and the villagers were weaker than they had ever been before.

So they put their torches to it.

"Stop! Stop! What are you doing? Stop!" Lottie cried, but the crowd ignored her.

For the first time, Cain held Lottie tight in his arms as the fencing went up in flames and the villagers stormed through. It might be the embrace Lottie had long hoped for, but now was not the time to feel giddy. Not when villagers that she'd known all her life carried pitchforks and spades as they charged up the dirt path and forced their way into the quaint little cottage.

It all happened so fast. Some stole blankets and cloaks she'd sewn every stitch of. Some fought each other for the last bits of dried meats and pickles she had stashed away. Outside of the cottage, the rest of them dug up the soil and pulled up every leek and underdeveloped root vegetable they could find.

All the while, Cain held Lottie back as she thrashed in his arms, screaming and crying as she watched her home destroyed by those who had watched her grow up.

Within the space of ten minutes, they turned over every inch of the cottage and farm. Still, it wasn't enough for them, who were starved and desperate, who had hoped to find a far greater stash of food, who would prefer to see others suffer more than they did.

Suddenly, Cain let go of Lottie and ran at the cobbler, tackling him to the ground.

But it was too late.

The man had thrown his torch into the little cottage, and all the others followed suit, flinging their torches through the windows and lighting up the rest of the farmstead from the trees to the barn.

"Nooooooooo!" Lottie shrieked, pushing at mad villagers who shoved her to the ground.

The flames spread quickly across the wooden floors of the cottage and licked their way up the walls and furnishing. She couldn't see it, but she could imagine the fire swallowing up the wooden chest Cain had built for her, and all the little gifts and carved animals he'd brought home for her—even the little rabbit she held to sleep and the wolf she placed by her bedside to remind her of a time, long ago, when she was fearless and dared to follow her heart.

It was that last thought that picked her up from the ground and spurred her forward, from a jog to a sprint. She didn't care about the fire or the worse scars she might suffer. What did any of that matter if she lost all that she had ever shared with Cain?

But before she reached the flaming doorway, she hit a wall of muscle first; a body that shielded her from the smoke and the heat of the flames. Cain's arms went around her again, and Lottie burrowed her face into his chest and cried while everything they poured their sweat and labour into in the last three years burned to ashes around them.

When the last of the wooden beams that held up the cottage collapsed, the villagers sniggered and left. The loot they collected was not enough to get them through the rest of winter, but tonight, at least, their victorious raid filled their bellies with glory. At least, they would not be the most unfortunate ones of this season.

Lottie could not watch more of it. Her eyes burned from smoke and tears. Weak and pliant, she let her husband scoop her up into his arms and carry her away from their destroyed home while she continued to sob into his soot-stained shirt.

Not long later, he stopped next to a shed.

"Wait here," Cain said before he lowered her to the ground, so gently, so carefully, as if she was the finest piece of porcelain.

Lottie nodded and hugged her knees to her chest. He needn't have told her that. The rage within her had burned its fill, leaving her with nothing; no energy or will to move or think. If everything she had worked for could turn into smoke and ash, just like that, then what was the point of doing anything anymore?

Minutes later, Cain brought out the old mare and his wooden cart. She gave a soft whinny.

"I thought you sold her!" Lottie exclaimed.

He shook his head. "Never put all your eggs in one basket."

She understood his meaning. He had known the day would come when the villagers came for them, so he'd hidden the horse and cart away from the rest of their belongings. At least, they still had something.

"Here." He helped her into the cart before he climbed up into the driver's seat. Turning back over his shoulder, he asked, "Ready?"

Lottie, too, looked back over her own shoulder. Fire continued to burn from the farm, lighting up the night sky and sending smoke billowing towards the stars. Her home and village—they were not hers anymore.

The only thing she would leave behind was Grandma, but she didn't know where they were going, and Grandma had always been adamant that she would never leave her home.

One day, she would see Grandma again. For now, she would go wherever Cain would take her, because the one they all shunned as an untrustworthy foreigner was the only one who wasn't a monster.

Biting down on her lip, she nodded.

Word count: 2,009