Despite having revised the words of the ritual in my mind more than enough times before, only now I tasted their bitterness and felt the chill on my tongue.

Sharish really didn't show the slightest reaction to the subtle changes I made while weaving the spell. Either all the study on the ritual was done by his father in the past, or he studied it with someone who actually knew illathan. Was it his brother...? Or someone I didn't even know about...? I dismissed it as not very important as the last word left my lips. It would all be over in a few moments anyway.

I added the last element to it all by setting the contents of the incense bowl on fire, sealing that thought with its heat. Even the glint in Sharish's eyes as I did it was completely irrelevant now, so was the realization that he didn't provide me with anything to strike a flame with specifically to test if I had the instinct of a Disciple.

In response to my flame, the whole chamber suddenly shook, almost throwing me to my knees. Luckily, I managed to stay on my feet and was able to jump back a little as the stone floor crackled like dry thunder in the mountains and split apart right under the incense bowl, swallowing it a second later. I watched it fall, the flames dimming from the momentum, heading for another light, golden, suddenly revealing itself at the bottom of the fresh precipice. And in response, that other light flashed more brightly, expanding and bursting into dozens of golden wisps of raw magical energy.

I didn't know why my mind bothered to count and tell me that it was the third wisp that cut through my shoulder, making blood and a pained scream from my throat spray up into the shaking air. As if attracted by it, a few more wisps followed, making me fall to the floor and almost depriving me of my consciousness. The notebook slipped out of my hand and almost immediately disappeared beneath the rubble that was falling onto our heads. Only the old pendant stayed in my hand, the leather band hooked onto my finger. For a moment, I felt tempted to check if the notebook got damaged properly, but then a piece of the roof fell right onto my legs, pinning me to the ground and shattering the bones around my right knee. My scream didn't quite get drowned in the roar of destruction yet when one of the columns supporting the roof fell right onto the boulder that trapped me, splitting it in half and sending a nasty shock up my spine. I took a few breaths, desperately fighting to hold on to my consciousness, then glanced over my shoulder to assess the damage, but instead...

... I saw hope...

A speck of crystalline blue right above the rim of the boulder that was holding me in place just a moment ago, getting bigger and bigger by the second as the raging magic cut through everything around us, from stone to flesh. To anyone else, it wouldn't have mattered, but I could reach it... No, I had to reach it. That sight was enough to make me realize that deep down, I never actually surrendered...

I rolled over to my stomach and forced my arms to lift my aching body slightly, just enough... You might have found some tricks that brought me to the ground... I made my wings appear, sending crimson sparks around to accompany the golden ones starting fires here and there. But now you have no means to keep me from getting back up...

Praying that my wings would avoid being targeted by the rampaging magic, I beat them a few times, trying to ignore the burning pain in my shoulder, and shot up above the rubble, towards the sky glimmering beyond the destruction.

As I darted past the last still standing column, I spotted Sharish, robe charred, right arm covered in blood and eyes wide in surprise. But I couldn't bring myself to care anymore...

The first touch of the sun made a shiver spread across my skin, the first intake of free, mountain air almost making me dizzy and sending tears trickling down my cheeks. I escaped... after casting all hope away, accepting being a tool and deciding to give my own life as sacrifice, I broke free...

As soon as I reached an altitude no arrow would reach, I dared to stop and look back. The stronghold was still shaking, destruction spreading from north to south, looking like some huge, invisible creature lied down on it, the construction steadily giving up under its weight. Fire started to spread in the gardens, devouring everything on its way to the river, which could only stop its advance, but not its hunger... What devastated me more than the loss of such beauty though was the sensation that suddenly flooded my mind. I could feel energy... lives seeping into the air and returning to the earth where they originally came from... every plant, every small animal among the bushes, and even more terrifying... from the stronghold itself...

The blood in my veins almost froze solid. Were there other people...? I covered my lips with a trembling hand. Was Sharish telling the truth all along...? Were the sick people from Shinestone really here...? Even if not, there could have been servants, guards, guests... I could feel their lives go out and disperse into the air along with the smoke... And the man that caused it all was possibly still alive... The tears of despair and hatred almost blinded me when I just...

... turned around and fled...

~

I spent the night in a small cluster of trees in the Serelath Valley, not far from the ridge. I didn't have the strength to go much further... The wounds on my shoulder soon closed up enough to not pose any danger to my life, but every movement of my wings caused the scabs to crack open and expose the deeper parts. My knee didn't look any better, swollen and bluish, it would have rendered me completely unable to move if I didn't have my wings. But I deserved it... for my naivety... for endangering all of the human race... and for becoming a murderer... I felt like I didn't have the right to return to Silivren Forest... but I didn't want to cause even more grief by making everyone worry about me forever...

I arrived the next evening. As soon as I crossed the border of the woods, my body just collapsed into the soft grass, informing me that what I just did should have been impossible in the first place. I managed to whisper a quiet plea for help for the wind to carry before everything turned black...

It was a strange feeling to wake up to the familiar sight of tangled twigs above my head. To the soft sobbing of Ertralia. To the warm and deep voice of master Arakiel and the feeling of two small stones on my chest, radiating a warmth I wasn't used to. My body, surrounded by bandages, blankets and pillows, felt weirdly light, the scent of herbs filling my hovel. I was finally home...

For the first two days, no one even asked about what happened, even though I felt that most of them had their suspicions. On the third day, when I was finally able to at least sit up, I asked master Arakiel and Arneth for a conversation. After giving it much thought beforehand, I decided them to be the only ones I would reveal the entire truth to. They took the successful sealing away of my powers calmly, seemed relieved even... Apparently worrying about the girl who was like their own flesh and blood for half a month and the sight of her half dead made them draw the same conclusion as I did.

The powers I possessed were far too dangerous to remain in the open...

Thanks to the power of my sirath and the loving care of everyone around, my body recovered rather quickly. But despite the bones having grown back together and the wounds becoming scars, the soul resisted... I still felt a piercing cold whenever I thought back to my time in the Shinestone stronghold and the horrible deed I committed at the end of it. I never even saw a single body, yet they haunted me no matter if asleep or awake. And after all that death, I couldn't even tell my two fellow Disciples that my 'sacrifice' improved our situation even slightly... I suddenly found myself preferring to be alone, or with just Ertralia who was the only one capable of just snuggling up to me without making me feel like she could throw dozens of questions my way any second. I often wandered the forest asking the spirits for an answer to that pain, to my existence, to the reason why I was pushed into it all...

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Their answer was two shadows between the trees one early spring day, shadows that ventured into the forest to change my world...

~

The vivid images suddenly dispersed from before my eyes when I realized Yasenka had stopped talking. An uncomfortable silence spread underneath the sparkling Corsair.

There were so many things I wanted to ask about, and each of them made me feel like there were other, way more significant ones that I should focus on first. "Was there..." I made up my mind at last, but those words came out somewhat hoarse, so I quickly cleared my throat. I wondered how long my mouth has been open for. "Someone was after Siaril too then?"

My friend twitched nervously next to me.

"Did you meet anyone who tried to snatch you away?" asked Yasenka. I bet she was itching to ask for quite a while now, but wasn't able to without eliciting suspicious questions.

Siaril seemed to hesitate. "No... I thought the only henchman of Sharish who crossed my path was Canidralth... It was him you heard talking to Sharish that first time, right?"

"I think so. Now that I think about it, you might have thought that I overreacted a bit back when he appeared at the Apries Lake... but that was because I knew that he was working for Sharish at some point in the past..."

"Honestly, I really wasn't focusing on that back then," I smiled a little.

Yasenka did too. "Though, I could swear I've heard that second man's voice somewhere else too... But I could be wrong and it could be an encounter that's still before us."

"It might..."

"Something else confuses me too..." I allowed myself a moment to recall the order of events briefly. "That pendant Sharish took with him today... it was the one that came together with the notebook right? And you said you sealed the magic in your sirath... Why was he interested in the wrong thing?"

Ertralia's tail swayed once before resting back on her thigh. "He questioned me about it..." she muttered softly. "So I lied, like Yasenka instructed me to some time ago... I told him she sealed her powers in that pendant and hid it in the Well of Spirits... which was the main reason he sent me into the Guardian's domain..."

"The easiest place to hide a leaf is a forest after all. And if there is no forest, you grow one. The pendant really was hidden there, in a crack in the inner wall just above the water's surface," Yasenka stroked the younger girl's ear again. Ertralia sighed happily at the physical praise. "The only magic in it was a pinch that I put in to fool anyone unknowing. Since Sharish associated the pendant with the notebook and the ritual, I thought it'd be convincing to him... apparently, I was right."

"In other words, your powers are still with you?"

"Sometimes, the best way to hide something is to not hide it at all. People are so used to conjuring up the most complicated methods that they don't even consider the most simple ones anymore," Yasenka undid the first button of her overdress and took out the sirath. It wasn't anything close to a ruby like I expected. It was a beautiful amber, split in two pieces, emitting a familiar jingle reminding me more of metal than stone when they met each other... "Master Arakiel told me it was damaged during the first ritual in Ilmer," she explained upon seeing two confused stares.

"How come you already had it back then?"

"Her father had it," corrected the leader. "Don't ask me where he had it from though."

"Oh... and what does it do?"

"It speeds up the healing process of my wounds," Yasenka played with the stones carefully. They were like lucent resin of Silivren Forest's trees or two crystallized droplets of sunlight. "I'm almost sure the effect was enhanced when I put my powers in it. I wonder if it lost some of its magic back when it broke and there was some gap ready to fill..."

She put the stones back beneath her neckline and my eyes involuntarily slipped down where they shouldn't have... but before I could give myself a mental slap for that, I noticed a scar just below her collarbone, thick and nasty, disappearing somewhere further in the shadow of the fabric... The pain she went through... and the courage with which she faced Sharish...

I twitched a little at Siaril's voice: "So you didn't refuse to help the people on a whim but rather because you simply couldn't do it anymore..."

Yasenka shrugged a little, smiling sadly. "Most of them believed when I said that I lost my abilities. But some were either too covetous or too desperate to just accept facts... And so rumors started spreading..."

"I'm sorry you had to go through that..." As cruel as it may have sounded after everything we've heard, I felt a little disappointed. When I first heard that Yasenka had lost her powers, I was hoping to hear a story about a hooded man who stole her magic, bringing us closer to solving that riddle... But I guess there was nothing to be added to our modest collection of clues there...

"It's fine, I got used to it. What we should worry about more is the fact that sooner or later, Sharish will realize that there's no magic in what he stole."

"Didn't you say that he'll have a hard time unlocking the powers? Was that a bluff or does that apply to the real vessel?"

"The latter. In order to break the seal... I need to lose my life first."

I shuddered involuntarily. "You sealed it in a way that won't allow you to access these powers ever again...?"

"Theoretically, yes... but even if Sharish finds out how to remove the seal, I don't think he would dare to go this far. After all, he seems to want us on his side..."

"What did his words mean anyway? He made progress towards bringing dragons back to life? How?"

"Did your sirath react to that?"

"No?"

Yasenka narrowed her eyes at the campfire, thinking. "It doesn't make sense... Maybe I was able to resurrect a mouse or a rabbit in the past, when not too much time has passed since their death, but powerful magical beings extinct for decades are an entirely different matter. I bet he's somehow on his way to committing the stupidity of the century with that..."

"I think we will have time to ponder over all of this later," Siaril deemed the moment right to end the tiring day. "You should finally rest, you need it..."

The forest rustled softly above our heads, as if backing him up. "We all should," Yasenka agreed. "But first, I wanted to apologize for not telling you about all of this earlier... It's so crazy I was afraid you wouldn't believe... besides, I don't think it would have changed or prevented anything from happening..."

"Yasenka please," I interrupted her with a smile. "Don't justify yourself. Friends don't need it, and enemies won't believe you anyway."

I was rewarded with a short, grateful laugh. "I guess," Yasenka poked the lazy sykerien into getting up and did the same, brushing off the needles from her clothing. "Night you all." She gave Ertralia a gentle kiss on the forehead and made her way to her little hovel, one of the few that survived the day. Just after a few steps though, she turned around once more and looked at me and Siaril. "You know... I'm really glad I met you two... it was... like finally meeting the light that I've been chasing since seeing a glimpse of it through prison bars..."

The sad gratitude sparkling in her eyes made me feel warmer than the campfire next to me. Neither of us responded, and she didn't bother to wait for a response either, turning away again to finally seek shelter from the outside world.

Once she did, Ertralia gave us a shy smile and left towards the trees at the opposite side of the clearing. When the waving, fluffy tail melted with the shadows of the trees, the remaining illathan offered me and Siaril to sleep in one of the sparse remaining hovels. We refused, choosing a refreshing night in the open, among the soft grass under the low branches of one of the hornbeams. The murmur of the brook nearby sounded slightly agitated, the water seeming uneasy from all the rocks and branches that fell into it today.

I sprawled on the velvety blades of grass and looked up at the little patch of sky visible between the leaves. The stars multiplied and shone more brightly now... the moon was crescent and seeped a delicate, greenish gleam into the forest. That sight somehow made me realize how exhausted I was. I think we set up some kind of record in the flight from the mansion to the camp today, and an attempted suicide and everything that came after it wasn't exactly something that relaxed the mind. I turned to lie on my side and covered myself with one of my wings. I thought I heard Siaril whisper a worn out 'goodnight', but was too occupied with too many thoughts.

For some reason, I remembered the bard at the tavern in Leeshan... the harsh words, the unfair accusations... His words may have held some seed of truth and an unique beauty, but as a whole, the performance was missing a few lines.

"Regardless the pain and hatred received,

she returned with love and understanding,

rising from her knees to keep serving the ungrateful,

from ash to blazing hope..."