“Not as lucky as I,” Mave responded truthfully and she raised herself up on her tiptoes and kissed him briefly on the lips.

“Besides you never know,” she said, though as the words came out she knew that they were a lie. Even if she survived this insane quest of hers, the likelihood was that she would be stuck in the Tower for the rest of her natural life. Good reason or not, runaways were not treated kindly in the White Tower. Even if she managed to attain her shawl after all that her duties would not bring her to this remote region and if they did, well it would be years from now and Ali would certainly have settled down and started his family by that point. He must have read something of that in her eyes because his initial blush died away as suddenly as it had appeared.

“I’m sorry I… I should get some sleep,” she said after a moment and glided gracefully into the room that Ali had given her and pressed the door shut before he could responde. Leaning her weight against it she sank down with her back to the door, her finger in her pouch, tracing the outline of the serpent ring that she had given up so much to win.

An unearthly scream woke Ali from his sleep. It was a sound that no human or animal could make and before he could dismiss it as a dream or a nightmare it came again, a hissing rending cry of murderous frustration. Wearing only his bed clothes he burst into the livingroom seeking his staff. Mave sat cross legged on the floor, wearing only her shift. Her dark eyes glinted in the light of the dying fire which cast her skin in a ruddy amber hue, like fire striking off brass. Her eyes were fixed on the window which rattled with a third scream.

Outside through the glass the dark rider could be seen. Froth dripped from the mouth of its evil looking steed as it pawed at the air, responding to the frantic jerks its rider inflicted upon it. The rider seemed possessed racing up and down some invisible line that only it could see. Outside the wind whipped the trees into a tumult but the black cloak that shrouded the rider did not so much as twitch.

“Light burn me…” Ali said, there was fear in his voice but also anger. This man or this thing had been haunting his steps for days and had now come onto his property in the middle of the night. He reached for his staff but Mave’s hand shot out and seized his wrist before he could touch the weapon. Her fingers dug into his flesh almost painfully and her eyes never left the rider. 

“Don’t, you couldn’t best it,” she said quietly. Ali looked at her in shock.

“It?” he asked, the tremor in his voice letting her know that he had his on suspicions. Her eyes flicked towards the books on the shelf. The Travels of Jain Farstrider were there she recalled, although she couldn’t read the binding in the darkened farmhouse.

“It is a creature of the Shadow,” she said, feeling as she spoke the words that she passing a point of no return, shedding the innocence of the last few days like a cloak.

“A Myrddrall, it is called,” she said with the solemnity of a funeral bell tolling.  The creature continued to race back and forth at the invisible barrier of her ward, screeching in frustration and whipping its dark steed to a lather..