The air on Talamh Fiaigh felt different to that on Angalir, everything on the island felt like the magic of nature was weaved into it. From the mighty mountains that looked like they were pulled out of the ground, to the deep lochs with ancient secrets far beneath their surface. The grass really was greener on the other side of the channel. Yara had simply been taking in her surroundings after they'd made landfall. The ferry had brought them close to den Chlaíomh lands. The first thing Githeon wanted to take her to see his adoptive daughter.

  ‘You’ll love her I can already tell,’ he said, giddy with excitement.

  ‘You didn’t just leave her somewhere, right?’ Yara said, 'you don't seem the type.'

  ‘No, no she’s with my aunt, a lovely lady she is.’

  They approached a small village built along the main road and stopped there when they arrived. The town was made up of small, stone houses with slate roofing. It had a square in the middle, with both a road leading further on and into the mountains. The piles of roughly-hewn stones and coal strewn about the town and in storages for masons gave away that they were in a mining town. Githeon's attempt at teaching Yara some Fiaighan had come in handy, as it helped her confirm that fact when she came across a sign she recognised. Githeon got down from his horse first and took him by the reins. He calmly walked towards the largest house, which by all accounts still wasn't that big, and knocked off the door. A frail, feminine voice replied from behind it. Yara didn't understand a word of their conversation, and instead got out of her saddle while she waited for the door to open. Githeon's aunt stepped outside not long after. Her hair was grey and kept short. Her face was gaunt, but still looked warm and friendly. She reminded Yara of both Eleyna and Arran a little bit. Githeon's aunt gave him a hug and looked at her guest.

  ‘Yara, this is my aunt Ailis.’

  ‘Pleasure to meet you,’ said Yara as she extended her hand. Ailis gave her an endeared smile before she shook Yara's hand rather meekly. She turned around before saying something in Fiaighan.

  ‘We don’t really shake hands here,’ Githeon said as he bent down.

  ‘Oh, I didn’t offend her or anything, did I?’ Yara replied, I wouldn't want to upset her.'

  ‘No, she probably just thinks you’re a little odd,’ he laughed.

  ‘That makes two of us,’ said Yara while she followed Githeon and Ailis in. Githeon asked his aunt something before he walked off into a side room. The inside of the house was cosy. There was a gently crackling firepit in the middle of the room with a sort of low, round table around it. There were simple but comfortable looking chairs there too. The grey stone walls were boarded up with planks and wooden beams. Yara took a seat, and Githeon’s aunt did the same opposite to her. She looked at Yara with curious eyes and asked something that she couldn’t understand. Githeon walked in, a toddler held close to his chest as she hung onto her adoptive father. He’d heard his aunt speak and chose to reply in the same language. Ailis' eyes widened and she gestured apologetically.

  ‘You don’t speak Fiaighan?’ her accent was rather thick, but it became easier to understand her the longer she spoke.

  Yara shook her head, ‘no, I don’t,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry if that’s a problem.’

  ‘Not at all child, not at all,’ said Ailis, ‘would you care for a drink?’

  Yara nodded. She started to stare at the firepit. Ailis looked at Githeon and started to scold him in Fiaighan. They argued back and forth a bit before Githeon sighed, put his daughter on his chair, and left the house. Ailis once again turned her attention to Yara. She gestured at her guest's hair

  ‘Who is the ponytail for?’ she asked with genuine interest in her voice. Yara raised an eyebrow.

  ‘My ponytail?’ she asked, ‘I'm sorry, I afraid I don’t understand.’

  ‘Oh I realise you're not from here. In Talamh Fiaigh when a girl wears her hair like that, it means she’s in love.’

  ‘Oh, we don’t really do that on Angalir,’ she answered, ‘Though I suppose…’

  ‘Well, whoever he is, he’s very lucky to have you,’ Ailis said with a warm smile. That same kind of warm smile Yara had gotten used to seeing on her guardian's face.

  ‘I wish he'd realise that...’ Yara trailed off near the end of her sentence.

  'it'd be a bit foolish of him not to.'

  Yara scoffed, 'he's an idiot to be sure, but... he means well...' she sounded a little sad and started to fidget with her hands.

  ‘What reasons do you have, if you don't mind me asking?’

  ‘Practicality, for the most part. I also just like it more than any other style,’ said Yara. She looked at the toddler that sat on the ground, totally enamoured by the flames in the middle of the room. Githeon returned with a bucket filled with water. He grabbed a cup from the kitchen and filled it before handing it to Yara.

  ‘Drink up,’ he said. She thanked him and took a swig immediately, after all she could do with a drink. She noticed just how freezing cold the water was when she swallowed it. She shivered from head-to-toe.

  ‘Where’d this come from?’

  ‘The well, it gets its water from a nearby loch,’ said Githeon, he’d sat down on the ground and put his toddler on his lap, ‘say hi, Aine,’ he said to her. The young girl’s deep blue eyes half hidden behind her curly blonde hair, stared at Yara and she didn’t say a word. Githeon sighed, ‘I’ve been trying to get her to talk for so long now.’

  ‘Give her time,’ said Yara, she looked Aine in the eyes.

  ‘It worries me,’ Githeon said, 'I really don't want her to have a leaden tongue forever.

  ‘It'll be scary, for a while, but she’ll take that step, eventually anyhow.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’ asked Githeon, his eyes focused on his daughter.

  ‘I was like her until I was six. If I can do it, so can she.’

  Yara caught a glimpse of a smile on the little girl’s face. She'd understood what Yara had said, at least that's what that smile communicated.

  ‘How will I know what she wants?’ asked Githeon, Aine now looked at her adoptive father.

  ‘She’ll tell you, provided you know how to listen,’ Yara took another swig of the water and shivered from head to toe a second time.

  ‘Is the water normally th-this c-cold?’ she asked through clattering teeth. For a split second she swore she could see her breath in front of her face.

  ‘It shouldn’t be…’ said Githeon, ‘Right, aunt Ailis?’

  ‘The water’s been freezing cold year round, can't even boil it,’ she replied, shaking her head.

  ‘You said it all came from a loch, right?’ Yara asked Githeon.

  ‘Well, yes,but it’s only a lake in the highlands.’

  ‘It could be the Nathair na gheimhridh.’

  ‘Auntie , that’s only a myth, don’t kid her like that,’ Githeon sighed.

  ‘The “naher na gamera”?’ asked Yara, she made her best attempt to repeat what she’d just heard without messing up the pronunciation. She'd heard a little bit of Fiaighan there, but to an outsider's perspective it sounded like nonsense. She couldn't make heads or tails of it.

  ‘An old wives tale, something made up to scare gullible folk away from the loch,’ Githeon dismissed his aunt's speculation.

  ‘Not so! It would explain the sudden cold,’ said Ailis, ‘and even if I'm wrong, perhaps our guest would like to hear of some of our myths?’

  ‘By all means, go ahead,’ said Yara, she felt like a kid at storytime and was more than glad to listen to the elderly lady explain her culture.

  ‘Our history features an event named the Searing. It's known that that's where our clan's powers came from. A spell cast by one of the creatures of magic present at the event missed its target and hit the snowy peaks of the highlands, where an avalanche began,’ explained Ailis, ‘the magically charged snow hit the water of a highland loch, where it formed into a snake of pure ice, this serpent lives deep within the loch, only surfacing in times of turmoil, as an omen.’

  ‘The sages that made this story up would have us believe that when the lake freezes over, but the land around it stays snow free, it’s actually an icy snake swimming around below the surface,’ said Githeon, ‘it’s all good and fun of course, but I doubt it to be true.’

  'Well there are of course many more explanations, including for the Nathair itself,' Ailis said, waving away his scepticism.

  ‘I think it’s fantastic,’ said Yara. She liked myths and stories, or at least learning about them. It wasn't always as fun when they turned out to be real, ‘if it’s not too much, I’d like to go up to the loch tomorrow, see it for myself.’

  ‘If you can get past the Saoigarda, you should be able to,’ said Ailis

  ‘Do they get in the way a lot?’ Yara asked, her head tilted.

  ‘Only if you carry weapons, they don’t care much for pilgrims or casual visitors,’ said Githeon, ‘knowing you though, I wouldn't be surprised if you'd be going up there for reasons other than admiring the view.’

  ‘Don't know me that well, then,’ said Yara, irritated by his assumption, ‘I can go up there without weapons just fine, I’d just like to see it, a lake frozen over completely in spring sounds like a beautiful sight.’

  ‘Well, I can show you the way tomorrow, you’ll be more than free to have your own look around,’ Githeon got up slowly, ‘I’ll put the little one to bed and get you a room at the-.’

  Nonsense,’ Aunt Ailis interrupted Githeon, ‘You get the room at the tavern, she can have yours.’

  ‘Bu-.’

  ‘She is our guest, Githeon Den Chlaíomh,' Ailis said, 'did your mother not teach that it's improper not to house a guest under your own roof. You wouldn't want to curse your household, would you?’

  ‘I’ll get the sleeping bag,’ Githeon sighed, ‘I’ll sleep on the floor instead.’

* * *

  Yara stepped outside and into the early morning mists of Talamh Fiaigh. She took a deep breath of the cool, fresh air before she took to the road and followed the signs. Githeon had taught her the night before just what signs to look for. All of them had the name of the loch on them, and though she didn’t understand what it meant she could tell what was what. The path led uphill from the village. It was surprisingly well kept and even paved in places, assumedly this work was done by the Saoigarda. The sage guards appeared to be absent from their posts, none of them were patrolling the road, and it didn’t take long for Yara to discover why. A corpse sliced into several separate pieces was strewn out across the road, each bit stuck to the ground by ice made of the victim’s own blood. She stopped to look at all the bits. This was far from the worst she'd seen, that much was sure, but that didn't make it any easier to look at a head that'd been sliced in half diagonally. His face was locked in a scream. Yara decided this was where she should start investigating.

  To Yara the corpse’s lacerations all appeared to originate from one specific kind of blade. Most wyrms she knew went equipped with a deadly row of razor-sharp scutes at the end of their tail. It wasn't uncommon to find people who'd lost a limb to one of these. There were no splatters, nothing like that. Any blood that had hit the ground had frozen immediately, leaving only purely red ice in its place. She'd never dealt with a wyrm that could do something like this, especially considering this had all been left here to rot. There were no bite marks in any of the corpses or even in the ice. Yara continued up the path. She'd hoped that'd be the end of it, luck however did not appear to be on her side. There was another one just up ahead. Not much further up the hill she came across someone completely encased in ice from head to toe. Not blood ice this time and he had no major injuries, though it wasn't likely he'd survive the thawing process either way. His face, too, was locked in a scream. This looked like it was done without physical contact, like a breath attack, which were legendarily rare in wyrms, and usually the result of a freak accident or human meddling. More and more of the Saoigarda were either torn to shreds or frozen the closer that Yara got to the loch. It was a veritable ice-bath.

  Yara took a break from studying the macabre ice sculptures when she reached the loch’s shore, she'd earned a break after investigating that slaughter. Surrounded by snow-covered mountain peaks on all sides, the long, but frozen body of water before her was a beautiful sight. In the near distance the ruins of a castle watched over the loch’s still, icy surface from a hilltop which jutted out from the mountains. Despite the loch being frozen over completely the shore and forests surrounding the body of water were entirely snow-free, not a single snowflake to see across the entire landscape. The surface of the ice was rough, textured like it had been broken and re-frozen countless times.

  'Wow...' Yara said as she took it all in, 'worth the walk, at least,' she realised that that one look out over the lake was enough, at least for now. It'd still be there when she was done investigating, after all. Yara began to look around for more clues as to what she was dealing with. The first clue she found were tracks that looked like something had been dragged through the mud. The track was wide and showed depressions left by the animal’s belly scales. Yara followed the track away from the loch, further into the trees and towards the mountains. She sniffed the air, a rancid stench overwhelmed her senses. Looking for its source she soon came upon a cavern. The earthy ground gave way to stone and the trackway stopped, but the odour was enough to follow for Yara. For once in her life she found herself wishing that her nose was blocked. She stepped through the grotto’s large opening got her first closer look on the inside. It was a large room, its ceiling covered in limestone stalactites, but the floor being almost completely cleared. Patches of snow and ice covered the stony cave floor. In the back against the wall a mound had been made of opaque blue ice that stood out amongst the rest. Yara kept walking forward through the cavern, taking great care not to slip and fall. Every other step she'd stop to listen if she could hear breathing around her, but the cavern was dead quiet whenever she stood still, save for the sound of her own breathing. Now she could see the mound more clearly. What she thought to have simply been odd shapes in the ice was in fact a series of eight eggs, each arranged to face outward so when the baby dragons inside hatched they could immediately run and hide.

  ‘Eggs…’ Yara muttered to herself. It made sense now why the Saoigarda were all either frozen or dead, the mother of the eggs had gotten territorial and taken it out on the men guarding the loch. For a second she thought out loud, 'really should just destroy these,' she wasn't happy about that. As much as it was her job to kill dragons, breaking eggs was never fun. She hated hunting nesting dragons. Yara chose to turn and leave, she'd left her equipment behind anyway. Knowing that she realistically couldn't do anything without Skycleave or her armour she walked to the exit of the cave. For a second she deliberated though. She really did have to destroy those eggs, even if she didn't want to.

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  ‘fine...’ she said quietly before walking back to the nest. She closed her eyes as she picked up the eggs and broke them. Choosing to immediately forget what she'd just done, she bolted out of the cave. Past the loch, down the road, and back to the village.

* * *

  ‘Githeon where’s my armour!?’ Yara shouted as she burst in through the door. She frantically looked around the house. Githeon had only just woken up, he was rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

  ‘Right where you left it, why?’ answered Githeon, he was quiet for a second, ‘wait, no you can’t bring it the Saoigarda won’t let you,' he realised what she was planning.

  ‘They don’t have much of a say anymore,’ Yara replied as she raced to put on her gambeson.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘They’re dead, Githeon.’

  ‘WHAT!?’ he shouted, 'what hap- did you-.'

  'No of course not,' Yara replied, 'it was a wyrm of some kind. I don't know which one and frankly I don't have enough time to think about that.'

  Githeon began to help her with her armour. Yara continued to speak, ‘it’s a large female,' she said, 'I found its eggs and broke them.’

  ‘Do you have a plan for killing it?’ Githeon asked, 'I'm assuming you've concocted some idea.'

  ‘'Not really much. I know where it's hiding, so I’ll just lure it out and think of the rest later.’

  ‘Not a very sound plan.’

  ‘It’s worked every other time,’ said Yara as she strapped on her greaves to her boots. She looked at Skycleave, which stood leaned against the doorframe, 'only failed you once though,’ she muttered.

  ‘What was that?’ asked Githeon.

  ‘Nothing, talking to myself,’ she said, still choosing to keep her pain to herself. Yara stood up after some time was spent equipping her fully. She thanked Githeon and ran out the door, her sword in hand as she bolted towards her horse and jumped into the saddle. Immediately she began to race back towards the loch’s edge. Yara passed the frozen corpses and dodged them on her way up the path. She leapt off her mount after she ground it to a halt near the water’s edge and took her shield from her saddle. She had to be quick to stop the loch’s monster. There was no way she'd let it expand its territory and snack on the villagers. Her friend lived there, his adoptive child too. She did it for them, for their safety. The air was freezing the closer she got to the lake's surface. She stepped onto the rough, scarred ice and realised its texture meant she wouldn't slip. She could hear sounds coming from underneath. Creaking sounds which sent a shock of anxiety through her, air bubbles forming and breaking up from the pressure her footsteps put on the surface made a heavy "bloop!" sound. Sometimes it cracked from the weight put on it and she was forced to move quickly. occasionally she could see through the ice on a clear patch, but below was nothing but a deep and black void of freezing water that would drag her to the bottom in an instant were she to fall through. Suddenly the ice she stood on felt like it was being pushed up. She heard sounds from underneath the ice. Creaking, air bubbles gathering, and instinctively Yara took a large step back, taking care not to stumble.

  A creature with a serpentine body breached the frozen surface before it crashed back down through the ice. Yara’s heart was in her mouth. She hadn’t forgotten about the dragon below her, but she had shifted most of her focus to making sure she wouldn’t sink through. She counted herself incredibly lucky for having gotten aside in time. The serpent breached again, raising its neck out of the water in an elegant swan-like S-curve. Its head was triangular and pointed, with thick scutes lining its brows, and lipped jaws which hid razor sharp teeth that’d rip through anything they touched. Along the creature’s body a pattern of two stripes weaving through each other ran from head to tail. Despite its deathly appearance the serpent was quite colourful, its dark purple and light blue scales interspersed with bright orange, the same colour as molten steel. Yara had assumed it was a wyrm from the tracks she had found, but she'd found herself proven wrong by the pair of arms sprouting from its upper torso. Its claws dug into the thick ice it'd just broken through and hoisted itself onto the surface. Yara unsheathed Skycleave and held onto it tightly as the dragon came closer. Her magical heater shield strapped firmly onto her left arm. The runes on its inside glowed golden.

  ‘Not a wyrm then…’ she said to herself, ‘So a Lindworm instead?’

  It didn't seem likely that the creature would give her an answer. It darted forward towards her and all Yara could do was attempt to deflect its attack. She couldn’t jump on the ice for fear of sinking through, but she'd brought her shield, and that should at least block the dragon's frozen breath. She swung Skycleave at the creature’s maw as it charged and managed to slice it across the snout. It hissed before diving back through the ice again. Yara had to think quickly, the lindworm could resurface at any time and she’d have to act fast when it did. Not only that, but she'd have to avoid getting hit when it bored back through. A thought came to her, she might not be able to jump on the ice, but she should be able to slide on it. All she had to do was avoid going too far and directly into any of the breaches created by the creature. The lindworm burst out of the ice once more and climbed onto the surface. It let out a hissing growl as its two short legs pushed it forward over the ice. Yara slid out of the way and got to her feet as soon as she could, before cutting the creature in its foot and slicing clean through its tough scales. The wound was nasty and deep. It coiled its tail around its assailant before it attempted to bite her. With a quick reaction Yara narrowly dodged the creature’s jaws, which instead closed around the base of its own tail. Immediately it released its grip and with a great amount of pained thrashing it dove back through the ice. Yara looked around her. Some of the broken ice had already begun to refreeze itself from the lindworm's aura. She waited patiently as the creature hid below the lake’s surface. She knew it was slithering down there, seeking out the perfect moment to jump back up. It burst through directly behind her and attempted to grab her with its claws, but instead it found the tip of her sword driven into its palm. With a hiss it dove back down. Yara looked at the ice she stood on, though primarily opaque there were patches where she could see into the water below. She carefully watched the shadow that moved directly underneath her. I was coming directly at her, and so she sprinted away from where she stood.

  ‘It’s so much easier when they’re above you,’ said Yara as she saw the lindworm sink back down into the water, 'why did it have to be here of all places.'

  Yara continued to look down and dodged every time it tried the same thing again, right until it crawled out of the freezing water again. With a hiss it lunged forward and spat a beam of ice and snow in Yara’s direction. In a flash she raised her shield. She felt a change in temperature as the magical barrier was thrown up. The ice this lindworm spat was so cold that it nearly broke through her magical shield. I'd created a wall of ice in front of her, which almost immediately began breaking through the surface below it. Yara slid forward over the frozen lake towards her foe, once nearby enough she got back to her feet and cut into its neck. Freezing cold cyan blood seeped from the wound and turned to solid ice once it it made contact with the frozen surface. The beast roared in pain before it turning its serpentine neck and looking directly at Yara, it began to charge a breath attack. She threw up her shield again as she dodged, catching any stray particles of ice. She got another slash in, this time at its glowing, pale blue eye. A blind spot. Finally, a real advantage for her. Yara had space to move around now, which meant more time to prepare an attack. The lindworm slithered over the ice, barely making use of its stumpy limbs to move around. It moved head-first towards Yara before it dug into the ice below and returned to the water. It didn’t take long before it resurfaced right in front of its opponent, who took her one chance to end the fight. She did the one thing she'd until then feared to do: She jumped. Skycleave's tip aimed downwards it easily sunk into the monster's head. The lindworm shook its head wildly as life faded from its remaining eye.

  Yara let go of her sword and landed on a particularly thick part of the icy surface with a loud thud. The dragon’s head followed soon after and slammed onto the frozen water. It cracked and bent under its weight. Parts broke off and the lindworm's body began to slide backwards into the water. Yara scrambled to get to her feet, to run and get Skycleave back. She had to get it back. She had to. There was no way in this world or the next that she'd lose that sword. Every step she took closer to the lindworm's head it sunk down further. Yara had almost gotten there, but it was just too late. As she reached the dead dragon its head sunk into the deep, dark loch below.

  ‘No no no no NO!’ Yara shouted frantically, her words almost turning to a scream as she went on. Her words echoed over the frozen lake and through the rocky dale. Her heart sank down further than the depth of that loch. She was forced to watch with utter horror and disbelief as her sword, no, Arran's sword, slowly descended to the bottom of the lake. As darkness enveloped the sinking lindworm Yara could swear she saw it fade out of existence, whilst the glint of Skycleave’s steel still reflected what little sunlight was cast over the lake. A pit formed in her stomach and tears welled up in her eyes as she realised that that glint of light was the last she'd ever see of Skycleave, of Arran's sword.

  It didn't seem like there would be respite for the weary though. A crack was heard, and then another, and another. The lindworm's death had broken its icy aura, and so the lake had started to warm up. Its frozen surface was thawing and quick. Yara bolted over what was left as carefully as she could while also keeping pace. She sat down on the nearest shoreline and watched what happened next. Spring had returned to the loch right before her eyes. Maybe she could've called it beautiful if she wasn't so absolutely devastated by what'd happened only moments before. Yara’s heart ached as it thumped in her chest. The way she felt was overwhelming. It was like she was back at Ashfallow's hold and Laras had just come home with two horses and no Arran. This time he was gone. really gone. She didn't even have Skycleave anymore. Yara wanted to do nothing more than dive in after it, after Arran's sword, but she knew it would mean certain death. She remembered what Eleyna had said and chose instead to just remove her helmet and sit there, quietly staring out over a lake. She'd wished she'd never even gone to look at it in the first place.

* * *

  Hours must’ve passed before Yara heard another person’s voice. She didn't really want to, and she wished she'd had the gall to tell her visitor to leave. Githeon had come looking for her after she hadn’t returned. He breathed a sigh of relief when he found her sitting there at the lake’s edge, though his relief was cut short when he saw she was just sitting there, staring blankly ahead of herself.

  ‘Yara?’ he asked as he knelt down next to her, ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘I…’ she wasn’t sure whether she should tell him or not. There was no harm in it. He wanted to be helpful, and he'd been helpful before, so she told him, ‘I lost my sword, Githeon.’

  ‘That’s… I’m sorry to hear, but you can get a new one, can’t you?’ he asked, 'I understand it may have been important, but you're healthy and safe.'

  ‘No.’

  ‘You had another one hanging on your saddle, why not use that one instead?’

  ‘I lost Skycleave, that sword is more than some decorative wall ornament or a soldier's sidearm. It was... It belonged to the person I lost.’

  Githeon was quiet for a second. He realised his comment had been insensitive, ‘I imagine you’ll want it back then.’

  ‘More than anything, I won’t leave without it,’ Yara said as she pulled her knees close to her chest. She wanted to be as small as she could be.

  ‘And your plan is to sit here, staring at the water until it gives you what you want?’ back to his biting scepticism.

  ‘From what you’ve told me stranger things have happened on Talamh Fiaigh,’ said Yara quietly as she turned her head to look at Githeon, ‘I’m more than willing to believe the loch will return my sword to me.’

  ‘The myths about magical ladies that grant swords from lakes are from Estin, Yara,' Githeon said, 'we're not that kind of superstitious here. As strange as things may be on Talamh Fiaigh, you won’t get your way from this untamed loch.’

  A voice speaking in Fiaighan rose from the loch's surface, followed by a phrase in Anglan, ‘those of faith are rewarded, even who do not bear the Blood of the Spear.’

  From the water’s surface a shape rose, it was translucent, like a spectre. The figure’s top half was malnourished, feminine, and frail, while its lower half was more akin to the very lindworm Yara had lost Skycleave to. She looked at the being with careful curiosity. She hoped this was something good.

  ‘The magics of the Hunter’s Land may yet surprise you,’ said the figure, ‘You fought valiantly, Yara Emily Stormcleaver-Draehal, and by doing so you have not only broken a curse laid upon the loch in time immemorial, but you shall be granted a single request.’

  ‘Can it be anything I want?’ asked Yara, her eyes focused on the being before them.

  ‘Within reason, I can't resurrect the dead,’ it said, almost having read Yara's mind. There was of course something she wanted more than Skycleave.

  ‘I want my sword back,’ she said without hesitation.

  ‘Yara you should consider th-.’

  ‘No, Githeon, I know what I want,’ she looked at Githeon, then back at the spirit, ‘Please return Skycleave to me. I don't know what I'd do without it.'

  The Spirit’s gaze pierced right through Yara, then it reached behind its back and made the black sword materialise in its hand. Skycleave was covered in muck and water plants, as if it was transported directly from the bottom of the loch.

  ‘A blade of historical make,’ said the spirit of the loch, ‘Skycleave will not make you queen, or grant you any birth right, but it shall serve you well.’

  Yara’s heart skipped a beat as the spirit handed her the sword. It wasn’t an idle copy like she'd assumed at first, but instead it was precisely the weapon she’d lost. It was perfect. She wiped the mud and plants off of it and swung the sword around a little bit.

  ‘Do not lose it again, Yara Emily Stormcleaver, for you might never see its edge after,’ the spirit said, 'and I do believe that would be the greatest shame of all.'

  Yara was speechless, she wanted to thank the spirit, but when she looked up from the sword in her hands the being was gone.

  ‘That was real, right?’ asked Githeon, rubbing his eyes. Yara looked at Skycleave again, she couldn't believe it was back in her hands again.

  ‘Real as can be,’ said Yara with a wide grin as she put it safely back in its sheath.