Dashiel

Smoke billowed over the village, swirling the scent of fear and resin. A crowd surrounded the girl, tied to a pole. Her belly, rounded with the miraculous pregnancy, twitched with sobs. "Mother of the devil!" her former neighbors shouted. Flames licked the dry branches at her feet.

And the forest responded.

From the thicket emerged Dashiel, the spirit of these places. The air froze. The fire at her feet died. He didn't look at the people—only at her, his savior, the one who had once nursed his wounds.

“You dared to touch what is under my protection,” sounded in every mind.

The ropes had rotted away. He scooped her up in his arms. And then the spirit's cold gaze turned to the village.

"You were afraid of the spirit in the forest. Now you will recognize it."

The forest sighed. A poisonous green flame engulfed her parents' house, then the other buildings. It was the wrath of nature itself.

He carried her away to his thicket, to his lair under the shade of an ancient oak tree.

"They... all?" she whispered.

“They are no longer there,” he answered simply.

He touched her belly with his palm—the one that was now his only light. He couldn't speak of the anxiety that gripped his heart. But from now on, the human world would remember his answer.