They didn't precisely roll out a red carpet for me when I was born.

  No prophecy. No special aura. No weeping in joy at the birth of a miracle child. Just a chilly floor, a half-awakened human woman not quite alive after having given birth, and a disapproving elf elder who regarded me as if I'd personally urinated in his drink. Which, admittedly, would've been an improvement to his character.

  I was Cain. No st name. No destiny. Half-human bastard son of a mother they never named in the elven chronicles and a father whose noble heritage flowed deep with self-absorption and entitlements of centuries. Apparently, my worst offense—other than being alive—was having a mother who was not a suitable elf but a "lesser species" who bled and sweated and loved too extravagantly.

  So of course, we were led to the edge of their immacute little tree-top kingdom and informed politely to rot.

  We huddled—or were dumped, I mean—in a moss-filled hut just clinging to the edge of the woods, where vines intruded like inquisitive neighbors and the roof groaned every time it rained. No chairs. No equipment. Just herbs, some broken pottery, and a bnket that could have served as a tissue.

  My mother worked.

  And worked.

  And worked.

  Each day she disappeared into the forest, gathering herbs, roots, berries—whatever the elven merchants would abide selling. Never compined. Never requested more. She smiled as if she'd won something by simply holding me.

  And I, in my infant genius, drooled on her and vomited on our sole bnket. Truly a child of destiny.

  Years passed. I learned to speak before I could fully stand, mostly out of spite. Language is power, after all, especially when you use it to insult pnts, insects, and occasionally your own reflection.

  I began, at the age of six, to comprehend being unwanted. Elves at the boundaries regarded me as if I were a smudge on their high-shine boots. When we traveled to exchange, they refused to address my mother—just threw coins and sneered as if she were fortunate not to be stoned on sight.

  And all the while, my mother smiled. She kissed my forehead every night as if we were safe, as if we were a family, as if she wasn't falling apart on the inside from fever and backbreaking work.

  Spoiler alert: she was.

  The fever struck my seventh winter. Hard. Cold seeped into our bodies like it sought her soul. I did all that I could—wrapped leaves around her, fed her with broth made out of weeds that I couldn't even say aloud, sang for her in the quivering voice of a child who doesn't yet know what death is but senses it present in the wind.

  She smiled still.

  "Cain," she breathed one evening, face pale as the moon, "you'll survive. You're resilient."

  I ughed. Louder and more bitter. "I can hardly kill a rabbit."

  Her fingers brushed against my cheek. "You'll find your way."

  She died the following morning.

  And with that, I was alone.

  Seven years old, no tools, no magic, no family—unless you counted the bugs I kept in a jar for companionship. I didn't cry. Not then. Not when I buried her with a shovel fashioned from a broken tree branch. Not even when her grave began to grow wildflowers like the forest itself wanted to apologize.

  I just lived.

  Three years went by. I hunted, I foraged (terribly), I conversed with trees and gave names to rocks. My one genuine talent? Sarcasm. You'd be surprised at how simple life is when you begin mocking your own misery out loud.

  And then, on a morning misty and chill on the brink of my tenth birthday, I encountered her.

  She came out of the fog like death in silver. Giant, fur like moonlight, eyes colder than frostbite. I blinked. She blinked. I held up my hands because it seemed a poor idea to fight a giant wolf with a stick.

  "You trespass," she said, in a voice that didn't belong here. "This is my nd."

  I blinked again. "You can talk."

  "You breathe,"

  "Touché,"

  She didn't growl. Didn't pounce. Just stared.

  "Why are you here, half-blood?"

  "I always lived here," I replied. My voice firm, ft. "Born here. Dumped here. My mother passed a few days ago. Fever. Worked herself to death. The elves don't care. So yeah, I'm just a pretty blot on your territory."

  She regarded me. Stillness. Then, without further comment, turned and disappeared among the trees.

  I thought I'd imagined her. Fever delirium. Starvation vision. Trauma fantasy forest beast. You know—the kind.

  She returned though. The next day. The day after. Never with provisions, never an apology for threatening my death with one. Merely sat close and spoke. Tales of spooks, old battles, bonds and air and dying. I listened. She taught. Laughed. Scowled.

  I had named her Luna, because the moon was alone, and so was she.

  And she did.

  From that point, I wasn't alone anymore. She wasn't a parent or a friend, either. She was a guardian in the loosest, scariest meaning—watching me grow up, growling at predators, speaking truths to me when I didn't want to hear them.

  Ten became fifteen in silent turmoil. My sarcasm cut like a knife. I mastered foraging, running, sleeping. My existence was simple, savage, but my own.

  Until he arrived.

  I was skinning a rabbit with a rough rock (professional-level wilderness garbage) when I heard the footsteps—too elegant for a hunter, too self-assured to be lost.

  I turned, and there he was: tall, refined, white-gold hair pulled back as if he were going to address a council. He was cd in a traveler's cloak and elven rings that cried nobility.

  "I'm your brother," he told me, as if that made sense.

  I narrowed my eyes. "I didn't order one."

  He didn't smile. "I came to take you home. To name you. To give you a pce.

  I shrugged. "Too te. Have a rock. Have a wolf. Have trauma. Full here."

  Luna emerged from the trees like a shadow shed from the earth. Blue eyes narrowed. "Why now, elf? Why come back after abandoning them to rot?"

  He didn't move. "Because I want him to see the world. And I think you wanted that too.

  Luna stopped. And with a gentle snort, she added, "Fine. But I accompany him. No one ys hands on what I've protected."

  He nodded.

  I blinked. "Hold up—do I get a say in this huggy reunion and melodramatic contract negotiation?"

  They both turned to look at me.

  No one said anything.

  And just like that, I was on the path to the academy, with a wolf at my side, a noble brother I didn’t trust, and sarcasm as my only form of emotional regution.

  Next stop: civilization.

  Pray for it.