"Please, you can't go! It's already too late!" She tugged at her husband's hand, as if that could stop him. But he was taller and stronger than she was, and if he really meant to go, there was no way she could stop him.

He really meant to go.

Her husband smiled at her, disengaged his hand from hers easily, and kissed her forehead. "It'll be all right, love. I have to try anyway."

She slid her arms around him, knowing that this would be the last time she would be able to hold him in her arms. Why did he have to be so stubbornly noble? It was impossible to help them now, but still he wanted to go back! The same honor that had drawn her to him now ripped him from her arms.

He knelt down and ruffled the flaxen hair of their son before hugging the child. "Grow strong, kiddo."

"Get him out of here." He told her, and then ran down the dirt-paved pathway, back to the village.

She held her son's hand tightly, watching as her beloved husband raced back into the inferno. The Black Monster was a dark mist hovering above the houses, omnipotent and indestructible.

When her husband's body disappeared out of her sight, through the flames, she almost cried out. But she couldn't give away their location to the Black Monster. She had a son to protect.

She sat shaking on the ground, pulling her son into her lap. How she wanted to put the child aside, tell him to run, and then go back to Neet to help her beloved to fight! She was a strong fighter; it was possible that with the two of them they could defeat the Black Monster. She wanted to help so badly…

All her life she had never been able to rise to the best. Every time she felt elated with a sense of satisfaction, her father had destroyed it with criticism.

She screamed in her mind because she couldn't with her throat.

She gently lifted her son to his feet, put him by the bushes. She wiped imaginary tears from her eyes and the real ones from his, and embraced her five-year-old son. "Son, I want you to run as far away from here as you can, do you understand?"

"Where are you going, Mama?"

"I have to help your father. Run somewhere, child, and be safe. Remember your honor."

Only a child at the time, he knew only to nod.

She kissed the top of his head and swiftly made her way down the same dirt path.

Gods, I'm sorry, little one. But I have to help your father. I love him so much, and I have to protect him, even if it means you'll grow up without parents.

The impact of her thoughts struck her physically, so that she froze in her steps in the middle of the path.

Grow up without parents.

Her own mother had died in childbirth with her. Her father had been devastated with that, but he had loved his young daughter. Up to until five or six, she had no mother but she had a loving father that would sit her on his lap and sing silly songs with her.

But after those early years, it was as if that kind and loving man had disappeared, leaving behind an empty shell of cold hardness. Training for hours upon hours on an end was an everyday routine. He trained her so roughly to be a fighter. Every little thing she did he was there to criticize and correct. Nothing she ever did was good enough for him once he had started to teach her. Her martial arts master was no longer her father anymore.

She had grown up without parents.

And it had burned her for life.

She couldn't do that to Dart.

Regretting it both ways, she walked back up the dirt path. Her son, despite her orders, was still standing where she had left him. She cradled him in her arms.

Husband, I'm sorry. Either way, I'm losing something. I don't think I can save you. But I know I can save our son. Forgive me, love.

"Mama?" the boy whispered. "I'm sorry I didn't run."

"It's okay, sweetheart. I'm sorry I ran."

Hiding in the overgrown weeds, with her chin tucked on top of her son's head, Claire began to cry.