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He held up his hands to show he didn’t have weapons, and a gesture meant to show no harm. “You’re Katana, right?”

“Yes,” she said softly, but didn’t come out from behind the tree. There was fear in her trembling voice. “Why are you following me?

“Valeen asked me to find you and help you. I’m not here to harm you.”

With brows furrowed, she hid herself a little more behind the trunk. “And you are?”

“My name is Thane. I’m a friend of Valeen’s. Are you alright?”

“Why did she not come herself?”

“A fight broke out as soon as you ran. She wanted to.”

“If she sent you in her place, she trusts you.”

He moved the curtain-like branches aside and stepped into the tree’s canopy. Tucking her blonde hair behind her ear, she cautiously moved out from the tree trunk, a sign she trusted him enough not to run again. The silhouette of her figure was outlined against the moonlight behind her, the brightness of her hair lit up from the backlighting. She was beautiful. Valeen always said she was the most beautiful of the goddesses and having seen her, he wouldn’t argue that. It wasn’t just her lovely face, thick hair, or the curves of her body, there was something else about her. Like she radiated goodness.

That warmth in his chest tingled now.

A branch swung in his face and when he lifted his hand to move it out of his way, she flinched and back stepped ready to retreat again. Someone had hit her before… and though he only just met her, it pissed him off.

He froze. “I promise I won’t hurt you.”

Relaxing some, she forced a smile. “I am…” she trailed off, as if contemplating her existence. “I am in Runevale.”

“Yes.”

“And so are you.”

He smiled. “I am.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

She looked around with an almost childlike wonder. “I heard a voice… but I do not remember where I was. Yet, I know in my heart it was lovely and good. It was without evil and malice.”

Thane rubbed his chin, wondering if she’d been in what they called Serenity, a place where good souls went after mortality. “Do you remember Valeen?”

“Of course. She is my sister.”

He tried to think back to the time when she was alive here, but it was long before he was born as War. She was killed at least a thousand years before his birth. He wouldn’t know events and people of that time.

“Why were you all with Synick?” Her beautiful face scrunched in disgust.

“We weren’t with him. He appeared at the same time as you.”

“What do you mean by appeared?”

“A portal opened.”

“From where?”

“I can only make a guess. He was dead, but I don’t think he was in the same place you were, if you understand.”

“He killed me.” She pawed at her long locks then she lifted her eyes again, curious now, not fearful. “If he was dead, who killed him?”

“Valeen. A very long time ago.”