Violet Siobelga walked ahead of the carriage towards a bridge. The horses followed her with difficulty. Soon it was night, but it was already as dark as it had been all day. The difference was barely noticeable. The light from the lanterns at the corners of the carriage didn't even reach the horses. Violet could barely make out what lay ahead of her steps. The sky was completely black.

She stopped a long way before the bridge. It started raining again. The first drops shook the old puddles next to her boots and dull rings pulsed in the white reflection of her swords. "Umm..." Violet murmured discontentedly. It really was the worst possible moment for rain...

Perhaps it would be wiser to wait, but she had a schedule she wanted to keep and there was no guarantee it would stop in the next few days. In the current season, it could rain for a week straight. Officially the rainy season was over next week, but the weather didn't care about that schedule as much as Violet cared about hers.

Violet was the leader of this convoy. She didn't work directly for the king, the queen or the country. She was a mercenary. She was promised sufficient pay, so she accepted the job. She had often escorted convoys in the past, but rarely did she ever actually had her weapons with her on such missions. This time was a special case.

In the corner of her eye, Violet noticed someone jumping off the carriage into the mud behind her and then running to catch up with her. She already knew who it was. But she would also recognize it by the fact that the person didn't seem to care about her clothes, otherwise she would not be running right now. The woman with the mask reached her.

"Ah, you're here." Violet pointed ahead of herself into the darkness. "The bridge is over there." she explained.

In the darkness, they could only make out the outline of the bridge, but at least that much.

"Um." the woman nodded. That was all. Nothing more came back from her.

Violet was used to this behavior by now. The woman didn't belong to her. Her presence was a condition of being given the job. They had hired her, but they probably didn't trust her that much after all. The name of the woman in the mask was Yuri. She was a member of the Kingsguard of Jena. Violet didn't necessarily had to take her along. The Kingsguard consisted of five people and she had been given a free choice of three of them. Unfortunately, the person Violet would have liked was not among those three. Out of them, Violet didn't get along with one of the men since he was an ass, and maybe also because he had the title she would have liked. From the other two, she chose Yuri by process of elimination.

Violet had nothing against her, but the weather meant that the journey took around six days in total and, as Violet had to discover that she was not necessarily talkative. The biggest danger of the journey was death. However, not at the hands of a third party, but from boredom. How could Yuri herself bear the constant silence? It was really a mystery.

Violet also had the feeling that Yuri resented her for being chosen by her. But maybe that was just imagination.

The scrap of fabric was still following Violet. Now that Yuri was around, two tiny hands came out from underneath and turned one side of the fabric up.

A small face was revealed. It was a fairy. She went by the name of Lyr. Her eyes were all red and deeply undermined. Her face was wet and strands of hair stuck to her forehead. A raindrop fell from her nose ... Arguably, it was a raindrop. - In any case, the journey and the weather had not been kind to her, as was visible. It was known in advance how the weather would be. There were dozens of reasons why Violet had taken her along anyway. The first was that she wanted to. Another, was of course that she could fly. Unfortunately, her wings glistened in the moonlight, so she had to wear the fabric over herself to avoid being spotted.

"The things you do for money." she said shocked as she held up the fabric, scrunched up her nose and as the rain pattered on her head.

"Still looks better than what you usually wear, fufu..." Violet said that with a smile, to make it easier to recognize that she was joking. It was an invitation for some friendly banter. But that wasn't the only purpose... On the side, Violet glanced at Yuri. Violet knew that Yuri found such teasing funny. She laughed at it every time.

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"..."

Yuri's eyes were soulless.

Yuri turned away.

But Violet immediately shook it off. She hadn't really expected anything else. After all, Yuri didn't know either of them and certainly couldn't understand the joke. The joke was that Lyr almost always wore a certain kind of plain silk dress. Those simply had no class. The scrap of cloth was therefore superior.

"Says the one who always dresses like she's an advertising model for a dairy." Lyr teased back.

Immediately afterwards, Violet noticed suspicious noises coming from Yuri.

"Pfff..."

"You thought that was funny now?" Violet threw up her hand in dismay. "I feel like I've been treated unfairly."

No reply.

Everyone was silent for a moment.

Lyr rolled her eyes.

"I'll check the bridge now and then give the signal."

"Yes, yes, just fly off." Violet waved her away.

It was annoying... Lyr had won again. Whenever the three of them were together, they both tried to get a laugh out of Yuri and she always won by such cheap means. It was probably because Lyr and Yuir were about the same age. Both were still in their early twenties, while Violet was already in her upper twenties - or rather: They weren't mature enough yet. After all, with more maturity comes a higher demand when it comes to humor. Since Violet knew that, she could forgive them.

Violet had already instructed Lyr to check the underside of the bridge as soon as they arrived with the convoy. She had planned the entire route of the escort herself. Apart from her, only Yuri, Lyr, the king, the queen and two ministers knew the route. But far more people knew the destination. It was not nearly as secret as it seemed, nor was it safe. There was a high probability that they would be attacked and if they were attacked, it would be at this bridge. It was the perfect place for an ambush. Anyone who knew the destination could imagine that they would pass here. The bridge was the most dangerous part of the route.

Now that they were close, she could already hear the rushing water and how it tugged at the steel. Beneath the bridge lay a gigantic river. At this point it was almost 900 meters wide. It had been making its way through this forest for almost 100 years and with its speed it kept tearing out ever more of the huge trees of the forest.

Violet had been to the spring many times in the past. It was simply a huge hole in the island. Boiling hot water shot up into the sky incessantly. It rose as high as a small mountain and came crashing down to earth. Water vapor hung everywhere in the air. The area around the hole consisted only of bare earth. There were no plants growing around it. It was hot. The heat burned your lungs, so hot it was. It was a terrible place up close, but from a distance it was the opposite. You could see the water vapor glistening in the sun and the air shimmering above the earth. There was almost always a rainbow in the sky and snow-capped mountains towering in the background. It was beautiful.

The last time Violet was there, it was for a job. She and a member of the Kingsguard were supposed to find the source of the stream, but the high temperatures prevented her from even getting close to the hole. Unfortunately, withstanding high temperatures was not one of her strengths. The man from the Kingsguard was better at it. He succeeded to get into and even against the current, but in the end he couldn't gain any insights either. It was simply too deep.

Researchers suspected that the island had developed a crack in which seawater flowed due to plate displacement. Between the layers of earth, the water hit magma and the high pressure caused it to shoot out of the top of the island. Simply put, they thought it was some kind of permanent giga geyser, or something like that. Unfortunately, Violet hadn't really listened, nor did she know anything about geosciences. But what the researchers really suspected was certainly at least similar to her guess about their guess.

The bridge was originally built over an empty chasm. It was said that a conceited nobleman often had to travel this way to the capital. He commissioned this absurdly large bridge with the aim of bringing honor to his name, but shortly before completion he ran out of money and the upper side was later simply made of wood by someone else. When the giant geyser erupted, the masses of water made their way through the chasm and fortunately the bridge has so far been stable enough to withstand them.

Apart from this bridge, there was only one other bridge that crossed this stream. The second one was located near the coast and was built around 80 years ago at enormous expense. Since then, the trade route ran along it and this bridge was no longer used. When you looked at it, you immediately understood why. Water was constantly lashing onto the top. The wood was rotten and slippery. The whole structure often swayed because a tree or boulder hit one of the pillars. At the same time, it was not much wider than a carriage. If you drove over it with a wagon, there was a danger that the horses would startle or slide off and you would end up with everything in the water.

.../ End Part