Lily limped through the forest as fast as she could, leaving a trail of blood. She could hear Star growling behind her as they retreated. He was facing the predators and doing his best to intimidate them out of attacking further. It was amazing how a walk that took less than half an hour seemed to be an infinity now that she was injured. The forest just went on and on. She didn’t think she was even a quarter of the way back either.

  “Master, they are getting more confident. They know we can not keep up this pace forever. We will have to do something.”

  “I don’t want to kill them! Are you still okay?”

  “I am only lightly injured. The few bites I’ve suffered have not been deep. But, I can not kill them all myself. They will overwhelm me if I must also protect you.”

  Talking was hard. She was having a hard time breathing because she was out of shape and in agony. Her leg didn’t want to support her weight at all. The only way she was even able to move along was by using magic to lighten her weight, and that was a precarious hasty magical creation in itself in this magic dense environment. The idea of her capacitors failing and her suddenly getting flung into the sky was well and beyond scary but she didn’t have time to think about that right now.

  She didn’t want to kill the puppies! Well, they weren’t really puppies. Coyotes? It was possible they weren’t even all coyotes. She couldn’t trust her eyes. But it didn’t matter what they were. She wasn’t a killer. That’s not who she was. She didn’t want to.

  “Master, we must fight them. This is no time to be emotional.”

  “Don’t worry about protecting me. Just defend yourself, I’ll– I’ll figure something out.”

  “No. We will fight together.”

  “Star this is no time to–”

  “Your safety matters most. I will not stop defending you for any reason.”

  That was that. She knew that tone. They’d talk about this ter, but he meant what he said. Talking to Star was always so much easier than talking to people.

  “Fine. I’ll try to move faster. If we can just get to the car…”

  “They will attack us long before then. You are only tiring yourself.”

  One of the beasts lunged at Star and there was a yelping sound as Star snapped at it. Lily froze and looked over her shoulder only to see it retreating again, an ear bleeding. Lily’s heart started beating again, but only for a moment. She noticed Star had a fresh wound as well. Shallow though it was, his white fur was dyed with fresh red blood just below the shoulder.

  He was right. They were going to wear them down until they actually couldn’t defend themselves. There had to be some other way to get around this! Lily had already tried a few self defense spells. But the non-lethal spells she’d had in mind only slowed them down. They must have some kind of supernatural endurance or healing as well.

  She didn’t want to create lethal spells. She didn’t want to! That was a hurdle that once crossed could never be un-crossed. She didn’t want to be a killer. She wasn’t a killer. She wouldn’t be.

  Star was right. The arrogance of her to think that she would always have a choice. But there was always a choice, wasn’t there? She could refuse to kill, right up until she was killed. If Star weren’t here…

  But if she was killed, he would die defending her. No. Not an option. Think! She had to think. At this rate, she might not even make it back to the car by nightfall! The light coming down from the canopy above was getting dimmer, and on the horizon when she glimpsed it she could see the light growing orange.

  Her ankle twisted as it hit a gnarled root wrong, and she hit the ground hard. The taste of dirt filled her mouth. For a horrifying instant she thought she felt the jaws of the monsters close around her, but then Star lifted her to her feet, urging her to keep moving. Lily scrambled to move, and heard a sharp yelping sound. Much deeper than the ones from the predators. She turned, and her mind went bnk.

  One of the ‘puppies’ had its mouth fully around Star’s foreleg. Another was in his face, snarling and preventing him from pulling away, and a third was circling around to get one of his hind legs. Her friend’s blood was flowing. Her companion. Her only friend.

  “No.”

  No. No no no. No. She had been stupid. She had been so stupid. The world around her stopped, and everything suddenly seemed so clear.

  What was she? A killer? A pacifist?

  No. She was scum.

  She fought, cwed, and scraped to survive.

  Star was right. It was the height of arrogance to think she was above killing. That she got to choose.

  Those thoughts were only on the surface. The person she wanted to be. Not the disgusting being she really was underneath.

  Deep down, there was only one ‘real’ part of her. She could see it now.

  The demon. The part that would do anything it had to do. The monster that had used insane magic to escape the pit. That had channelled a spell so powerful her flesh couldn’t contain it and lived to see the next day. The part of her that took over in the basement when the spell started to eat everything.

  The molten seething core within her that ideas about who she ‘wanted’ to be couldn’t reach.

  The survivor.

  The coyotes were finally making their move. Star knew how the hunt would go. Had known since the beginning. It was the same way his friends could hunt creatures much rger than them. Use numbers. Stalk and surround. Never let the one in the danger zone also be the one making the attack.

  If it was any one singur threat he was more than willing to throw himself in the way to protect Lady Fmewalker. But against these numbers, if he tried to focus on any of them long enough to make an attack, some of the group would simply bypass him and attack her.

  The enemy had its jaws around his leg. He could feel its teeth trying to apply enough pressure to break his bone, but so far his overwhelming size had held up enough. With one having a hold of him though, the real attack would start now. Star braced himself and got ready to block his Master with his body if he had to, when suddenly the pressure on his leg lessened dramatically.

  A terrible wet ripping sound. The smell of blood. Star looked down barely in time to see the lower jaw of the beast that had him was gone. In an instant, the body of the creature was unched away from him, at least twenty feet. Its body made a sick sound as it hit a tree and the gmour instantly faded revealing the body of a monstrous coyote.

  “Master?”

  He turned to see his Master. Lily stood, pointing a finger at where the terrible thing had been. The scars on her arms and smattered across the rest of her body were glowing with opalescent light, and in her eyes was something terrible. Star had seen that look before.

  The creature pying distraction backed off to get some distance after what had happened to its packmate. As it retreated it stepped into a circle and disintegrated. Fur and flesh peeled away in a matter of moments and not even bones remained.

  How had she– Then Star remembered. The basement had been disintegrating like that too. What about the mana?

  “Master! Be careful!”

  Careful? Like that mattered. Like any of it mattered. She had been so stupid before, pretending like it did. What if she got hurt? She was already hurt. Her hurt didn’t matter. As long as she kept Star out of the spells, she would do what she had to do.

  In the mana enriched area the monster had evaporated into she focused on forming a circle. It was simple. All it had to do was gather water. The circles formed so pathetically slow as she had to focus on each little detail. It didn’t matter. She didn’t have to be fast. The stupid beasts weren’t even running yet.

  The circle finished forming, gathering water and converting all heat inside of it to mana, all flowing around a central node that she left bnk for now. Held back by a gate. Her little tch. Her first real invention. Well, if whoever wrote the basement spell didn’t count.

  Lily pushed her way forward. Star moved to block her, and she spoke.

  “No. Behind me.”

  He instantly moved to obey. Good. He could tell how much mana she was wielding. She needed to concentrate. Her heart felt calm. Concentrating was easy. Everything else in the world had stopped mattering.

  One of the braver monsters stepped forward to meet her. It didn’t matter. It didn’t understand that it was already dead. A tiny part of her heart hurt. She brushed it aside. It didn’t matter.

  A rger circle was forming now. It was simple. So simple. How stupid had she been. She didn’t want to design any lethal spells? What spell of hers couldn’t be lethal if she used it right. Light, maybe? Life was fragile. It was avoiding breaking it that was difficult. Not the other way around.

  Several push glyphs formed, pointed to the middle of the rge circle. There were yelps from all around as all of the horrid beasts were suddenly yanked to the center of the area. A circle big enough to surround them all? That was nothing in this environment, and if she only used a couple glyphs or multiples of the same it didn’t take long to write out.

  The trees within the zone groaned under the pressure. Some branches snapped and flew into the middle of the circle along with her enemies.

  There was only one thing left to do. In the first circle, a ball of ice remained, getting rger by the second. It was already about the size of a shopping cart. Perfect. She filled in the final bnk node. Another push glyph. Pointed directly at the center of her snare. The gate activated, dumping all the accumuted mana into the final glyph.

  WHUMPH

  The ball of ice moved so fast Lily couldn’t see it. But she heard it. Hell, she felt it. A shockwave hit her so hard it knocked her off her feet. A sonic boom.

  All she could hear was ringing. She tried to move. She had to make sure they were dead! She had to make sure Star was okay! She had to– throw up.

  After her stomach had been voided, she looked around wildly. In front of her, there was a hole. A hole had been torn straight through the woods. Unblocked sunlight shone down from above. Blood. Guts. Carnage. Skin. A mangled mass of flesh, split into two distinct piles was all that remained.

  She did it. She was safe. Star was safe.

  So why did she feel so…

  She was dizzy. She id back down.

  Star padded over and nudged her with his nose. He made a few soundless shapes with his mouth. That was weird…

  He seemed to be trying to ask if she was alright.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.”

  She was so dizzy. She just needed to lie still for a minute.

  Star nudged her more aggressively. She opened her eyes, and realized she had closed them. Yeah, sleep probably not a good idea.

  “I’m okay, really. We’re safe, right?”

  Star didn’t reply.

  “Star?”

  Lily looked up.

  He made some more soundless motions.

  “What’s wrong? Say somethin–”

  All at once Lily realized. It wasn’t just Star that was soundless. She reached up and touched her ears. Her hands came away stained with blood.