Chapter two

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 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 just a word: ELAINE

"Little one," Mother Superior murmured, "you're Elaine 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.