MAL TRAILED AFTER NIMUE TRYING TO CATCH UP. Milo started to run after her only for Mal to stop him. "You can't make a scene," he looked at her shocked. "What can you possibly mean?" He asked trying to understand what his sister was trying to say.

"You're just going to get mad and be irrational. I will talk to her. You go on."

Milo bit his lip, unsure what to say. Mal roll her eyes continued to run towards Nimue leaving him in utterly dismay. If anything, Milo will bring her comfort. How could she say that?

Pym, Nimue's best friend, was tall and gangly and was struggling to carry a sheaf of wheat across the field when she saw Nimue marching down the hill, away from the forest.

"Nimue!" Pym dropped her sheaf caught up with Nimue, who brushed past her. "What is it?"

"I'm Summoner." Nimue kept on charging.
Pym swung a look to the barrow and then back to Nimue. "You're what? Wait, did Lenore say that?"

"Who cares?" Nimue spat. "It's all a joke."

"It's not a joke," Mal added appearing next to them.
"Slow down," Pym loped after her, already weary from lugging the wheat.

"I hate it here. I'm leaving. I'm getting on that ship today." Mal eyes widened trying to catch with her pace.

"What happened?" Pym swung Nimue around.

Nimue's expression was fierce, but there were tears in her eyes. She quickly wiped them away on her sleeve.

Pym softened, "Nimue?"

"They don't me want here. And I don't want them." Nimue's voice trembled.  "You're not making any sense."

Nimue ducked into the small wood-and-mud hut, she shared with her mother and pulled a sack out from under her bed, while Pym huffed in the doorway. Inside the sack were a heavy woolen cloak, mittens and extra stockings, wood-ash soap, flint, an empty water skin, nuts, and dried apples. She took a few honey cakes from the table, then was out the door as she quickly as she'd come.

Mal followed her. "What are you going?"

"Hawksbridge," Nimue answered. "Now? Are you mad?"

Before Nimue could answer, shouts arose. She and Pym looked down the road and saw a boy a being helped from a horse. Even from a distance, Nimue could see the horse's white coat was smeared with blood. One of the village men carried that boy in his arm. The boy's skin was light blue, his arms were unnaturally long and thin, and his fingers were spindly ideal for climbing.

"It's a Moon Wing," Pym whispered. Mal immediately ran towards them leaving them behind. It can't be.

The villagers hurried the injured Moon Wing boy into the Healer's hut, and scouts rushed to the Iron Wood to inform the Elders. Led by Lenore, they all emerged from the forest with serious expressions. She passed Pym and Nimue with scarcely a glance, except for Lucien, who gave Nimue a crooked smile as he hobbled to the Healer's hut.

Nimue and Mal knelt down by the shutters as Lenore and the Elders gathered inside the hut. Moon Wings were a rare sight anywhere, being shy nocturnal, adapted to life in the canopy of the deep forests. Their feet rarely touched the ground, and their skin could take on the color and texture of the bark of whatever tree they were climbing. Besides that ancient Bad Blood between Sky Folk and Moon Wings made this boy's appearance in Dewdenn all the more strange and disturbing.

The boy's chest rattled as he spoke, and his voice was weak. "They came by day as we slept. They wore red robes." The boy coughed raggedly and the rattle worsened. "They set fire to the forest, trapping us in the branches. Many died in their sleep from smoke. Others leaped to their deaths. For those who made it to the ground, the Gray Monk, the one who cries, was waiting. He cut us down. Hanged the rest of us on their crosses." Another jag of coughing left the boy breathless and his lips wet with blood. Lenore soothed him as Gustavo hurried about, preparing a poultice.

"This is no longer a southern problem. The Red Paladins are moving north. We're right in their path," warned Felix, a barrel-chested farmer and one of the Elders. Mal didn't move. She watched in horror what happened in front of her. He is poor child? He had to endure this.

"Until we learned more about their movement and numbers, no one is to travel," Lenore said.
Florentin spoke up. "How do we sell our goods without market day?"

"Well send our scouts today. Hopefully this restriction will only take us through one moon cycle. In the meantime we'll make do. Open the fields. Share. And we should reached out to the other clans."  Mal continued standing up, getting everybody attention. Everybody looked confused and started to whispering to each other.

As the elders debated, Nimue pulled Pym and Mal away from the window and headed for the stables.

"What, you're still going?" Pym asked. "Of course," Nimue said. Waiting would only make things worse. It had to be now."

"You mother just told us we can't go to Hawksbridge." Nimue entered the stables, grabbed her saddle from a hook, and prepared her palfrey, Dusk Lady, for riding.

"I'm not letting you get on any ship. I'm not saying goodbye." Nimue tried to be stern.

"Pym—"

"I'm not." Pym folded her arms. Mal roll her eyes, she couldn't believed it. Mal was always this stubborn. Just, when Nimue was about to step out.

"I'm going with you." Milo spoke up, appearing near the distance shocking everybody. Nimue looked wide-eyed at him, clearly shocked. Mal frustrated enough, she couldn't believed Milo was listening to their whole talk.

Hawksbridge was a ten-mile ride through rolling hills and dense forest. It was large enough to draw entertainers and mercenaries to its taverns and hold a decent market on every other Thursday, so to Sky Folk like Nimue and Pym, it was Rome, it was all the world. A heavy wooden fort overlooked the town from northern rise. More than a dozen hanged men fed the crowd from the fort's highest wall, a grim warning to strangers and thieves.

Pym shuddered at the sight. She pulled the hood of her cloak tighter around her face. Mal saw from the corner of her eyes, Pym wrapped her hands around Milo, getting scared. "These cloaks are crap disguises. And I've been doing chores all day. I smell."

"I told you not to come," Nimue reminded her. "And you don't smell. Much."

"I hate you," Pym growled. "Your beat and smell like violets," Nimue soothed, though she tucked her hair under own hood just to be safe. Fry Kind wore their hair down, unlike woman in town, who wore it under the a simple or head covering.

"This is madness," Pym said.

"Enough ladies," Milo spoke up, he gently patted her back began to move closer to Nimue. Milo smirked, "I bring adventure to your life." Milo directed to Nimue. "You bring stress and punishment to my life."

The guards at the eastern gate allowed Pym and Nimue through with little fuss. With Milo, and Mal it wasn't easy, Mal had to used her, mind control, to control them. It wasn't trick. They stabled Dusk Lady in stall near the gate and walked to the port at Scarfcrocft Bay, a small harbor for local fisherman

AUTHOR NOTE
Any thoughts? Like I said this book will officially start December. Stay tuned?!