'West. Just keep going west.'
Xena had no idea how long she hobbled. Time dissolved into pain and the rhythm of her limping gait. Thorne, mercifully, had quieted, his wide eyes peering out from the sling, observing the strange, towering world. Was he hungry? She was too numb to feel her own hunger, her own thirst. She was a vessel of pure purpose: move, protect, survive.
A sound cut through the muffled wood. Not a bird, not a branch. A low, guttural snuffling. Then the crack of a heavy weight on deadfall. Xena froze, pressing herself against the vast, ribbed trunk of an oak. Her breath hitched. Peering around the bark, her heart, which she thought could not sink further, plunged into a cold void.
A bear. Not a forest brown bear, but a great, shaggy Hella behemoth, its fur matted and dark as the soil. It stood on its hind legs, a monstrous silhouette against the lesser darkness, taller than two men. Its head swung slowly, nostrils flaring as it sampled the air. It had caught the scent. The scent of blood, of fear, of human vulnerability.
Terror, clean and sharp, pierced her exhaustion. The dagger was useless against this. Running was impossible. Climbing, with her ankle and the babe, a sick joke. She was cornered by a creature that was less an animal and more a force of the ancient wood.
As the bear dropped to all fours and began to amble toward her hiding place, a new sound emerged. A whistle, sharp and melodic, followed by the distinct baa of a goat. The bear's attention shifted. From a game trail to the left, a small herd of shaggy, black-coated goats emerged, bleating and clattering. And behind them, a figure.
A woman, tall and straight-backed, her hair a wild shock of grey woven with feathers and beads. She carried a long, crooked staff and moved with an unruffled authority that seemed to part the forest's gloom. Her eyes, sharp as flint, swept the scene—the bear, the goats, and finally, lingering on the shadow where Xena stood paralyzed.
"Help," Xena's voice was a dry croak, torn from her raw throat. It was less a cry and more a desperate exhale.
The woman's head snapped toward her. Her eyes widened slightly, taking in Xena's torn dress, her pallor, the protective curl of her body around the infant. Then she moved. She stepped between the bear and Xena, not aggressively, but with a calm assertion of space. She whistled again, a different tune, and herded her goats with her staff, deliberately placing herself and her animals as a living barrier.
"To me," the woman said, her voice low and gravelly, not looking back. "Slowly. Do not run."
The woman thumped her staff hard against the root of a great pine. Thump. Thump. Thump. It was a sound like a slow, mighty heartbeat. She began to speak in a low, rhythmic chant, words Xena did not know, that seemed to weave into the very silence of the wood. The bear stopped. It watched, its small eyes glittering. Then, with a final, dismissive snort, it turned and shambled off, melting into the blackness between the trees as if it had never been.
The woman waited a full ten breaths before she relaxed her stance. She turned to Xena. "You are far from the roads, girl. And you bring trouble in your wake. I can smell it on you." Her gaze dropped to Thorne. "And new life. A dangerous combination."
"I… I seek someone," Xena managed, her legs trembling violently now that the immediate threat was gone. "A man named Mnior."
The woman went very still. The familiarity in her eyes was replaced by a deep, calculating caution. "Do you now?" she murmured. "And who seeks Mnior of the Hella, bleeding and hunted in the deep wood?"
"My name is Xena. I am sister to Kragen of the Vanguard. My son…" her voice broke, but she forced the words out, the words that were both a lifeline and a death sentence, "...is Thorne, of the Bloodstone Line."
"Come," she said, her voice urgent. "The pack gathers. You are either our salvation or our doom, but you will not die on this forest floor tonight."
She did not offer to carry Thorne or support Xena's weight. She simply expected her to follow, and Xena, with no other choice, did. The woman—who gave her name as Ariala—led her through a labyrinth of towering trees and over a treacherous, mossy stream. The pain in Xena's ankle was a white-hot fire, but she bit her lip until she tasted blood, focusing on placing one foot in front of the other.
Soon, the trees thinned, and they entered a clearing that was not natural. It was a settlement, but unlike any village in Valdahal. Homes were built into the living trees, or from great pieces of bark and woven branch, camouflaged so perfectly they seemed to grow from the forest itself. Fires burned in stone pits, their smoke curling up to be lost in the canopy. And everywhere, there were people—tall, lean people with watchful eyes and quiet movements.
A crowd gathered, silent and swift. They formed a loose ring around Xena and Ariala at the clearing's heart. Their expressions were not hostile, but intensely guarded. These were not farmers or merchants. They were wolves on two legs.
Ariala raised her voice. "She asks for Mnior."
The crowd parted. A man stepped forward. He was not the tallest, but he carried a gravity that stilled the air. His hair was dark, streaked with silver, and a scar ran from his temple to the corner of his jaw, pulling his face into a permanent, thoughtful frown. His eyes, a keen, intelligent grey, swept over Xena—her bruised face, her bloody hand, her ruined dress—and then locked onto the child in her arms.
It was those eyes that Xena remembered. Older, harder, but the same. "Uncle?" she whispered, the childhood name escaping before she could stop it.
Mnior's stern composure shattered. His breath left him in a rush. He took a step, then another, his gaze never leaving Thorne's face. As he came close, he fell to his knees in the soft earth before her, as if his strength had failed. A great, shuddering sob wracked his broad frame. He reached out a calloused, trembling hand, not to Xena, but to lightly touch the edge of Thorne's blanket.
"By all the silent gods," he choked out, tears carving clean tracks through the dirt on his face. He looked up at Xena, his eyes swimming with a storm of grief and awe. "Xena? Little bird? Is it… is the ousting true? The rumors that reached us… they said Valdahal had fallen. They said the line was broken."
Xena could only nod, her own tears falling freely now, a silent admission of the cataclysm.
Mnior's face tightened. He swallowed hard, his warrior's discipline fighting to reassert itself over the tide of emotion. "And Blackbone?" he asked, his voice a ragged scrape. "Kragen's Shield. Where is he?"
The memory flashed: Her husband before the throne room doors, buying seconds with his life. Ethan's sneering face, the cruel, practiced flick of his sword.
"Ethan," Xena said, the name a curse and a confession. "Ethan killed him. Cut him down before the throne. In front of me." Her voice was flat, dead, the horror of it too vast for emotion.
A ripple went through the Hella pack. Sharp intakes of breath. Muttered oaths. Blackbone was legend, even here. His fall was not just a death; it was a symbol of the absolute end of the old world.
Mnior closed his eyes for a long moment. When he opened them, they were dry and hard as river stone. He pushed himself to his feet, moving with a sudden, weary purpose. He placed a firm, steadying hand on Xena's shoulder.
"You are standing on your feet, but you are about to fall," he said, his tone leaving no room for argument. "The talking can wait. Luna!" he called.
A woman emerged from the crowd. She was younger than Ariala with a kind, strong face and hands that looked capable of soothing as easily as they could sow or strike. She was at Xena's side in an instant, her arm slipping around her waist, taking her weight without a word.
"Take her to our hut. See to her hurts. The child needs tending," Mnior instructed.
Luna nodded. "Come, sister," she said softly, her voice a balm. She guided Xena away from the staring crowd, toward one of the larger tree-dwellings. Xena let herself be led, the last of her strength bleeding away. At the hut's entrance, Luna carefully took Thorne from her trembling arms. "I'll get him clean and fed. You rest."
Inside, the hut was warm and smelled of herbs, smoked meat, and pine resin. A fire glowed in a central pit. Luna sat Xena on a low bed of furs and began to work with efficient kindness. She cleaned the gashes on her arms and face, applied a pungent salve to her swollen ankle, wrapping it tightly with linen. She brought her water, then a strong, bitter broth, guiding the cup to her lips. Xena drank and ate mechanically, her body reacting even as her mind drifted, anchored only by the sound of Thorne's soft gurgles as Luna bathed him by the fire.
By the time Mnior entered, ducking under the low lintel, some semblance of warmth had returned to Xena's bones. Thorne, clean and wrapped in a fresh, soft hide, was sleeping in a woven cradle. Luna handed Mnior a cup of something dark and steaming, then slipped out, giving them privacy.
Mnior sat on a stool across from her. The firelight danced on the planes of his scarred face. He looked older than the uncle of her childhood memories, the man who had visited the Valdahal with stories and strange forest trinkets. He looked like a king in exile.
"Valdahal has truly fallen, then," he said, not a question. It was a verdict. "Ethan on the Bloodstone Throne. The Vanguard shattered or turned. The old alliances broken." He took a long draught from his cup. "I knew the rot was deep. I did not think it would consume everything so quickly."
He was silent for a time, staring into the flames. Then he looked at her, and the question he asked was the one that finally pierced the numb shell around her heart.
"Xena," he said, his voice low. "Where is Kragen?"
And it all came flooding back—the flight through the pines, the waterfall, his hand on her face, the promise he forced her to make, the sight of him turning to face the hunters alone.
"He bought our time," she whispered, her voice thick. "At the Skyfall. He led the Imperial warriors east, into the ridges. He told me to come here. To find you. He told me not to look back."
Mnior's jaw worked. He looked away, into a past only he could see. "The last time I saw you both," he murmured, a ghost of a smile touching his lips, "you were tiny cubs. Kragen was trying to teach you to hold a practice sword, and you were more interested in the butterflies in the courtyard garden. He was so proud, so fierce, even then." The smile faded. "And now? Now he is the last barrier between the jackals and the last spark of the true line."
He finished his drink and set the cup down with a definitive click. "You are safe here, for now. The Hella do not bow to Ethan. This wood does not forgive invaders. But you must understand, Xena. Your arrival changes everything. You have not just brought a baby into our hall. You have brought a war. And a crown."
He leaned forward, his grey eyes capturing hers, reflecting the fire and a deep, unyielding resolve. "Sleep now. Regain your strength. Thorne is of this pack now, and you are under my protection. Tomorrow, we must speak of the future. Of how a child in a cradle might one day reclaim a throne, and what blood must be shed to water the path."
He left her then, with the sleeping heir and the crackling fire. Xena lay back on the furs, her body a tapestry of aches, her mind a whirlwind of memory and dread. But for the first time since the knives had flashed in Valdahal, she was not running. She was in a hidden hall, behind lines of fierce, loyal wolves, with her son safe and clean.