Gliding over the canopies of the towering matzu trees, Lorelei prayed that the disease called the Renai wasn’t lurking in her father’s mind, twisting his morals and blurring the lines between enemy and ally. If what the villagers whispered behind her back was true, her father would try to kill her again.

The last tendrils of the winter wind wisped through her large white wings, causing her to shiver. Her father’s size dwarfed her near-six-foot build as he flew beside her, cutting through the icy wind with incredible strength and grace. She both loved him and feared him and worried if she should be sparring with him alone.

They traveled father away from their village than she had ever gone, to a place where the matzu trees tapered off, submitting to smaller trees sparsely scattered about the forest below. After landing, she stood at a distance from her father and looked around. The sight of the open grasslands of the Lost Valley made her uneasy. She had only heard of it but knew it was outside the safe zone and that they shouldn’t be here. Not too far from where she stood, a great fissure extended out, forming a long trench toward the mountains beyond, leaving a scar in the otherwise perfect field of red grass. She had never been this close and wondered why they would come to such a place.

Lorelei jumped when her father spoke in his deep, commanding voice.

“When you turn seventeen next year you will have to get used to being in dark places like this.”

She looked into his light green eyes, wondering what evils he must have seen out on the battlefield.

“I know, Father.”

Arguing with her father simply wasn’t something she did. It hadn’t always been like that. He used to be understanding and attentive. When he returned with his captain this last time, she and her family and even the whole village sensed that he was no longer Garenth, the loving husband and father of two girls, but instead, a danger to their society, to be closely watched for signs of the mind-bending disease, the Renai.

“Are you ready?”

“Yes, sir.”

After bowing to each other, as tradition and a show of respect, Lorelei pulled her long red hair back between her shoulder blades, allowing it to rest comfortably between her wings. She straightened her leather chest piece and wondered why on Duari she was out there alone with her father. Surveying the area around her, she noticed her father’s sharpened battle sword on the ground, a few feet too close for her comfort.

“Begin!”