The first thing I saw was trick grass, waving lazily among a velvety darkness. A faint, shimmering mist wafted between the trees, delicately muffling the undergrowth.

I tried to get up, but immediately let a silent hiss escape my lips and fell back. Something was holding one of my wings in place in a way that was far from being comfortable... I turned around as best as the pain allowed me to and saw Siaril, lying right behind my back.

"Siaril..." I managed to whine, trying not to move too much to avoid making things worse. "Wake up will you...!"

Finally he stirred and opened his eyes after a few seconds. "Sigrian...?" he asked in a tone of a drunk in a tavern.

"Congrats, you guessed right, but please get off, I almost can't feel my wing anymore..."

He hastily got up and helped me to my feet, apologizing all the way. "I think it worked..." he then said, looking around. I did the same.

We were standing at the bank of a brook, presumably the one that created the Guardian's Waterfall. Following its current with my eyes, I spotted the line of narae, forming a wide half-moon by the cliff. Something was different though. It was like we were looking at them through a semi-transparent screen weaved from campfire smoke tinted by the night sky.

"Or this is what the afterlife looks like..." I muttered, turning my gaze away from the spooky sight. "With all this mist you could feel like you're soaring above the clouds..."

"Well then try not to fly away too far. Come on, let's try to find Yasenka."

We set off, cautious with every step. I looked up briefly. The tree tops formed what seemed to be an impenetrable ceiling of massive branches and a thicket of leaves. We couldn't even dream of flying above to make our search easier, and the space beneath seemed much darker than a forest should be when there were still remnants of day flickering in the sky. The leaves and needles seemed to be more gray here than they were in the Silivren Forest I knew until now, like they were shrouded in some kind of shadow that touched only them alone... Something in this part of the forest was different, even more mysterious than usual. There was a presence palpable in this mist around us, despite absolutely no one being in sight.

We just continued onward, listening to the speech of the trees. It felt almost like the wind's whisper was guiding us through the semi-darkness and the shrubs. Yasenka was nowhere to be seen, but in her case that didn't really have to mean anything. We weren't very eager to call out for her, not knowing what lurked in the shadows that we could draw the attention of.

Suddenly Siaril stopped, and I noticed what caught his attention even before I could open my mouth to ask a question. There was something small glistening among the moist grass, its blades alive in the slight breeze. My friend bent over and picked up a fine chainlet, its end wrapped under the widening of a tiny crystal flacon's neck. Some bluish liquid swayed inside.

"What's that?" I asked. Upon closer examination I noticed that the liquid didn't quite seem to be a liquid. Its color had a few undertones here and there, which created the impression that it was a very dense mist trapped within the crystal.

"Hard to say..." Siaril carefully opened the vessel and sniffed the contents even more cautiously. "I have no idea."

"Let's take it with us. Maybe it's something that Yasenka dropped or maybe... it has something to do with the Guardian."

Siaril put the flacon into his pocket and took another step into the depths of the forest, when a noise from the brush a few meters further to our left stopped him once more. We turned to face the sound, but saw nothing. I felt my wings twitch nervously as I took that one step back again to put my back to Siaril's, looking around and doubling my guard. He did the same. It was then that I noticed the lack of a weight at my waist. My sword was gone. I scanned the ground in the foolish hope that I dropped it somewhere nearby, but it was far too late for that.

We expected some kind of danger, but definitely not in the way that it came.

Suddenly, the air around us first sparkled blinding gold like a swarm of fireflies appearing all at once and then flashed orange, a wreath of enormous flames almost two meters high springing to life out of nowhere. We reflexively pressed our backs to each other, wanting to back away, but there was nowhere to flee, no opening in the sinisterly growling fire, nothing. A familiar sound reached my ears though...

One small, cheerful jingle, almost lightening up the gloom of the forest in a different way than the flames did...

"Yasenka stop it!" I yelled, shielding my eyes from the brightness of the fire. "It's us!"

The flames disappeared like they've never been there in the first place, leaving the undergrowth perfectly untouched. The brushes to my right moved and Yasenka emerged from the greenery.

"Are you two insane?!" the greeting was angry but drenched in worry at the same time. "Why are you even here?!" Her clothing was a little torn here and there and a long scratch marked the flawless skin of her neck, a few leaves entangled in her hair.

"We wanted to help..." I started explaining, but she cut me off.

"You don't even know what you walked into and you want to help? You're lucky that I'm the first creature you've come across in here!"

"If it is as dangerous as you claim," Siaril didn't seem to want to owe any questions, "then what are you doing here? Alone, no less?"

"I'm trying to save the forest..."

"In this state?"

Yasenka fell silent, frowning a little, to which Siaril sighed. "Look, it doesn't take a clairvoyant to see that you're wounded." I raised my eyebrows, looking back to the illathan. Siaril must have been a clairvoyant. And he continued calmly: "And you still don't want any help? You want to risk your life or something?"

There was a shadow akin to rising anger in Yasenka's eyes, but it didn't burst out. Probably due to the stain of indecision dulling it. Siaril faced this stare with admirable composure.

"I admit that Sigrian and I haven't developed our abilities as well as you yet, but if something happened to you, Sharish would crush us in less than a week, did you think about that? How are we supposed to rely on each other when you try to do everything alone and don't accept us as your support? Because that's what we are supposed to be as friends, aren't we? If we abandon you in time of peace, will you later be able to trust us on the battlefield? And what's most important... would you be able to sit still if you knew that your friend is exposing themselves to maybe mortal danger?"

Yasenka closed her eyes, letting out a silent, soft sigh, her anger sizzling down almost palpably. "I wouldn't... I'm sorry, I got carried away..."

Siaril's expression became gentler. "If you don't take yourself into consideration while saving someone, you won't really be able to save anyone. If you won't both be able to say 'thank goodness' at the end, then no one has really been saved..."

Yasenka's glanced over to me with a sad smile. "See, that's what I meant when I said that even I need a reprimand sometimes..."

"Didn't you also say that I should give anything that I'm unable to carry to you?" I said conciliatorily. "Why not let it work the other way as well?"

Her smile deepened, returning the lively, warm sparks to the green of her eyes.

"We're already here, so just let us help..." Siaril looked down at her leg. "Is it something serious?"

The young illathan shook her head.

"But who did that to you?"

"My own carelessness. I climbed a tree to have a better view while looking for the Guardian, and an old injury in my knee decided to remind me of itself..."

"I suppose that means you didn't manage to find him?"

"Not yet."

"Could all this chaos have something to do with this?" Siaril took the tiny flacon out of his pocket again.

"What's that?"

"I'm not sure, we only just found it. And, well, if you don't recognize it..."

Yasenka took the vial carefully and opened it. The way she frowned after a brief examination suggested that she was already suspecting something. "It's poison..." she said quietly. "It's hirva, a poison made from plants that grow only in the mountains in the west, they can't be found here... I think I understand now."

"I don't," I complained. "Are you trying to say that someone has poisoned the Guardian?"

"Maybe someone intended to, but take a good look at the vial."

I did, frowning. The vessel didn't tell me anything about the intentions of the previous owne... "Wait... it's full. It hasn't been used."

"Yup."

"I'm confused... Someone planning to harm the Guardian somehow manages to get through the narae, then they don't use the poison, but despite that, the Guardian is still behaving weird... It makes no sense at all. Can a spirit even be poisoned in the first place?"

"There could be ways... But we won't find any of that out unless we find him," Yasenka put the vial into her pocket, looking in the direction we haven't been to yet. "Come on, this place isn't as big as it seems to be."

"Can you manage?" Siaril still seemed concerned.

"She had enough strength to almost burn us alive, so I think she can," I didn't get to put a smile at the end of that sentence because of a smack on the back of my head from a graceful, but firm hand. Proving my point.

We continued deeper into the forest, still on guard and cautious.

"So, um..." I started as we were hacking through some thicker scrubs. "Is it true that there are multiple spirits in this forest?"

"That's what we believe," Yasenka said like it was completely normal.

"'We' being the illathan."

"Yep."

"How does that work though? It's not like every soul stays around after death, is it...?"

"I don't think so. We believe that only those who still wish to protect, even after death, stay among us."

"Is Silivren Forest the only place where you can actually witness that in a way though? I doubt there are souls with such desire only around here."

"The theory is that when someone dies, but has a strong wish to stay, the soul latches onto the oldest tree nearby and uses it as its next vessel. Otherwise, without anything that keeps it steady, a soul would eventually disperse into the wind... The Silivren Forest is the oldest wood in Earlindon. And the ones near cities, even if bigger than ours, mostly have younger trees because of the increased need for firewood and building material."

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

I frowned, giving it a brief thought. "Doesn't that mean that people are exterminating souls that could protect them and limiting their own possibilities of staying after death?"

"That's right."

"Have any of you ever tried to tell them that?"

"Of course. What do you think was the result?"

"You were declared lunatic?"

Yasenka shrugged, giving me a bitter smile.

"Anyway," I made a mental note to dedicate more time to analyze it later and returned to the task at hand. "You know, I just realized that I have no idea what I'm really looking for... what does this Guardian even look like?"

"Oh, you might not be able to see him."

"Sorry?"

"I'm not joking, it could happen. After all, we do believe that he's one of the spirits, just older, and you don't see the other ones either... But he's able to take on many forms, sometimes he's a lynx, sometimes an enormous tree, and sometimes a little bug that just settled down on your shirt." I glanced to my shoulder and raised my eyebrows upon seeing a beetle, the tiny creature moving its feelers curiously. "That's not him, don't worry."

"Funny as ever..."

Suddenly all three of us abruptly stopped when a strange, unclear noise spread among the trees, muffled by the thicket. It reminded me of a stag's bell, but that wasn't it. I've never heard something like that before...

"He's close," Yasenka whispered when the sound unexpectedly died out. She pressed forward with even more determination.

Soon the terrain started to dip and we saw a rather spacious, shallow depression, and in the centre of it a clearing.

"What's that?" I asked in a hush, pointing to something that stuck out from the ground and looked like the remnants of a man-made well.

Yasenka glanced in its direction. "Ah, this... that's the Well of Spirits, the most important thing the Guardian is protecting. We believe that the souls of all creatures that end their lives in this forest come here, that includes the ones that are already living inside trees and those who only just entered the spirit realm. For us, it's just a normal well, but the water in it supposedly has some special properties and the spirits quench their thirst here while they stay in the Guardian's domain. Most spirits are calmed by it, which allows them to pass on. The tree ones come here for company. And some supposedly stay at the bottom of the well, sleeping, waiting to be reborn in other creatures..."

"I don't think anything else can surprise me today..." Siaril sighed weakly.

"Yeah..." I squinted. Not far from the well, at the border of the clearing stood a huge yew, spreading its branches towards the middle of the free space. It caught my attention among the dozens of other, ancient trees because its bark seemed to be shrouded in an irregular, bluish glow...

"It's him..." Yasenka whispered before simply walking out into the clearing.

"Are you sure this is safe?" I asked, following watchfully.

"As long as you two are nearby, everything's safe."

Siaril just shook his head slightly. As we approached the tree, I realized that what I took for a ghostly glow before was actually... ice. Bluish rime ice, untouched by the warmth of the season, sticking to the bark here and there... I just gaped while Yasenka reached out and touched a part of the trunk that was free of it. She closed her eyes and stayed like this for a few moments, as if listening, and sometimes whispering a few twisted words in the language of illathan almost inaudibly. I wasn't really sure if she was talking to herself or to the tree.

"Wait, what?" he eyes snapped open again suddenly.

"What, what is it?"

"He's... fine."

"... sorry?"

"He wasn't poisoned or hurt or anything... but someone did visit him..."

"It couldn't have been anyone with bad intentions, right? The narae..."

"It wasn't... Something doesn't add up," she sounded disturbed, looking up at the tree crown. "Stop it for now, please. We'll take care of the rest."

"Stop what?" I asked, more confused by the second.

My answer took a peculiar form. Suddenly the forest around us brightened, the mist dispersed, taking the strange atmosphere of tension and hostility with it. Warmth and tranquility spread across the forest anew, like delicate ripples on water from a spot where someone's thrown a tiny stone in. Yasenka smiled and retreated her hand. I wanted to ask something, when the tree suddenly moved its twigs a little, a faint rustle coming from the upmost branches, and then... the rime ice suddenly lost the bluish hue, becoming the normal white I was used to.

"Wha...?"

Yasenka laughed shortly. "Don't worry, he only left this vessel for a moment," she looked over her shoulder, and we both followed her eyes.

In the center of the clearing stood a tremendous elk with a branchy antler, watching us with a gaze that was imperious but friendly and tired at the same time. Almost palpable strength emanated from it, along with a pleasant, gentle aura that awoke respect and affection.

Following Yasenka, we approached the massive animal. It leaned its head down towards her. The illathan stroked the massive neck lovingly and allowed an affectionate nudge to her shoulder. When the Guardian turned his intelligent eyes to me and Siaril, she just looked at him for a moment, as if listening to something again. "He wants to thank you for your readiness to help me and the forest. But he's urging us to go... There seems to be more going on here than we think."

"But how do we get out of here?"

"Oh, that's simple. Put your hands to his side or back. Don't be afraid."

I looked at Siaril hesitantly, which he answered with equal uneasiness. Finally, I took a step forward and raised my hand. As soon as my fingertips brushed the soft pelage, I felt some strange, probably magic impulse run through them to the rest of my body. Out of reflex, I closed my eyes, sucking in a short breath, and when I opened them again... the Guardian was gone.

I blinked and looked around. Siaril was still standing by my side with a similarly flabbergasted expression as the one I must have been wearing. Yasenka was smiling at us from the other side of the creek. We were back at the waterfall, and the forest, in which darkness already started to waft around, regained its warm, friendly feel. Its calmness cleansed the soul again, the last still awake birds called from above, informing everyone that the danger has passed. The familiar weight of a weapon at my side was back too. I realized that I should have known where it went from the very start. No harming intent was to be brought into that sacred place...

Still, I felt like I left it with more questions that I entered with. Now was not the time to ponder over them though.

We returned to the camp in a haste. Despite the atmosphere still being kind of disorganized, the exhilarated illathan were already waiting and started to cheer as soon as they noticed us between the trees. Yasenka brought their enthusiasm down rather quickly. "Where's Ertralia?" she asked, the worry in her voice dispersing the joy.

"She hasn't shown up yet today..." Arneth spoke up. His face was dirty, like he just recently looked for something in some fox den. "I'm hoping she's hiding somewhere, waiting for the forest to calm down. We should go look for her."

Before I could ask who they were talking about, a strange feeling washed over me... I thought I heard a rustle, or maybe the sound of a twig snapping underneath a heel... or maybe both, coming from the edge of the camp. Things normal for a forest, yet for some reason they caused something in my mind to stir unpleasantly.

"There will be no need for that."

I jumped a little before turning to where the small sounds and this smooth voice came from. Out of the corner of my eye I saw my friends doing the same.

There, in the shadow of the lush tree branches, leaning its back against one of the trunks stood a tall figure of a man. A slender man with loose, long black hair, clad in a deep-indigo robe, trimmed with silver thread... For some reason Yasenka paled more than Siaril did when I told him we have to attempt suicide.

"You..." she whispered, before her voice shot through the calmness of the forest like a short, sharp thunder. "What are you doing here?!"

As if answering her rage, some of the illathan raised their bows.

The man just smiled, visibly pleased with himself and with the effect his appearance caused. He pushed himself away from the trunk to stand straight, and my eyes were drawn to the dim flash of his decorative belt buckle. Engraved on it was a pierced dragon skull... A memory of Tavris telling me and Elithia about Earlindon's history suddenly resurfaced in my mind, along with a faint vision from a certain dream...

"Sharish..." I muttered, the name on my lips causing my skin to crawl. "Sharish Caydranth..."

The man politely raised his eyebrows, while Yasenka threw me a confused look, forgetting about her anger for just a second. "Wait... you know him?"

"I'm confused as well," admitted the intruder politely, something in his voice igniting a fair amount of irritation in me for some reason.

So was I. But apparently, I hit the bulls eye. "Your reputation is so bad I recognized you thanks to the stories about you only..." I recovered hastily.

"What a compliment," Sharish smiled but a little. "And you are no doubt the one who evaded me for more than two years now. In fact... you all somehow managed to evade me..."

There was a short silence, which Siaril used to whisper, never turning his eyes away from the mage: "We all...?"

I saw Yasenka's fists clench a little, her eyes burning with emerald fire. Even the forest was responding to her emotions. The trees whispered a little louder, the brushes and blades of grass moved, looking ready to fight by her side.

"He managed to capture me once in the past..." she admitted after a few deeper breaths.

"Wh..."

"I'm almost sorry," Sharish's voice dripped with cordiality, but I was getting chills from it. "Though even after that lesson, my tricks still seem difficult to see through for you, it seems. Don't blame your enemy for your own mistakes. You were only chasing a shadow, which was supposed to divert your attention from what was casting it."

"So it was you who caused this chaos, wasn't it... But how? And don't try to tell me you just entered the Guardian's domain, because I won't ever believe that."

"Oh, I didn't have to. I had a little helper..."

He snapped his fingers and another figure appeared at his side. It was a girl, younger than Yasenka, her hands tied behind her back...

"Ertralia!" Yasenka shouted, genuine terror staining her voice this time.

"Yes, it was her who snuck into the Guardian's domain with the poison. I just told her that by doing what I demanded she would save both her life and yours, and she was able to slip inside..."

"You monster... And you dare to show your face here after that..."

I made a step forward. "I've heard enough from you..." I said, eyeing him with disgust. "What do you want?"

He answered my challenging stare with a completely calm of his own. "I'm here to offer an alliance... A second chance for it."

"A second chance?" Yasenka seemed to have regained her composure again. "It's like I'd give you a second arrow because you missed me with the first one..."

"I really don't want to harm any of you. There are beings who would without a second thought though..."

"You mean humans..."

Sharish nodded. "You can't pretend you don't hear any news from the outside world here. You know they're raising their weapons against anything that they don't understand, that thing usually being magic. You might not be magical creatures by birth, being but a shadow of the previous, magnificent era, but do you think they will listen if a person with wings and summoning fire out of thin air tries to reason with them? No. They will react the same way they reacted to dragons."

"May I remind you that your ancestor stood on their side?" I interjected.

"He was a fool," the mage said simply, like there was nothing to discuss in that matter. "Upon witnessing one bad deed, they all completely disregarded all the good ones the dragons have and could still have performed. Dragons were far more intelligent than any other race, just think about how much they could have taught us all. How many times they could have protected us with their strength if we maintained peace. How grateful and ready to share they would be if we brought them back..."

"Brought them back?" Siaril snapped from a daze. "You know that's not possible."

"It might be, with enough knowledge and skill... We could bring harmony back, erase the only race stupid enough to fight others without good reason..."

"I think it's you who's stupid here," Yasenka brought him down to ground level like a teacher does to an overconfident student. "This land needs every race to keep its balance, even the humans, and your fantasy of a world conquered by magical beings only is completely unrealistic."

"Oh, I could argue with that, I'm already making progress in my strive towards it..."

"What progress?"

"You don't expect me to reveal anything when you insist to oppose me, do you? I can disclose one thing though... I obtained one ingredient crucial for it just today," Sharish reached into his pocket and pulled out a pendant on a rather thin, worn leather band. It looked like a lenticular piece of glass with what I thought was the calyx of a flower trapped inside. I couldn't tell exactly from the distance. When Yasenka just moved her lips a little, with no sound coming from them, Sharish laughed. "All it took was a few threats to the illathan to make this little kitten speak. You didn't put as much effort into protecting it as I thought you would."

Yasenka took a moment to answer. "You won't have an easy time unlocking what's in it..."

"I know. That's why I want to offer its return for the return of the notebook and an alliance. We could create a marvelous, new world with its help... if you'd agree to use it for our cause."

"It will never be 'our' cause..."

Despite being rejected so many times now, Sharish was still smiling as he finally took a step back. "You should think about it, all three of you. I'll give you some time. Until then... farewell."

He whispered a few more words and... disappeared. Just vanished into thin air.

We all silently stared at the spot where he's been standing, and where we could only see trees, shrubs, and evening shadows now... If it weren't for the general bewilderment, one could think that the successor of the Caydranth lineage was just a hallucination from a deep dream.

The first to shake herself free was Yasenka. She ran up to the girl whom Sharish left at the border of the clearing and quickly freed her from her bonds. "You alright...?" she asked quietly, holding her at arm's length and checking for injuries.

"I am..." the girl wiped her eyes with a delicate hand.

It was then that I noticed a few strange features in her appearance. Instead of normal, human ears, this creature had big, cat-like ones, covered with black fur. I looked again. Yeah, cat-like... fur... I didn't notice them at first because she had them down in fear, almost hidden within the dark cedar-brown of her hair. Next to one of them was a hairpin made of sea shells and blue stones... but their color was nothing next to the scared, beautiful sapphire eyes that looked up at Yasenka from underneath the fringe. To top it all off, a fluffy, ink-black tail hung behind her back...

Yasenka hugged the girl reassuringly while the younger one murmured teary words of apology into her overdress. "It's alright..." the illathan kept whispering until the young one calmed down. "What did you do to the Guardian...? You didn't use the poison..."

"I told him everything... he pretended and made the forest go wild to fool Sharish and save us from whatever he'd do if I didn't obey..."

Yasenka smiled a little, proudly, but sadly. "My clever girl..."

"Yasenka..." Siaril approached the two, his tone the most gentle I've ever heard from him.

"Please, don't ask..." the young illathan interrupted, contrition already sounding in her voice. "I'll explain everything at once..."

"You should rest first... And your leg, that's more important..."

"Maybe just a little... I owe you a few answers that should not have waited such a long time..."