5. Left With Nothing

Yvaine's POV

Nina’s face changed. The warmth stayed on her face, but something careful and heavy moved behind her eyes. She didn’t answer my question. She just took my hand without asking and started walking, pulling me with her.

I let her drag me along. We left the farm and followed the narrow path that climbed the small hill behind the village. I knew this path. Everyone did. It's a path nobody likes. My feet slowed as the wooden markers came into view.

Nina stopped a few steps behind me, and I walked forward alone.

The name was carved into a simple wooden board pushed into the low mound of earth:

Mira 

{Mama Mira}

That was the name the whole village called her. My grandma.

I dropped to my knees. The breath left my body in a sharp, broken sound. Tears came so fast I couldn’t stop them. My hands were shaking when I reached out and touched the small green sprouts already growing across the grave.

“G-Grandma…” The word cracked. I pressed my forehead to the earth. “Grandma… I’m here.”

My shoulders started shaking. I couldn’t stop the sounds coming out of me.

“How could you leave me by myself?” I whispered against the dirt. “I came back. I’m here. Please…”

Nina’s hand settled on my shoulder. Her voice came quietly. “She was sick for a long time, Yvaine. It's been a year now since she succumbed to the sickness."

A year.

The words didn’t make sense at first. Then they did, and the ground felt like it tilted.

A whole year. While I was writing letters, while I was training, while I was counting the days until I could come home, she had already been gone.

I made a small, broken sound and almost folded over completely.

“Someone came from the city,” Nina said softly. “A young man. He brought her medicine, paid the doctor, and made sure she wasn’t alone at the end. I think his name was Rowan.”

Rowan.

The name hit me harder than it should have. He had known. He had sat across from me, listened to me talk about her, and never said a word.

"That ugly useless idiot”. I cursed him under my breath

I stayed there a long time, forehead against the earth, apologizing over and over. For not being here. For believing the letters. For every month I stayed away thinking I was protecting her.

Nina eventually helped me stand. She walked me back to the house and lingered at the door.

“I can stay,” she offered.

“I need to be alone,” I said. My voice sounded far away.

She nodded, her eyes still wet. “I’m just down the path if you need me.”

When she left, the silence rushed back in.

I walked through the rooms slowly. My bedroom looked exactly the same. The same thin mattress, the same photographs on the wall. I took down one of the three of us, the one of me as a baby, my mother, and Grandma, all smiling. I took it into the kitchen and stood there, staring at the old stove, the table where we used to eat, the place she always sat.

I could almost hear her laughing. Almost smell the rice she used to fry in the morning.

My knees gave out. I sat on the floor with the photograph against my chest and cried until I no longer had the strength to cry.

---

Sometime later I was walking.

I didn’t remember leaving the house. The ruined dress was still on me. My feet were filthy. I didn't exactly care about how I looked. People stopped and stared as I passed.

“Is that Yvaine?”

“Yvaine? Child, what happened to you?”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. The most important person in my life was gone. The only reason I had survived those three years had been to protect her, and she had died alone while I played the obedient daughter in that hellhole.

I felt so stupid, so pathetic. Hollow.

Tears kept coming, then stopping, then coming again. Once I heard myself laugh, a short, ugly sound and that scared me more than the crying.

I only realized where I was when I stopped in front of the village chief’s compound. The wooden fence circling the familiar yard.

What am I doing here?

I signed thirdly and turned to leave.

Then I saw him.

Alan was walking toward the gate. Taller than I remembered. Broader shoulders. The same face, only a bit older, more settled and more handsome. He looked good. Happy, even.

His gaze caught mine and he stopped dead in his tracks.

“Yvaine?” My name left him in a stunned whisper. He came closer, eyes wide. “Oh my God… it’s really you.” His gaze moved over the dress, the dirt on my skin, then to my bare feet. “You look horrible. What happened to you?”

“Alan.” I said his name like I was testing it.

Before either of us could say more, another voice called from the house.

“Alan?”

A woman stood in the doorway. Young and pretty. One hand rested on a heavy, rounded stomach. She looked from me to Alan and started walking toward us.

Alan hesitated only a second, then stepped past me and went to her. He spoke quietly, too low for me to hear. She listened to him talk, eyes flicking to me with open dislike, then nodded. She took the bag from his shoulder, pressed a brief kiss to his cheek, and looked straight at me.

“I’ll leave you two to talk.”

Her voice was polite, but her eyes were not friendly at all.

She went back inside.

I stood there feeling like the ground had opened under me again.

“ Who is she??” I asked.

Alan turned back to me. A small, almost shy smile touched his mouth. "That's Seraphine, my wife.”

That smile told me everything. He loved her.

He looked at me again, concern returning. 

“Yvaine, what happened to you? You just… disappeared. The letters said you didn’t want to hear from me anymore. That you were happy in the city and I should move on. I wrote back anyway for a while, but I didn't get any response.”

So that was what Nikolai had written in my name.

I felt something finally break all the way through. I forced my face into something that might pass for calm.

“Alan,” I said quietly. “It was really nice seeing you again.”

Then I turned around and walked away before he could answer. Fresh tears spilled down my face, hot and silent.

Three years.

Every order I followed. Every part of myself I buried. Every letter I wrote was like a lifeline. And all of it for nothing!

Grandma was gone.

  

Alan had a wife and a child on the way.  

And I was the fool who had believed any of it mattered.

Nikolai, to hell with you.

…

I trudged back toward the house, the weight of everything I had just learned pressing down on me. Grandma was gone. Alan was married. And three years wasted.

Then I saw them.

From a distance, men in black suits moved around my house like ants. They were turning the place inside out, kicking open doors, searching the yard, and shouting to each other. Nikolai’s men. They were fast, thorough, and unforgiving.

My blood ran cold. I ducked behind a thick tree, heart slamming against my ribs. 

I’m doomed.

A hand clamped over my mouth from behind and yanked me backward. Panic exploded through me. I twisted hard, ready to fight, then froze mid strike.

Rowan.

He pulled me behind the corner of a nearby house and released me.

“Relax,” he whispered.

I stared at him, breathing hard. “You’re here to take me back to him.”

His expression was unreadable. “Do you want to go back?” he asked.

I took a step away, shaking my head desperately.

For a moment he just looked at me. Something conflicted moved behind his eyes, guilt, frustration, and something that almost looked like protectiveness.

"Screw this.” He reached into his pocket. He pressed a car key into my palm, followed by a cold gun. “Then don’t get caught. Straight down that path. My car is parked behind the old storage shed. Go, and don't look back.”

Tears stung my eyes. Before I could stop myself, I threw my arms around his neck. He stiffened, then briefly patted my back before he pushed me away.

“Now go.” he said, voice rough. “Before I change my mind and drag you back myself.”

I turned and ran.

I found the car exactly where he said it was. I slid behind the wheel, started the engine, and sped onto the road without looking back.

Barely five minutes later, a harsh voice crackled through the communication device on the passenger seat.

“She’s taken Rowan’s car. She’s gotten away.”

“Fuck!”

I slammed my foot harder on the accelerator.

Twenty minutes later the engine sputtered. The fuel gauge sat on empty. Of course. The car jerked, coughed, and died in the middle of the road.

With no time to waste, I grabbed the gun, shoved it under the garter on my thigh, and got out. Staying on the open road was suicide, so I turned and plunged into the trees.

The forest swallowed me quickly. Branches clawed at the ruined dress. Damp earth and rotting leaves filled my nose. The ground was uneven and roots were everywhere. I ran until my lungs burned and every step in my injured feet felt like walking on a broken glass. Night crept in slowly. The deeper I went, the quieter everything became, and the trees turned into dark watching shapes.

After a long time I found a narrow stream. Thirst overrode caution. I crouched on a flat rock and cupped water to my mouth. It tasted clean. When I caught my reflection in the dark surface of the water, I almost recoiled. My hair was tangled. Dirt and dried blood stained my skin. A ruined bride who no longer looked like anyone I recognized.

I splashed water over my face and tried to push my hair back. My legs were trembling badly.

Then a low growl rolled through the trees behind me, deep, vibrating, close enough that I felt it in my chest.

Every hair on my body stood up.

I turned slowly.

Five wolves stood among the trees. Very large wolves and unnaturally still. Their eyes reflected the fading light with sharp, intelligent focus that did not belong to ordinary animals. They watched me the way hunters study wounded prey that has already been claimed.

I rose to my feet and pulled the gun free. The metal was cold in my palms, but my hands were steady from years of training even as fear slid cold down my spine. I aimed at the closest one and fired. 

The wolf twisted aside with impossible speed, and the bullet slammed into a tree behind it. The others didn’t flinch despite the loud bang. They stepped forward in eerie silence, spreading out to cut off escape. Fear gripped me harder.

What are these wolves?

I fired again. Another miss. They kept advancing with coordinated movements. 

I couldn’t keep shooting. The noise would bring Nikolai’s men if it hadn’t already.

I gathered the ruined wet dress in one hand and ran. I crashed through the stream, the water cold against my legs. I scrambled up the opposite slope, growls and heavy footsteps followed close behind. My legs felt like they were being sliced open with every stride as pain shot up my torn feet, but stopping meant death.

I pushed harder. I wasn't ready to become food for the wolves.

Then my foot caught on a root. The world tilted so fast. I tumbled down the far side of the hill, slamming against rocks and trees. Pain exploded through my body. When I finally stopped, I could barely breathe. Warm blood slid down my forehead into my eyes, thick and sticky. The world turned red and blurry.

I lay on my back, gasping weakly, staring up as the dark clouds parted. A bright full moon hung above me.

At least the last thing I saw would be something beautiful.

The growls grew closer. Shadows moved at the edge of my vision as the five wolves closed in, their eyes gleaming like coins in the dark.

My eyes began to close slowly, strength draining from my limbs.

Then something larger slipped between them and me.

A massive black wolf, so big it blocked out the moon and trees behind it. The air itself seemed to grow heavier. The other wolves hesitated, then pulled back with low, uncertain sounds.

I couldn’t see anything past its dark form. 

This is the end, Yvaine.

The world went black.

…..

My eyes opened to white light and pain. A sharp headache slammed through my skull before I could even focus. Everything was blurry and swimming. For a moment I thought I had died.

Is this hell?

I tried to turn my head. The small movement sent another wave of pain through me, but it made me realize I was lying on something soft. A blanket was wrapped around my body. The air smelled clean, like wood and something faintly herbal.

Slowly the white haze began to clear. Brown wooden walls and a low ceiling came into view.

Where the hell am I?

The last thing I remembered were the wolves chasing after me, nothing else after that.

I tried to push myself up. Cold metal bit harshly into my wrist.

My heart instantly slammed hard against my ribs.

Restraints.

Did Nikolai find me?