Matabar Chapter 13 - Crystal Flower

Ardi exhaled and listened to the snow’s whispers hidden under the gusts of the wind. He gathered crystals from the glittering, white blanket and spun them in a dance, making them sing a barely audible trill of soft chis. It was lighter than the song of a young bullfinch, but clearer than a spring drip. The wind, relishing the sounds, carried them around, and Ardi listened intently. At so point, between the crunching snow, the rustling wind, and the icy song, he heard a na.

It slipped from the young hunter’s lips with a frosty breath, and a snowflake appeared on his palm. Ardi bit his lip, trying not to lose this na and its essence. He whispered and the snowflake listened. It changed shape, stretched, solidified, and soon, Ardi was looking into the eyes of a snow leopard cub that wrapped its long, icy tail around his little finger and-

Sothing hit the back of the hunter’s head. The winter magic vanished, once more turning into just the wind chasing a light blanket of snow, and with the magic, the na vanished as well; the snow leopard yawned and scattered into a cloud of white dust.

"Atta’nha!" Ardi shouted, standing up and turning to the she-wolf. "I had it!"

She was sitting on a stone, whispering to the birds and trees, and looked at her little friend or student with her usual warmth and a bit of non-offensive mockery. In her paws, the wolf held the staff that had just greeted Ardi’s head.

He still could not believe that Atta’nha had done this. For the first ti in five cycles, he’d managed to not only hear the na of the Ice, but also say it!

"It’s not enough to rely say it, little Speaker," the she-wolf smiled, releasing the birds back into the paths of the clouds and winds. "You must be able to keep it. In the future, whenever you try to speak, place a needle between your fingers."

"Why?"

"To learn how to ignore the world around you," Atta’nha explained. "When you can speak without paying attention to the needle, imrse your feet in boiling water. After that, when you can still speak even with that distraction, the final test will be a claw," she held out her hand, said sothing, and a swirl of snow spun across her gray fur, leaving behind a claw of blue ice. "Plunge it between your ribs and try to speak. If you succeed, only then will your mind and heart be strong enough to attempt to learn a True Na. And only those who possess a True Na can be called Aean’Hane."

Ardi listened attentively and nodded, but... he understood little. If the needle seed like sothing he could manage, the rest... It was hard to keep a na stable even when soone was just being noisy nearby. Boiling water and a claw between the ribs...

"Don’t worry," the she-wolf rose from the stone and approached, ruffling Ardi’s hair as usual. "Even with your talent, little Speaker, this path can take more than seven decades to traverse."

"Aean’Hane," the young hunter repeated thoughtfully. "It ans Maker of Magic in the Fae language, right?"

"Yes and no," Atta’nha shook her head. "Humans can create magic with their Star Magic. Aean’Hane ans much more. It’s more than just a Speaker who can string a few words together. It’s soone who can not only speak and summon nas, but knows that..." The wolf seed to be searching for words that Ardi would understand. "One day, you will understand, little Speaker, that the power given to you by the Sleeping Spirits should not be called into this world often, and that what you can do with its help, you can do with your own two hands as well. This is what it ans to be Aean’Hane — to have great power and the even greater wisdom required to not use it."

"And are you an Aean’Hane?"

The she-wolf laughed. The sound was light and bright. A little growl and a little bark could even be heard within it.

"Sotis, I forget how little you know, my dear friend."

Ardi frowned unhappily.

"I have read almost all of your books and most of your scrolls," he muttered. "I know how to light moonlight in the middle of the Spirit of the Day’s path; I know how to hear part of the storm’s na and summon an icy bolt of lightning; I know how to make a cloak from darkness that averts the eyes; I know how to whisper words that open closed passages; I know how to mix hundreds of herbs, roots, and fruits; I know how to create a star map from sparks; I know how to-"

"Not all knowledge, little Speaker," Atta’nha interrupted him. "Can be gleaned from books and scrolls. And the most important knowledge you’ll ever find will not co to you through books."

Ardi had his own opinion about that. Yes, he liked spending ti with Ergar, Guta, and his other friends of the forests and mountains. But he much preferred the icy hut of the she-wolf, bathed in the light of the dancing fire petal she would summon so that the hunter wouldn’t "ruin his eyes." Books and scrolls were much dearer to him. They didn’t frighten him with fear, starve him with hunger, tornt him with thirst. They simply told him their stories and asked nothing in return.

"And how-"

"Like this," Atta’nha covered the place where the hunter’s heart was beating with her palm. Then she scooped up so snow and let it lt on his cheek. "And through this," she added more heavily. "This is the way."

Ardi understood none of that. Knowledge would co to him through the rhythm of his heart and lted snow?

"To answer your question," the she-wolf stepped back and smiled. "I am the one who teaches the Aean’Hane."

"And what do they call you?"

She laughed again. Ardi had always loved that sound, the sound of his wise friend’s joy. And also her warmth. It reminded the hunter of sothing. Sothing he both wanted and feared to rember.

"You will know that soday, too, my dear friend, and..." Atta’nha stopped abruptly, stepped back, turned with the wind and sniffed, closing her eyes and twitching her black nose in an amusing manner.

"The blood of the traitor is near..."

"The blood of the traitor? Who’s that?"

Atta’nha suddenly grabbed Ardi, hugged him tightly, and pressed him against her. She buried her wolf’s muzzle in his hair and breathed in heavily.

"Hey... What’s wrong?" The hunter barely managed to say.

"It hurt her so much to let you go," the she-wolf whispered. "By the Great Mothers, it hurt her so much..."

For a mont, Ardi felt like he had seen this sowhere before. That soone, sowhere, had held him just as tightly and had been just as afraid to let him go.

"Co on," he patted her strong, broad back. "Even if today is the last day you teach , that doesn’t an I can’t co visit you to play and chat. You’ll see! When I beco a full-fledged hunter, I’ll visit you even more often than I do now!"

She rubbed her cheek against his, poking him with soft but sharp fur. Then she suddenly stepped back, leaned down, and looked into his eyes.

"Rember, my dear friend," she whispered in the language of her tribe. The Fae tribe. Ardi could read it well and understand it when he heard it spoken, but whenever he tried to speak it, the she-wolf would burst into uncontrollable laughter. "This is your ho, the land of your ancestors. They lived here. Died here. They took care of it for their descendants, as a mother takes care of her child. Every step among the mountains, plains and hills, forests and fields, rivers and lakes of this land is your blood and flesh. Here, your spirits reside. And whatever happens, no matter how far the path takes you, no matter how lonely you feel, rember that you are welco here. And always will be."

Then she held out her hand, whispered sothing over it, and handed Ardi a small figurine of an oak tree. In Fae tradition, oaks, though not as sturdy as Iron Trees, nor as long-lived as cedars, were the guardians of the stories and legends of those they shaded with their generous branches.

"This is yours," Atta’nha whispered as she wrapped the oak in a thin band and tied it around the hunter’s neck. "Now go — our last day is over, and I am no longer your teacher, only a friend."

"My friend," Ardi repeated, then smiled broadly and hugged the wolf. "See you tomorrow, Atta’nha, my friend. I’ll be there with Skusty and Kaishas! They wanted to play hide and seek again. That pair knows the woods even better than Shali and Guta, and I rarely win, but I think that together, we can beat them easily! By the way — a whole blackberry bush is at risk! The stakes are higher than ever!"

"Of course," Atta’nha nodded. "Until we et again, my dear friend."

Ardi smiled again, hugged the wolf once more, and ran down the path toward the forest. For a mont, he wondered why she’d been so sad today. After all, nothing terrible would happen just because she could no longer teach him. They could still talk and play. Or just go for a walk together in the Alcade. That was more than enough...

Ardi did not see the blizzard swirling around the wolf, nor did he hear her howl as she stared into the cold eye of the Spirit of the Night rising in the east. Nor did he see the squirrel that climbed onto her shoulder with a small twig in his paws.

"That was painful, wasn’t it, Mistress?"

"Painful, Sage... I knew it would be painful, but I didn’t know it would hurt this much."

"It hurt her too, Mistress. Perhaps even more than you. Funny, isn’t it? A half-blood... The first in thousands of years, a mortal with human blood, studying under one of the Winter Queen’s daughters."

"But she knew her son would return," the she-wolf said, as if she only cared about one part of the squirrel’s words. The part that mattered most. "She knew that-"

"She hoped. She even believed in him. But mostly — she just hoped he would," Skusty corrected her firmly.

They both watched his fading tracks in the snow.

"I was so scared, Sage," Atta’nha whispered. "Scared that I would never wake up again."

"We were scared as well, Mistress," the squirrel straightened, held up his twig, and pointed it sowhere to the north. "But... I believe, or... I just hope that one day, we will wake again, and our dear friend will smile at us, call us to play, and tell us so many stories that we will..."

He trailed off.

In the clearing, there was now a wooden totem in the shape of a she-wolf with human features. She held a carved white staff in her paws, and tears of transparent amber ran down her cheeks. On the mythical creature’s shoulder sat a large wooden squirrel the size of a young fox. The wind blew again, swirling around in the angry blizzard and shrouding them in a snowy veil.

It also hid the peak of this mountain, which resembled an ice-carved fang, and extinguished the light in the hut, which turned into a simple rock; it then covered the writings and pictures on the walls of the deep cave and flew on. It caught the four-winged eagle running among the clouds, pressed it to the ground, and placed it on the shoulders of a huge mountain goat with horns that even the proudest of elk would envy. And so they stood like wooden statues on a wide mountain plateau.

And the wind went on.

It covered the paths in the forest with snow and ice, bound the rivers and lakes, dressed the trees in fluffy white coats, and ran, ran, ran until it caught the bear dressed in the dawn and the lynx with a coat of spring grass. And now, within the adow, surrounded by swaying pines, there was another wooden totem, depicting strange beasts from long-forgotten tales.

The wind continued to blow, and Ardi, laughing all the while, tried to outrun it, unable to notice how the Alcade fell asleep behind him, as if soon, just a minute later, the last spark that had given it the breath of magic would leave it forevermore.

***

At every rustle, every creak, every strange reflection in the terrifying darkness of the forest, she reacted in the only way she knew — by pointing the barrel of her pistol at it and putting her finger on the trigger. A pistol... As if this trinket her uncle had given her when she’d been a child could really be called a pistol.

"Caw!" The wings of a red-eyed raven flapped as it disappeared into the night.

Her heart was beating so fast that she sotis couldn’t hear her own thoughts. Her light white coat was barely keeping her warm, and her ears were red under her wide-brimd hat, and... She’d touched them once and had almost scread in pain.

Her feet were wet in her high boots, and she couldn’t feel her toes.

Everything about her scread that she couldn’t have possibly found herself in the heart of a mountain forest, amid a bitter frost, under the light of a waxing moon. And yet, she was. When that old woman with the wolf head pendant had said that she could help her find dicine for her daughter in exchange for a single drop of blood, she’d thought it was just part of the Winter Festival show. Who could have known that a blink later, she’d be standing in the middle of a terrifying forest, with only the stars above her and the mountains rising up to et her?

"Don’t co any closer!" She yelled, turning to what she thought were predatory, animal eyes watching her.

She cocked the hamr of her gun and was about to pull the trigger when the clouds parted and the forest was bathed in silver light. Not believing her eyes, she lowered her gun. Standing at the edge of the clearing was not a small snow leopard, as she had first thought in the dark, but... a child?

From the back, his height and broad shoulders might’ve made him look older, but his still naive and kind eyes, coupled with those chubby cheeks, suggested that he was twelve, maybe thirteen. His black, wavy hair fell over his bushy eyebrows, and his neat nose was dotted with funny freckles. His ears stuck out, but not so much that one could call him big-eared.

Quite the opposite, in fact. He looked like a handso boy who, when he grew up, would be the cause of many a woman’s tears and heartbreak. Especially due to those strange, almost inhuman, amber eyes of his. They were charming and unfathomable. Like... like the eyes of that old woman at the Festival.

"Do you know her? Do you know the witch?" She breathed out clouds of steam, her hands shaking.

The boy tilted his head to one side and frowned. He seed like he was desperately trying to understand sothing, but couldn’t.

"Ana’elat asha egokta ana?" He said in a rough, broken language she didn’t recognize. "Elat tur?"

"What? I don’t understand..." She shook her head. "I don’t know that language. Can you speak Galessian?"

The boy shuddered, and a vague recognition appeared in his eyes.

"It sound... mmm... language speak you," he said slowly, almost growling, like a beast. "Who language it?"

"It is the language of the New Monarchy Empire," she spoke slowly, trying not to gesticulate too much — the boy kept looking at her pistol. "It’s the na of one of the human countries on the Western Continent."

"Humans?" The boy repeated. He seed familiar with the word. "You humans?"

"Human," she corrected him. "And who are you?"

The boy thought for a mont, then touched his chest. Only now did she notice that he was wrapped in a ridiculous cloak that had been crudely stitched together from various furs. But each of those furs would fetch a high price in the tropolis fur market. Many fashion houses would not hesitate to pay hundreds of exes to buy them.

"Ardi," the boy replied. "My na Ardi. You?"

She hesitated before deciding what to say.

"Atura, my na is Atura."

The boy sniffed the air, then stepped back.

"Lies," he shook his head. "Lie. You lie. Why lie? Lie not good. Teacher say lie bad."

For a mont, she thought he was not a human child, but a young cat ready to turn and flee into the forest.

"Wait, wait," she pleaded, and when the boy stopped, she continued in a soothing tone. "You’re right, forgive . Atura is my servant. That’s the na of my servant."

"Servant? That you pack?"

"Pack? Ah... family?"

The boy nodded.

"No, no. A servant is... a helper. She helps with various tasks."

"Help? Friend? Atura friend?" The boy’s face brightened and relaxed a bit.

"Yes!" She smiled.

The boy smiled too, and she shivered slightly at the sight of his too-long fangs. Maybe... maybe she had jumped to conclusions and this child was not of human descent? But what Firstborn race looked so much like a human? He didn’t have the long ears of an elf, the gray or green skin of an orc, nor did he resemble a dwarf. And he certainly wasn’t a descendant of giants.

And he definitely didn’t fit anywhere on the long list of semi-intelligent races ranging from goblins to lamias.

"You understand poorly," the boy shook his head, then touched his chest again. "Ardi," he pointed at her. "You?"

She sighed and gripped her pistol’s handle:

"Oktana. My na is Oktana Anorsky."

And... nothing happened. The boy looked at her intently, then nodded.

"The truth. That truth. Good. But na hard. I call you Okta. Good?"

For a second, she was really surprised, but soon enough, she got over it. Who knew how far she’d traveled. Speaking of which...

"Good, I like it. Okta it is," she tried to speak calmly, even though her heart was threatening to jump out of her chest.

The boy was about to take a step forward, but her hand with the pistol jerked up before she could think.

The child froze, then smiled. By the Face of Light, it took all her willpower not to shoot that grinning, beastly, fanged visage of his, and may the Eternal Angels forgive her for wanting to kill a child.

"Fear," the boy made a strange hand gesture as if to show her sothing. "No need afraid. I-Ardi, here. With you. I say word hunt. You not prey. Hunters gone. We alone. No one hurt Okta. Ardi here. All is well. I spoke word. All listen. All is well, Okta."

She could barely hear the child’s strange speech, let alone parse his broken Imperial, but at least she’d understood the general aning of it. The boy had said sothing and the beasts had left? Maybe he was a mage? But where were his robes? For centuries, the Empire had enforced a law that required mages to wear their regalia openly whenever they left ho, along with severe penalties for those who disobeyed.

But... maybe they were in another country? No, that was too foolish to even consider.

Above her were familiar stars, and the early evening surrounded her. She had probably moved west, or maybe north, and, judging by the cold, quite far. But not far enough to find herself in the Kingdom of Ngia, the Brotherhood of Tazidahian, or the lands of the Armondo tribes.

More likely than not, she was now in the central part of the continent... Or perhaps near the Principality of Fatia?

No, of course not! She had just listed all of the Empire’s northern neighbors, how could she... This all felt like looking blindly at a map and hoping to guess where one was based on it.

"Where are we?"

The boy frowned for a mont, then said:

"Antareman. That what it called in language of she-wolf friend. Your language — I not know what call it."

Antareman... She would rember that.

"The witch who sent here? Do you know her?"

"Witch?" The boy repeated. "Aean’Hane? You know anyone na Aean’Hane?"

That strange word… For so reason, it seed familiar, as if she had heard it a long ti ago. So long ago that she had forgotten it, like a re bedti story.

"I don’t understand," she shook her head.

The boy sighed and pointed at himself.

"May I co?"

"Co? You want to co closer to ?"

The child nodded.

"You cold," he said. "Your cloak wet. You freeze. Bad. Hot end. Spirits co tomorrow. Take you breathe to ancestors."

Only then did she realize that she was completely chilled to the bone, and that even if she’d wanted to, she would’ve barely been able to unclench the fingers that had gripped her pistol. At best, they would simply not obey her, and at worst, they would shatter like thin glass.

"All right," she said, but she was ready to act. If the child made a wrong move, she would shoot, and it would likely be the last thing she ever did.

As if sensing her resolve, the boy walked slowly and deliberately. With each step he took, he held out his palms as if in prayer. Why? Then she saw his fingers. He wasn’t showing her his palms, but... his nails? Was he trying to show her that he didn’t intend to hurt her and that he wouldn’t scratch her too hard?

What a strange child. And what a strange place.

The boy was now standing beside her. By the Face of Light, they were the sa height! She was admittedly very small for a lady, but not so small as to be at eye level with a child.

Still showing her his nails, the boy reached into his cloak and pulled out so berries, so shavings, and a few dried flowers. He scooped up so snow, breathed on it, waited for it to lt, then popped a handful into his mouth, chewed it thoroughly, and spat it onto his palm.

The mixture looked unpleasant, was covered in saliva, and slled... well, surprisingly enticing. Like herbal tea.

"Eat."

"What?"

"Eat," the boy pointed to his mouth, then to hers. "Eat. If you not eat, spirits will co. Take you with them. Walk paths not for eyes. But if you not want..."

The boy shrugged and started to throw the slimy mush away.

"Wait!" She cried, then, trembling, she took the "treat" and, closing her eyes, swallowed it whole.

At first, nothing happened, and she thought that it had just been so kind of silly joke. But soon enough, sothing strange began to happen. It was as if a fire had been lit in her stomach. Not a scorching fire, but a gentle, warming one, like a fireplace on a cool fall day, with pedestrians outside hurrying ho and cars honking to avoid puddles.

Goosebumps marched up her neck — she could feel her toes again, and her ears were no longer in danger of falling off. Each heartbeat spread the warmth from her stomach throughout her body, and soon, she felt like she was enjoying a sunny spring day.

"What is this?"

The boy opened his mouth to answer her, but thought better of it, smiled, and simply said:

"You language — I not speak not lie."

If not for her frequent interactions with foreigners, including those from the island nations, she wouldn’t have understood a word of what the boy was saying.

"Thank you," she said, but still didn’t lower her gun.

The boy bead like a streetlight, obviously happy to be able to help. What was this naive and kind child doing alone at night in a wild forest?

"Where are your parents, boy?"

The child frowned.

"Parents? Ardi no parents. Have teachers. Have many friends. Parents… no."

By the Eternal Angels! She had heard stories of children being raised by animals. It happened for various reasons — they’d gotten lost in the woods or been abandoned by poor parents — but these were isolated cases, usually making the headlines of the tabloids. Once, such a child had even been brought to a fair. He’d behaved like a wolf, lunging at the cage bars, crawling on all fours, and growling instead of talking.

This boy didn’t fit that description at all.

"Can you take to your teacher?"

For the first ti that night, she saw sothing resembling fear in the child’s eyes. But he wasn’t afraid for himself.

"Bad," he shook his head so hard it was a wonder it didn’t fall right off. "Bad idea. You humans... human. Teacher not like human. He eat human. Okta good. Not want teacher eat you. Will be sad."

She decided not to focus on the fact that the boy’s teacher might eat her. Maybe he’d misspoken or she’d misunderstood him, which was essentially the sa thing. Either way, it was better not to risk it.

"Maybe Ardi can help Okta?" The boy perked up, pointing at himself. "You sll strange. You not walk paths here. Why you co?"

She smiled at the child — fate had brought her together with too kind a creature. And it was worth rejoicing at the fact that it wasn’t a hungry beast or so savage from the prival races.

"It’s unlikely that you can help , child," she started to touch him, but then withdrew her hand — sothing told her that it would be, as Ardi had put it, "a bad idea." "Unless you know where the Crystal Mountain Flower grows. The old witch said I could find it, and... Face of Light, I don’t even know if this is all a hallucination, and if it’s not, why should I believe the witch, I just-"

"Flower mountain transparent stone?" The boy interrupted and added in his strange language, "Altane’Mare."

The child looked at her and made another hand gesture as if to... reassure her?

"Ardi sorry for Okta. Okta pack with sick hunter?"

Her heart skipped a beat.

"My daughter," she whispered, and then the core that had held her together for a year cracked and she broke. She fell to her knees, right into the snow, hot tears streaming from her tired eyes. "My daughter beca ill last spring. Doctors, mages and even elven healers couldn’t do anything. I... I just wanted to relax a little. I went to that stupid Festival. I took no one else with , like a stupid girl, and now I’m here, and she... she might not live to see the end of the week. Oh, Face of Light, I won’t even be able to say goodbye and..."

She was hugged then. It was a tight and strong hug.

"Okta hurts. Ardi not like it when other hurts. Teacher will angry, but he understand. Maybe... I’m almost an adult hunter, I can decide for myself," she shuddered upon hearing a clear and coherent sentence from him, then stepped back and wiped away her tears. It wasn’t right to cry on a child’s shoulder. "I know where Altane’Mare live. Sll Okta. Read about it. Look like stone and salt. Sll Disease Heartstone. Old disease. Bad. Easy when Altane’Mare. When not spirits co. Fake disease."

"Fake disease’?" She repeated.

The boy nodded, thinking about it and searching for words.

"Aean’Hane... mmm... witch. You said word like that — witch. Witch make heart of stone. But it bad. Can’t find words for sickness. Bad way. Unworthy."

She thought about the boy’s words.

"Witch, fake disease," she repeated slowly, then understood. "It’s magic? My daughter was cursed? But the best scholars in the Empire couldn’t..."

She stopped and fell silent. They stood there for a while. She sat in the snow, not knowing who or what to believe, and the boy stood beside her, waiting for sothing.

"Can you take to... Altane’Mare?"

The boy puffed out his cheeks, then laughed. It was easy and bright. Not scary at all. It was almost as if he didn’t have long fangs in his mouth.

"Sorry," he wiped his nose. "Bad manners laugh when you wrong. Now understand she-wolf laugh when Ardi speak. Your language is funny."

All she could manage was a fake smile.

The boy looked into the thicket, clearly listening to sothing.

"Honestly, I never walk such path in past. Know how. But never walk."

"You’re not allowed?"

"Not… not allowed," the child shook his head. "Just... mmm... hard. Never try. No need. No interest."

"But you can-"

"For Okta will try," the boy interrupted. "Okta hurt. Okta’s daughter bad illness. Unworthy Aean’Hane," then the boy said sothing else in that unfamiliar, lodic language, but she didn’t need to understand the exact translation to hear the insult in the words. "She-wolf will disappoint if I not try to right wrong. I not sleep know I not help when I could try. Let go, Okta."

The child, seemingly unaware of what he was doing, held out his hand. Then he looked at it in surprise, and seed just as surprised at Okta when she took his hand.

"Strange gesture... How know and... Thought for tomorrow," he shook his head, then looked at her pistol. "Leave here. Sll iron. Bad sll. Won’t let us. And if let, will scold. Can speak for . Can not speak for Okta. Leave, please, sll iron."

For a few monts, she hesitated to part with the only thing that could protect her in this strange forest. But the face of her daughter appeared in her mind’s eye. By the Eternal Angels, only then did she realize that her daughter was barely any younger than this boy, three or four years younger at most, depending on whether she’d guessed his age correctly.

Finally, as the boy nad Ardi led her through the forest, the wind covered her old, antique, single-shot pistol with snow behind them. Her uncle, and the antiquarians along with him, would surely be deeply saddened by such a loss.

They walked among the trees and bushes, sotis zigzagging like rabbits, then stopping, going still like stones, and then moving again. If not for the boy’s confident stride, she would have thought he was leading her astray, but he was holding her hand tightly and wouldn’t let go, peering intently into the darkness all the while.

She would’ve given a great deal to know what his amber eyes were seeing in the darkness. She could only make out the outlines... The outlines of sothing that clearly couldn’t be in a snowy forest. Sotis, it seed as if they were not walking on snow, but on a wide road paved with old stones. Trees sotis turned into milestones and bushes into ruins of ancient structures.

Frozen streams stretched into distant hills, and hills suddenly plunged into deep lakes. Winter turned into colorful spring, and then back into a darker and colder winter than before.

"Oktana."

"What?"

She was about to turn around to see who was calling her, to make sure she hadn’t lost her mind, when her hand was painfully squeezed by strong, slightly calloused fingers.

"Don’t turn, Okta. These are the voices of the shadows. They want to lead you off the way. If you turn, we’ll lose the way and be stuck here for a year and a day, and I don’t know how to hunt on the local trails and-"

"You can speak normally in Galessian?" She nearly shouted in sheer confusion.

"I can’t," the boy shook his head. "But here, it’s not necessary. Here, everyone speaks their own language, and everyone understands each other. That is what the Queens decreed."

"What the Queens decreed..." She looked ahead, not understanding where the strange visions ended and the truth began, but sothing deep inside of her told her that the truth lay sowhere in the middle. "Where are we, Ardi?"

"This is the Land of the Fae."

She almost stumbled.

The Fae... An ancient race that had not been heard of for over half a millennium, ever since the birth of the Empire, when the human kingdoms had united to overthrow the oppressive Kingdom of Ectassus. Back then, a group of soldiers led by the legendary Sergeant ndera, may the Face of Light bless him, had managed to steal the Fla of the Sidhe from the Fae’s castle, turning the tide of the war.

With the Fla, the mages of the Empire had been able to draw almost unlimited energy from the Ley, and the war, which had lasted nearly a quarter of a century by then, had ended in just two years, and out of the ashes and smoke had arisen the Empire of the New Monarchy.

Soon after, the Fae and their aristocrats, the Sidhe, had disappeared from the pages of history. So scholars claid that they’d perished, but most believed that the Sidhe, with the help of the Speakers’ magic, had managed to hide in the shadows — in the very folds of reality where they couldn’t be disturbed by mortal conflict.

The Fae had always been known for their magical prowess — even the elves couldn’t match them when it ca to spells and enchantnts.

"But-"

"We’re here," the boy interrupted her.

He took a step forward and she followed him, and everything around them changed. They were standing at the edge of a stream that flowed into a small lake, and around them... trees stood with trunks of bizarre shapes that resembled the courtly dance called "pas." Their dark crowns intertwined in a wide arc, and instead of leaves, colorful stars sparkled there. Flowers and grasses reached for her feet, but she ignored them.

She was srized by the sky. Up there, along the star path, the constellations of both hemispheres and all four cardinal directions seed to shift around in a wild dance. They swirled and swirled in a rapid manner, and she-

"Don’t look, Oktana," the boy squeezed her hand again. "It’s a trap. We ca here without permission, so it will lure you in and not let go."

The child’s words were like a cold shower, and she still barely managed to turn away. Now all she could see was the magical island. It was big enough to hold a hundred people. In its center grew a cherry tree, from which a steady erald light seed to be pouring down, illuminating the lake and the surrounding forest.

But that wasn’t what made it magical. It was the endless array of colorful flowers. There were so she knew by na, but many more were simply amazing and unknown to her.

"Little Speaker," the wind whispered suddenly.

The flowers beneath her feet stirred, their buds swaying and torn petals swirling into a dance, but instead of scattering, they gathered into the shapes and outlines of a slender female figure. Butterflies flew in, folding their wings to beco her eyes; cherry tree branches ca down to beco her hair and lips; the earth rose to beco a beautiful face, and the buds and flowers filled with light to beco a body of incomparable elegance.

A mont later, she and the child were standing before a woman who would make even elven princesses look like average peasant girls by comparison and the famous beauties of the Principality of Scaldavin and the Kingdom of Urdavan weep with envy.