Cadence rolled out of her bed, daggers in hand. Under the weak lamplight, she made out the faint silhouette of a person.

The silhouette didn't notice her presence. It shuffled into the room, growling softly under its breath. Its growls reminded Cadence of threatened wolfs that crawled the mountains of Azrapol. She held her breath as the silhouette drew closer to the bedroom and unfurled its massive, feathered wings.

Holy Dewas.

She dropped one of her daggers in shock. The Celestium connected with the hard ground, letting out a melodious 'clink!'

The silhouette stiffened. Cadence held her breath as it sniffed the air, making wet, grunting noises.

Dipping its head, it hissed.

"Who trespasses my territory?"

Cadence kept her mouth shut.

"I know you're there, I can smell you." It sniffed again, shuffling from his position.

Cadence scrabbled back, one hand trying to find her fallen dagger and the other holding out her remaining dagger. The silhouette took a couple steps forward before its knees buckled and crashed into the table.

"Damned Valador," the silhouette swore. "This couldn't get any worse."

Cadence decided to risk everything. She stood up, held her dagger in front of her chest in a defensive pose and stepped into the light.

The little flame was blinding in the darkness. Heart in her mouth, Cadence walked over to the fallen table to find a most peculiar creature sprawled on the floor. He was covered from head to toe in shimmering black scales. A mighty pair of black, feathered wings protruded from his back. This creature was large, even more so than Ales. Twin horns curled from the side of its head, poking through its dark curls. Smoke curled from his nostrils as it glared at her out of its luminous amethyst eyes.

Rakasha.

She fled to the other side of the room and pressed her back into the wall, trying to put as much space as possible between her and the Rakasha. The Celestium blade grew heavy in her sweaty palm. Ales had trained her for this. He had trained her the ways to take down Rakasha—a clean cut through the throat or stab it through the heart. Yet, here in this moment with a deadly killer less than several feet from her, she was too scared to move.

The Rakasha sighed and placed his head between his hands.

"Great, thank Valador for his amazing sense of irony. Just as I thought this day couldn't get any worse, he went and dropped a stupid Varya right into my lap!"

It was then she noticed the arrows sticking out like pokers from his shoulders. The area where the arrows had embedded was peppered with pustular lesions, as though fire had corroded his skin. His left wing hung at a strange angle, and he was clutching his arm as if it was about to fall off.

Cadence continued staring at him, torn between intrigue and fear.

"You can speak," she said.

The Rakasha's eyes widened. "Of course I speak, what do you expect me to do? Grunt?"

"Don't you?"

He stared at Cadence for a whole minute before he threw back his great head of black hair and started laughing, then winced.

"Oh, frozen Underlands! I can't believe we've reached the era in which the mighty Ancients are demoted to the same rank as Rakashas. Or simply, it's Varya ignorance and stupidity to assume all Rakashas are the same!"

Cadence gawked. "You...you're an Ancient?"

The creature gestured at himself with his clawed fingers. "I speak, I'm smart, and I'm absolutely gorgeous. I don't think any Ancients can compare to my beauty and power, let alone Rakasha." To prove his point, he breathed a line of blue fire at Cadence, causing her to leap back to avoid being seared.

Noticing that Cadence was still staring, he growled, baring a set of glittering, pointed teeth.

"Are you done staring? If you have, get out. You're not welcomed here." He waved a hand at Cadence. The effort hurt, he doubled over at once.

Despite her fear, she found herself asking more questions. "What happened?"

"What happened?" he echoed. "Your kind happened! Why can't they just leave me in peace? I was just hunting for food, all living beings need food. Then, they decided to kill me for no apparent reason! I chose this area specifically because you silly humans are too scared of trees to come near, but I don't know why tonight there were tons of you people are running about like rats."

Must be the Walker Hunters, Cadence thought. They're still looking for me. I can't go out there yet, not when they're still swarming the area. This means I must either talk my way through into staying here or be caught.

Cadence's eyes then fell back on the creature in front of her. He looked nothing like a Rakasha, but the fierce, merciless glint of a predator was wild in his eyes, just like the Rakasha that killed her father.

Her father's head ripped off, then his body was tossed back onto the ground like a discarded toy, blood gushing out from his headless torso...

A deafening roar shook her from her memory. The Ancient had leaned against the wall and ripped out an arrow sticking from his shoulder. He dropped it onto the ground in disgust. Cadence looked down at the gleaming arrow. It was Celestium tipped, no wonder it hurt him so bad.

"You can't just pull arrows from your body," Cadence said. "You'll bleed to death."

"I don't want to argue with you." His shoulders sagged. "Get out."

He swam blindly toward the bed, knocking Cadence aside with a swipe of his hand.

"Are you deaf?" The Ancient was having trouble standing upright, his hands steadying himself from collapsing again by grabbing the nearest object for support, which happened to be the rickety bed stand. "Which part of 'go away' escapes your understanding?"

He lunged at Cadence, who dove out of the way. His claws connected with the walls where she was a few seconds ago, raking five diagonal tears through the wood.

"OUT!"

His eyes rolled back in his head and he crumpled into a messy heap on the floor.

Cadence prodded the Ancient's head with her toe. He did not move. Silver blood continued to leech from his wounds at an alarming speed, covering the floor in a sticky, shimmering puddle. The logical part of her screamed to run and leave this Ancient to die, but the Walker side of her was intrigued. She had never seen an Ancient. And now there was one before her very eyes, exposed and vulnerable.

She looked around, trying to decide what to do with the Ancient.

The Ancient let loose a helpless whimper, just like a child in pain. With his ferocious snarl extinguished and eyes shut, he looked much smaller.

If this was truly the Ancient's hut, she owed him for wearing his clothes, using his firewood and staying in his hut without permission. She would patch him up then leave. A night of walking would set quite a distance between her and the Ancient.

First, she dragged the pallet from the bed. She then slid her hands under the Ancient's arms and dragged him face-down onto the pallet so the arrows wouldn't impale him further.

The Ancient stirred. "Don't touch me."

"Shut up and bite on this." She hacked off a piece of the blanket, rolled it up, and shoved it into his mouth. "And don't scream. I don't like people screaming."

"What—"

Cadence picked up the arrow the Ancient had ripped out. She touched the tip and noted its three curved wings. It was a broadhead—arrows designed to deliver a wide cutting edge to drop the target—made to kill, not to disarm. She then crouched over the Ancient and carefully twirled one of the arrows to determine whether the head was lodged into the bone or not.

The Ancient trashed, his good wing flying up and slapped Cadence in the face.

"Watch it!" Cadence brushed the feathers from her face. The arrow twisted easily, which meant it didn't reach the bone, much to her relief. All she had to do was to cut it out from his body, which was easier said than done.

She had to work fast. It was essential to cauterize a wound to prevent infection and blood loss. There had been too many accounts of people dying from infections than the battlefield itself.

Cadence checked Ales' utility belt. Her Celestium blades and slivers were useless, it would only burn the Ancient. She turned out the small leather pouch on her right belt to find a medical kit. Unrolling it on her lap, the kit contained two tight rolls of clean bandages, needles, string, and a small vial of transparent, sticky liquid. Unable to read the label, she shoved it back into the pouch in irritation. Ales' also kept a normal dagger by his side at all times. Cadence removed that, picked up her flint, and headed outside.

Given her current tools and her situation, there was only one way she could cauterize the wound. She struck her flint across a rock, rekindling the fire and stuck Ales' dagger into the fire. She held the dagger long enough for the blade to turn red-hot from the fire, then returned to the Ancient's side.

The Ancient saw her approach with the sizzling knife and tried to crawl out of her way.

"Move and you die," she said. "Bite down on the cloth and please, do not scream."

"I won't scream," he murmured into his gag. "Screaming is for children."

"I like you less and less by every passing second," she replied dryly. Without giving him a warning, she snapped the first arrow and drove the sanitized dagger into his wound. He let loose a long, primal howl that almost shattered Cadence's eardrums.

The arrowhead was a blue glint in his flesh. Cadence pulled two thin tendrils of shadows and inserted them into the wound, extending them until they found the arrowhead. Gently and carefully, she pulled out the arrowhead, dropped the bloodied arrowhead onto the ground, and proceeded to the next arrow.

It was a monotonous process—enlarge the wound, use shadows to pick out the head, repeat. With every arrow she snapped and pulled out, his screams turned up by a notch until she feared her hearing was irreversibly damaged.

After extricating the final arrowhead, Cadence sat back and wiped the sweat from her forehead. It wasn't over yet. She might have extracted the arrows, but she still needed to stitch his wounds close.

Cadence sterilized the needle by holding it over the fire with two thread of shadows. By the time she had sewn all his wounds shut and bandaged them as neatly as she could, the Ancient had passed out for the second time within the hour.

She took a good long look at him. The Rakasha that killed her father was a grotesque creature, but this Ancient was handsome in his own, unique way—a tall nose, full chapped lips, and long dark lashes which fluttered as he breathed. His glossy scales reminded her of embers, glowing in the darkness. He looked human, or about as human as a Rakasha could get.

The Ancient growled in his slumber. She wasn't sure if the Ancient would survive the night—he was gravely injured, and she did not know anything about repairing a broken wing. If the Ancient healed as quickly as their Rakasha counterparts, perhaps he stood a chance.

You did the best you could, her inner voice said. Whether he lives or dies, it's not on you.

Cadence sat down in a corner and watched the candle burn down into a thick stub.

Just five minutes rest and I'll be gone. He probably wouldn't even remember I was here.

Her eyelids drooped and almost dozed off, but she caught herself at once. If she fell asleep, the Ancient might wake up in the middle of the night and finish her off, having missed his lunch and dinner due to his encounter with the humans who put arrows into him.

If you're so afraid, why don't you just leave? The Polong crept out.

It's none of your business.

Glad you finally acknowledge my presence, it said, smug. It seems that you're finally embracing your true nature.

"I'm going mad." She threw up her hands. "I'm talking to a figment of my imagination."

The Ancient let loose a thunderous snore as if to agree Cadence's point. She pinched herself, trying to hold out her drowsiness, but she was so tired...

Flames flickered, wings unraveled and stretched, and Cadence's head soon found the floor and closed her eyes.