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With each passing day, danger seemed closer to Damian.

The last rays of sunlight had disappeared and night enveloped the quiet, endless plains. The scenery had changed little in the past week, and this night it was even more consistent than the last. Damian and Domino had ridden for miles after the sun had set, but there was still no cover in sight. It was far too late to continue. Even on the road cutting through open farmland, riding at nighttime could be treacherous.

Domino reined in his slate grey gelding. Damian followed suit beside him defeatedly.

"I don't think we're going to find anything," he remarked softly. "We'll have to camp in the fields tonight." She only nodded, following him into the tall wheat they had been traveling through for days. Had they truly covered any distance at all?

Distractedly, she helped Domino flatten some wheat plants and build a fire. She didn't want to eat or sleep, but she was both hungry and tired. They ate a simple supper before a faint fire that seemed to Damian like a beacon bright enough to draw attention to them from miles around.

The sense of dread that had built in Damian engulfed her. She had no way of knowing how far they had gone and Alegro still felt a world away. Trouble, however, had seemed to only follow her closer.

After the second village they had encountered turned them away as coldly as the last, Damian and Domino had begun to avoid towns altogether. Occasionally they ran across a farmer that had not heard the stories about her with whom they could barter for food, but most of the time the travel was quiet and they were alone. Every rustle of grass unnerved her and every time she turned, she saw shadows of krolmins out of the corner of her eye. Although they had suffered only small difficulty on their journey, a feeling resonated deep in her heart that something terrible was about to happen. Domino's presence comforted her, but only so much. All of Faneria seemed to be on the lookout for her.

The only thing on her mind this night, however, was the past. She sighed as she gazed into the fire.

"What's wrong?" Domino asked.

"I was just thinking about my father," she answered, drifting into memory. "His trade routes. This time each year, we'd be traveling around this part of Faneria. Most of the time, we'd stay at an inn or some farmer's house, but sometimes we'd camp out in the fields, just like this. It was special because it was the only time we had to ourselves." Unwilled tears gathered beneath her eyes. "I miss him so much." Sniffling, she rubbed at her eyes roughly. The snaps and crackles of the fire filled the air. The silence was oppressing and Damian's mind began to wander. Though she was uncomfortable opening up to most people, she missed having people around her. In a crowd, she felt as though she had company even when nobody knew her. I don't have to be somebody, but I'm not nobody. I can be myself without anyone knowing who I really am.

Domino glanced up suddenly, eyes peering into the tall wheat. Pushing her thoughts aside, Damian watched him anxiously. The small fire only faintly illuminated his face against the darkness of the night sky, marked by a thumbnail sliver of a moon.

He cocked his head, turning an ear to the sky over the wheat surrounding them. Damian held her breath, afraid of what he might have heard.

After a long moment of silence, she ventured, "Is something out there?" Domino paused, then shook his head.

"I don't know," he answered. His gaze was calm as usual as he turned his eyes to her. "It might have been just an animal." Damian frowned, not feeling consoled by his words. She didn't fear an attack. If worse came to worse, she knew she could defend herself. However, she also knew that both of them together didn't have the power to ward off their pursuers.

"I don't feel safe here," she stated. Domino's eyes scanned the wheat surrounding them.

"I'm not sure I do, either," he replied. She glanced at him, surprised. Domino had rarely voiced his uncertainties in the past week, even when he later admitted to feeling them as well.

"Maybe we should..." Damian began. She stopped herself when a distant whicker rang across the plain. Eyes wide, she listened for more sounds, but the night remained eerily quiet. Domino had risen to his knees, back straight and alert and hand on the hilt of his sheathed falchion. Damian had as much wanted to believe that she was overreacting as she told herself that she was for her own reassurance, reasoning that they'd been given no undeniable proof to heighten her fear. But now her heart pounded with a fervor that she knew was justified.

"Gather your things," Domino stated hastily, grabbing his satchel. Damian picked hers up with shaking hands as the mercenary walked around the fire toward Singer, standing on the edge of the circle they had cleared for their camp. She glanced at the fire briefly, then mounted Hope, suddenly glad they had decided to stop removing their horses' bridles and saddles at night.

Once atop the saddle, she glanced out over the plain, hoping to pick out the source of the noises she had heard. The night was too dark, however, and shadows wrapped over everything beyond the small fire below. Holding her breath, she followed Domino, disappearing into the dark fields at a walk.

As her eyes adjusted to the deep night, she began to make out patches of wheat rustling from movement beneath. The movement was little and scattered, but it was too much to be animals. Maybe it's just farmers, she hoped desperately as she urged her mare into a trot.

It was not long before a metallic ring echoed through the night, followed by several more directly in front of Damian and Domino.

"Halt!" a voice cried out from the wheat before them. Damian gasped, yanking Hope to a stop. Gazing across the fields, she could still see no one. There was no way to tell how many people were out there.

With a fierce kick to the horse's flanks, Domino charged forward, Damian quickly following suit. The voice before them cried out as they galloped past.

"Stop them!"

Damian leaned over her horse's neck, turning towards the road on Domino's heels. Voices picked up all around them, accented with the sounds of swords sliding out of scabbards and archers taking aim.

"By order of the duchy of Alden, I command you to halt!" another voice yelled out.

"What should we do?" Damian asked Domino.

"Just run," he replied, urging his horse faster. Damian did the same, watching the fields around them as they returned to the main road and continued west. She hoped that the soldiers' failed ambush would allow them to break through the formation and escape.

Before she could allow herself a breath of relief, however, a pair of horses galloped into the road not a stone's throw ahead of Damian and Domino, bearing archers taking aim at Hope and Singer.

Letting out a yelp, Damian turned Hope quickly to the side. The first volley of arrows narrowly missed as she returned to the wheat field on the far side of the road. It was only when she entered the tall plants that she realized Domino had turned the other way.

"Domino!" she cried, but dared not slow or turn her horse. More horses appeared in the fields, galloping toward her entirely too close for comfort. Glancing back at the road, she realized she couldn't return to it. Unarmed men in robes, some brandishing intricately detailed staves, stood with their arms held out to her. Her eyes widened.

"You can't run from us, dark mage!" they yelled as several slung globes of glowing energy at her. Hope danced to the side when one spell flew past just in front of her. Damian barely held on to the horse that now took her deeper into the wheat.

"Mother of darkness!" a startled voice called out from behind Damian.

"Look out!" another replied as screams picked up from various places around them. Damian scanned the fields wildly, but couldn't understand what had frightened the soldiers.

Suddenly, with a thump, Hope let out a crazed whicker and began to buck. Damian yelped as she struggled to hold on. After a few erratic jumps, the mare reared up, thrashing the air with its front hooves. Damian grasped the reins tightly, pulling fiercely on Hope's bridle, but she could feel herself slipping down.

The horse was sinking back to the ground when something rammed into Damian's side, throwing her off the saddle. She let out a cry as she fell to the ground. Whatever hit her grabbed her arm, but her unbalanced fall pulled her out of the grasp. Pain raked across her arm as she slammed into a bed of flattened wheat.

She opened her eyes and found herself facing the star-speckled sky. Quickly rising to a sitting position, she examined her stinging arm. Her glove was ripped in four even slashes, beneath which her skin had been torn open, darkness staining her arm. Looking up with a start, she found Hope galloping away with an arrow protruding from behind the saddle. The angle of the arrow made it clear that the missile had come from above.

Turning her gaze to the sky, she saw large, shadowy creatures with pale bodies soaring overhead. It was then that she heard the inhuman growls and screeches ringing through the night, and the screams of the soldiers in response.

"Kill them!"

"Behind you!"

"Don't let her get away!"

Heart pounding like a smith's hammer, she sprang to her feet. The mare was already out of sight and in its bucking, Damian had lost her sense of direction. She didn't know which way to turn. The soldiers and krolmins seemed to be all around her.

A hand grabbed her unhurt arm. She began to scream as she spun, but a voice quickly shushed her and she found only Domino beside her, sword drawn and ready. Nodding, he moved into the wheat at a brisk pace. Damian scrambled after him, gripping her injured arm tightly to try to stem the pain. The sounds of soldiers battling krolmins as they tried to find her filled the dark night. Damian's fear rose.

Before she realized anyone was close, a gauntleted hand reached out and grabbed her arm at the wound. She shrieked in pain, the cold metal stinging her open flesh and the vice-like grip causing her entire arm to throb. She felt helpless as the soldier began pulling her away.

He had taken her back only a step when Domino moved beside Damian and slammed his elbow against the soldier's face. The soldier released her as he stumbled back. She dug her fingers into her arm above the fiercely bleeding gashes, trying to abate the waves of pain that wracked her body. With two more quick blows, Domino sent the soldier reeling to the ground and laid a hand gently on her back. It lingered there little, however, as he darted around her to attack a mage trying to sneak up on her other side. Once safe, he began leading her through the fields once more.

Every time a face or a hand peered out from the wheat into Damian's view, she jumped, though Domino was quick to shove or slash it aside with his black blade. She began to wish he didn't dress in such dark clothes. It was all too easy to lose track of him in the shadowy plants.

As they pushed on through the field, it seemed more soldiers, mages, and krolmins began to close in on her. Even as Domino drove away one krolmin, another approached her and she had to run, her arm aching too much to use her dagger. Spells blazed overhead with the twangs of archers loosing arrows, both on the ground and in the air.

Closer and closer her adversaries drew, and hands grabbed at her from every direction. A swift kick or, more often, an attack from a different foe drove them off, but the crowd was only getting thicker. She no longer knew where Domino was and wished for nothing more than to have Hope back. Conscious thought fled her mind as a deeper instinct drove her forward, desperately trying to escape the multitudes of soldiers and krolmins swarming through the fields.

And so she only realized several moments later, as she ran hard through the forest of wheat, that she had escaped a crowd of a half-dozen soldiers and krolmins by flinging an immense blast of magic at them all. The sensation that now rippled through her body was so warm, familiar, and protective that she didn't try to stop herself from casting more spells at any who appeared before her. She raced through the fields, feeling her body grow hotter and hotter with each spell she cast.

The heat of magic stifled her, flaring hotter than she had ever felt before, but even as it seemed that her blood was going to boil, she continued tossing aside soldiers and krolmins in her rage and fear. The fire seemed to feed off itself and the only relief for it was to keep casting more magic.

She began to feel something moving inside her, could hear a lilting voice at the edge of her mind. A part of her realized with dim awareness that she began skipping moments in time, now swinging her arm around to sling a spell at a soldier with drawn sword, now out of sight of his unmoving body. Hidden fear rose in the depths of her mind, but she no longer had any control over what she was doing. It was as though she watched her actions through someone else's eyes. Horses fell, soldiers and krolmins wailed in pain, and wheat turned to ash beneath her hands.

Her pace slowed as the searing heat made it difficult for her to breathe. She vaguely saw a krolmin approach her through a blur of orange and red. Her hand lifted. All she did was rest it against the creature's chest and it went flying backwards, the skin beneath her touch black and smoking. She didn't even feel the spell resonate through her body anymore. Around her, the world had faded to grey. Shadows shifted in the wheat fields. Everything moved, yet nothing seemed to be alive.

Soon, the plains, the soldiers and krolmins, the entire world became invisible to her. She couldn't breathe, she began to lose feeling in her arms and legs, and the fire burning inside her was excruciating. Reality and perception slipped away and her tenuous grasp on consciousness faded. The fire was escaping her body, leaving her cold and empty. Faintly, she realized that she fell, though she couldn't feel or see the movement. A dark laugh tickled her ears from within.

The last thought that ran through her mind was fear and disappointment that, just as her father had always warned, magic had taken her life.

Then, everything faded to silence.

End part one