Therímna was a quiet place—just a cluster of stone cottages built into the slope where the cypress hills met the edge of the forest. The roofs were red clay, the gardens full of rosemary and mint, and every path was lined with little hanging bells that rang in the evening wind.

Lydri lived with her parents near the old well. Her days were simple: gathering herbs, tending the moss garden, drying petals on woven trays. That morning had been ordinary. She left early, barefoot, her herb knife on her belt and a half-filled basket in hand. She planned to gather sweetroot and maybe trade for fresh rosemary with the old shepherd downriver. It wasn't far. She didn't take her walking stick.

She took the ridge path east, where the grass grew high and golden. It was quiet—but not in the usual way. No insects, no birds, not even wind in the trees. Just stillness. She stopped walking. That's when something cold and strong wrapped around her ankle and yanked.

The creatures were fast, clawed, and short—maybe four feet tall, with gray skin that looked like wet bark and eyes like polished coal. Goblins. But these were the roaming pests kind. The worst. Moving in packs, ruining entire regions before being exterminated.

The goblins swarmed her legs and arms, dragging her down the hill before she could shout. One slammed her head against a rock when she kicked him in the throat. She blacked out.

Tied up, she was taken to in a ruin beneath the forest floor—half-collapsed stone halls buried in roots and dirt. The ceiling had caved in long ago, letting in shafts of light and rain. The goblins had built crude nests from straw and bones. There were at least twenty of them. Some were burning sap over small fires.

She was tied, wrists raw from the vines. Her face was scraped, and her tunic dress was a ripped mess. Her thighs scraped and smeared with filth and blood—some hers, some not. The goblins had stopped taunting her hours ago. Now they just watched, like they were waiting their turn. She knew what came next. Everyone in Therímna knew the stories. The ones who were taken didn't die—not for a long time.

Rescue was not an option. Nobody knew she was there. No one would storm a den to save some idiot girl with a basket of herbs and no knife. She had no power, no training. She'd spent her life pressing flowers into books, not killing things. She'd die here—or worse, live here, for years, until she stopped being able to cry or scream or remember what her mother's voice sounded like. They'd use her until her name didn't matter.

She knew she had to end her life, but she couldn't even move. That failure broke something in her. The panic came in waves now, tightening around her chest until she couldn't breathe right. She couldn't stop shaking.

But right when the panic was boiling over, when the deep realization of her entire life was over and she would spend years, decades, as a plaything for goblin scum, a noise erupted.

And screams. Oh, the screams! Short, wet screams that stopped mid-breath. Something moved through the ruins, tearing the goblins apart. And that was worse than anything else. Because if something was killing goblins that easily, it wasn't coming for her. It didn't care what happened to her. Or... it might just take her.

When the stone doorway opened, she didn't look at first. She was shivering so hard her teeth clacked and her vision was giving out. Panic couldn't even begin to describe her emotions. Elves felt everything too strongly. And now, her frail slender form was not enough to hold the overwhelming panic that was setting in.

Her vision began to give...