„If death kills our body, our life will still last forever: in the heart that beats in our children’s chest, in the moments of love that are memories now about our dears and about everything that is alive or we fought for an entire life,” the old Solan told, in a sure voice, while rancid soil was thrown over Marry’s body.

  The People of Siar decided to bury her in a sunny glade which was out of the power of evil generally because, in that glade, the sun was powerfully illuminating the surroundings, giving nature the magic it needed.

  And they’ve decided to do this despite the old traditions of the People of the City of the Sun, that was burning on the pyre the bodies of those that died, and it was because they didn’t want to hurt her body more than it was, as an honor brought to the young virgin, who chose to walk on the path of death than to be dishonored by an unprincipled man like king Goyan.

  But it had been also decided so because Nathaniel and his people thought that a virgin, wearing a white dress after her death, will go directly to Aeon and she’ll be born as a fairy in her second life.

  That’s why Marry had been dressed in a long, white dress that was completely covering her body, with her hair beautifully combed and left to fall on her chest. And she’d been prepared to look like this for walking on her last path on Earth by the young virgins of Siar People, whose habit of beautifully combing their hair or plaiting it in long back hair was well known all over because it was a skill learned from grandparents and great-grandparents and it was considered unique and proper only for them.

  Later, when the girl’s body was already wrapped in white cerecloth and tightly tied in three places with young liana branches, a symbol that this won’t allow ever the evil spirits to touch this young soul while getting to Aeon, she’d been left in her grave, that wasn’t that deep dug, only about the height of not such a tall man, and, while the rancid soil was carefully thrown over Marry’s body, the young girls threw white flowers over the soil, flowers that they picked up in the same glade where the grave had been dug, and they also cried with bitter tears for the same age dead girl as they were.

  Then, when the grave was already covered and a headstone was put at one edge, the old Solan opened a bottle of alcohol, which he brought with him, spilled some liquid over the soil, about three times, murmuring: „let your sleep be calm and the path on which you are walking now clean, as the water over which the old boatman Charon will pass your soul to be also pure and not tormented by evil because your soul is also pure, innocent, and only for those like you the Gate of Aeon will open again.”

  After the ritual was done, the girls put white flowers on the grave again and those that had been present at the funeral left the glade.

  Thus, nobody saw that right after they left, the wind scattered the white petals. But even so, the flowers, that were destined to die, suddenly became alive, struck roots, and a slight tic-tac was heard floating all over above that sunny glade.

***

  „Did you come?” Yellen said, leaving the grotto and approaching her brother when she saw them coming back from the funeral.

  „Yes, we came,” Nathaniel dryly answered and moved toward the gray, big rock seen not that far from the entrance in the grotto and on which he used to usually stay when he was overwhelmed by thoughts.

  His „coldness” hurt Yellen, who got a miff.

  Samaya instead smiled seeing her and put a palm on the girl’s shoulder. „Don’t be sad, Yellen. He has nothing against you. He just… remembered something painful from his past.”

  „Probably,” Yellen also dryly answered and kicked a small stone she saw in front, making it roll down the valley.

  „How’s Bestla? Did she come back to her senses?” Sephir asked, approaching the two girls.

  „Not yet, but, for some time, she started to mumble: water, water. I don't know what this means,” Yelled said, turning her head and looking at the entrance to the grotto: Bestla was asleep on bedding that was put not that far from the entrance and she was also squeezing the blanket in her hand.

  „We’ll find out this soon,” Sephir whispered and entered the grotto.

  Samaya followed Sephir, but she smiled at Yellen at first, once again, and then she told the girl to bring some fresh water from the small stream that was heard flowing in the valley: the water was needed for washing the hands after the funeral and wash thus Marry’s sins too if there were some made in her life. But Samaya also told Yellen not to go alone, but to take someone else with her and, after this, she entered the grotto and approached Sephir, who was kneeling next to Bestla, touching her sister’s forehead and looking preoccupied.

   „Something goes wrong?” Samaya asked and also kneeled next to Bestla.

  „Her soul. I don’t feel it,” Sephir whispered, preoccupied.

  Samaya said nothing: she only stretched her hand and touched Bestla’s chest, waiting for a few moments, but she also didn’t feel anything.

  Suddenly, Samaya winced, feeling someone’s wheezing breath behind her and who also touched her neck with his cold-like ice hands. „Zeal! You spent hours and hours in the water again!” Samaya whispered upset.

  Zeal slightly smiled, grinning and watching Bestla’s asleep face. „Of course, I spent hours above the water… sleeping actually… as our asleep beauty does.”

  „Why I’m not even surprised?!” Sephir mumbled, grimacing, but she still could notice, before watching in the distance, Zeal’s unhappy face when she listened to her elder sister’s commentaries. „I’m not looking to fight with you. Don’t worry. It was just an… innocent remark.”

  „Of course! Of course! As you always do! Let’s go, anyway!” Zeal told them in a demanding voice.

  „Where?” Sephir and Samaya both asked at the same time.

  „To the water!” Zeal loudly told them while being next to the entrance in the grotto, after measuring noses with Arion, who was about to enter, and, grimacing at him, she demanded him: „and of course, I found the perfect horse to help us to transport the burden. Maybe he’ll wash his sins this way,” Zeal added and reproachfully shook her head.

  Arion intended to tell her something nice, and worthy, but he made do only with grimacing. Then, he approached Bestla, took her in his arms, and went East, where a small lake was located and where Zeal loved to spend her time while being in that part of the forest.

  Sephir and Samaya followed Arion and when they passed by Zeal, both reproachfully shook their heads toward the girl, who was still next to the entrance in the grotto, sweetly yawning.

  „Yes, yes, I know you hate the water, but you have nothing else to do than to follow me: until this old lady won’t wash your sins, nobody will get rid of me,” and that „old lady” was for herself, of course, because even if she was younger than Sephir was, Zeal considered that she was wiser than her sister and that she had the right to scold her each time she considered this right. Then, she followed the others, who were already heading to the lake. But the yawn on her face wasn’t disappearing, a sign that she still wanted to sleep.

  Watching behind them, Boor reproachfully shook his head and slightly slapped his forehead. „Zeal and her ideas,” he murmured, but he winced, spotting Island behind him.

  „If you wince, it means that you have a lot of sins hidden in your soul,” Island made a joke and winked at his son.

  „The one with a lot of sins on his shoulders is you, father because only you cookered Zeal so much that she doesn’t listen to anyone now. Just as you learned from her the ability to sneak around like a cobra and scare people to death,” Boor feisty said.

  „Jealous?” Island asked, slightly bending toward his son and staring into his eyes.

  „On whom? On you?”

  „Of course, on me and not on Fate. And… of course, you never could find the proper path to talk to Zeal, even if I know that you love her a lot and you are capable to kill everyone who’ll try to hurt her. Is this because you are afraid of the cobras?” And a long hiss came out of Island’s throat while imitating the cobras.

  But he suddenly coughed, feeling something in his throat, and when he took it out of his mouth, he saw a small stone which Fenrir involuntarily threw, trying to hit Nathaniel and make him follow him to the lake. But Fenrir mistook the target and the stone entered Island’s open mouth when he wanted the breath in.

  „I make a pardon!” Fenrir murmured and quickly got off the ground, following Sephir and the others because he knew well that if Island decides to leave him alone with the incident with the stone, not the same will happen with Dike, who hated unrespectful kids and Fenrir had been always one.

  Unhappy, Island grimaced, looking behind Fenrir, who was walking so fast toward the lake, followed by Mago. „It seems that you taught your son-in-law well. Not for nothing, you married Sephir with him,” the Titan of Ice murmured.

  „The one who married my girl with the wolf and without my permission was you, father. But… this is another talk we’ll have very soon. However, I’m not that sure you’ll like what you’ll hear,” and Boor moved away from Island, heading toward the horses because Boor loved to spend hours with the animals, caressing their feather and feeling their loyalty while they breathed warm air toward him.

  „It seems that he scolded you for Sephir’s wedding,” Dike teased Island, approaching him, and looking at Boor, who was slowly talking to his horse.

  „Did you see the sky crackling?”

  „Not yet. Why? Should I have seen it?”

  „Aga, and if you didn’t see it, this means Boor didn’t get revenge yet, and I don’t know why I have the feeling that I have the itches on my skin: a bad sign it seems,” Island made a joke and then he approached the rock on which Nathaniel was sitting.

  Then, Island lay down on the grass, next to the rock, looking at the dusk sky, beautifully colored with reddish rays.

  Dike looked toward him for a few seconds more, melancholically smiling, and he moved later toward Boor because Dike and Boor had something in common: their love for the horses.

***

  Slowly rocking her in his arms, while Bestla pretended to be asleep, and that „pretending” wasn’t random at all because her eyes were quickly moving still closed and that blinking could be noticed only by Zeal and Samaya whom she never could cheat, Arion slowly smiled. Then he suddenly strained and threw Bestla into the water.

  „Ia, you…,” Bestla suddenly shouted, before being swallowed by water, and her sister’s shout made Zeal loudly laugh: „I knew she isn’t asleep. I knew it,” she happily murmured.

  Sephir instead folded her arms across her chest and made a wry face. „And again, I’m the only one whom our asleep beauty could deceive. Isn’t it?”

  „It seems so. Actually, is so easy for the world to deceive you. Even the wolf did it if he managed to make you his wife. And… oh, yes, he doesn’t even know what kind of trouble he took on his shoulders. Poor guy,” and Zeal slowly shook her head, teasing her elder sister.

  „And… who told you that she’s a trouble on my shoulders and not a sweet burden for my heart?” Fenrir gently said, hugging his wife from behind, and this made Zeal do a wry face and murmur unsatisfied: „these lovers love to make the sight of themselves. Especially in front of the starving ones.”

  „Why do you consider that you are starving love? You can find someone to love you too,” Fenrir provoked her.

  „As if it’s that easy to find someone in this forgotten by-the-world den.”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  „Why do you say so? We have enough alone men around here.”

  „Really?!” Zeal hissed through her teeth, standing tea pot fashion, and preparing this way for a long „fight” with Fenrir because that one wasn’t the first talk of this kind that they had in those 13 years since they knew each other.

  „Yeah, we have. Here they are: Mago and Arion,” but this made Zeal make a wry face.

  „Don’t make me part of your job,” Mago murmured. „Not for nothing, but… I don’t really like the cobras,” and he grinned, looking at Zeal, who unexpectedly „hissed” at him, and a cobra tongue passed by him, making the others laugh.

  Arion approached Mago and put a hand on his shoulder, whispering: „take care with the cobras, young man. You don’t even know what kind of spell they can throw over you, making you their… soulmate, in a single…”

  „Listen, horse,” Zeal hissed the words, „be careful! Who knows?! It can strike out the idea in my head of trying that spell on your back, because…,” but she kept silent and, suddenly raising her hand, she caught, on the fly, an ice sphere thrown from the lake and when she looked over there, she saw Bestla coming out of the water and furiously staring at Zeal. „Yes, yes, I got this… I tried my luck with someone else’s man,” Zeal murmured, making the others happily smile.

  Only Samaya looked in the distance with a lost glance as if something was preoccupying her.

  But a hiss next to her left ear made her wince and she suddenly grabbed the cobra that was hissing at her by the neck while climbing on her back and that cobra was controlled by Zeal. „Zeal, I told you that I hate this,” Samaya told her in a serious voice.

  „Yeah, I know: the cobras and the wolves hate each other. But… what to do?! When you are friends with a cobra…”

  Turning her head toward Zeal, who supported her chin on Samaya’s shoulder, instead of the cobra that suddenly vanished, Samaya looked with curiosity at her friend. „What are you planning now?”

  „Me? Nothing important. I’m just… growing tired.”

  „And when you are bored, someone else definitely suffers. I still remember what happened to Sephir at the river, then, with your „trap” of lotus flowers, when Fenrir saw her completely naked and he was just a little boy then. You were also bored that day.”

  „And… did I do something wrong then? They are husband and wife now. Only… look at them… the love is floating in the air next to them,” Zeal said with jealousy while looking at Sephir and Fenrir, who were hugging each other and, slowly laughing, they were whispering something in the ear of the other. „I think that using the trap with the „lotus flowers” once again will be a damn good idea. Who knows?! Maybe we’ll have another pair of lovers between us,” Zeal whispered while looking at Bestla and Arion, who were standing face to face, ready for a fight. „I think I’ll start with them. Later, I’ll stop at you and… the one left on that rock. You look to be a damn good team.”

  „Just try it and I’ll make you for sure a pair with… Mago,” Samaya whispered in her ear, making Zeal grimace.

  „You could find someone more handsome.”

  „Why? He looks damn well and…,” but Samaya suddenly kept silent, seeing Mago two steps from them.

  The man instead just made a joke: „Keep going! Keep going! Don’t worry about me! I love when others gossip about me behind my back… and… not even try to edge her on me or… I won’t respond.”

  Samaya slowly laughed while thinking: „why do I have the feeling that these two will be the new pair of lovers soon…”

  „Because you are right?” She heard Fenrir’s voice in her head and when she looked at her brother, Samaya saw how he winked at her, but she right away looked elsewhere because she remembered that Zeal could also hear their telepathic voice, but both brothers seemed to have forgotten about this.

  Then, the men took the girls on their shoulders and went to the waters… I mean, Fenrir took Sephir and Arion took Bestla because Zeal only showed her teeth to Mago, seeing him moving toward them: „just try it and I swear that you won’t come out of the water again.”

  Mago only shrugged, and took off his shirt, leaving his well-made body to be seen by the others. Then, he threw himself into the water.

  Zeal frowned: she would have liked him not to listen to her, but yet… she was too sourest. So, she just sat down, sulky, folded her arms across her chest while staring at the lake and this made Samaya laugh with all her heart.

***

  Still laying on the grass, with a blade of grass between his teeth, Island looked at the reddish blossomed horizon of the dusk.

  Nathaniel, sitting on the rock, looked at the same horizon, but he’d been awakened from his daydream listening to the happy peals of laughter that were coming from the lake.

  „It seems that at least someone has some fun,” he murmured.

  „And who doesn’t allow you to do the same?” Island asked, still with his eyes focused on the sky.

  „My heart,” Nathaniel sadly answered. „I don’t know why, but each time someone dies and we leave him behind us, I feel a deep emptiness in my soul, then a big burden pressing on my chest.”

  „Are you talking about Marry?”

  „Aga.”

  „But… you didn’t even know that girl. Yes, I know that she’d been human, eventually, but… how can you be sad for someone you saw only once in your life and she wasn’t alive anymore when you saw her?”

  „I’m not sad for her, but for the story behind her.”

  „Story? What kind of story?”

  „I don’t know. Actually, I don’t even know why did she die. But yet, I feel that she had a story too: a sad one, if she finished her life like this - without luck and buried by strangers. I don’t want for anybody else such an end.”

  „And you are wrong here, young man. Each of us has the end he deserves,” Island said, without watching Nathaniel. Actually, the whole time Nathaniel talked, Island didn’t even glance at him, even though Nathaniel glanced several times at Island.

  „Why are you saying this, Titan Island?

  „Because it’s the truth. And… even if Titans think that they are invincible, I still think that they’ll reach an end eventually too. Which one… I don’t know. Only Moirae know this.”

  „But… as far as I know, the Titans have the power to make Moirae talk. If Titans find out the truth, they can impede their falling.”

  Island looked at Nathaniel for the first time: „And you are wrong again, young man. What you say it’s only what humans think about us. But we don’t have such power. Yes, I must agree, we have magical powers and we create or destroy things as we wish. But yet… everything has a limit, everything has a function, and each of us lives until the Universe needs us.”

  „What after this?”

  „After this… probably we’ll start to walk onto the same path to Aeon. To be honest, I don’t know the answer to your question… I never thought about this. But it seems that I have to do this because I realize that I don’t know the answer to all the questions I hear, especially of those of the humans.”

  Nathaniel smiled and looked at his worked hands: „to be honest, not even the humans know the answer to their own questions. And… we are looking for this for centuries.” Then, he raised his glance and looked into Island’s eyes, who was staring at him, but not with reproach or hatred, but kindly, like a father was watching his son.

  „Then, go to that lake and find out the answer to the questions that are tormenting your soul, boy, because it isn’t right to live with all this inside you.”

  „To find out answers? At the lake? But… how?”

  „Because there is Samaya there, and she can answer your questions by using her magic. So, listen to my advice and go there or you’ll regret this all your life.”

  Saying this, Island stood up and approached Boor and Dike, who were still next to the horses. Then, Island looked at Nathaniel, who was still on the rock.

  „What did you tell to that young man that you left him even more lifeless than he was before?” Dike asked in a joke.

  „The truth, and if he listens to my advice, you’ll probably marry your girl with him if we escape war, Dike.”

  „I know this for a long time already,” and Dike smiled, and this made Boor and Island stare at him, not understanding anything from what he said. „I've known that boy since he was a toddler only. It was destined for me to save his life once because Fate headed my footsteps there when he was in danger: it had been probably because I had to save Samaya’s soul mate.”

  Dike looked then behind Nathaniel, who eventually stood up and went to the lake. This made Dike kindly smile, thinking: „I bless you, my dears because I want at least you to know what love is in this life.”

***

  Alone in the water, up to the girdle, Nathaniel and Samaya were face to face, looking into the other’s eyes while Samaya’s hand was resting on the man’s chest, who looked at her as if he saw an angel.

  „Are you sure about this?” Samaya asked after lowering her glance and looking for a while at the water, to look again into his eyes then.

  „No, but Titan Island is right: if I don’t do this, I may regret this later.”

  „Then… let’s find out the answers you always looked for,” she said, sadly smiling.

  Her lips started to whisper later strange words, unknown to the man, but it didn’t scare him because, next to her, he felt a too weird peace.

  Then, Samaya closed her eyes and the water around them started to shake, increasing in volume, and big mirrors had been formed from the water around them, beautifully reflecting the dusk light on them.

  In that reflection of reddish light, the water seemed to get a life, and soon, Samaya and Nathaniel’s bodies had been covered by the lake's surface.

  Nathaniel came to his senses when he was already deep underwater, immersed in abyssal darkness and this made him suddenly react, remembering the moment from his childhood when he’d been about to drown. Scared, he looked around, but it was deep darkness all around.

  Touching hand by hand, he’d been amazed to feel them small again and he understood that entering underwater he had been forced to confront his fear again: that fear he carried inside him since he was a child - fear for the depths of the water, a fear that he always tried to avoid, but which he forgot about when he saw Samaya for the first time, threatened by death while fighting with the wild boar and falling in the water.

  Eventually, they both fell into the water, and, after that event, the fear inside him turned back to life, as the nightmares did. And, after that day, he had a troubled sleep and, in sleep, he was always seeing a huge illuminated Clepsydra, hidden in deep and cold water, whose light was slowly fading out. And when the light of the Clepsydra was completely fading out, he was awakening: frightened and sweating, but no matter how hard he didn’t try to find the answer to his dreams, asking himself what does it mean or asking the elders of his village, nobody could give him a real answer.

  At that moment instead, of being a child again, the old Nathaniel felt that those dreams had been more than simple dreams. So, unwillingly, he touched his chest with his hand and he heard that tic-tac of an invisible Clock again, and, soon after, the wheels inside him started to quickly move.

  After the gong, which started to be heard all around underwater, beat 12 times, a blinding light has been seen in front of Nathaniel, and this made the boy carefully look around because something told him that he’ll finally remember the events that happened to him in the past and that he seemed to have forgotten big part of them.

  At first, the light seen by the boy looked just like a lighted spring on the surface of something dark. Then, that spring became bigger and bigger, blinding everything around it. After this, Nathaniel saw how the upper part of a Clepsydra has been outlined, then the lower part.

  That Clepsydra, which took shape in front of him, was completely golden and powerfully illuminated. But… the inside of it was completely empty, and this amazed the boy because he was sure that he saw, when he was a boy, how the sand was slowly flowing in the Clepsydra. Now instead it was missing, like the big Clock with its hands was missing too.

  „Why so? Why is this image different from the one of my dreams?” Nathaniel-the child wondered, with the voice of the man.

  „Because what you saw then was the reality of the old times,” Nathaniel heard Jar’s voice, coming from the Clepsydra. But only after minutes of staring at the glass of the Clepsydra, did the boy see Samaya inside it.

  She wasn’t scared and she wasn’t also looking as if someone closed her inside the Clepsydra. Per contra: it seemed that she willingly entered the jar of her own Fate. More than this: Samaya looked somehow different - she had white hair, as Jar had, and the garments used by her were also different from those she had used during the ritual.

  „Samaya?” Nathaniel whispered.

  „Right. Who are you seeing now is Samaya, the one who has the power of touching the Clepsydra of the Time and stop the time, if necessary,” Jar’s voice said.

  „But… why do I see this and why do I hear the wheels of the Clock beating inside my chest?”

  „Because you are the half of the Clepsydra. Its mechanism, that can make it work again, as it can also make the sand flow inside the Clepsydra again, in its normal rhythm, as it did thirteen years ago when you fell underwater and Samaya started to talk. It was then when the Clepsydra stopped and the sand vanished.”

  „Why?!… I don’t understand.”

  „Because three different powers joined then: one of the wolves, one of the foxes, and one of the humans. In other words: the force of the darkness joined the force of the light, and you’ve been the border between Darkness and Light - the power of humans and the one who balances the Truth and the Lie.”

  „But…”

  „How to make the sand flow again?”

  „Yes… because I’m sure that neither Samaya nor those involved in this war know the answer to this question.”

  Jar laughed. „Nobody knows the answer to this question. Not even me, who's the guardian of the Balance of Time - I’m Jar, by the way, and the only one who knows the truth is the Balance itself, and when it’ll be found and restored, namely then the Balance will find the way to make the sand flow again inside the Clepsydra and the time to flow in its normal rhythm.”

  The hand of Samaya, the 9-years-old girl, grabbed the cloth of the kid’s clothes and pulled him out of the water, making the Clepsydra vanish again.

  Returned to the surface of the water, Nathaniel-the man, saw, in amazement, that everything around was calm enough and that the mirrors from the water were also vanished, like the sun in the sky: only a few reddish rays were seen painting in red the darkness of the night sky.

  However, Nathaniel saw that his clothes were completely wet as if he had been really underwater. That's why he looked confused into Samaya’s eyes.

  „It’s right: what you saw was real. You turned back time… and you’ve been underwater again.”

  „But… how did you do this? I thought that your power isn’t that strong to…”

  „It wasn’t me who did this… it was Jar… the Spirit of the Balance of Time. I’m his human shape on Earth, and the fact that I have inside me the power of stopping Time when I touched the wheels of the Clock that are inside you, I awoke Jar and he showed you the truth.”

  „But… he didn’t manage to tell me about the Clock and about why I’ve been chosen to be…,” but he kept silent when he remembered Jar’s words…

„...it’s because you are the half of the Clepsydra…”

  „It can’t be…,” Nathaniel murmured.

  „What exactly?”

  „We’ll find out this now,” Nathaniel said, and, hugging Samaya, he kissed her.

  But even if his kiss took her by surprise, Samaya didn’t oppose it because the spell inside her, next to the spell of her soulmate, joined at that moment and they hadn’t how to run away from each other.