First stars showed themselves in the sky, the illathan already piling up wood for a bonfire. Sadly, some of the branches were parts of their homes... In the meantime Yasenka tended to her knee with the help of Elianir - an elderly medic wearing a necklace made of dried herbs. I didn't hear much from their conversation that took place in one of the hovels to maintain some privacy, but it felt like she gave Yasenka quite some scolding.

Deep darkness enveloped the forest already when everything was done. The warm night smelled of resin, with only a delicate cool coming from the stream that hid among the soft shadows. Everyone assembled by the fire for the evening meal, but it wasn't a cheerful gathering. Yasenka sat on the grass opposite of me and Siaril, a basket of fruit and a wooden jug with a handle shaped like a snake with the head of a dragon between us. The younger girl stayed close by her side, a little behind.

Yasenka poured some water into four cups, as if wanting to gain some time to gather her thoughts and find the proper words to start the conversation. She sighed almost inaudibly, but in such a forlorn manner that I decided to help a little.

"Could you maybe... introduce us?" I asked, looking at the fascinating creature sitting to her right.

The illathan smiled sadly. "This is Ertralia," she moved back a tiny bit to be able circle an arm around the younger girl's shoulders. The dark cat ears twitched. "You already know about hybrids and that some of them live in this forest... Ertralia is one of them. She's a sykerien, a mix of human and a black-ridged lynx."

"Is that... the species that caused creating hybrids to be prohibited?" I asked, remembering what Siaril told me the first time we came here. I noticed the black ears going down again and quickly followed up: "I'm sorry! I'm not saying you're weird or artificial or anything, I just know so little about this stuff..."

Yasenka shook her head slightly. "It's alright, she knows she's not. To us, she's family, my little sister..."

"Is she the only one of her species then...?"

"She's not," Arakiel spoke up, rolling a still shelled hazel nut in his fingers. "Sykeriens usually live in quite big groups, we know of two small tribes in our forest. They're not easy to approach though, always running, even from us. Ertralia... was found in the forest when she was very little, looking lost. We tried to find her family, but every time we approached sykerien settlements, they would drive us away, and the next day the spot was found empty... Eventually, we gave up, not wanting to stress them out and make them waste energy and resources. We presume Ertralia was... abandoned, for whatever reason. So we raised her like one of our own."

I suddenly felt a strong urge to hug the girl and tell her how sorry I am... but I left that task to Yasenka for now. No matter how tempting it looked when she stroked one of those fluffy ears comfortingly.

"So the present we picked together a while ago was for you," I felt like we should stop talking about her in third person and bring some warmth between those cold memories.

"I was so happy when Yasenka gave it to me..." Ertralia let us hear her soft voice for the first time since we all sat down.

"It suits you. When was your birthday then?"

The sapphire eyes wandered down again, making me look at the paler blue of the hairpin's gemstones instead.

"We don't know exactly," Yasenka rushed to her aid. "We just... celebrate it on the day she's been found and started her new life among us. The first day of spring."

"I do know that I'm fifteen now though," Ertralia cut in, seeming happy to know at least one thing about herself.

I smiled at her. She was so adorable that one couldn't be sad even when listening to such tragic facts.

There was a short silence, and it was then that Siaril straightened up a little. For a while now, I felt the urge to ask about the more essential matters from him. "Yasenka... can you tell us where you had a brush with Sharish before? It's connected to that strange amulet, isn't it?"

The illathan literally deflated with a long, distressed-sounding exhale. "Remember that evening we spent in the tavern in Leeshan?" she started after a moment. "There was a bard telling that tale about the Empress..."

"Yeah... what about it?"

For some reason, Yasenka looked to Arneth, who was sitting to my left. "You sure...?" he asked. After a determined nod, he looked to me. "I guess I need to apologize."

"What for?"

"I told you that 'there is no one with such powers living among us anymore', or so, right?"

"Yeah?"

"I have to admit, I kinda talked around it... That person is still here, just without the powers."

"... wait what? That Empress... she's here?"

"Yep. How about you look straight ahead."

I did, at the two beauties sitting in front of me. Then a bit further behind their backs. No other women in that direction. Then, my jaw dropped and stayed there.

A smile as fragile as a zinnia's petal moved Yasenka's lips as she looked into the fire, avoiding my stare. The warm sparks reflecting in her eyes didn't match the sadness that surfaced from their depths. "That's right, it was me... I think it's a good lesson though, don't you think? If you want to make sure someone is telling you the whole truth, you should demand clear answers."

"That's not important right now..." still, I made a mental note of that. "You really had control over nature? You were granting wishes?"

"That's... a very vague picture of it. Truth and legends told by people went their own paths along the years... But a lie doesn't turn into truth just because a lot of people believe in it..." Yasenka sighed once more. "Well... there are some events that shouldn't be summoned from the darkness of the past, but I owe you the rectification of all these legends..."

"Take it slow, alright...?"

She gave me a grateful smile and allowed Ertralia to use her lap as a pillow as the younger one lied down to rest a little. I noticed something small and shiny slipping out from underneath the sykerien's dress. A single, ruby scale on a simple, black string. I never before noticed that Yasenka's scales were shaped like halves of butterfly wings... Yasenka started to brush one of the sykerien's ears with a finger. It looked like it helped her focus.

Stolen story; please report.

"Did you ever hear about Eliphyas Neghith? Or, in the common tongue, Moon's Reflection?"

"You mean that crystal?" asked Siaril. I recognized the name too. "The one that was split between the members of the Alliance of the Elements?"

"Yes. The powers I once possessed were connected to the shard that belonged to Earlindon."

"How...?"

Yasenka seemed to hesitate, but Arakiel came to her aid: "How about I tell that part? Yasenka was but a small child back then... She only knows it from storytelling."

"Oh... sure?"

"It started roughly fifteen years ago. Not far away from here, in the Serelath Valley, stood the very first human city of Earlindon - Ilmer, established long ago by Acamres the Founder. He was the mage who first encouraged letting humans into these territories, persuading other mages into interacting and allowing both races to help each other. It was an enormous city, said to be the most beautiful any traveler has ever laid eyes upon. I lived there for a while, along with a few other illathan, and even a few forest elves, one of the last that dared to live in the open. Then... a few difficult years came... The summers were becoming cruel to the land, and because the city didn't lay near any river, only drawing water from wells that soon dried up, there was hardly any water, nothing to keep the crops alive. It started to slowly fade away... But we were blessed with a chance. As it happened, Earlindon's Moonshard was being moved to a new place by the mages around that time. One of their stops was Ilmer. Not many knew about it, only a few of the magical beings in the city. But one was enough to beg them to save us all. The Moonshard's escort seemed hesitant at first, but there was one that proved very cooperative. He suggested performing a ritual... very complicated and demanding a lot of energy, but he said that everything that was needed was right there. The mages from the escort were skilled, and the Moonshard could provide the energy necessary. The ritual was supposed to give one person control over nature. That... caused a lot of arguing at first, the greed and longing for power urging quite a few humans to volunteer. But such tremendous power couldn't just be stuffed within a body that never experienced magic before. It would probably just have burst them from the inside. The mages present in the city at that time were not really an option either. All of them were experienced, with a lot of their own magic developed over the years, barely any capacity to hold so much more, and a different type of it no less. And then... they learned about her..."

"Yasenka..."

"Yes... She was but three years old then. A child born from magical parents, but with little magic herself... the potential was right there. And a child would have been easier to control than an adult, the parents would just need to teach her how to use her powers for the good of everyone..."

"That's... amazing and disgusting at the same time somehow..."

"It was. Her parents were reluctant, but it gave everyone so much hope that there was no stopping it once the plans reached the ears of all citizens."

"I'm curious though..." Siaril seemed bothered by something. "If there was a way to obtain such power, and the members of the Alliance all had the catalyst for it, how come no one's ever tried this before? There are plenty greedy people out there. Or did they try, and no one ever talked or wrote about it because they all failed due to lack of a proper vessel?"

"That might be. Or they didn't know the proper procedure. The mage who suggested that ritual was who carried that secret with him. The secret having the form of a notebook... it seemed like something that accompanied him through a lot of magic research, I don't really know, I never got to have a look inside," Arakiel's eyes rested on the flames of the campfire for a longer moment, the fatigue suddenly making him look the age he really was. "That mage... was Sharish's father..."

I exchanged looks with Siaril. "Don't tell me that's why Sharish is doing all this stuff... Does he think that the accident wouldn't have happened if humans didn't come here and placed their city in an inconvenient spot? Does he know that his father did it on his own accord and wanted to save not only humans but illathan, mages and elves?"

"Sig, slow down..." Yasenka interrupted quietly. "There seems to be a different reason, but we'll come to that..."

"Oh... sorry..." I sat back again. My head was already a mess, and it seemed like there was still a lot coming at us.

"Sharish's father reassured us that he studied the ritual for a long time, and met the perfect conditions in Ilmer..." continued Arakiel. "So we all trusted him. That was the last mistake the citizen of Ilmer made in their lives... The ritual backfired for some reason... causing a tremendous amount of magical energy to go wild, destroying everything in its path. None survived but me and Yasenka..."

I felt my body going cold despite my resistance to it and the closeness of the campfire.

"Then you brought her here..." muttered Siaril. I glanced at him. The shadows cast by the flames sharpened his profile, he seemed just as shocked as me, but somewhere deep inside his eyes was a shadow of compassion and a fainter one, of silent understanding.

"I did."

"And what happened to the Moonshard?"

"I'm not sure. The incident must have been seen by many from a fair distance. I assume it was taken by some other mages, because after some time, a rumor started spreading that they were seen around the ruins and that they're probably responsible for what happened. But hardly anyone believed it. The conflict between humans and mages was already present at that time, but Ilmer wasn't just inhabited by humans..."

"Maybe Sharish took it?" suggested Siaril.

"If that were the case, he wouldn't feel the need to come here today, looking for support and a greater source of magic."

"I guess..."

Yasenka picked up a twig lying next to her in the grass and absently poked the embers at the edge of the bonfire. Golden sparks flew up towards the constellation of the Dawn's Corsair, which hung right above the camp now. Its brightest star - Cerdes, was pulling the ship made of silver dots behind it, hurrying to brighten the night over other parts of Earlindon. "It always feels weird to listen to the story..." she said slowly. "It might seem like something that should make me cry, but, to be honest, I find it hard to do so, as inhumane as it may sound... I don't remember any of those people, I don't even remember the faces of my own parents. They were just tragic victims of one of the thousands of mankind's mistakes... Besides," she was brought back to the moment again when the twig snapped under the pressure she was putting on it. She threw the remaining piece into the fire, "I'm grateful that fate spared me and blessed with a new, wonderful life. Arneth's family took me right in when master Arakiel brought me here, and shortly after they took in Ertralia as well... I was happy..."

"But the ritual... it was a success nevertheless, wasn't it?"

"We noticed it after a few months," Arakiel continued once more. "Her childish moods seemed to influence the weather... Then I caught her playing with the elements..."

"I used to resurrect mice and small birds while playing in the forest too..." Yasenka looked down like a kid admitting eating cookies before supper.

"That's something to learn after over a decade..." Arakiel smiled for the first time today. "You didn't seem aware of the significance of your actions for quite a while anyway. It was like something natural to you..."

"Thanks to the teachings I received though, I gained respect for these powers and with time used them strictly within the boundaries of common sense and only if it was necessary," Yasenka looked up at the whispering trees. "Then, almost three years ago, my wings suddenly appeared... I'm still not sure why it happened this much earlier than the awakening of you two. Maybe one magic stimulated another... Still, our life here was peaceful, no one knew about my abilities and no one disturbed us... until suddenly, various inhabitants of Earlindon started to appear in Silivren Forest... They came from all directions possible to ask for my help. We assumed they heard about me from an illathan who left our camp a few years ago, setting off to start a new life somewhere else. People asked for many things... greater crops, changing the weather at sea, healing diseases... I couldn't just turn some of the people down after they've come such a long way, but I still didn't satisfy every wish, even if it was in my power to do so. I tried to teach them that some things in nature have to keep their natural flow to remain in balance... The rumors about me soon spread across the whole kingdom and gave rise to all those legends, the true ones and the ones which human imagination helped with," there was a long pause after those words. Or rather, before the next. "And this must've been what caught Sharish's interest..."