All rights reserved.

The girl sat in the corner, painfully still, watching rolling green hills fizz by. They clustered together like they were cold, and beneath the heavy rain that had haunted them last night, they might have been.

Inside, she was a curious mixture of comfort and boredom, perched on the smooth red leather coach yet shut away from the rest of the world, with nothing to do but stare at the window as the train rattled along.

Keera hadn't said a single word since they left. That's how she knew she was in trouble. She snuck another peek at her. The flaring nostrils were a dead giveaway too. She always thought they looked alike. Keera's face was just as round as hers. They both had smooth porcelain-like skin too, and though constricted, her eyes were as wide and as blue as Keera's.

Both their hair had been a similar shade of brown once, a far cry away from her mother's blonde hair, or her father's golden brown mane until she had decided that purple locks would annoy the queen best. When that didn't work, she put in more effort, on one occasion liberating a baby boar from her father's grange and setting it loose on the kitchen staff. Eventually, she moved on to more heinous acts like absconding with her mother's silk gowns and jewelry.

Lenna, at this point, begged her husband to intervene but he brushed her antics off as mere trivial pursuits. She was spirited and willful, just like he was, and he loved her all the more for it.

Dragen and her tower were the queen's last resort and just as a precaution, her grandfather had promised to cart her off to Athtar to live with the Amazons if she got booted out of this tower. That had been enough to draw her into temporary subservience. She had never known Lord Oblak to make idle threats. The Amazons were famed for their ferocity. Two of them had visited the Golden City once. She was only three years old at the time but the memory had stuck with her well into her youth.

They came battle-ready, their stares piercing and penetrating, covered in bronzed armor fastened to their torsos, and hair pulled back in one single waist-length braid. They found her playing outside her grandmother's Sept. One of them lifted her up by the scruff of her collar and asked her where her father was.

She remembered kicking and flailing her arms wildly as they laughed...

"I didn't realize that I'd get into so much trouble_"

"Yes you did," Keera cut her off, her arms folding to match her lips.

Lysa pushed back her hair and pressed her eyes together so that they would tear up and slowly began to stifle a couple of sobs.

"Cut the crap," Keera said without turning, slightly amused and insulted at the same time by her attempt to con her.

"Fair enough," Lysa began, clearing her eyes and sitting up. There was no need for pretense anymore. "Am I going to lose my light?"

Keera shrugged, leaning back into her seat.

'Keera!!!'

"Yes?"

"Am I?"

Still nothing.

She remained stoically impassive. She couldn't punish her, so letting her wallow in anxiety for a while was the next best thing. They rattled past a by-pass that led to the exit rail into the next village and veered deeper into the Quarter. They had journeyed for nearly half a day now, but it would still take them another hour or so to get home.

The Quarter spanned endlessly, a collection of numerous great cities; from the glamour of the Golden City to Myrad and its towers, and the human villages that were lost somewhere in between.

Lysa drifted towards the window as they approached a long-forgotten village she had committed to memory. Most of the buildings lay in ruins. Distorted moss-covered ruins with blackened bricks broken off at the top. The grass towered long and green, growing into strangely rusted metallic structures, before rolling onto dense patches of tall, dark trees that stretched as far as she could see.

Keera told her that the land was once inhabited by a community that opened its gates to all, teaching and guiding all those who sought them out. It had been a sanctuary of sorts, up until a renegade cross-section of Amazons invaded.

Some said that the hidden beneath it were a plethora of magical artifacts, and that is why the Amazons took it. Others believed that the land encasing it was the final resting place for the mother- you could hear the trees weep every time the wind howled.

She didn't buy into any of it however because the same people also claimed that pulling the tail of a mountain lion would bring you luck.

"They are not going to take your light, " Keera said abruptly.

Lysa sighed. The worst was past. She was relieved, even though she was fully aware that there would still be repercussions. And that usually came in the form of a light restricting harness that would be fastened around the throat.

Dragen had a strange fixation with breaking people. The thought made the hairs on the back of Lysa's neck stand, and the rest of her tremble in a way that had nothing to do with the movement of the train. The old woman owned an entire stable of horses, yet they hardly ever made a sound, as subdued as almost everything else at the tower.

"How much time did I get?" she asked, tearing her eyes away from the window.

"Three... " Keera paused apprehensively.

"That's not so bad, wait, do you mean days or weeks?" Lysa asked, her heart starting to race.

"Does it really matter? It's all still in the same ballpark."

"Keera!!!"

"You know how unpredictable that woman is... Sometimes it's three weeks, other times it's just a slap on the wrist. This time it's three months," Keera added in a muffled undertone.

"Three months?? I got three fucking months? How is that in the same ballpark?"

"Language," Keera shrieked. "And calm down...we'll figure it out."

"I thought you were supposed to be good at this?"

"What? Cleaning up your messes like I have done since you were a baby? I am good at it. But you put a forest in the teacher's chambers. Sometimes you forget, I am your servant, not a magician," Keera snapped.

Lysa's face flushed red. Festering guilt rendered her momentarily speechless as her head sunk to the floor.

"This is serious Lys. One more infringement like that and even your grandfather will not be able to save you from descension."

Her eyes found the window again. The trees eventually begin to fade as the land slopes unevenly. They pass a series of nomadic encampments that crouched low into the grass like they were trying to stay hidden; continue past a series of beautiful white cottages encased in wooden fences and wander further onto rising moors that roll on for miles.

There wasn't a tree in sight now. All around, the fields, burdened with patches of yellowing grass, stretched plain. That is if you overlooked the stone henges scattered across every mile or so. Keera had told her, on multiple occasions that they were vestiges of disobedient children who were forced to run the length of the Moore.

She also told her that witches lurked underneath the blackened earth and that they would rear their heads and turn to stone anyone who trampled across their homes. Lysa didn't believe her of course, but she also did not go wandering about whenever the train stopped within a mile of the Moore.

The train picked up speed again as it began to dip and the rest of the stones rushed in a blur. They weren't far off now. Keera's eyes follow her gaze before she slowly held out her hand.

Lysa took it without looking, "You're not a servant," she said slowly.

Keera pulled her away from the window,

"I am," she said, pulling the left sleeve of her shirt up to her elbow. There were markings on her arm - incisions - a tally of all the years she had left to serve. All humans were marked, as soon they were born.

"I've had a lot of time to be okay with it," Keera continued quietly.

Lysa took both of Keera's hands as her blue eyes flared defiantly, "You're not a servant" she reiterated, "Not to me."

"Well, you have a funny way of showing it," Keera mused.

Lysa shrugged, and they both exchanged prolonged grins.

The compartment door slid open abruptly, and both of them looked up. Yanush walked in, instantly sucking the joy out of the room as he stared at them with eyes as round and wide as everything else about him. The man was enormously fat with a gait that was offsetting. He always walked like he was always about to fall, yet he never did, much to Lysa's disappointment.

He was a servant of the Golden City, and even more annoyingly, Jeremy's eyes and ears.

Lysa couldn't decide which one of them was more annoying. He stood stiffly, for what felt like an eternity before finally speaking,

"The Prince would wish to talk to you," he huffed in a manner that suggested that he had just run a great distance.

Lysa frowned and got to her feet as if the movement pained her. She didn't want to go, that much was clear to anyone with semi-functioning vision. But to refuse a direct request from the Prince would be another mark on her already severely stained record. And she got the uncomfortable sense that her grandfather was keeping score.

Keera made to join them, but Yanush held out a fat meaty hand,

"The servant can stay."

At that moment, Lysa couldn't have despised him more than she did presently. Even so, she followed him across the thin red-carpeted hallway to a door at the very back. He pulled it open and stood aside so that she could pass. Lysa squeezed past the man and shuffled into the dining compartment.

There were a series of tables fixed to all four corners of the compartment. Platters of food lay scattered atop. Lysa walked past plates of fruits piled onto each other delicately, a large chocolate fountain at the center table beyond an assortment of cakes, bread, and other delicacies.

Jeremy sat in the corner, basking in the extravagance of it all. He was boxed in by an entire roasted ram draped in red sauces.

He looked even more pleased with himself than usual.

"Lysa!! Join me," he called out eagerly, tapping the empty seat next to him. She regarded him suspiciously until her eyes glimpsed the silver jewel-encrusted goblets dripping with red wine.

She took the empty chair directly opposite him.

He stretched his long arms and ruffled her hair, "I thought mother told you to fix that, we have guests coming, and I will not have you shame us," he grunted.

"Where is Erik?" she asked, her arms folded.

"Red Town," he replied, draining his goblet.

"What is he doing there?" she asked again, unable to mask the concern in her voice.

A slight frown dampened the prince's face. He stared hard at her, before taking a swig off another goblet. "Guard business. I can't tell you."

"Can't or won't?"

"Pick one," he said, taking another swig off his goblet.

"Did you bring him back?"

"Who?"

"The man who snuck into world's end."

Jeremy spat out most of the wine, "How...di...did you know?" he asked, choking.

"I can't tell you," she said.

"Can't or won't?" he asked gruffly.

"Pick one."

Jeremy flung his goblet to his side. It hit the tapestry that hung on the wall and covered a good chunk of it red blotches.

"Grandfather will hear of this when we return. You have no right meddling in guard business," he hissed.

"Don't skip the part where you abandoned our brother," she hissed back.

"I did no such thing," Jeremy thundered, his eyes flaring madly. "I had business elsewhere."

"What business?" she asked.

This caught the prince off guard, and his face flushed red before he mumbled a reply, "I... do not...have to tell you that."

"You tucked your fucking tail between your legs when the train stopped at Red town, and _"

His hand cracked across her face, snapping it back with a sickening thud. She staggered out of her chair, clutching her face, as it began to welter, just below the eye where his ring had caught her.

Her eyes watered, but she would not cry, not in front of him.

Instead, she folded her hand into a fist and plunged it into his face, catching him square on the jaw. The prince toppled backwards; out cold before he even hit the floor.

Yanush came rushing in like he had had his ears outside the door the entire time. She ducked underneath his pudgy arms as he raced to his master and shut the door behind her.

Her heart was pounding fast as she started towards her compartment. She knew she was in trouble now.

The train stopped just as she grabbed the handle.

They were home.