Catania felt herself trembling as she leaned back against a tree, clinging to her bow. She didn’t kill rational creatures. She had never shot one before. She felt sick.

She tried to suppress her raspy breaths. Tyre stood panting a little, his sharp eyes scanning the forest. She saw them roam bootlessly through the trees, before recognition spread across his face. Curse her hair! He had seen her. Why did she have to be an elf?

“Catania.”

His voice held no gratitude or fear. In fact, it was even more intimidating and commanding than usual. If he knew she was thinking how much she envied a certain human’s dark brown hair, he would be more terrible still, she knew. She could probably lose him in the forest if she darted away, but she stepped forward out of the familiar embrace of the trees, driven by the same vague impulse that had forced her trembling hands to bend her bow.

“I saved your life, Tyre. What more do you want from me?” she asked, hoping he couldn’t see that her whole body was shaking.

She inched away from the foreboding centaur and the fallen soldiers, trying to keep her eyes away from the bodies. She forced herself to make eye-contact with Tyre.

“I want satisfaction from you,” he snapped, drawing himself up to his full height.

Catania felt wretched and sick. Something in her gave way at his demand

“Satisfaction?” The sarcasm in her shaken voice surprised her. “Oh, I only took two, and you had to handle three of them yourself? You want a personal body guard who will deal with every human that is offended by your rashness, and—”

“Hold your tongue, girl!” Tyre shouted. “You know what I mean. You bowed to him. Bowed knee to a dirty, audacious fool of a human!” He spat the words into the tense air. “And then the minute you get your feet you turn and fight like a deft warrior! I want to know whose side you’re on, Catania–mine or theirs.” He nodded toward the soldiers lying on the road. Catania did not dare look at them. She vaguely caught a glimpse of crimson from the corner of her eye. She tried to trust it was only Nothfall’s red cloak.

“What if I’m on my side, Tyre?” she demanded, practically screaming, despite the fact that she stood just outside the dangerous wall. “What if I want to stay alive? What if I want to live my life and not get hurt, or imprisoned, or killed? As is going to happen to you sooner or later.”

“That is just what’s wrong with you, Catania,” Tyre said, lowering his voice. “All you think about is you, your own life, your own safety. You can live a life without living if for anything!”

“I just killed to save your life, Tyre,” Catania said again, her voice trembling. “What more do you want from me?”

Tyre’s imperial eyes were burning, and his voice was grim.

“I want all of you, or none of you, young she-elf.”

The young elf could not think of the last time she had felt so hot and angry, yet somehow she surprised herself by the coldness in her voice.

“Well,” she snapped. “I wish you had told me before—I could have saved you much unwanted company.”

She turned on her heel and started towards the forest.

“What about the silver, Catania?” Tyre asked, in a slightly subdued voice.

“I don’t want it.”

She kept walking.

“What about your arrows?” he pressed, beginning almost to sound desperate.

Catania abhored making arrows, but the vision of blood came unbidden to her mind, and suddenly she shivered again.

“I hope I never see them again.”

She was almost to the forest.

“But you’re going to help me hide the bodies?”

“You got yourself into this mess, get yourself out.”

She slipped between the first trees, and hastened her step.

“Catania, they’ll have heard us! We must. . . Catania! I need your help.”

Catania stopped walking. Had she heard right? Tyre had just asked for her help. For a moment, she hesitated–something inside her desiring to turn back. But the spiteful feeling won out.

“You said all or nothing.”

Catania fled.

~*~

The young elf ran through the forest tripping on roots and brambles, her keen eyes blinded by anger. She came to her trench and threw herself down into it. She stood by the stream in the fading light, seething. She stomped her lightly-shod foot and it sank deep into the mud. She retreated into her small grotto and flung her bow and quiver on the floor, and dropped to her knees on her bed of heather, and knelt there with her fists doubled, breathing through clenched teeth.

As the anger began to pass, she felt herself trembling. The memory of letting her arrows slide and watching Men crumple beneath them stabbed into her mind like a deadly shaft. She wrapped her quivering arms around herself and fought with frightened tears. She lay down at last and let herself cry, listening to the soft plunk! of every tear hitting the ferns. Breaking through the ugly recollections came Tyre’s words. The tears fell faster, and she felt her stomach constrict with a stifled sob under her curled arms. She knew it was no use denying that the reason his lecture hurt so much was because she knew it was true. Had she ever cared for anything but her own safety? For one instant she had glimpsed the world from Tyre’s point of view; felt his pride and courage as he stood unbowing, undaunted in the road. But she knew she was not like that–she was a quiet forester, living only for her next meal, the next stag she could take down; the rustic joy of a good day’s hunting or a bruin-mauled beehive.

Catania had lived with the assumption that the world was a nasty place, and nobody liked her, and few cared tuppence about elves in general, and she had lived shrugging off the lonely idea. The world was empty and cruel, and she had accepted it. What forged this crushing sense of despair was looking within herself, at her own heart, and finding emptiness there.