Cassian — Age 9
Snow makes a lovely shroud for sin.
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They say wolves don't cry.
That we come into the world snarling, clawing, bloodied in the mouth.
Maybe that was true.
But at nine, I was mostly just cold. Cold, bleeding, and belly-down in snow.
The arrow stuck out of my shoulder like a ridiculous party favor. Red feathers. Crooked shaft. It wobbled when I breathed. Not deep enough to kill, just… inconvenient. Probably poisoned. Probably on purpose. Probably going to knock me out so someone could come collect the twitching, frothing boy like a trophy rabbit.
I could hear them laughing, my brothers, my cousins, my pack. Bastards.
I'd been running from them for days. Or maybe it was hours. I don't really remember. It all started blending into a beautiful white smear of betrayal and frostbite and hunger. I'd crossed the wrong border. Not "banished," no. That sounded too clean. I'd escaped. Ran. Torn out from the root. Father always said I was born rabid. I suppose it made sense they'd want to put me down.
And then—
Thunk.
The arrow.
I remember thinking: Well. That's ironic.
I'd managed to crawl onto my side. The world swam. Trees leaned in like gossiping aunties. The wind was full of sharp teeth and worse breath. And then, small boots crunching over snow. Delicate. Cautious.
I blinked up at her.
Red scarf. Long curls slipping from it, like fire escaping a prison. Big eyes. Big enough to carry too many questions in them. And tiny hands, trembling, holding a bow too big for her frame.
She looked maybe seven. Maybe stupid.
She also looked like the dumbest hunter I'd ever seen.
"Oh no," she breathed, panicked. "Oh no, oh no, I thought you were a rabbit!"
A pause.
What?
"…A rabbit?" I rasped, eyebrows rising despite the arrow impaling my shoulder. "Do I look like a rabbit to you?"
She blinked. Looked at the bow. Back at me. "You were moving weird in the snow and I...I don't know! I panicked! I always miss!"
"Well," I muttered, teeth gritted, "You didn't miss this time."
"I never hit anything!"
"Well, congratulations," I growled. "Your first confirmed kill is a boy."
Her mouth opened in horror. "Are you going to die?"
"Probably not."
Probably yes.
Depending on the poison. I was already seeing stars. Or maybe that was just her hair, haloed with frost and sunlight.
She crouched beside me. Hesitant. Not out of fear. Out of guilt.
She didn't even yell for help.
Just… crouched. Like she could fix me by hovering.
Her fingers were small. They found mine without thinking, icy little things, curling into my palm.
My brain was probably melting. That's what it felt like. Why else would I let her touch me?
"You shouldn't hold hands with people you shoot," I mumbled.
She looked like she might cry. "I didn't mean to. I thought you were a..."
Another sniff. She wiped her nose with her sleeve. "Your blood is staining the snow."
"That's usually what blood does."
"I didn't mean it," she whispered again. Her hands clutched mine tighter. "I just wanted to see if I could hit something."
"Well," I murmured, "next time, try a tree. They don't bleed."
We sat there for a moment. Or I did. She crouched. I bled. She held my hand. I tried not to pass out.
It was strangely quiet. No wind. Just her little breath, shaky and white.
"You should probably go get your parents."
Her eyes flicked up to me. Her lips pursed. "Mama said not to talk to strangers."
"I'm dying."
"You're a stranger."
"…You shot me."
A beat.
"You're going to be okay, right?" she asked softly.
I wanted to say yes. I wanted to tell her the poison was nothing. That I'd been through worse.
Instead, I stared at her red scarf. It had little white stitching on the corner. Maybe initials. I couldn't tell anymore. I was slipping.
My lips twitched. I wasn't sure if I was smiling or seizing.
Her hand was still in mine.
She didn't scream. Didn't run.
And she just sat there. Holding my hand.
Like we were lovers.
Like she hadn't just shot me.
There was something wrong with her, and I think I liked that.
The snow whispered against the trees, soft and endless.
"…Are you going to say something?" I croaked, trying not to let my teeth chatter. "Or are you just going to hold my hand until I die?"
She looked down at our hands like she'd only just noticed she was still holding mine. Then she shrugged.
"I dunno. Thought you might like the company."
I blinked at her. "You know what I'd really like?"
She leaned in. "Mm?"
"A healer."
Her lips parted like that idea hadn't even occurred to her. "Oh."
"Oh?" I echoed bitterly. "Oh?"
"I just didn't want to leave you alone," she said defensively, brows furrowing. "You looked all pale and… you know. Dying."
"I am dying!"
"I thought I'd keep you company."
"Company? I'm bleeding into the snow."
She stared at me, unbothered. "You're not screaming."
"Because I don't want to waste my last breath on you."
She huffed, a little pout forming. "You don't have to be mean about it."
Her scarf slipped a little to reveal a glimpse of her neck, soft and pale and absolutely unequipped for moral responsibility.
This was it. This was how I died. Not in a glorious hunt. Not at the hands of my traitorous bloodline. Not even in a noble escape. No, no. I was going to die holding hands with a weird little girl in the woods who thought I was a forest rabbit.
The arrow throbbed again. My breath slowed. Her fingers tightened on mine.
"Are you scared?" she asked, very quietly.
"…Not of dying," I murmured. "Just of being alone."
A pause.
"I'll stay," she said, almost in a whisper.
"That's not comforting either."
"It's not for you."
I coughed. My lungs didn't like that. I tasted iron.
She reached up, hesitated, and then gently brushed some snow off my forehead. Her hand lingered there. Cool. Calming. Terrible.
Something in my chest shifted. Not in a good way.
It pulled. Like the arrow wasn't enough, like her words had found a second place to dig.
I turned my head away.
Tried to shake it off.
Tried to un-remember my mother's back retreating down a corridor. The silence of it. The way her hands never once turned to reach for mine.
Don't think about her. Don't think about...
She bit her bottom lip. I could see the guilt coiling in her shoulders. But she still didn't move.
No one was coming.
Maybe she'd been abandoned, too.
My hand,still locked in hers,twitched. I hated how much I didn't want her to let go. She was a stranger. A weird, small, idiotic one. But something in her presence sat oddly warm against my skin, like it'd been missing too long.
"Do you want me to leave?" she asked suddenly.
Yes.
No.
Maybe.
I looked away, jaw tight. "You already shot me. Finish the job if you're going to."
Her breath caught. "That's not fair."
"Life isn't."
"You're mean."
"You're slow."
She blinked.
"Anyone else would've run," I muttered. "Anyone else would've screamed or gotten help or…" My voice cracked. "Anyone else would've left."
She was quiet a long time.
Then, softly:
"Would you have wanted them to?"
I froze.
The question hit somewhere raw.
Somewhere too close to bone.
I didn't answer.
I'd stopped shivering. That wasn't good, was it?
I should have cared more. But I was staring at her.
The little girl with the trembling hands and wind chapped cheeks. Red hair peeked out of her wool scarf like wildfire. She looked like the kind of thing you'd burn a village down for.
"You look more like a rabbit than I do," I muttered, eyes half-lidded.
I glanced at her, she looked so ashamed I thought she might cry again.
But instead, she blurted, "What's your name."
"Cassian."
Her lips parted. But she didn't give me hers.
Instead, she whispered, "Are you going to die, Cassian?"
"No," I said softly. "Not yet."
She let out a sound that was half-relief, half-sob. And then, then she did the strangest thing.
She crawled over me, onto me, and hugged me. Her tiny arms wrapping around my chest, careful of the bow but desperate, clinging. She buried her face in the front of my coat and muttered something I couldn't make out. It sounded like a prayer, or spell, or maybe just nonsense.
But I let her. Maybe I even wanted her to.
She was warm.
I hadn't been warm in days.
I let my eyes drift shut. I could've died right there, with her cheeks squished against my ribs and her breath hiccuping against my chest.
But then,
Snap.
A faint crunch in the snow. My eyes shot open, sluggish. Shapes moved in the tree line, blurred silhouettes.
Voices. Adult ones. Males.
The rabbit froze. I saw her stiffen, lift her head.
They were calling out. I couldn't hear what, my hearing was warbled, distant, muffled like underwater.
But I heard it. Just before the world slipped out from under me.
"Elowen."
Elowen.
So she had a name after all.
And then,
Darkness.