[Psalm]

With the sun low in the sky, Luke found a suitable place on flat ground among a group of pine trees. Nearby, a cold, clear stream tumbled over rounded boulders, providing water to refresh our canteens, wash, and a pleasant ambient sound.

"Have you ever camped under the stars, Psalm?" Luke asked.

"I have fond memories of Father taking me and my brothers camping," I answered. "Although Mother disliked sleeping in the wilds."

"Hunting and camping adventures were some of the few times Logan and I had our father's attention, although always with an entourage of guards and servants."

"I cannot imagine your experiences growing up as the king's son. Did he care for you?"

Luke sighed. "I believe he did in his heart, but with the burdens of leadership, he had little time for us, and sometimes even less patience. Logan became like him. Would you like to gather some firewood?"

Luke's abrupt change of subject told me to not question him further. "Yes. And if you have a flint, I shall set it ablaze."

Two game-birds that Luke took earlier with his bow roasted on spits above the fire, eventually to become a delicious meal. I marveled as, one-by-one, stars appeared, spanning the vast sky above. Before I obtained the aura sight, I had never seen them.

Luke made a bed of dry grass covered with wool blankets. After removing his boots, he laid on top of one blanket and partially covered himself with another.

Luke looked up at me. "With the clear sky, the night will be cold." He opened an arm, extending an invitation.

Biting my lower lip, I rocked back and forth on my feet. The writings warned of the temptations of flesh, and some sects prohibited even casual interactions between genders. My cheeks warmed. Why was I so indecisive? What did I fear? I knew Luke was an honorable man, but perhaps, I feared my own actions.

"If you are uncomfortable," Luke said, shuffling to one side, "we can--"

"No," I said, more forcefully than I intended, more so to convince myself. "I want this."

First kicking off my boots, I lowered myself into Luke's strong arms and snuggled beside his body, laying on my side with my head on his shoulder. Shadow curled up near my feet. As I basked in blissful contentment, Luke's warmth melted my heart as certainly as it chased away the night chill. This, here and now, was where I belonged.

I had no answer to why this fugitive prince cared so much for me, but I silently thanked the Creator that he did. Then I drifted into the sweetest sleep of my life.

Until Naamah appeared.

I stood on a glowing flat grid that extended in all directions, the empty framework of dreams.

"Did you miss me, daughter of sacrifice?" an undesirably familiar voice taunted.

I spun around to the speaker, a being of tightly bound black threads and glowing red eyes. "What do you want, Naamah?"

"Your soul, of course. Have you not yet realized this?" She let out a sigh. "I see the king failed my request to hold you. He shall suffer for that."

"Must everyone suffer for your whims?"

Naamah put a hand to her chin and paced around me. "Some always suffer for the greater good. It is the way of humanity."

Anger boiled up, and I huffed, "And you would define goodness? I think not!"

Naamah stopped her pacing, and her red eyes blazed at me. "Is your blindness so complete that you do not see the wickedness of humanity? Uncontrolled emotions are the downfall of men." Her eyes softened, and she reached out with an open hand. "Join me, and together, we shall create a perfect order. It is our true purpose."

I knew her perfect order meant desolation. It might end the false pride, selfish ambition, petty greed, and destructive wrath, the dark part of us all. But at the price of that which makes us human — joy, wonder, love, and even our free will — all traded for blind obedience. The Creator God called us to goodness, but only by our free choosing.

Tilting her head, Naamah continued, "What say you, daughter of Aria?"

I answered, "Is that what Lilith wanted? To be your perfect order?"

Naamah's face twisted, and she yelled, "Lilith was a fool! Weak and pathetic."

"You are Lilith. Have you forgotten?"

Naamah's soul was a cold, dark abyss. But as I looked closer, tiny glowing filaments tumbled aimlessly in the darkness, pulsing in muted colors, wisps of an old existence. Within my aura sense, I reached out, and as I caressed the threads, the pulsing stilled and the colors brightened. The threads moved closer together, weaving slowly into a loose mass. "Lilith," I mentally whispered, "I see you."

I yelped as a strong mental force pushed me away. "Get out of my soul!" Naamah hissed, face contorted.

"If you take my soul as you want, would I not be within yours? It must be so lonely for you, Lilith."

"I have no need for your pity!" Naamah shouted with hands balled into fists. "Nor any other useless human emotion."

"And yet, you become emotional."

Naamah growled, snapped her hands up to fire pulses of red magic in rapid succession. The bolts passed harmlessly through me as if I were a ghost. In this dream reality, I couldn't be physically hurt.

Seething, Naamah pointed a long, black finger at me. "Render your soul to me, Psalm, or your family will suffer the consequences, and that young prince of yours as well."

With a flash of light, Naamah abruptly disappeared.

With an airy gasp, I shot up to a sitting position in our makeshift bed, my heart pounding and breath short. A sheen of sweat chilled my brow, and I shuddered.

"Psalm, what is it?" Luke asked as he leaned up on an elbow.

"Naamah," I murmured. "She came to me."

Luke's hand stroked my back, and I leaned back against him. "What did she want?" he asked.

"My soul. She threatened my family, and you, Luke. I can't let her..." A single sob took away my words. "Please hold me."

Luke spooned behind and wrapped me tightly in protective arms. Despite the comfort of his embrace, sleep did not return easily.

The encounter still lingered in my mind as we packed up at first light. But I had come to a resolution. "I have to face Naamah," I announced, "or she will destroy everything I love."

Luke froze while tying bundles to our pack horse, then turned his head. "Can you, Psalm? Can you face her with any hope of victory?"

I had no answer to his question. "She means to harm my family. Let us make our way to my village of Welde. Somewhere near there, I will find her." But more likely, she will find me.

"My brother will have agents watching for us in your home village."

"Father has a hunting shack near the north mountain pass few know of. We may go there first."

The shack was also our family's safe place in case of strife. Given the environment my parents grew up in, I now understood why they made it so.

Luke unrolled a parchment map of the kingdom. "If we go further north, a league or two, another road will take us west toward your village." His beautiful eyes found mine, and he tightened his lips. "It is many days' journey, time we may use to prepare."

We, he said again. And like before, it both warmed my heart and terrified me at the same time.

*****

Long after turning west, we came across a lonely farmstead nestled at the edge of a pine forest. Crop fields, pastures, and animal pens extended behind within a wide lush valley between rocky hills. Faint animal clucks and bleats reached my ears.

Luke tilted his head. "We will need more supplies. Let us see if they will sell us some."

The farm had an idyllic quality to it, but my gut turned upon recalling the desolation of the last village we entered. I nodded. "Very well."

A short road and a timber bridge over a creek led us to a log cabin. My aura sense told me there were two souls inside, while three others lingered near a barn with wood-fenced pens off to the side. The souls were odd, muted and obscured, but with no sign of malevolence.

While I stayed with Shadow and the horses, Luke climbed the two steps to a small porch and knocked twice on the wood-plank door. "Hello?"

The door creaked open on rusty hinges, revealing a woman with light-tan skin and ruffled brown hair, wearing a splattered white apron over a simple brown shift-dress. But her expression was strangely blank and brown eyes were nearly vacant. A young girl half her height with long tangled dark hair clutched the woman's leg and carried a similar emotionless expression.

After a moment of awkward silence, Luke said, "Good afternoon, my lady. We are travelers and wish to purchase food for our journey. Might we do so?"

"Yes," the woman answered in a flat voice. Then she turned and walked into the house, leaving the door open.

Standing at the threshold, Luke turned back to me and shrugged. "I guess we follow?"

"Stay here," I commanded Shadow, who whimpered in reply, then I followed Luke inside.

The mostly drawn curtains allowed only dim lighting inside, gently fluttering as warm breezes passed by, and Luke stopped to allow his eyes to adjust. But with my aura sense, I visualized the interior clearly. The layout was simple — essentially a one-room cabin, but with bedrooms separated by curtained partitions and an add-on kitchen accessed through a rounded doorway. A rock fireplace took up most of one wall, flanked by two wooden rocking chairs. The furnishings were basic and functional. Overall, a comfortable family home.

Yet something was off. My nerves set on edge as my aura sense detected a vague grayness — residuals of recent powerful magic.

We entered the kitchen, stepping around a rag doll abandoned at the threshold. Within was an iron cooking stove, a long counter with a washbasin, and a wooden table with six chairs. The woman and girl stood inside a well-stocked pantry.

"What do you need?" the woman said in a monotone as she gazed at the shelves.

Luke glanced at me and wrinkled his brow, then answered, "Food that travels well, I think. Several days-worth, if you can spare it. We will gladly pay."

The woman's eyes scanned the shelves, but otherwise she stood like a statue, as if frozen with indecision. Something was very wrong.

I narrowed my aura's focus to the woman's soul. What should have been vibrant was muted and subdued, consistent with a lack of expressed emotion. This wasn't natural. I peered closer. There... Dull reddish filaments, almost invisible, tightly bound her soul like spider silk around a fly. Her soul, that which was her, throbbed underneath, constrained by the web.

Sparks traced down my spine and settled into my gut. I knew the essence of this magic.

Stepping in front of the woman, I asked, "What did Naamah do to you?"

"I am made perfect," the woman answered, apparently quoting Naamah.

Luke's eyes shot full open and his jaw dropped. "Naamah?"

"Yes. This is her perfect order."

A perfect order I could not let stand. Cupping the woman's face in my hands, I said, "Let me try to free you."

But how? A maze of countless treads tangled around her soul, not unlike a spool of my embroidery floss after Shadow played with it. Then that's how I shall untangle it. Thread-by-thread, I gently picked, pulled, and snipped, and when removed, each thread dissolved away in the ambient like smoke. It was tedious work, but I made steady progress. Periodically, the woman shuddered or her breath quickened. As I neared the last binding, tears streamed from her eyes.

"There," I said as her soul shined again unfettered, a kind soul that deserved to be free. "How do you feel?"

The woman's face contorted, and great heaving sobs broke out. Had I not embraced her, she would have collapsed to the floor. Luke guided her to a wooden kitchen chair. Spent from the mental effort, my mind swirled as I sat down beside her.

As the sobs subsided and she wiped water from her cheeks, the woman looked up at me with wet eyes and whispered, "Thank you. Whoever you are, thank you."

I smiled and said, "I am Psalm, and this is Luke."

She smiled in return. "Psalm... a fitting name." Her smile dropped when the little girl came to the woman's side. "My daughter, and my family... Would you?"

After I freed the little girl, the woman brought in two older sons and her husband, a dark-skinned man with balding hair. With each, my efficiency improved, but by the end as evening came, I was exhausted, yet the best kind of satisfied exhaustion. My heart soared as this good family gathered into a tearful group embrace. When I wobbled on my feet, Luke sat me back down in the chair.

"Dark desolation," the man later reported of Naamah's mind spell as we gathered around the kitchen table, shaking his head. "A kind of hell... I have no better words to describe it." A smile rose on his face. "But now we are redeemed, and I praise the Creator God that you came to us."

"Which way did Naamah go?" Luke asked.

"Westward, I believe. And a hoard of monstrous beasts with her. Where will you go?"

Shadow bounded into the kitchen, followed by the little girl, who giggled as they renewed their chase game. Warmth reached the deepest parts of my soul, and I resolved to protect good people like this as best I could.

"We also go west," I answered, firming my lips. "Naamah must be stopped."