Arna obediently followed the cultist, watching how the crimson cloak flowed around his fluid gait and how the man didn’t even glance back at her once. He was confident and self-assured; he didn’t doubt that he would win because of course he would and the demon knew the rules of the game.

Arna had spent decades running and hiding, ensuring the shadows were her only home and that she was always just out of reach of those who chased her. She knew she was seen as a monster and she had tried her best not to fall into those expectations, but she also knew her strength, her power, and just how much she was not human.

So, when the entrance of Byska-Tatrá yawned open in the side of the mountain ahead of them and Neri was long out of sight and already on her way back to safety, Arna halted. Her bag, her cloak, and her human flesh fell away from her shoulders, disappearing in the snow. Her new coat and her outfit tore from her skin as the unfathomable engulfed her and wrapped warm, familiar arms around her. She shook the last few threads of fate from her dense black fur, lowering her large demonic body into a stance ready to pounce, and released the threatening growl she had held onto.

The Presager sighed, stopping on the trail but still not turning around to face her. “And here I thought we were doing this the easy way.”

Arna retreated a step, eyes and snarl pointed at the cultist’s straight back, his entire existence exuding relaxed ease and unwavering confidence.

“I can still end your warrior’s life,” he warned. “I recommend you rethink your next move.”

You can’t end anyone’s life if I end yours first, she thought. Arna surged forwards, her claws striking the man’s back and he crumpled to the ground, her fangs digging deep into – material?

She dropped the red cloak to the snow, the man now standing a few steps away, nonchalant in his clean, black dress shirt and trousers as if he were a wealthy business man from the past. He was laughing, a great smug grin on his face as he watched her bewilderment, his amusement only growing as she refocused on him with a guttural snarl.

“Did you really think it would be so simple?” he sneered. He seemed overjoyed at seeing her like this, his gaze greedily eating up the black fur and the muscles that rolled beneath, the gleaming white skull with amber eyes glowing with hatred, the sharp claws and fangs that flashed dangerously. “Did you forget I have magic?”

Arna huffed, a harsh noise reminiscent of a short chuckle. “Did you forget I am magic?”

A flicker of disquiet twitched the corner of his egotistical smile as the cultist adjusted his stance, feet wide and hands out as if ready to catch a charging boar. His body was lithe and tall; a simple swipe of Arna’s paw would bring this man down to his knees but the Presagers were never known for their physical strength. The demon saber prowled forth with her eyes trained on the man’s smirking lips, waiting for a lapse in his attention.

Then the cultist glanced over his shoulder for a split second, searching the cave entrance for anyone who would aid him before facing Arna again, but it was the perfect opening for her to pounce. Her claws sunk into his chest, the cultist slamming backwards into the snow and his head bouncing with the impact. With no cloak to hide his escape and no time for him to utter any spell, the Presager was at her mercy – and she had little for those who tormented her past and present.

“Help!” he screamed, eyes rolling desperately towards the cave. “I have her! Help-”

Arna cut his voice off with fangs to his throat, both relishing in and repulsed by the hot blood rushing over her tongue, the metallic taste filling her mouth as the man grew still beneath her. Once she was sure he wouldn’t ever move again, she released the cultist and drew back her claws from his soft chest, flicking the blood from the sharp tips.

Now it was time to leave and Arna made to turn away when she heard shouting from the cave. She glanced over at the entrance to see a man pointing and yelling, his shoulders broad and his arms twice the width of a tree, yet he had no tattoos marking his skin. He was a simple miner who worked the mine, a resident of the Presagers’ cover within Byska-Tatrá. Dread filled her when he was joined by cultists, three figures all scored with the black lines across their faces. They saw her and she knew she had to escape.

Surprise and strength easily won her the battle against a single Presager, but against three of them she would have little chance of succeeding. She could silence one, maybe two, but a group would always have another pair of lips and hands to chant the words and cast the foul magic before she could dodge or stop it.

So she ran.

The snow kicked up behind her as she followed the path swooping around the mountain, the cave out of sight but the voices still in earshot as the cultists gave chase. She was fast and she was soon retracing the steps she and Neri had trod, speeding over the footprints the warrior had made on her return to Polenya. The woman’s scent was still strong, the footprints still fresh, but she was nowhere in sight – good, she’s safe. Neri had gone to Larius to finish her assignment and hopefully continue back to Atsylei, away from the cultists and away from her. With that one cultist dead, the others would never know of the warrior and she would be safe as long as they never came across them together.

The thought of never seeing Neri again hurt Arna more than she expected, but she kept running. She didn’t have time for this, she needed to get away and never look back.

However, she was a fool for ever getting too close. While the Presagers did not have speed and strength on their side, their spells could still be cast. The chants swarmed towards her like bullets rippling through a thick fog, the cultists’ voices swirling and echoing over the icy, barren ground to choke her senses. She stumbled, a cloud of snow cascading over her body, but still she ran. The chants were louder, fiercer, and chains constructed from shadows shackled her legs and she crashed, her body helplessly sliding over the snowy path until a tree harshly broke the momentum.

She tried to get back up but the shadowy yet oddly firm chains clung to her limbs, forcing her to smack back down to the ground. The cultists stopped chasing, instead calmly approaching her like confident hunters who’d finally poached their best prey ever, wide grins and ever wider eyes showing both glee and disbelief, mingled with awe and fear.

Arna growled, straining against the shackles, but the Presagers shifted their hands, lips forming words she would never understand, and the hold got tighter, now also at her throat and around her torso. She struggled for air, the pain suddenly increasing as her very body was constricted, forcing her to lay weakly on the ground before their feet.

The cultists were out of breath but still they moved fluidly, voices smooth as silk and heavy with magic.

“It’s really her?” one of them asked, stepping closer.

Arna flung herself against the shadowy restraints, snapping fangs dangerously close to the man’s ankle before another dragged him back by the collar.

“Idiot, watch it,” the second warned.

“Let’s get her back,” the third commanded, reinforcing the chains with more chants and linking them up with each of the cultists like inky, metal ropes so they could haul her across the snow. “Keep layering on the spells so she doesn’t escape.”

With every inch they tugged their catch towards the cave, the chains got tighter and heavier, making it almost unbearable to breathe and worse to even try to move. She kept growling, snarling, snapping at the figures around her, but that only made them muzzle her with another chain dripping shadowy ink around the white of her skull.

They dragged her into Byska-Tatrá, past the dead cultist, past the miners and their small hovels, past the carved and hacked cave walls glittering with precious stones and ore, descending ever deeper into the cave until the miner settlement was a mere glow of light behind them. Soon all signs of mining vanished and the tunnels grew smaller, the walls sleek with moisture, the cultists brushing shoulders and bowing their heads in the claustrophobic space.

The lighting changed, the lanterns and natural light of above almost too simple in comparison, now the darkness of the cave opening up into a strange overreaching haze of yellow-red light as if the huge cavern had its own sun at the peak, staring down with one flaring eye. The cavern hosted a town, buildings of timber and stone from a time long gone as if sunken into the very ground and left abandoned many centuries ago. The houses sat on different rocky levels and stony plateaus, all sat in a cavernous coliseum before the otherworldly sun above, flaming that yellow-red light to taint the stone and everything below under its watchful gaze. Torches positioned on walls and arches in the streets flickered a tinge of green, and everyone who walked the cobbles brandished the tattoos that loomed in Arna’s nightmares.

“This way,” one of the cultists said, tugging harshly on the shadowy chain at her throat.

She grunted as they dragged her along the streets, other cultists stopping to stare in amazement and whisper amongst themselves. Everything was touched with magic, the very air hummed with it, every strangled breath she took felt almost solid with the very strength and completeness of it. She had always considered the Presagers to be a lost few stragglers of the past, maybe even in the same number as before, but this was different. They had grown incredibly in both number and power. An entire network of cave tunnels to reach this pinnacle beneath the earth, every house with a face at the door, the magic crawling across her skin and laughing in her ears.

They finally reached a small building, almost directly beneath the flaming ethereal sun above, and dragged her inside. While the outside may have appeared rustic and perhaps medieval in design, the interior was a stark contrast. The door bolted thrice behind them with thick steel bars, the floor a polished lino and the walls brushed a striking white. Memories slammed against her and she couldn’t stop the panicked whining ringing in her throat. The cultists ignored her and led her straight into a room she had escaped decades ago.

How is this possible? She struggled, wringing her body and squirming in the chains to no avail, eyes desperately seeking an exit and finding none. The walls were white, the floor a shiny grey, the lights still blaringly fluorescent and fake, the windows huge glass panels stretching all around so anyone and everyone could stand and watch the events transpiring within. Sturdy shelves decorated with instruments of torture and medicine lined the sides of the room, metal trolleys carrying more tools lay near the main attraction in the centre – an examination chair upgraded with enough restraints and shiny, sharp augmentations that it looked more like an everted iron maiden ready to pin her down. She had been bound in that chair for hours, even days, at a time, slowly being ripped apart and reconstructed into something new. Beside it was the other examination chair for when her shapeshifting had begun, a strange harness holstered in an impact-proof frame with the same amount of sturdy restraints and nefarious additions as the human counterpart.

This room…this chamber had been her cage for years before the world crumbled and she had torn herself out of the chair and broken the glass, running from the facility and never looking back – until now. It was like the Presagers had just cut out this part of the facility, picking it up and depositing it inside their cave, wrapped in a stone cover, ready for when the gift would return.

An irritated male voice by her ear sent a shudder down her spine. “Are you going to shift or do you want the beast harness?”

She shrank away, the pitiful whining grinding into a deep yet breathless growl. Arna wasn’t going to expose herself here like so many times before, especially when her human form had even less chance of fighting back.

The voice sighed. “Tie her up,” he ordered. “But be careful. Don’t give her any opportunity.”

The chains tugged once more, pulling her across the polished floor, until dripping ink hands made of nothing snatched fistfuls of her fur and smashed her to the ground as the restraints disappeared. She strained against them but the force was too much, her lungs still gasping for air, and the hands pressed her forwards, fitting her into that metal frame which could survive the worst of quakes, the harness of metals and imbued belts shackling around every part of her body, trapping her in place.

The hands vanished but the harness held true. She collapsed to the floor, the restraints allowing her that much freedom, her tongue rolling out as she panted for air, her ribs aching painfully with every breath.

The Presagers stood by and the man who had been giving the orders laughed – no amusement, no ego, nothing like the cultist she had killed, instead it was pure malice. “I never thought it would be so easy,” he muttered to himself. “Literally on our doorstep.”

The voice approached her and she lifted her eyes to meet a cool grey gaze framed by those haunting tattoos. She growled; her mouth now able to open to reveal her fangs in a fearsome snarl.

The cultist stared at her with no humour. “Did you really have to kill him? We now need a new babysitter for Larius.” He rubbed a hand over his face, the skin beneath the tattoos pocketed with barely noticeable burns that stretched down to his collarbone. “Well, whatever.” He stepped away, turning his back on her.

She watched as the cultists left the room, the speaker following after them with slow, purposeful steps until he reached the door. His finger poised over the light switch, he paused and looked over his shoulder at her, cold expression glinting with cruelty.

“Welcome home, Arna,” he said with an emotionless smile, flicking the switch and plunging the room into darkness, the windows glazed with so many layers they only served to further separate the gloom of the chamber from the garish light of the corridors. He joined the other cultists and the door sealed shut behind them, the clang and vibrating thuds of the bolts settling securely into place.