It was getting dark while Hildegard and Svetlana were somewhere near the heart of the gloomy forest. It was too late to keep looking for clues and the chapels so setting up for the night seemed like the best course of action. They trotted along on their horses until they found a spot wide enough to camp safely on. It didn’t take long to find what they considered a perfect spot. Neither of them had left their homes expecting extensive camping, so neither of them had a lot with them to set up.

Hildegard suggested that Svetlana look for wood while she go and hunt for something to eat. Svetlana had no objection. She took a hatchet that was attached on the side of her saddle pack. As Svetlana was grabbing her hatchet Hildegard swiftly and quietly disappeared into the darkness of the night, on the hunt for prey while Svetlana stayed near the horses while looking for usable wood. She found herself somewhat lucky that she found some quite usable wood close to their spot.

Svetlana quickly found enough wood for the fire, most of it dry and easily chopped down to produce enough to keep it going all night. It took Svetlana little time to collect what she needed and make her way back to the camp. Before the darkest of night fell upon the camp, Svetlana had already gotten the fire started and was still waiting for the princess to return. She even took some extra time to chop parts of a fallen nearby tree into stumps they could sit on. As an extra precaution checked that they had enough water to drink, which seemed plenty. There wasn’t anything more that she could be doing at this moment so she decided to try and get a quick power nap, while keeping an ear out for any sound, of course. She had no idea how long Hildegard would be gone but as she hadn’t slept much the last two days this was as good an opportunity as any to catch up.

Some considerable distance away Hildegard was standing on a tree branch, knives at the ready, listening like an own to the subtle sounds of the animals moving about below her. She stood so still that only the bats knew of her existence, which was fine by her as bat meat was rather unpleasant.

She heard and felt the winds rustling the leaves all around her, but no clear sign of a vulnerable animal just yet.

Several trees over Hildegard heard the sound of an owl landing, stepping side to side trying to find a comfortable spot, then it too seemed to disappear into foliage. This was a competitor for her meal and she wouldn’t let it beat her. She focused particularly hard on the noises below, and sure enough she heard a faint rustle on the ground. No, wait. It was two different rustles actually, one to her left and another slightly further away but on her right. As soon as she heard the barely audible sound of the owl dropping from its branch she launched both knives down at the prey. She heard the knives thud into the ground below, followed immediately by the flapping and fleeing of the owl, that was excellent news for her.

She immediately got down from the tree to find out what dinner would be. The knife on her left had hit a fat rabbit, by itself enough to feed them both, but on her right she seemed to have missed her target. Upon closer inspection of the area it turned out she hadn’t missed, her knife had blood on it, but there was no trail leading anywhere, nor could she sense any other animals around. As the rabbit would suffice for dinner, Hildegard decided tho return towards the camp.

Hildegard had an approximate idea of which direction to go, she headed out in the hope that Svetlana would have a fire going and she could use the light to find her way. It wasn’t long before she spotted light ahead of her, slightly off centre. She adjusted her approach and continued to hurry at a steady pace along the ground without disturbing a single leaf on the ground, dodging the trees like they were merely apparitions, yet seemed to make no progress in getting closer to the light. Hildegard tried to get to higher ground to help spot the light she was running towards so she ran up the nearest tree. The higher vantage point wasn’t helping. She could only see glimmers of light in the imperceivable distance but she couldn’t see the source of it at all.

It was in this moment that she became aware of a prominent absence of sound. She felt a familiar and heavy atmosphere all around her, though she was sure she was not sleeping this time. Something felt off. She held her breath in anticipation, waited for something to happen but nothing did. She remained motionless for a little bit longer still expecting something to happen. Eventually she convinced herself it was alright to move, despite the atmosphere around her still feeling off.

As she got ready to jump out of the tree there was a very loud cracking sound followed by the feeling of gravity shifting around her. The tree was falling over and her with it.

Though she didn’t know what could have possible broken the tree, she thought it had to be large to achieve this and that it was deliberate. As she fell to the ground she landed in a bushed and immediately readied a knife. She rolled out of the bush to hide behind a different tree where she would try to catch her breath and get a sense of her surroundings; hopefully revealing her attacker in the process.

She sensed something near where the broken stump was. Whatever it was it hadn’t moved. She decided to subtly look towards the broken trunk, whatever was there still wasn’t moving.

Swiftly and elegantly she jumped from behind one tree to the cover of the next one, while throwing a dagger at the unmoving figure mid-jump. The knife landed dead-centre in the chest of the figure. Though she could not see it from cover, she figure did seemed unfazed by the dagger in its chest, she waited impatiently for the sound of a drop that would never come.

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She didn’t dare peek around the tree just yet and waited instead for the sound of movement, most likely in her direction, though this didn’t happen either.

She readied herself to sprint to the next tree with the goal of having a look her the figure, but before she had the chance to do so she was interrupted. A loud cracking sound as well as a massive gust of wind from right above her pushed her down to the ground. She quickly turned around to look at the tree. Where there had been a thick tree for her to hide behind there was now a big hole. Directly across from the big hole, in the tree across from it, Hildegard could see her dagger deeply imbedded in a deep split of the trunk. The figure must have taken the dagger from its chest and thrown it back towards her, she though. The amount of force required to achieve this was more than Hildegard could possible fathom and she remained frozen, what if that had hit me? Is this even a fight she could survive?

“Princess!” A voice broke Hildegard’s fear.

“Princess!” The voice repeated, though this time Hildegard recognised it.

She could tell that it was Svetlana and that she was currently running towards her. Svetlana was running with a torch in one hand and her hatchet in the other. As soon as she got close enough to spot it, Svetlana launched her hatchet at the shadowy figure. Her axe throw was perfect and much like Hildegard, Svetlana, too, hit the figure dead-centre in the chest. The figure dropped to the floor as Svetlana hid behind a tree only meters away from Hildegard.

“I heard an unsettling sound and came to check it out,” Svetlana shouted over to Hildegard, “Who or what is that?”

“I’m glad you managed to get here,” Hildegard responded, “When I felt the atmosphere change I tried to head back to camp only to be met by that beast.”

“It appeared out of nowhere,” Hildegard continued, “I hit it with my dagger to no effect. It even threw it back right through the tree.”

Svetlana looked over to the tree Hildegard was pointing at and shivered in horror.

The two of them waited, occasionally peeking around their cover, in anticipation of movement from the fallen figure, yet it did not; there was no more movement or presence of any kind.

They moved closer, walking past the destroyed tree to find that whatever had been there was now gone, only the hatchet with bloodied edge remained. Using her torch Svetlana tried to find any sign escape or a trail of blood but there were further indications that there even had been anyone here. She picked up her hatchet to inspect it before handing it over to Hildegard.

She inspected it under the torchlight. The blood along the edge was distinctly black.

“Whatever it was,” Svetlana began, “I clearly hit it.”

Hildegard nodded before she ran over to her knife in the tree. A few attempts were made to get the knife out before asking Svetlana for help. Though she eventually did manage to pull the knife out, it not only took her a few attempts but required to use the handle of the hatchet as a lever to pull it out.

Hildegard took the knife and inspected both of them in the light, black blood.

They both nodded in silent agreement.

“I think were safe for now,” Svetlana said as she looked all around her, “Yet we best head back to camp for the night.”

Their journey back to camp was reasonably short and entirely event-free, it wasn’t long before their dinner was roasting on the fire.

As they waited for the rabbit to roast Hildegard gave Svetlana a step-by-step account of what happened from the moment they split till Svetlana rejoined her in the woods.

“The timing cannot be coincidence, surely,” Hildegard began, “I have never been attacked like this in all my years travelling these woods.”

Svetlana had to agree this was unheard of on their side, too.

While Svetlana took a moment to think to herself Hildegard prodded the rabbit to check how cooked the meat was, herself not dissimilarly in thought.

Svetlana added some wood to the fire.

“We’ll sleep in shifts tonight,” Svetlana said to break the silence looming over them, “I don’t think we need to expect anything in the night, but I prefer to be safe. I think you were right though, this is significant, we’ll revisit the locations in the morning.”

Hildegard nodded in agreement, getting visibly tired.

“I’ll take the first shift,” Svetlana said as if sensing Hildegard wasn’t feeling like herself, “You go rest for now.”

Again Hildegard nodded absentmindedly before turning over and attempting to sleep.

It took a while for Hildegard to fall into deep sleep, her heart was still racing from the attack. The eery silence of the forest was being drowned out by the crackling of the wood, which helped her fall asleep. It wasn’t that she was tired because she wasn’t used to fighting, far from it. Something about the sense of hopelessness she felt really overwhelmed and drained her, this was not a feeling she encountered before on the battlefield. She worried that she may not be strong enough if the figure appeared again, though she though she was grateful that Svetlana showed up when she did.

As she dozed off many thoughts rushed through her head in the last lucid moments. She couldn’t make sense of why the figure was so passive. Was it out to hurt her or simply taunting her? Or maybe this was meant to keep her away from, in which case they were on the right track, as Svetlana had suggested. How was any of this related to her nightmares?

Now that she thought about it, she didn’t want to fall asleep, but she couldn’t help but push these thoughts out, and she was extremely tired; she fell promptly asleep.

Only a few steps away Svetlana was going through similar thoughts. She was convinced none of this was a coincidence, and that this figure was very much related to the nightmares both royals were experiencing. Without a doubt forces beyond her understanding were trying to get in their way, though the encounter with the figure had yet to make sense. She wondered if this was perhaps a test of some kind, an assessment of their abilities? Did it consider them a threat? It certainly displayed strength she had never seen before, so surely not.

While playing with the thoughts she feared it was test, but hoped very much that this was some attempt to keep them away; that at least she could do something about.

Contrary to what she told Hildegard, Svetlana had no intention of waking her for a shift change, she had reserved herself to standing guard all night long; letting the princess dream in search of more answers.

Her thoughts wondered to her comrades in Solace, she hoped they had luck on their side. Hopefully they would have something to add to this jumble of mysterious puzzle pieces that fit together somehow; leading them to Fried.