A New Path

She found herself coming back to consciousness slowly, like struggling through cold water. The sounds and sights came to her first, seagulls whirling in the blue sky, sharp calls washing over her. The sand was warm on her back. She let these sensations flow into her, savoring the unmoored feeling of waking.
 
Then in a flash, Sabine remembered. She remembered the claustrophobic press of the curved steel cylinder. She remembered the helplessness, the bile in her mouth as she looked to the circle of sky far above. Adrenaline filled her, hammering her heart and pushing her to her feet. Instinctually she reached for her sword, but it was gone.
 
The beach was empty. The white sands stretched upward to a line of trees and fell away abruptly into the void just a few paces from her. She drew away, taking inventory. She had on only the prisoner’s outfit and nothing else. No armor, no purse, not even her dagger.
 
No, wait. Her hand felt something on her chest, and she looked down to see a square of black cloth, hung over her shoulders on silver chains and attached to another square on her back. Lifting it, she saw it was embroidered in bright green, a pattern of leaves covering the front. Turning it over, she found writing in Elvish on the back. The green threads were soiled with something damp and dark. Sabine felt her stomach clench as she looked at the blood now staining her fingers. She had seen this cloth before.
 
Deep breaths, like calming herself before a battle. Not that she had ever been in a battle. She had never faced death. Danger, sure. Sabine treasured that rush that came from a good fight. To feel stronger, faster, meaner. That's what it meant to feel alive. She put herself in danger and sometimes she got hurt, but she had never looked the icy certainty of death in the eye - not until now. And it had been so final. All doors closed and locked. Gleaming cold steel and a circle of sky above.
 
Except she was given exit. A dream, in that last dawn before obliteration. But it had been more than a dream. She lived. She should be dead, but she lived. The dream had been real. A holy mandate, and there was nothing left to do but to try to fulfill it. To balance the scales. Sabine closed her hand around the cloth on her chest. She had her work cut out for her.
 
A while tower rose above the misty treeline in the distance. She had to start somewhere.