Owlodin [https://i.imgur.com/5l6WvQl.png]

For days I sit on the bony shore before the shimmering pond of Moonhollow, eyes closed and legs crossed. I don't eat. Before leaving me, Cassian advised fasting as a way of facilitating a feeling of disconnect between my consciousness and my physical body. Normally, after years of living in the Wood, losing my grip on reality and my sense of self would seem an easy task. Now my mind can't seem to forget Korrigan's warning: By next moon she will perish. I can't still my thoughts, can't escape the feeling that I'm running out of time. My fear binds my attention to the passing of every moment. I didn't realize how much I miss her until I’d begun to think I'd never get to see her again. When I return, will she be the same as I remember? I am no longer her little bird; she'll look at me and see a stranger.

Your hunger is starting to aggravate me. How can you stand it? Balsevor says.

"I stopped noticing it ages ago. Please be quiet."

Impossible. It's a grumbling monster. I never thought I would crave your bland human sustenance. I live in this body too, you know, and it needs to eat or it will die!

"Only death truly frees any of us," I say.

Is that what this is? You wish to- Oh. He realizes I am using his own dramatic statements against him a moment too late. Just hurry up, will you? I'm not enjoying this foolish endeavor.

"It probably wouldn't take me so long if it wasn't for the grumbling monster that keeps distracting me." He starts to respond, but before he can form a word I add, "I'm not talking about my stomach."

For a while, the sun dragon is quiet. My thoughts drift. I try to conjure up the feeling of flying, floating up and out of my body as it remains heavy on the shore. As the inconvenient physical form I am tied to sits cross-legged below, I imagine my mind drifting across a horizon full of puffy purple clouds. Every time I think about my mother or Korrigan's prophecy, I start to sink back to earth. To combat this, I visualize the nagging thoughts personified. My mother is there, holding on to me with her soft hands, gravity tugging her downward and pulling me with her. Her billowing purple skirts match the color of the clouds, her blue eyes plead for me to save her. I wriggle free from her grasp. As she falls, I drift back up, weightless.

I realize that every time I see her this way, she is silent. She has no voice. She doesn't cry out as she falls from the sky, just stares up at me before she disappears from sight. What does her voice sound like? Her laugh? I can't remember. I feel a seed of panic growing in my empty stomach, and suddenly I am on the beach again. I don't hear my mother's laugh, just the lilting faerie music I've gotten so used to, a haunting melody for the Moonhollow spectres to dance their endless dance.

Hours or days later, Cassian interrupts my meditation with a light tap on the arm. It feels like a slap, snapping me back into my body all at once. My head swims and I feel a wave of nausea. I open my eyes to see him holding out a crystalline goblet, rimmed with sparkling gemstones. I eye its contents suspiciously. It's hard to focus on what I'm seeing. I try to blink away the fog.

Great, Balsevor says. He brought you a shiny cup. Why couldn't he have brought food?

"It's water. Just water. No enchantments or poison," Cassian says, rolling his eyes at my dazed expression. "You've been here seven days. I'm starting to believe you may not be as human as I thought."

"No…" The word comes out like a sigh, breathy and ethereal. I look down at the feathers fluttering along my arms, the ember-bright glow beneath my skin. "That's the problem, isn't it?" As I watch, the flickering fire inside of me begins to fade from view, the feathers shrinking into nothing. "I'm too human, but not human enough."

Cassian squints at me, still holding out the goblet. "You've made progress. I can see through it, but the glamour is there. Shouldn't be possible," he mutters, but then he grins. He looks almost… proud.

Balsevor scoffs. It's only glamour. It is well within your power, especially after days of boring mind wandering.

The water from the goblet slides down my throat like cool starlight. The nausea dissipates and my head clears. "No enchantments?" I say.

"Well, it's from a faerie spring," he admits. "But those are natural properties, not enchantments. I can tell no lies, remember?"

Hmph. I still would have preferred a nice hunk of charred meat, or even some bread, Balsevor says.

Tuning out the sun dragon's griping, I lift the goblet in a gesture of thanks. "Fair enough. I'm grateful for it," I say, taking another sip. "This business of losing myself to the chaos has taken a bit of a toll. But I feel it. I'm close. I just need a bit more practice."

Cassian nods. "It is one thing to embrace the fluidity of self here, in Moonhollow. Outside of this place, your attachment to 'reality' will become a greater obstacle." He smiles. "But I don't doubt your capability. Part of me feels that even without my guidance you would have solved our magic's mystery. You have the stubborn will of one of the fae."

Balsevor stops his quiet grumbling to comment, Stubborn? The fae? I wouldn't say-

"That's a high compliment." I smile back at Cassian. "I'd say you were simply trying to flatter me, but I've been told you can't lie." After a moment I chuckle and add, "Are you sure it's not a touch of madness that reminds you of your kind?"

I told you! Balsevor says. Faeries aren't stubborn, they're deranged.

I look at Cassian out of the corner of my eye, and for a beat he looks appalled, frozen and wide-eyed. I tense. Even with Balsevor on my side, offending a faerie prince would be a death sentence here in the Wood. Then I see the gleam in his eye. He's just trying to scare me. I tentatively start to laugh.

The prince joins in with a bright cackle, the distinctly non-human pitch echoing across the valley. "A touch of madness? Owlodin, my friend, you've completely lost your mind!"

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

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Cassian travels with me to the edge of the Faerie Wood. I don't ask him to, but it's nice to start my journey with the company of a friend, even if that friend is flitting through the air in the form of a gold-breasted swallow. As we fly, I survey the endless maze of twisted branches below, my home for nearing nine years. A blink of an eye to most of the fae, but almost half the years I've been alive. So much of who I've become is tied to this enchanted soil. Yet I'm not rooted here. I never was. I'm drifting, rootless. Like Balsevor, outcast from the sun.

Going back to Ylvemore will not turn me back into Prince Adain. I will also no longer be the Wizard of the Wood. Who am I, when you strip away the titles and the frills, beneath the glamour and the dragon fire? Maybe finding out is part of what drives me to go.

After almost a full day of travel we start to see a hazy red glow ahead, rising above the leafy canopy. I notice Cassian falter in his flight, but he continues on without comment. When we reach the end of the trees, he lands on the upper branch of a great oak. In a blink he's back in his princely form, perched gracefully in the tree. I land beside him.

"This is where I take your leave," Cassian says.

Finally, Balsevor says. I'm tired of being followed around by an irritating faerie boy.

For the first time I consider Balsevor might be jealous, and I resist the urge to smirk. Perhaps he's gotten a bit too comfortable being my one and only friend.

"Thank you for coming this far," I say to Cassian. "I will not forget all you've done for me. I owe you a blood debt."

Balsevor groans. Don't remind him!

Cassian says nothing, just turns to take in the landscape before us. The line of trees cuts off all at once. Not even a single branch reaches out beyond a certain point, as though there is an invisible wall. Beyond is a wasteland. The fertile soil of the Wood gives way to a seemingly endless stretch of dry, cracked earth. Through the thick red haze that lingers in the air I can make out a few blackened stumps, the only sign that this was ever anything but a desert. The heat is a tangible thing, emanating from the area in pulsing waves. It doesn't bother me, but I can see the discomfort on Cassian's face. To him, this place is nothing but pain.

It's not so bad, Balsevor says. Sort of nice. Warm. Faerie weakling.

I stand on a branch close to the Wood's edge, holding on with one hand while I lean out into the wasteland, reaching to touch the scorched air. "I remember the first time I saw this place," I say. "That day was such a blur. I was running away from home. Flying. I'd never flown before." I laugh wryly. "I thought myself brave, but I was such a baby. Overwhelmed with fear and self pity. So hurt and angry. And burning up with power I couldn't even comprehend."

Balsevor makes a deep thrumming sound, almost like a purr. I get the sense he is pleased with himself, with the gift he gave to me. The heart of a dragon tucked into the body of a little boy.

Cassian tilts his head. He does not press me for details about that power or ask where it originated from. To a faerie, that kind of question would have a cost. "You were betrayed," he concludes, piecing together the information I've given him. "And yet you would return."

"I have to," I say, taking a deep breath in.

Do you? Balsevor asks.

"Are you sure it isn't a trap?" Cassian asks. "This power you have. Wouldn't the Ironborn wish to have it for themselves?"

It is the first time I've ever heard him directly refer to the Ironborn. To me, their name brings up memories of courtly politics and imperious uncle-figures, but it is impossible to hold on to that naivete when standing right before their greatest achievement. They created this place. Burned away the magic of the Wood, cursed the earth with dark magic, poisoned it with salt and iron. I can feel it on my fingertips: death. How could anyone be proud of this?

I consider Cassian's question. "Are you implying that they may be using my mother to lure me back to Ylvemore?" I ask. It seems ridiculously self-centered to think they'd go to such lengths to set some sort of trap just for me, especially after so many years. "Why now? I am not the boy I was. They have no control over me."

We could burn their little cities to the ground, Balsevor says. Show them what it's like.

Cassian shrugs. "Will you make yourself known, then?" I detect a note of real concern under the nonchalance.

I had pictured myself running to my mother's bedside, telling her how much I'd missed her, perhaps doing something grand to save her life. "No," I say. "I suppose not."

There is no dignity in sneaking around, Balsevor rumbles. Why hide? They are nothing.

"Good," Cassian says. "The Ironborn." He picks his words carefully. "They destroyed so much. The fae may never be what they once were. I would hate to hear they'd destroyed you, too."

Balsevor scoffs. They are not capable.

"Or worse," Cassian adds, "that you are under their thrall." He meets my eyes, brow furrowed. "I believe they will finish what they started, if they get the chance. Do not give it to them."

"I won't," I say.

"Is that a promise, Wizard? If you make that oath, and keep it, I will consider your blood debt paid."

I blink in surprise. Is that truly all he'd ask of me? "I will not allow my power to be used against faerie-kind," I say. "I promise."

Balsevor gives a soft hiss.

Cassian nods. "If you have need of me, I will come. The birds will be watching. Give them a message and I will hear."

I remember the small silver disk in my pocket and the dwarf who gave it to me. I'll know yer lookin', and I'll do my best ta help if ya need me. It seems I have more friends than I thought.

"We shall meet again," I say, smiling. I hop off the branch and hover in the air, just beyond the Wood's border. The searing heat envelops me like a comforting hug. "Farewell, Cassian."

The wasteland is heavy with lingering magic. I can feel the ghosts of all the faerie lives that were snuffed out, a sort of screaming along my skin. But there are no real sounds. It is quiet, with barely a whisper of wind. When I look below me, I can just make out the bones half-buried in the shifting sand.

"You don't think they'd hurt my mother, do you?" I ask Balsevor as we fly. I can no longer make out the treeline.

They trapped us in a tower, Balsevor says. Not to mention what they've done to this place. It reminds me of another planet. Nothing Earthly can survive here now.

"They hate the fae, but they were trying to protect humankind. Cassian even said that what the faeries did was wrong." But even as I say it, I look around me and shudder. "I hated them for locking me in that tower. But they thought I was possessed by a demon. How wrong were they, really? They had no reason to know it was not against my will."

Balsevor grunts. I can hear the eyeroll in it.

"I just..."

You want to justify their actions, despite how terrible they are. Balsevor sounds irritated. Because you don't want to consider that they'd hurt your mother. Why?

"Because she believed in them," I say. "She loved them."

They are a group of human wizards desperately grasping for power. You truly think they care how devoted someone is to their church? Balsevor asks.

"I shouldn't have left, then!" I say, my voice catching. "They are supposed to protect humankind. To protect my parents. That's their purpose. If they are as you say, I should have stayed and protected her myself." I shake my head. "And instead I ran away."

Ahh, Balsevor says. I see.