Aurelia was roused by a strange mixture of scents: fresh, dew-laden forest air, combined with the foul stench of smoke heavy with tar.

  Thick forest surrounded her on all sides, save for a clearing of smoldering stumps in her immediate vicinity, strewn with wreckage. Their airship must’ve impacted those trees as it’d come down. She’d been preparing to die, she remembered. As they’d careened downward, and Roskvir had held her close.

  Roskvir.

  She picked herself up, wincing at the gash in her abdomen. He was there, right beside her. He’d been still holding her with one arm, even in unconsciousness.

  But his other arm was bent at a sickening angle, she saw. Deep lacerations marred his chest and face, adding fresh blood to that of the gunshot he’d sustained before their crash.

  And when she knelt down to awaken him, he wouldn’t stir.

  She’d only received a few new scrapes and bruises, herself, she realized. He’d protected her in the crash with his wings and body, at the expense of his own safety.

  A lump grew in her throat.

  “Please, Roskvir,” she begged. She tried to shake him harder, to no avail. “Please, wake up…”

  She began to cry.

  But then she wiped away her tears.

  That was no time to simply wail and despair, the way a silly useless princess might, she thought. She owed Roskvir better than that. He was still breathing, if only weakly. And she’d read more than one medical treatise, in her family’s libraries…

  She looked around. Their crash had shorn plenty of leafy branches from nearby trees. Perhaps she could mush up some leaves and pack his wounds to slow the bleeding. And maybe she could scrounge some first-aid supplies from the wreckage, if the airship had kept any aboard.

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  Voices shouted in the distance, the harsh syllables of Albian. Aurelia’s heart skipped a beat. They were already coming her.

  For a split-second, she almost considered giving herself up.

  The Albians would surely heal Roskvir’s wounds if they found him, wouldn’t they? And she could bargain for his protection, if she offered to fully cooperate with the shogun.

  She just wanted him to live. He was all she had left.

  But just as fast, she decided against it.

  It had been so important to Roskvir to get her off that warship. She owed that to him, as well — to not betray that wish.

  With all her might, she heaved, dragging his body toward the edge of the clearing. The shouting closed in on the crash site, but not before she’d gathered the last of his heavy adult limbs into the undergrowth. In the final seconds before the soldiers burst through the trees, she tried to cover what she could of both Roskvir and herself in branches and leaves.

  Aurelia dared not even breathe, as the colored fires of vis reflected in the rain-slick foliage's waxy sheen. She tried not to despair — but knowing that her pursuers would’ve dispatched adept trackers to hunt them down, she couldn’t imagine what hope remained to which she could cling.

  "No bodies... but I think I have a trail. Go check beneath that debris, there."

  But the tenor of the shouting changed.

  “Gods, what is that?!”

  Gunfire erupted, then screams of anguish. Still, Aurelia dared not move, until a terrible animalistic roar drowned out the sounds of human terror, and she couldn’t help but turn to look.

  A great beast ripped apart the soldiers in the clearing. Even quadrupedal, it was taller than Roskvir twice again, with the top of its haunches rising perhaps over twelve feet high. It seemed as if a massive cat, with vicious fangs and claws, and fur striped orange, black and white.

  And above its head, sparks shed from a burning halo, wide and thin, formed of fire at once all colors of the rainbow.

  The soldiers fired again, but their rifles might as well have been children's toys loaded with cork. The beast pounced upon each in turn, and Aurelia almost wished she hadn't looked, as the men were shred apart, torn limb from limb.

  Before long the clearing was quiet. At once, the creature set about feasting on the dead bodies of the white-coats it had mauled, coating its muzzle and whiskers in blood.

  Aurelia could hold her breath no longer. Reaching her limit, she gasped for air.

  The cat rose from its meal. Two great feline pupils narrowed, before taloned paws began padding over to where she lay.