The cold air burned her lungs. Tree branches scraped her arms and face, and the wind cut into her sensitive skin through the thin silk of her nightgown. But she didn’t stop running. Fear pursued her like a hungry animal, alone through the woods in the dead of night.

She didn’t know how far she’d run when she couldn’t run anymore. She stumbled, catching herself against a tree and sliding down it to crumple into a forlorn pile of torn silk. Her hair hung in her face as she sat panting, her eyes darting around the now quiet forest, save for the night insects.

The sounds of fighting were now unable to be heard across the distance she’d put between herself and home. Her father’s enemies had attacked the castle in the middle of the night, and she was shoved by her escort into one of the secret passages that led out into the forest. Leon’s words echoed in her mind as she curled up against the tree:

“Go! I’ll find you. Just go!”

She hoped to God he’d come find her, but she was beginning to lose hope, cold and scared on the forest floor.

At some point she must have closed her eyes and fallen asleep, because the next thing she knew, sunlight was burning on the other side of her eyelids and a hand was on her shoulder. The panic from the night before returned, and her eyes snapped open, her first instinct was to take a swing at the person hovering over her.

“Easy!” Leon caught her in his arms tightly to still her struggling. “It’s me… it’s me!”