Another sunset, another day lost in the fields. If this was going to be everything life had to offer, then I might as well have been born as a work horse.
Lately the days had begun to pass by seemingly unnoticed, I felt like I had been stuck in the rhythm of work - from sunrise to sunset. Sweat on my brow, dirt buried beneath my fingernails. A sign of the way things had always been - and I suspected, always would be. Old man Edrin's farm wasn't much, a modest stretch of land at the edge of Briar's Hollow, a village too small for a lord to care about but just big enough to scrape by. We're the last settlement of human civilisation before the brambles and towering ferns of Veilwood swallows the meadow whole.
Briar's Hollow was a place of hardworking folk - farmers, hunters and blacksmiths who knew better than to stray too deep into the wilderness. The village was nestled in the valley below the looming shadow of the Duskfang Mountains to the north and the endless sea of trees that was Veilwood Forest to the south. Both of which were ancient places, untouched by time and home to things much older than when we decided to start recording our history.
Everyone knew that monsters lurked beyond the treeline. Elders would often speak of the creatures that watched from the dark, whispering in hushed voices to lure unsuspecting fools to an early grave. The mountains were worse - under the earth there were ruins hidden below, places where the air hummed with power and where the wind carried echoes of the most vile languages.
We're taught that before men ever set foot in these lands, the forests belonged to the Fey, and the mountains were home to things even fouler.
But I don't have time for old legends and cautionary tales.
Old Man Edrin had been hunched over the fence, muttering to himself. Probably arguing with the crows again. He had spent the afternoon with half an eye on the tree line of forest, as if he had been expecting something to come bursting out.
Edrin was as strange as they came, a tangled beard, crooked back and eyes sharp enough to slice through a man's lies. The villagers called him a washed-up hermit, but I knew better. There was something about him - something beneath his nonsensical mutterings about "how things used to be" and the way he sometimes looked at me as if he was waiting for something.
Not that I had time to dwell on that either.
He had finally decided to send me into the woods that evening to gather a handful of feverfew, rambling about how his bones were aching more than usual. I didn't argue - he was impossible to reason with, and I could use the quiet stroll.
The forest was calm, bathed in the last light of the setting sun after I had spent the day working the fields. I couldn't have been more than a couple of minutes in before I found what I needed, nestled near the roots of an old oak tree.
I crouched down, plucking the delicate white flowers one by one and placing them into the satchel when I heard it.
A sharp intake of breath. The snapping of branches. Footsteps - uneven and frantic.
I straightened just as something broke through the underbrush.
A girl.
She all but collapsed against a tree, her breath ragged. Even in the dim light, she looked… unreal. Her hair shimmered like a river of silver, falling around her in tangled waves. Her skin had a faint, almost unnatural glow, and her eyes - golden and sharp, flickering between caution and curiosity as she noticed me. But what stood out the most - what marked her as otherworldly - were the great curling ram's horns, dark as polished onyx. Framing her head like a crown, accentuating her already striking features.
A fey.
She was young, or at least she looked young - about twenty, if I had to guess. But with fey, who really knew? She could be older than my entire village and still appear as she did now.
I barely had time to process her gaze before a low, snarling growl rumbled through the trees.
A wolf stepped into the clearing - but something was wrong. Its fur was blackened, thick with shadows that shifted unnaturally as it moved. Its eyes were burning like embers, and when it bared its teeth, I saw too many fangs.
The girl tensed.
It lunged.
I didn't think. I just moved.
My hand shot up, reaching for something - anything. And then…
It felt like time paused for a moment, the world unravelled before my very eyes.
An unrelenting force exploded from my chest, both searing and cold as it vibrated through my bones. I felt power. Bursting through me like a storm, raw and uncontrollable. The air around me rippled, the power exploding outwards with a force that sent the wolf crashing into the trunk of a tree.
I stumbled back, my breath catching in my throat. I could barely believe what had just happened. Was that magic?
I could hardly believe it, magic was for nobles, scholars and adventurers. It wasn't something you'd find out in Briar's Hollow, especially from a farm hand.
The beast snarled viciously as it rose to its feet, shifting its focus from the Fey to me. The girl was staring at me now - not in fear, but in surprise.
"You-" she started, but the wolf wasn't finished.
It gathered itself, shadows now coiling tightly around its body. The hunger in its eyes deepened, now I was its target and it wanted revenge.
The force inside me swelled again. I had no idea what I was doing, but at the moment I didn't need to know. The moment the thought formed - push it back - the power replied.
A torrent of pressure erupted from my outstretched hand like a tidal wave. The wolf was thrown off its feet again, slamming back into the tree as it let out a yelp.
The power was swelling on my chest, pushing out from my ribcage. But worse than that, the feeling of it vibrating against the bones in my arms was excruciating.
I could feel the wolf struggling to be free, but something told me to push harder. The power responded again and then - just like that - with a satisfying crunch, the wolf's body began to compact and distort before dissolving into a black mist.
Silence.
I let out a shaking breath. My arms felt heavy. My chest ached, as if something had been torn open inside me, like I'd pulled my heart muscle.
The girl was still watching me, her expression unreadable. Then, softly, she whispered, "What was that? It felt like magic, but it wasn't… It wasn't anything."
I swallowed hard. My hands were still trembling. Outside of a few cheap tricks that old man Edrin would do, I don't think I've ever seen actual magic.
"What does that mean?"
She hesitated, then met my gaze as she replied, "You didn't weave any threads of mana, or cast a spell. It was like magic in its purest form, without any affinity or instruction." Her voice was quiet but certain. "People aren't born without an affinity, nobody should be able to wield that kind of magic, even during your awakening."
I didn't understand what she meant. The awakening was a process when a mage would first unleash their powers, I gathered that much.
Something told me - she didn't quite understand what had happened either.
The silence stretched between us, thick and heavy. The girl - the fey - was watching me with wide, unblinking eyes, as if she had just seen the impossible.
I didn't know what to say. My hands were still tingling from whatever had just happened. Magic. That word meant nothing to me, I was just a farm hand, yet the word felt like a weight pressing against my stomach.
The fey girl was the first to break the quiet.
"You're human," she murmured, tilting her head as if she wasn't entirely sure. She had been examining me with her eyes from a distance.
I exhaled, almost in relief. "Last time I checked."
Her gaze flickered over me again, as if she was searching for something, interrupted when she winced and clutched her side. Only then did I notice the dark stain seeping through her tunic just below her ribs.
"You're hurt," I said, stepping closer.
She stiffened, her fingers curling instinctively. A defensive gesture, even as her legs wobbled beneath her.
"I'll be fine," she said quickly.
I raised an eyebrow. "You nearly got turned into that thing's next meal."
The girl exhaled, lowering herself carefully onto a moss-covered rock. Now that I was paying attention, I could see the faint shimmer of something curling around her wound - thin, twisting vines that weaved together like stitches.
Magic. But unlike mine, this had purpose, control.
I crouched in front of her, fixated by her spell. "You're a mage?"
The vines tightened around her wound, closing it little by little. She exhaled softly, some of the tension in her shoulders easing.
"Yes," she said. "My magic is tied to nature - growth, restoration, balance." She hesitated, then glanced at the dark spot where the wolf had vanished. "And corruption."
I followed her eyes in bewilderment, my concept of magic was built on rumours and old wives tales. "Corruption?"
She nodded, shifting slightly. "That wasn't an ordinary wolf. It was demon-touched. The Feywilds are no stranger to dark forces," she continued. "But this… this is spreading. They're no longer a rarity." She looked at me, her golden eyes gleamed with purpose. "I was sent to observe and report back."
Her words were measured - too measured. I didn't know much about the fey, but I knew when someone wasn't telling the whole truth.
I narrowed my eyes. "So you mean that you weren't supposed to fight them?"
She shook her head. "Only to observe."
"Then why were you near the edge of the forest, fighting it off?"
Her eyes flickered, "It… caught me off guard."
"Look," she continued. "I may have underestimated the threat," she admitted.
There it was.
She wasn't sent here alone, I bet she wasn't even sent here at all.
I don't know why I was suddenly so invested, but I couldn't help myself. "How many were there?"
She hesitated again, but this time it seemed like she was recalling something, "Four of them."
I blinked. "Four? The one I killed was alone."
She nodded, "Because I killed the others."
Something in her tone made me believe her. She wasn't arrogant, she just stated the fact.
I glanced back at the base of the tree where the last wolf has disappeared. If that thing has been the straggler, I didn't want to imagine what the rest of the pack had been like.
"You fought off three of those things?" I asked.
She let out a slow and heavy breath, "I held my ground as long as I could, but the last one broke through my defences before I could finish it." She glanced down at her injury, "Then you appeared."
I didn't know what to say to that.
I assumed that she was overwhelmed, but in reality the fight had just cost her more than she had expected. She had pretty much won.
Still, something didn't sit right with me. If she has this much strength, why was she alone on a scouting mission?
I studied her carefully, "You weren't supposed to be out here were you?"
For a moment she said nothing, then, with an almost imperceptible shift in posture she lifted her chin.
"This was my mission," she said firmly.
I caught the way her fingers twitched slightly at her sides. A tell.
It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't exactly the truth either.
She had come to investigate the corruption, but it wasn't that she had been sent. She was doing this of her own accord.
I could press her on it, I could push for the truth. But looking at her now - her exhaustion, the stiffness in her movements and the lingering pain behind her eyes - I let it go.
I sighed. "Alright well, right now we should probably move."
She gave me a sharp look, but she didn't argue. Old Man Edrin's remedy could wait, this was the most alive I had felt in some time. And perhaps I could find answers with this Fey girl on what had happened to me.