The cries of the baby filled the forest as Aroura struggled to take her last breath, tears in her eyes as she looked at her little princess. Born only seconds ago, the baby already carried the beauty of a goddess. "Rosie, take Elaine and flee from here. I know they're still after me, they'll be here soon. Hurry, send her to an orphanage." Aroura coughed, tears streaming down her beautiful, dirt-streaked face. "But madam...." "Do as I say, Rosie. I only hope she gets to live a normal life, not one spent in constant fear like mine." She let go of her daughter at last, fastening a pendant around the baby's neck. "Run. I can hear footsteps getting closer. I'll hold them off to give you time." Aroura pushed herself up against the tree, gathering whatever strength remained to fight the assassins closing in. She had spent her whole life running from men like these, because in that place there was no such thing as peace. Everyone smiled like family while quietly plotting to devour each other. Her only crime had been falling in love with the wrong man. She smiled bitterly at the thought of her short-lived happiness, wondering if things would have gone differently had she never met him. Would she still be the youngest, most beloved daughter of the Heiken family? "There she is." The assassin's voice cut through her thoughts. Aroura's expression sharpened, her aura shifting, the mark of a woman once ranked best of the best. "Get her, now," the tall, masked leader barked. "Boss, she's rumored to be dangerous, we should hit her together." "Hah. We're from the 943 Association, we don't run from anyone. Attack! She dies, or we do." All five moved in on her at once. "Boss, we need to fall back." One assassin dragged himself upright, badly beaten. "She's really the best. Even wounded, she's already killed two of ours and crippled two more." Aroura stood her ground, refusing to show weakness, silently praying Rosie had made it far away with her daughter. "Shut your mouth. We finish this today. What will they say of the 943 Association if five of us fall to one woman?" Green veins stood out on the leader's forehead as he shouted. "Kill her." The fight resumed, and this time Aroura had nothing left but will; the strong desire to see her baby. She kept moving on the thought of holding her daughter again someday. A gunshot cracked through the trees and everything went still. Aroura stared down at her abdomen, soaked dark with blood, tears blurring her sight. A second shot rang out and she dropped to her knees. Would she live to see her daughter's face? Would some family love her the way she deserved? Would she even remember her mother at all? The thoughts came and went as tears slid down Aroura's face. She was dying tho she really wanted to live. Will she never get to watch her little girl grow? "Make sure she's dead," the leader ordered, gripping his dislocated shoulder. If he hadn't drawn his gun when he did, they'd likely all be corpses in that clearing instead. Good thing he brought it today. They fired several shots at her to be certain, then buried her in the forest, wiping all evidence of anything that could tie the scene back to them, before gathering their dead and disappearing into the trees. Rosie was breathless and shaking by the time she reached the secret boat, baby in her arms. Elaine, strangely gave her no trouble at all. She slept peacefully the whole way, a small smile tugging at her reddish little mouth, as if she already understood there was no room for crying tonight. The three surviving assassins knelt before Evie in the dim hall of the estate, heads bowed, blood still drying on their sleeves. "Report," Evie said without rising from her seat. "She's dead, buried in the forest with no trace left behind. But we lost Hakan and Miro, and Dael's shoulder is done for." Evie said nothing for a long moment, turning a small blade over in her fingers, watching the candlelight catch its edge. "And the child?" "Gone before we reached her. The maid took her." "Find her." Evie's voice stayed flat, almost bored, though her grip on the blade had tightened. "A newborn and a frightened servant girl can't have gotten far. I want that child found, do you understand me." "Yes, ma'am." They left without another word, and Evie sat alone with the candle burning low, thinking of her sister the way she always did, with something twisted between hatred and grief. Aroura had always been the golden one. Faster, sharper, more gifted with every blade and every technique their masters put in front of her, while Evie had to bleed for every scrap of skill she owned. Their father used to watch Aroura train with something like wonder on his face, a look he never once wore for Evie no matter how hard she pushed herself. It didn't matter that Evie was older. It didn't matter that she trained until her hands split open. Aroura simply had to breathe and the world adored her for it. So when Aroura ran off with a man from an enemy house, throwing away the Heiken name like it meant nothing, something in Evie finally cracked open. Let the whole of that hidden town, the one whose name nobody outside its walls was ever meant to know, understand that Evie was the one to fear now. Aroura was gone but the child was still out there, carrying her blood and Evie intended to make sure that mistake didn't survive to grow up.

A fresh breeze hit Rosie's face, drying her tears. She had finally escaped that land. R City was a bustling place, one where Miss Aroura had believed her daughter could grow up normal, especially being so far from that place. Rosie only prayed her mistress had survived. She made her way to the children's home in the heart of the city, intending to leave the child there and return to that land quickly, before anyone grew suspicious of her absence. Standing before the orphanage's tall iron gates, Rosie hesitated, looking down at the baby sleeping peacefully in her arms. Even at such a tender age, the child was strikingly beautiful; as though she'd inherited only the best of her parents. "Elaine, I'll come back for you one day. Hopefully with your mummy." Rosie kissed her forehead. The baby stirred faintly at the touch, as if she felt it, then drifted back into sleep, that same sweet smile still on her lips. Rosie wrote ELAINE HEIKENS on a scrap of paper and tucked it into the baby's wrappings. She set the child down in front of the orphanage, rang the bell, and ran to hide nearby. An elderly nun in glasses stepped out, already turning to go back inside, when a baby's cry stopped her cold. "Oh God, who left such a beautiful baby here?" She scooped up the child and looked around the empty street. "Hey now, little one, did you come with someone?" The baby replied with a soft cry. "Shh, let's get you fed." From her hiding place, Rosie stared long and hard at the gates as they closed. She hated leaving the young miss behind, but she made herself walk away, holding onto the hope that she'd return one day when the chaos had died down. Inside, one of the younger nuns leaned over to look at the baby in Mother Superior's arms. "Was she just left at the gate all alone?" "Found her right on the step. No one in sight." Mother Superior checked the wrappings for anything that might identify the child. "Mother." Another nun bent down and picked something off the ground. "This fell from her cloth." She held out an emerald green pendant. Mother Superior turned it over in her hands, then folded it away carefully. She still couldn't understand how anyone could leave behind a baby barely a month old, let alone one so lovely. When she fed her, the child ate hungrily, as though she'd been waiting for exactly this. Tucked into the wrappings was a note with two words: ELAINE HEIKENS. "Little one," Mother Superior murmured, "you're Elaine Heikens now. Welcome to the family." FIVE YEARS LATER "Elaine! Elaine!" The nuns fanned out through the halls and the yard, calling her name. "That child never sits still," Mother Superior muttered, joining the search. "My back can't keep up with her anymore." Five years had passed, and no one had ever come to claim her. Everyone at the orphanage was fond of Elaine, and she got along well enough with the others, but she mostly kept to herself, which meant she was always wandering off and always being searched for. "Elaine! Elaine..... Mother, she's probably fine. She'll turn up for dinner. Knowing her, she's off reading somewhere again." Sister Ann said it with the tired voice of someone who had said it many times before. Elaine hadn't always kept to herself. But somewhere around the time she turned four, the older children had started leaving her out of their games on purpose, whispering behind her when she passed, hiding her things and then blaming her for losing them. She never told the nuns. She'd learned fast that telling only made the whispering worse, so she smiled through it and slipped away instead, until the little forest behind the orphanage became better company than any of the other children had ever been. The nuns adored her, all of them, and not one had noticed that the reason she loved being alone wasn't peace at all. Ever since she was three, Elaine had been sneaking off to that backyard forest to read on her own, and more than once, a nun had caught her practicing forms of martial arts no one had taught her. It startled all of them, especially Mother Superior, that a child so young could move that way. It was still happening now, five years later, and none of them had ever managed to break the habit out of her.

After hours of reading and practicing, little Elaine decided to head back since it was time for dinner. "There you are. Where have you been, we were worried sick about you." Sister Ann said the moment she set eyes on her in the hallway. "Sister Ann, I was reading in the woods at the back." Elaine answered in a childish voice that made her even more adorable. Seated around the long table, everyone ate quietly except Juliana, who found every possible way to bully Elaine. She kept nudging and worrying at her until Elaine's food spilled, causing everyone to look her way, some with envy, others with pity. The children at the orphanage all knew Juliana targeted her on purpose, out of jealousy, especially whenever the other kids compared the two of them in terms of beauty. Elaine's name always came out on top, and that had planted a seed of jealousy deep in Juliana's heart long ago. "Sister, Elaine intentionally spilled soup on my dress." Juliana cried as she ran to report to the sister on duty. Elaine, wrongly accused, could only stare back with wide eyes, too shocked to argue. She was used to this by now, though she never understood why Juliana was so mean to her, even after all the times she'd tried to be kind in the past. "Elaine? What do you have to say?" "I'm sorry," she said softly, gripping her dress tight under the table. "Don't let it happen again," said Sister Emerald, the sister on duty, with a stern face. "Yes, sister." She answered with her head bowed. This had been going on since she turned three. There had been a time, back when she was four, when she'd finally had enough and shoved Juliana hard into the dirt after Juliana tore up a drawing she'd spent all afternoon on. Juliana had cried loud enough to bring three sisters running, and Elaine was made to kneel in the chapel for the whole afternoon with no dinner, while Juliana walked away without so much as a scolding. Elaine remembered how unfair that had felt, how she'd cried herself to sleep that night not because her knees ached but because no one had asked her why she did it. After that day she decided fighting back only ever cost her more than it cost Juliana, so she stopped trying. Having endured all the bullying, she thought it better to just be alone and not bother making friends at all. Juliana made a face at her in secret before walking off with Sister Emerald. After evening class, the bell rang for bedtime. All the children filed into their bedrooms to wait for one of the sisters to come say the night prayer with them. Elaine noticed her blanket was wet. She was still standing by her bed when Sister Emerald came in for prayers. "What's wrong, Elaine? Why aren't you in bed?" she asked, making her way over. "It's wet... my blanket," Elaine said in a soft voice, clearly fed up with all the pranks. She didn't want to fight back, not really, since she believed she'd leave this place one day anyway. "Who did this?" Sister Emerald demanded, her voice strict and sharp. Everyone went quiet. No one ratted out the culprit, though they all knew exactly who it was. That night, Sister Emerald gave her a new blanket to sleep with. ************************************** "Chinese Herbal Medicine...." a seven year old Elaine read, sitting on her favorite rock in the backyard. She'd borrowed the book from the library because the title caught her eye. "Are you sure you'll understand any of what's in there?" the librarian had asked her, surprised a girl so young would want a book most children called boring. It had been a whole week of studying, and she loved everything she was learning. She could recite the acupuncture meridians the way other children recited nursery rhymes, could name which herbs cooled a fever and which ones settled a troubled stomach, could explain why certain roots were dried in shade instead of sun to keep their potency. Even while walking she murmured the pressure points under her breath, counting them off on her fingers like a little game. Sister Ann once overheard her reciting and had to stop and listen twice, certain she'd misheard a child so young naming meridian points most adults had never heard of. "This girl is a prodigy," she once told Mother Superior. "Yes, she's a very bright girl with a bright future, and I hope she gets adopted by a good family who'd nurture her," Mother Superior said, seemingly lost in thought. ************************************ "Sister Ann, I can't find my shoe." "Sister Emerald, my button just came off." "Sister......" This was the scene Elaine came home to after studying all morning in the woods. "Never gets old," she muttered to herself, making her way to her room, planning to catch some sleep before the chaos got worse. This was what always happened whenever a rich family came to adopt someone. She had heard the Barnes family was coming, the richest family in city R, hoping to adopt a girl since they only had a fifteen year old son. Rumor had it their son was already known as the most handsome boy in the city despite his age, and that the mistress of the household had always longed for a daughter to raise alongside him, which was the whole reason for today's visit. The Barneses arrived that afternoon in a car so polished the children pressed their faces to the window just to see it. Mrs. Barnes walked the hall slowly, a gloved hand trailing over each child's head as she passed, while her husband stood back with the kind of patient smile men wear when they've already decided to agree with whatever their wife wants. Juliana had made sure to stand right at the front of the line, hair brushed, dress ironed, curtsying the moment Mrs. Barnes looked her way. "Oh, aren't you lovely," Mrs. Barnes said, crouching down to Juliana's height. "What's your name, sweetheart?" "Juliana, ma'am." She smiled the sweetest smile she owned, the one she never wasted on the other children. Mrs. Barnes seemed charmed enough, already turning to say something to her husband about paperwork, when a small commotion by the back door caught her eye. Elaine had just come in from the woods, hair mussed, a smudge of dirt on her cheek, a folded leaf still tucked behind her ear where she'd left it while studying. She hadn't even noticed the visitors yet, too busy muttering something about cooling herbs under her breath. "Who is that child?" Mrs. Barnes asked, straightening up. Mother Superior hesitated. "That's Elaine, ma'am. She was just......." "She's beautiful," Mrs. Barnes said, cutting her off, already crossing the hall toward her. Juliana's smile faltered as she watched Mrs. Barnes crouch down in front of Elaine instead, tilting her head this way and that as though seeing something in her none of the other children had. Elaine blinked up at her, startled out of her own thoughts. "Ma'am?" "Such striking eyes," Mrs. Barnes murmured, almost to herself. Juliana stood frozen by the door, hands curling into fists at her sides, the sweet smile long gone from her face.