A Touch of Death

Prologue

Aoife ran.

Faster, I have to move faster!

Footsteps and hoofbeats pounded behind her, the dim lights of lanterns marking their path as they followed her through the forest. No, not followed. Hunted.

They're coming.

She could hear them as they followed behind, gaining ground with every second.

The animals in the hunting party made much more noise than her frantic footfalls, but that didn't matter.

Their horses ran faster than human legs, and their enchanted hounds could no doubt smell the sweat on her neck and hear the beating of her heart from five hundred paces away.

Her legs protested with every step, crying out that she should stop and rest, stop and give up. What was the use, anyways? They would find her, and they would capture her, and they would kill her.

An arrow streaked past out of the corner of her eye, followed by a fiery flash of pain against the outside of her left arm. Aoife gritted her teeth against the sting, and managed not to cry out. She was lucky that it had only grazed her.

Quick, now!

The urge to live pressed her forwards through the dark woods, dodging trees and jumping shrubbery, leaving dirty brown footprints on the thin coating of clean, white snow dusting the muddy earth.

The air seemed to become colder as she ran, burning her lungs and drying her eyes.

Her cloak was soaked through from snow drifts, tangling around her legs at every turn, causing her to stumble and slow her pace.

Frustrated and shaking, Aoife pulled at the ties around her neck with stiff, frozen fingers, undoing the knot and shoving the sodden cloak off to the side of the path without hesitation.

It landed haphazardly over some low scrub bushes.

It would be colder without it, but none of that mattered if she couldn't escape.

Right now, speed was more important than any fleeting extra warmth it might provide.

A creek ran beside where she pulled off her cloak, not yet iced over.

The water would be frigid, but could also cover her tracks.

She splashed down into the creek, wincing as the water soaked her boots, and trudged onwards as quickly as she could manage.

The babbling creek moved quickly, knocking against rocks and making enough noise to cover her splashing.

Aoife jumped down a small waterfall, no more than three feet high, biting her lip as her very bones seemed to vibrate from the impact. The ledge provided enough shelter that, if she stooped, she could hide as she kept moving.

Watching her footing among she slippery stones, Aoife heard a clamor from behind her, followed by raucous shouts of joy.

"The demon is dead!"

The call echoed through the forest, and a shiver ran down her spine. Were they trying to trick her, to get her to slow down? Or had they seen her discarded cloak and the bloody arrow that missed its mark, simply assuming that her body had disappeared into the night?

The hunting party wouldn't leave her alone easily, not after blaming her for the death of three village residents. With luck, her abandoned cl-oak had convinced them -she'd died or disappeared, turned to ash like the demon they thought she was.

To tell the truth, Aoife wasn't ready to think about those deaths. She was worried they might have been her fault after all, however unintentionally...

But that was a thought for another day, when she was far away from here and safe.-

After spending roughly a hundred paces in the creek, she pulled herself onto the bank and scrambled to her feet.

The sturdy, green vine she'd grabbed to help haul herself up turned brown and brittle under her touch, but it held fast while she climbed.

At least the jaunt in the water hadn't put her off course— she was going West, to Quilland, where magic was more accepted.

Where no one would know her. Where she could have a fresh start.

Or, at least, where she could try.

A chance was better than nothing.

Rather than stop and rest, she turned her back on the approaching hunters and ran deeper into the forest, ignoring the prickling sensation at the back of her neck and the overwhelming urge to turn back towards the creek.

"It's only the forest," she whispered aloud, and for the tiniest moment she almost believed it.

As she moved farther into the forest, the terrain under the blankets of snow began to change.

The ground became rocky and dry, with only a few sprigs of tall, brittle grass and low-lying shrubs to break the monotony of the bare and dying trees.

After a short time struggling across the dry ground, she slowed her pace to a walk, paying more attention to where she was going and less to how quickly she was getting there.

Witch, they called her. Evil spirit. The words bit into her heart with a much sharper sting than the cold or the damp ever could. Seeing her neighbors and friends chase after her on horseback with, raging and ready to shed blood, hurt more than any weapon.

Aoife wrapped her arms around herself and shivered.

Her skirts were weighed down from the creek, and her boots were soaked through.

Her feet were painfully numb, and there wasn't a good place to stop in sight.

She could make a fire if she found any dry wood, but that seemed like an unlikely dream.

All the wood around her was damp from the snow or rotten, and even the flint in her pocket wouldn't do her any good with soggy tinder.

Breathing hard, Aoife decided that the only course of action was to press on and hope for shelter.

The only good thing about running away in winter was that her steps wouldn't leave behind a trail of dead grass in the shape of footprints.

Unfortunately, the cold might kill her instead of the hunters.

The sudden urge to succumb to the freezing embrace of death overwhelmed her, but the painful heat in her arm from the arrow slash begged otherwise.

At least that was one reminder that she was still alive.

There might be no hope behind her, but giving up and dying in the cold wasn't the only option she had left.

Hugging her arms around her torso, she forced herself to take one more step.

Then another.

And another.

Onward to the smallest chance at a better future.

She walked for two days.

As she traveled West, the weather improved, and the plants around her changed. There was enough fungi and edible bark on the trees that she wasn't starving, but it certainly wasn't the most ideal situation.

At the very least, it was dry. It was colder here, but that meant the forest was less sodden and more frozen, making travel easier and dry wood accessible. It was a testament to luck alone that she hadn't succumbed to the cold yet.

Well, luck and the cave she found that gave her a chance to build a fire, drying off her boots and clothes. That was a saving grace.

There were no towns or villages along her way, which she had mixed feelings about. Villages meant warmth and safety, but also meant people, and she was in no state to defend herself if the residents decided to brand her a demon... again.

Sunset was upon her. For tonight, she could find shelter in another cave or a copse of trees. If not, she'd keep walking through the night. Another day or two should, hopefully, bring her to warmer weather.

Her best chance was to keep going till she hit the border, find an inn, and use what little money she had in her pockets to stay there until she recovered.

Quilland laws and culture were much more lenient and accepting of magic than those in Sarilorn.

If she found a quiet little village to hide in, it was possible Aoife could simply live her life in peace.

Her half-frozen mind churned with a foggy daydream of a one-room house to call her own, a cheerly glow in the fireplace, and no one ever trying to touch her again.

Peaceful. Lonely, but peaceful.

And then a sound jolted her out of her daydream like a strike of lightning--

A voice.

"Hello?"

The tone was confident and masculine, slightly agitated as it echoed through the trees. The faint sound of footsteps across the cold, wet ground followed, growing rapidly closer.

Aoife ducked behind a tree and sank to the forest floor with a gasp, wedging her body between two massive tree roots and trying to make herself as small as possible.

She must have wandered close to a town, and as it wasn't clear if she'd passed the border yet, there was no telling what the owner of that voice might do to someone Touched.

A lantern light split the shadows on either side of the tree where she hid, coming closer with every second.

"Who's there?" he asked again. Aoife winced, tucking herself closer to the tree even as her vision swam.

She tried to calculate if it would be more dangerous to stay hidden or to reveal herself, but even her thoughts were sluggish from fatigue and cold, and apparently she took too long to make that decision.

Suddenly, there was a bright beam of light from the other side of the tree. A sound like a cannon ripped through the air, forcing Aoife to close her eyes and instinctively reach to cover her ears.

Before she had time to register what might be happening, a blinding flash of red-hot pain ripped through her left arm. She only dimly registered the scream that ripped from her mouth, the wet heat of her own blood on her skin clouding her thoughts. Her ears rang from the noise, head spinning.

The lantern light came a little nearer, but she was too paralyzed with fear and pain to even scramble to her feet and run, only managing to slump closer to the tree as the shadowy figure approached.

Once he was about five paces away from her, the man stopped, gazing at her travel-worn form as the lantern light washed over her.

Her visitor slowly cocked his head to one side, and then back to the other.

"Caught you," he said softly, his tone carefully neutral. From this distance, she could make out the outline of a cloak, but nothing specific about the person wearing it.

Aoife let out a terrified noise that was more of a whimper or a squeak than anything, hot tears running down her frozen cheeks.

She knew what he was seeing. Her clothes were covered in dirt and soaked through, her shoes had holes in the toes, and her hair was barely held back from her face in a matted braid.

She likely looked like a wild Fae, or more likely, a human girl driven out of her mind by the strength of her own Touch.

"Who are you?" the silhouette asked, drawing a little closer. The large hood of the cloak covered half his face, and the glare of the lantern in her eyes obscured the rest, though she got the feeling he was squinting through the darkness at her.

"Perhaps I am a ghost," she rasped, holding perfectly still.

"I may disappear if you let me be." Her voice sounded raw and rusty.

With any luck, he'd believe it and leave her alone to die, or at least have the mercy not to make the situation worse.

Please, just let me die, she silently begged.

"You look more like a half-frozen corpse to me." He said with a snort, pulling away from her a little.

"Then perhaps the ghosts desire my company, as I will soon be one of them." Aoife curled farther in on herself, trying to shrink into the shadows of the tree roots.

A pause far too long for Aoife's liking passed, but the figure did not move. He simply stared at her, like he could see straight through the shadows, the tattered clothes, and the fear, all the way down to her very soul.

"Get up." The man offered his hand, but she only stared at it, shaking her head. A part of her whispered that there was nothing left to lose, but that wasn't true. There was still his life, whoever he was.

As Aoife looked back and forth between his hand and the shadows concealing his face, the man gave an annoyed huff before repeating himself.

"Get. Up."

Something in his tone made her try, pushing up on the tree branches with all her might.

.. but days of traveling made her weary and weak, and the same rush of adrenaline muffling the pain in her arm made her clumsy and shaky.

Aoife pushed upward and promptly slipped in the mud, careening to the side.

The man reached out to steady her, but she jerked away from him on instinct, pulling her arms in close to her sides.

"Don't touch me!" she shrieked, falling painfully back against the tree as her voice echoed through the woods. The hooded figure flinched away from her, mouth falling open in surprise. "Please, don't touch me, please..." More tears came, her body shaking uncontrollably.

"You need help," he insisted. "More so now that..." He trailed off with a sigh, tilting his head towards the injury he had caused. The bite was gone from his voice now, replaced with confusion and sympathy.

"Stay back!" Aoife tried to move, but her balance was off, and one step had her collapsing to the forest floor. Her head was pounding. She barely registered a dim pain in her arm and her ankle, but her consciousness was fading fast.

Even if she wanted to, she couldn't run any longer.

Oh. Is this death, I wonder?

Maybe I'm better off this way after all...

The last thing she remembered was the feeling of a warm weight covering her body, and thinking that maybe she could finally be at peace.

Aoife woke with sweat on her brow, feeling unpleasantly sticky all over. Her vision blurred as she tried to take in her surroundings.

She was indoors, covered with a blanket and lying on a sofa in a room lit by candles of all shapes and sizes.

Blinking furiously, Aoife tried to make out the rest of the space, but with little luck.

The circular room swam before her eyes, the floating, dark blotch on the far wall presumably designating a window.

It was night, then, and she had no idea how long she'd slept.

At the least, she wasn't outside anymore. At the least, for the first time in days, she was truly warm.

"Don't move," the same masculine voice from before said softly, placing a cloth on her forehead.

She still couldn't see who was speaking, no matter how hard she tried to turn her head to look.

"You've been an incredible inconvenience, but you're very lucky.

You should have died from the cold or the infection in that wound on your arm long before you came here, but your Touch kept you alive. "

Her Touch? The magic that ran through her veins kept her alive through the cold and the fatigue and the desperation?

Aoife would have scoffed if she had her energy. Those drops of Fae blood had never done anything good for her, or for anyone else, for that matter.

"Do— don't ... touch..." Her words slurred together as they fell from her lips. She tried but failed to shrink away from the looming, shadowy figure above her, only succeeding in pressing closer to cushions at her back.

"What's that?"

Aoife tried again to speak, but it came out as a pitiful-sounding groan.

There was a shushing sound before the invisible voice tilted her head forward and poured hot liquid down her throat.

She spluttered for a moment, but managed to swallow it, the heat settling into her belly and sink deep into her bones.

"Where did you get this?" he asked, and it took her a long moment to puzzle out what he could be talking about.

A light pressure on the back of her neck told her he had picked up her necklace chain.

Her fever-addled mind couldn't work out why he would want to know where a plain, cast-iron pendant came from.

The response she tried to give came out as a dry cough and a tiny, keening whimper. The hooded figure sighed and shook his head.

"Rest."

There was a cool pressure on her forehead, a wave of soothing comfort that urged for her to rest. The figure moved away, closer to the firelight.

All that Aoife could make out before she succumbed to sleep was that his skin was pale, his hair was white, and he wore a red cloak.

Red as blood, red as dawn, as wine, and death, and magic.

She'd definitely made it across the border... and in Quilland, only Enchanters wore red.