Of Monsters and Men

She sunk.  “Rote reconnaissance.  I was patrolling the edge of Dudael, just a routine check.  I wasn't to stray beyond the border.”  She shivered.  Damien draped a woolen blanket around her.  She pulled it close, face long.  “But I heard a- a rip: like a tear in the Border.  As if someone had crossed.  Impossible, I thought- I was the only one that far in, past the gates.  Even Uriel rarely visits that path.  I was on the edge of the root network of spells that binds the lesser watchers.  The enchantments there grow thick as trees, so dark they block all light.  I was alone.”

“And you pursued it?”

Her head hung low.  “Yes,” she whispered.  “I disobeyed Zadkiel's orders.  I thought it was just a fluctuation.  The network is so weak, and my father is constantly developing repairs.  I'd learned his craft, and I thought, w