The shaman shook his head slowly, his expression grave. The newborn baby was still on the bed, sleeping soundly. "I am sorry, but like the child a few years ago, she cannot stay."

"But--" The distraught mother could barely whimper. The tent was silent, except for the magical broth that churned, used to check the newborn's birth. The broth was swirling in inky darkness, which was a rare, cursed sign. The mother pleaded again, this time in anguish and pain, "Please! Please just let her live!"

The shaman shook his head again.

"Tonight is the twenty-ninth day since her birth, by the thirtieth day she must disappear," The shaman slotted a piece of paper of her name into the newborn's little tunic, "Bring her into the mountains, over the river, anywhere she could be placed at. For the safety of the Village, just bring her away."

The mother grabbed the newborn and rushed out of the tent. Outside, the calmness and silence soothed her, but only momentarily. She had a job to do, not only to send the child away but to make a deal.

In the newborn's tunic, on the piece of paper, a name was scrawled onto it: FERHIA. The mother bounded into the woods, heavy breathing echoing in the stillness of the night.

When the day came, and the mother returned, life carried on but the infant was nowhere to be seen.

***

Along the gushing river and under the silver glare of the faint moonlight, the infant woke, her deep blue eyes staring up at the sky, white and misty. Not far away from her, a pack of wolves stared at the newborn infant, and on top of the Alpha of the Pack, a boy not older than five sat.

His eyes still fixated on her, he whispered something inaudible to the other wolves into its ears, and it nodded, shifting its rather massive head up and down slowly. Padding nimbly to where the awakened newborn was, it grabbed the tunic gently with its teeth and turned back to the pack, leaving the riverbank...

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