We are deep in the story here. Want to start from the beginning?

---

Keira waited for her turn to be in front of the council. Everyone around her was so much bigger than her. She shuffled forward in the queue. She couldn’t hear what was going on at the front. A few sentences here and there wafted her way about things that were of no real importance. Baby dragons were getting into the hen house, so they needed to step up security. The corn harvest didn’t produce as much this year, so they needed to substitute with another grain. It was so irrelevant. She stood there, surrounded by so many people, yet she was all alone.

Completely alone.

For the first time in four years, there was no little hand in hers. Her baby brother was gone, just two and a half years after her oldest brother was taken. The shadow monster had come to target her family twice in a row. It had never done that before. She was so sure that it wouldn’t come for them. She and Babby had barely made it through the two winters. There was no need for them to endure anymore. Yet, as Keria hushed Babby in the darkness of the empty barrel they had crawled into, the monster loomed over them once more. The low growl rumbled through the streets, and she knew. She knew it was going to take from her once more.

She had felt bad since it had taken her brother. There were moments when Babby was crying because she was hungry and she herself was starving, but the little bread she had managed to salvage or beg for before, she would give it to him. She understood why her older brother had resented Babby so much. If he hadn’t been born, their mom would be alive. If he hadn’t been born, she could have eaten the bread herself, that she had worked so hard for. 

It would have been so easy to hate him. She felt the emotions, wanting to do it. But she didn’t. Instead, her hate was focused on the villagers that refused to help her. They refused to step in when her mom died, and they refused to take care of her and her brother when her oldest brother was taken. Instead, they avoided eye contact. They acted like the two of them didn’t exist as they sat in the mud, at the side of the road, asking for help or work. Anything to get them through the cold.

Blankets were left for them on the steps; food was left on their corner. But no one gave it to her directly. No one wanted people to know that they had done the kind deed. That they had given something to the tarnished children.

Keira planned to leave the village. Other towns didn’t know them, and they could start fresh. But Babby was too small to make the journey then. But after the lunar moon, she could do it. He was almost five now. She had plans, a way out, and that monster… that monster had ruined it all.

She felt the tears heat up again. There was a bang of a gavel hammer, and the queue moved forward. This was her only chance. Once every three months, the council would get together to resolve problems the community had.  She had a problem. She was going to need the whole community to solve it. It made sense.

But her heart darkened at the idea. She knew what the outcome was going to be before she even had her turn. They were going to say no. They were going to make her face the darkness of her own. Again. 

But there was a little hope still inside her that maybe not this time. Maybe they would finally do the right thing and realise that she was only a girl. That she deserved more than what life had given her. She wasn’t asking for much. Just a chance to get her family back. Then she would leave. 

The gavel banged. She took a step forward. It was her turn. 

“Next!” a voice from the panel announced. 

She walked forward. The morning light shone through the stained glass windows, forcing her to walk out of the shadows of the adults around her and into the spotlight. She reminded herself to breathe. In and out. That’s all she had to do.

As she came forward, she felt the flinch of the people around her. She felt the shudder in the panel that faced her. Despite moving into the warmth of the sun, she felt more coldness.

“Keira,” the man who sat opposite her said. “I wondered when we might see you here.”

There was a pause. Keira knew she wasn’t allowed to talk until she was spoken to. She lifted her arm to block the light to see better. It was the baker who was at the head of the panel. Tobias. She knew him. But still, she waited.

“We have no control over the monster from beyond the waterfall,” Tobias said in a matter-of-fact tone. “It takes whom it will. We can’t help you.”

He still hadn’t really acknowledged her. She saw that he was reaching for the gavel to dismiss her, but he hadn’t allowed her to speak. 

“WAIT!” she yelled. Tobias’s hand hovered over the gavel.

“Wait,” she said again. She looked around. They weren’t happy that she had yelled. “Sorry,” she muttered. “But I would like to have a chance to say what I came to say.”

The words fumbled out of her. It wasn’t words spoken in confidence or with an assertive tone. It was the clumsy words of a girl, in an adult situation. 

But Tobias put his hands down, and despite the small shakes of disapproval from the others on the panel, he nodded for her to continue.

She took a breath. This was the moment. She had a few minutes to change the course of her life. The silence overwhelmed her. She wasn’t sure where to start. For two days since the monster took her baby brother, she had nothing but thoughts on what to say, what to do, and now that she was here, with them looking at her, she couldn’t help but draw a blank.

She took another breath. A smirk crossed one of the women on the panel. They wanted her to fail. She shook off the feeling. She couldn’t let the negativity that surrounded her bring her down. She would start with the facts. If her emotions came out, they would shrug her off as a silly girl. 

“As many of you know, two nights ago my baby brother, Baby, was taken by the monster. Two and a half years ago, my older brother, Chris, was taken…”

“As I said…” Tobias started, but she glared at him, and he closed his mouth.

“I know,” she said. “The monster takes what it wants. I understand that he… that he is gone. But it’s only me now. My mom… Chris was taken and Babby taken. Will no one help?”

They looked at her.

“Surely, child, you have a father?” a woman on the panel asked. The rest looked at her, then the man to her right leaned in and whispered in her ear. She nodded. 

“I see,” she said. “That is most fortunate.”

“I’m sorry, Keria,” the man said. “You seem to be cursed more than most. It is too much risk to take you in.”

“Winter draws near,” Keira said.

“And like the monster, it will take what it wants,” another woman said. “Your fate is decided, as it was decided when you were born. It is feat only of your will that you still stand here before today, and I must commend you for lasting this long. But I’m afraid your life isn’t up to us.”

“Liar,” Keira muttered. 

“I beg your pardon?” the woman on the council scoffed.

“YOU. All of YOU! You sit there talking about fate, and, and, the lives of others! What about our lives!? We are out there, trying to survive. A monster comes and takes my brother… MY FAMILY and WHAT? Am I supposed to just DIE? I’m supposed to just ACCEPT that my life is worth nothing, because of the decisions that are and have always been out of my control? What am I supposed to do?! You have the power to make a difference. To change my life forever! I understood before that it would have taken a really generous person when there were three of us. But the monster has solved that problem. It’s only me. Just me… please…”

Silence took the room. No one made eye contact. No one wanted to help. The darkness in Keira’s heart smiled. It had been right about these people. It wasn’t Babby’s fault that they didn’t take them in when it was the two of them. They didn’t take them in and help because ‘giving’ and ‘kindness’ were not words that they understood. They used them and heard them, but they didn’t fully understand what it meant. Keira would have worked. She knew enough about life to understand that she was a burden, a feeling that no child should feel, but she did. And she got it. Babby had been a burden to her, and she barely made it. But she did, and she was proud of that.

She missed him. She had loved him, and now he was gone.

She felt the tears well up. Keira wiped her eyes. If she cried now, then it would be admitting that this was over. 

“You are all cowards!” she shouted at them.

Tobias looked up. He looked her in the eyes.

“I sympathize with you, Keira,” he said. “But you have no right to call us cowards. Don’t you think we have all suffered in some way? Before Babby, yes, Chris was taken. But before that, it was my son. MY SON. Gideon is gone. Cara here had her sister taken before that. Jeremy’s dad was taken before. Every two and a half years, that… that thing comes down here and reminds us that we all live at the edge of our death. But it seems that monster has taken a liking to your bloodline the most. So, Keira, what must we do? Take you in? Save you from the cold grasp of winter? Love you like a daughter and then have to endure the heartache that comes when the monster fetches you? Is that what you want? You don’t understand, child. It is kinder for us to leave you to nature than to give you hope of a better life.”

The silence returned.

Keira locked eyes with Tobias. He wasn’t going to budge. She wished him dead. She wished them all dead. She pointed at all of them and screamed.

“I hope the monster COMES FOR ALL OF YOU!”

She turned and ran out of the hall. She wasn’t going to wait for the gavel. She was leaving on her own terms. People moved out of her way as if she was covered in the plague. She stumbled out of the hall into the open street and fell to the cobblestones. Her knee burst open from the impact, but her emotions were already at their maximum. She couldn’t accept any more pain than what she was already feeling. Her body shook in sobs as she stared at the ground. She felt the breeze on her bare arms. Winter was going to come soon. She had a few months left.

There would be no help this time. No blankets or food. She knew that now. Before, someone had taken pity because they felt sorry for Babby. They had never felt sorry for her. 

She was on her own. 

She looked up, beyond the village and forest. She looked beyond the swamp. Her eyes followed the river up the waterfalls to the very top of the highest peak in Artizan. If she was going to die, she was going to take the beast with her.