Ash, as it turned out, was every bit the accomplished survivalist. Whatever Ring equivalent she was still required food in addition to vitae, and she made do with skills more mundane than mystical.

Her first lesson was to teach me to hunt. Not with vitae enhancement, but the way someone like Fletcher might… if they were lacking any proper tools. In fact, the entire comparison would be incorrect because no mundane person would be tasked with hunting in the middle of the night with nothing but a small knife meant more for whittling than stabbing.

At least she hadn’t sent me after a bear or something ridiculous. The target was small game, something that would become my breakfast, at this point. The moon overhead was tilting toward morning, but no light crept across the horizon just yet. Or if it were, I couldn’t see it through the trees.

Now, I’d… killed more than rabbits when I was vitae-starved. The difference here was that I could not direct my vitae around to perform the task.

Of course I’d been loath to let Ash disable me, inasmuch as was possible. The process had been the polar opposite of a massage, not to mention time consuming as she had to go limb by limb, creating blockages to stop my vitae moving around. I reminded myself that if she were to need aid to fight off anything assaulting us, my presence would mean little. Precisely why I’d agreed to sit out here, in a tree, limbs half numb and drooping, doing my best impression of a snare.

Setting one would, of course, void the training. And while I’d not been expressly forbidden, I was also not some child like my brother who would take any loophole to get around the intended course of action.

And so I sat in the center of a rather impressive web, legs set on lines, arms crossed and fingers balled tight. Four eyes closed, four eyes narrowed, I watched for the start of sunrise. Every bruise Ash had inflicted hadn’t healed, and I felt them acutely at my joints.

Each gust of wind sent shivers down my spine as my body thrummed. But instinct told me to wait for the erratic pulse of prey. Perhaps my silk threads were cheating, perhaps not. Though they’d been sluggish and tiring to draw forth, and my brimming vitae protested violently about being so confined.

All they would do is tell me of my prey’s location. The rest would be up to deadened limbs and that pitiful knife. Just as orange peeked through the trees, my top right leg felt a twitch.

Slower than I’d like, my eyes all snapped open and locked on the thread. I was up as quickly as I could, creeping through the trees on slender, chitinous limbs. Silent, or so I thought.

The silk was not meant to stick, and the vibration pulsed then ceased before I’d even come into sight. All I managed to see was a fluffy tail disappearing into the underbrush.

Another twitch led me to another failure, and on it went until I cursed Ash’s lack of instruction and slipped into my Garden.

A light coating of snow… no, ash, covered everything, darkening the pond. It didn’t choke, but my garden slept all the same. Dormant like in the dead of winter. Clearing a patch to sit, I crossed my legs and ruminated.

All my training to still my footsteps had been through instruction of vitae. Most all of it, anyway. Mother started our teaching young. Too young, Father had said. At the time, I resented it just like Slate.

But now, those lessons might just set me on the right path—if only I could remember.

After some time, when the haze of memory steadfastly refused to resolve into something actionable, I rose out of my garden. Ash’s presence was next to mine, impossible not to notice, and when I turned to look, she appeared deep in meditation.

Hot ash, certainly her namesake, swirled around her in flowing ribbons. She cracked one eye open when I looked at her.

“Figure anything out?” she rumbled.

I shook my head. “No, unfortunately.”

“I expected as much. You noble types never hunt on your own.”

“That is simply not true!” She raised one eyebrow, and I continued, “Father and Mother both hunted, and they taught me as well. After all, we defend the Kingdoms against the demons from beyond the mountains.”

Ash snorted. “How’s that going for you?”

“I—” My breath hitched, and I blinked dampness out of my eyes.

“Hmph, didn’t mean to get ya that hard. Sorry, kid. What I mean is that you’ve never hunted fair-like. When you’ve not got all the tools and the cultivation. When it’s just you and a nice sharp stick.”

“How can that possibly be important!” I threw my half-numb arms up and they protested with needling pricks of pain.

“You’re a demon now.” She said it like it meant something.

I fixed her with an eight-eyed glare. “And that’s supposed to mean what?”

“Ya know, you’re awfully demanding for someone in such a weak position. Lucky you found me and not someone who’d take your head off for the disrespect. All the same, I guess you wouldn’t get it. When cultivators fight, there’s grudges, rules, motives. Predictability, a nice little layer of ‘we’re not monsters.’

“Demons aren’t like that. Half the time, it’s like fighting a crazed animal. Hunting, in my case. If you’re just relying on raw vitae, something smarter’s gonna come along and eat you first. Honestly, you’re not doing too bad, all things considered. Silk’s still vitae, sorta. I guess I could call it cheating, but at least you’re not trying to hunt like you’ve still got a human body.”

“Was that supposed to be the lesson?”

Ash just shrugged. “A little. Also wanted to make sure you’ve got perspective. Never hurts to remember how different it is for those who don’t cultivate. Or can’t.”

I couldn’t stop a hiss. “I know that!” I forced myself to stand on stiff legs. “I’ve spent my whole damn life trying to help those who are weak! It’s what nobility should do, not sit in their manors and up in their sects collecting taxes and disciples while leaving everyone outside to fend for themselves!”

I threw an accusatory finger down at Ash. “I don’t need some self-aggrandizing demon to tell me that! What I need is training to fight other demons!”

Ash bared her tusks, and I saw a row of teeth meant only for cutting. She snorted a plume of ash, clenched her fists, and took a deep breath. Before I continued my tirade, she plucked at a line of silk. The corresponding leg twitched immediately and my head snapped to the line.

Ash smirked, and somewhere else something tripped one of my lines. I knew exactly where. Then again, and again. Each time Ash twanged one of my lines, I pivoted, each time a little faster as my vitae started to move again. Ash’s vitae-blocking technique rapidly wore off—I was determined to pass whatever kind of test this was.

“Seems to me like you’ve learned something.”

“I already knew how to do this!”

“But were you? Or were you just throwing vitae at your problems? Listen, you wanna survive as a demon? You wanna kill other demons and the humans with deeds to match and not die? Be better; don’t just think you’re better. Whatever technique you’ve got for your vitae’s efficient like I haven’t seen in a long, long time.

“No wonder the Demonic Sect’s gonna come after you. That spy must’ve seen the same thing. If you can learn to use as little as possible, you won’t draw attention. You wanna hide out among humans? Easy for you. Be afraid of fire and think up a good reason for why, and learn to get the most out of the least vitae.

“You never know when some old fart of a demon’s gonna give you their blood. You never know when the next meal’s gonna be. Get it now?”

I tried to get my jaw to relax, and plopped back down onto the cold forest floor. “I suppose. I still disagree with your method.”

“Would you rather I just beat the shit out of you all day?”

“It’d be more familiar.”

She laughed, deep and rumbling. “You know, you ain’t bad for a noble brat.” Then she smiled, all teeth. “We’ll get some time for that tonight. After you catch us both dinner. I’ll need at least three rabbits if you don’t find a deer.” She stood and clapped me on the back so hard I fell forward, spider legs catching me. “Good luck. I’ll find ya when you’re done.”

She was gone in a cloud of ash before I could protest. I pounded my fist into the dirt… and made a small crater. Birds from a ways out scattered, flying overhead above the tangled branches.

Right. I had access to my vitae now.

The pragmatic choice would be to run something down. But then I’d have less vitae to spar with Ash later, and she’d implied I wouldn’t be getting more of hers. Celestials, her training is worse than Mother’s and I barely have any bruises.

With a firmer resolution, I started setting my lines again. No snares, not just yet. Instead, I focused on the way the parts of my bare feet hit the first floor, on the wind, and on keeping my eyes and limbs at the ready.

***

The smell of charred something preceded Ash’s arrival, and my instincts froze in a moment of panic as she approached at terrifying speed before coming to an unnaturally quick halt. “You’re missing a couple rabbits.”

One of my legs held the two kills in nets of silk.

“You also haven’t drained ‘em yet, and you’ll need to skin them.”

Frustration seeped into my tone as I replied, “Are you going to sit and watch me do it wrong, or are you going to teach me?”

To my utter horror, she seemed to weigh the options for a moment. “I think I’ll teach you. Only because I want dinner.” She swung an arm in a follow-me motion, and we started off through the woods.

The whole while I stared at the rabbits dangling, thinking about all that I’d killed without purpose. “I at least get one, right?”

She turned back and looked down at me, confusion writ across her face. “Yeah, of course. If I need something else, I can hunt it myself. Besides, your own kills always taste the best.”

For just a moment, Fletcher and Nook were hanging from my limb, bound and limp. 

A sudden wave of nausea hit me and I gagged. Blinking all my eyes, they were just rabbits.

Just rabbits.

I kept silent as Ash walked me through skinning and draining, pairing what she told me with half-remembered lessons.

By the time the sun had fully risen, I realized we’d made camp, more than broken it.

“Are we not traveling by day?” I asked from my perch well away from the flames. Even without my guise, I didn’t like being close with the wind blowing.

Ash stretched out and leaned against a log by the fire. “Later. Night’s better to move during, and it’s good to get sleep. Body might be fine, but a dull mind’s a killer. Just a couple hours, and we’ll be on our way.

The breeze picked up and I shivered in my tree. Full of vitae and recovered from Ash’s blocking technique, I still felt the cold.

“You won’t burn.” Ash probably didn’t intend to be patronizing. She was straightforward if nothing else. 

“I know that,” I snapped back. “This isn’t rational.”

She just snorted, watching me through half-lidded eyes as I crept down the tree and curled up next to the fire. At least I still had most of what Fletcher had given me, and I set out the bedroll far enough away I hoped there’d be no sparks.

“You do act so human.” She tilted her head. “More than that—you’ve got some oddly mundane habits.”

“Well I wasn’t particularly gifted.” I answered after a while of staring up through the trees. “I did this to myself, after all.”

“Not on purpose.”

“Correct.”

“You seem plenty talented to me. More than a bit stuck up, but you didn’t try to cheat the hunt.”

“Cheating would gain me nothing.”

“...Right.”

I hummed in response and rolled away from her. I heard Ash sigh, then the ground shook as she settled herself in. For a while, I didn’t sleep. I just stared off into the trees and thought of Fletcher, whose prodigal child would never come home. And I wondered if I’d ever see my family again.

If I did, what would the circumstances be?