While staring into the water, she caught a reflection. Rarely had she looked at herself at the settlement. No one had a looking glass, as they served no useful purpose and were expensive. Sometimes when she went to the creek, she’d see herself in the water. But the leaves overhead obscured the image, leaving her with only a vague, murky idea of what she looked like beyond her long blonde hair and greenish eyes.

Grandmama said she favored her as a child, which did not tell her much. She had her father’s green eyes, but not his hair; his was jet-black. The blonde hair did not seem to come from Mama, as she had reddish-brown locks that ran in waves down her back.

At the creek, she’d seen the ruddy cheeks of a child, with some hints of a woman emerging. In the tide pool, however, her reflection intrigued and mystified.

The blonde hair was still there, but was ratty and matted. Mama would have been horrified. The green eyes were still there as well, though very vibrant, almost glowing—she’d let them brighten without thinking about it. Around her eyes, the skin had darkened, with bags under them, growing evidence of her precarious existence.

The most significant change was her body. The healthy leanness of childhood seemed to have vanished, replaced by a bony frame with extreme muscle definition.

Back at the settlement, her body had begun to mimic other girls her age—the soft curves, the developing chest. But now, she no longer looked that way. Weeks of near-starvation had stripped away any softness, leaving her all angles and sinew.

She was thirteen, and Mama had told her that the bleeding would start soon. But it hadn’t. Not yet. Perhaps the hunger had delayed it. Or perhaps she was just lucky.

If it started while she was here, alone… she pushed the thought away. One more problem for another day. She continued to look at the specter staring up at her. There wasn’t much she could do about any of this, except perhaps the hair.

With that, she settled herself on a rock and pulled out a fishing knife. Grabbing hold of her hair, she pulled it tight and ran the blade across it. It resisted, particularly where matted and twisted, but it did come free as the blade sliced through.

In minutes, she had hacked off most of what she’d kept since childhood. The pile of hair grew until she could not easily grab the locks. Each cut felt like severing another tie to who she’d been. Faline of Thornhaven. Papa’s daughter. A girl with a future.

Now she was just Faline. Nobody’s daughter. A girl with a past she couldn’t escape.

A glance back into the water gave witness to her efforts. Moments before, she could have easily been taken for a wild woman from the mountains. Now she looked like a boy on an adventure. Of course, where she’d hacked off her bangs, the hair looked ragged and uneven, so the image still had a wild element to it.

But something else caught her eye. Near her left temple, a streak of white ran through the shortened blonde hair. She touched it, surprised. When had that happened?

The magical healing. It must have been from the magical healing. Grandmama had warned her there would be consequences, and here was one of them—a permanent mark of what she’d done.

She was no longer Faline the exile, but rather Faline of the wilderness. And the white streak was proof that she’d paid a price to survive.

The sun was moving toward the western horizon by the time she’d pulled together a firepit with enough driftwood and dried grasses to start a fire. Wasting no time, she whispered “Ignis” to get the fire going. As the fire built, she cleaned the two small fish and threw the meat into the small skillet Alax had left. It was soon sizzling.

Faline’s mouth watered incessantly, and unable to help herself, she stabbed the meat with her knife and ate it right off the pan, ignoring the burning of her lips and tongue. But when she finished, her stomach cried out for more.

It was then, as the sun hovered over the water, that she grabbed her pole and headed down to the surf.