Run.

Eira’s eyes were wide with horror as her people were slaughtered as she peeked out of her cottage window. Firelight glowed on her face and reflected in her pale blue-and-yellow eyes. The heat made sweat run down her back. The screams of her mother, father, and baby brother sliced through the crackling of fire and the wet cut of their throats being slit downstairs, blood painting the walls and ceilings in perfectly formed splatters.

She heard the voice in her head again whisper, Run.

Eira quietly crept over to the other window on the other side of the room that faced the Ravenveil forest, where, on the other side of the forest, no one knew they existed. Until tonight. She crept, trying to be quiet as she stepped around all the creaky boards. She lifted the floorboard by the back wall that had a window looking out at the forest. She grabbed her weathered leather sack and pulled out the belongings her mother had shoved into her arms before she took off running downstairs to try to save her baby brother, who was just barely two months old. But it was too late to save them. Eira was two years shy of her first shift. While she was trained as a healer by the Valkyrie warriors who came to help protect the Ravenborne months ago, she didn’t stand a chance against the wyvern that scorched the earth under the king's orders. The wyvern’s riders were slaughtering anyone who bore the blood of the raven shifters. She was too small, still too green to bear her daggers.

She looked out in the dark mist of blackwood pines and eased out of the window frame. She found her footing on the vines that wound up their cottage walls. The rich, emerald green vines were once a sign of hope; the vines had healing properties and magic that gave her family the ability to become the healers of the Ravenborne. The Ravenborne people would come from across the forest to see them. But they were wilting in the heat of the flames consuming her friends' and neighbors' homes. The snow began to melt on the ground below. She grabbed a baby vine by the roots and threw it in her sack.

The King of the Elvenbound found that their people were guilty of being the harbingers of death and must be executed at all costs. The screams began to diminish, ash and smoke filling the air. When her feet met the wet, cold ground, she wrapped her cloak around her and began to run into the woods.

Run, Little One, Run.

Eira ran as fast as she could, ducking under tree limbs, jumping over roots. Trying to find some solace, some safety. Some place she could hide. She had brought nothing with her but her conduit, her obsidian and iron daggers, a waterskin, and her mother's book of healing and spells in a weathered leather sack thrown on her back. Her fur cloak and warm clothes were all she had. Her shoes were a bit big; they were her older brother’s boots from before he passed in the war against the king.