Kiano couldn’t move. His eyes were fixed on the tightly shut gatehouse, and his entire body ached to make matters worse.

That stupid guy…! What was he supposed to do now? He looked around himself in the darkness and let his eyes wander to the bridge. He was so close and yet so far away at the same time.

There was no way he could crawl his way there without drawing attention to himself. And where was that elf, even!? It should’ve helped them out of Lordôm instead of saving its own skin! Derrick was now trapped with the beasts, and he couldn’t help but blame himself for it.

If only he hadn’t stumbled back there, then they would’ve both escaped Hezakhal unscathed.

He gasped as something tapped his shoulder. A hand covered his mouth to stifle his scream. He looked up. It was the elf. But the beautiful creature didn’t look at him; he stared at the gatehouse as deafening screams pervaded the entire vicinity.

This lasted for a few seconds. The elf didn’t let go of him until the cries became faint. He was about to ask it to save Derrick when a rattle to the left broke him off. They both turned their heads towards the strange din.

The elf’s face hardened and lost colour. Without saying a word, the elf helped him up, and they hid behind a wilted thicket deep into the depths. Kiano couldn’t see the gatehouse any longer.

It was the humanlike creatures – two of them. They were sniffing the air and prowling the vicinity on four limbs. The elf stared him down in silence. It looked like he was contemplating something in his head.

Before he knew it, the elf placed his pale, slender hand on his forehead and whispered something in a foreign language. Within seconds, he felt how his entire body regained its original strength.

“W- what did you do to me?”

But the elf didn’t reply; instead, he pointed towards the bridge obscured by towering trees.

“There’s a forest beyond the Salkire, you’ll find my people in the depths, at the bottom of a dark spring, where no spirit but the dark elves are welcome. Go now; you must find Freyskul and tell my people that the Queen has awakened. Do you understand?”

“T- the Queen? What about Derrick? I- I can’t leave him here… I can’t—”

“He’ll be fine,” the elf said and looked him straight in the eyes for the first time since their strange encounter. “Now go, go and don’t look back. The Queen will protect you.”

With those words, the elf ran towards the humanlike creatures and sprinted into the darkness. The creatures followed suit. Kiano went into a strange trance at the unexpected sight. The elf was risking his own life to save him.

If he stayed like this, idle and too antsy to flee, then everything the elf risked for him would go to waste. With his heart in his mouth, he stumbled to his feet and ran in the direction of the burbling moat. The gatehouse was no longer shut, it was slightly ajar.

There was an ebony horse tethered to one of the massive trees nearby. He tried to squeeze in through the narrow gap and help Derrick when he locked eyes with one of the blind creatures beyond the gate. As the creature leapt forward and got stuck in the gap, he wriggled out and sprinted to the bridge without looking back.

He was halfway across the Salkire when a great roar broke out and cut him off. He looked up at the black sky, obscured by patches of fog. Something dark hovered above him and cast a great shade over the bridge.

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His heart thumped like never before at the bizarre spectacle. He picked up the pace and, finally, made it to the other side of the bridge, and as the elf had told him to, he ventured into the dark woods across Lordôm with all sorts of thoughts pestering his mind.

The arched trees reached for the heavens in an eerie welcome, as if they had waited for him all along. He slowed down as soon as the baleful darkness enclosed him from all directions.

It was as dark as back in Lordôm. Kiano gulped and spun around himself in a frantic dance as bone-chilling squeals filled the dismal woods, only to fade out with the disturbing wind. He was rooted to the spot and couldn’t budge an inch.

The dark elves were known for setting snares, tripwires, and all kinds of traps to keep outsiders out of their kingdom. He heard this from the undaunted wanderers who visited their village during their parlous travels.

He recalled how these myths and legends terrified him when he was still wet behind the ears, and how they made him swear he would never set foot here. Now, much to his dismay, he had come here on his own accord, and conceivably with some misfortune at that.

He stopped breathing and raised his eyes to the hidden sky, just as the towering and vicious trees straightened their trunks in a heartbeat. The woods plunged into darkness, and the shifting shadows mimicked the ebb and flow of the Seven Seas.

Kiano jerked back at the dreadful sight that emerged before him and collapsed on his buttocks. His mouth gaped wide, and his blood ran cold. Even the towering trees shivered with fright as a pitch-black dragon spit fire across the grey, cloud-riddled sky.

Then, amidst the wailing forest spirits, he locked eyes with the stately creature no living being had laid eyes on for thousands of years. A surge of crippling pain hit his ears, and he cowered in place. Each fibre of his body turned cold.

He covered his ears, trying to block out the deafening noise, and glared at the creature with bloodshot eyes. The dragon flapped its massive wings to stay afloat and bore into Kiano without averting its dark, menacing eyes.

His face turned pale and numb from the chilling cold, and even his otherwise calm heart pounded hard against his chest as if it wanted to rip right through it and bring the Grim Reaper to his feet.

It seemed like an eternity passed like that, and when the dragon finally let go of his eyes, it remained motionless in one spot. Kiano gulped. It flailed its massive wings as if it could not make up its dismal mind about whether to fly at him or disappear into the night sky.

For the briefest of moments, he thought he saw the hint of a slight smirk on its hollow mouth, riddled with sharp teeth. In the end, it never attacked him; instead, it studied him with its greenish eyes, pondering something, before turning around with a huge clamour and vanishing into the darkness it had come from.

A shiver ran up his spine. Without understanding why, he broke into a run at breakneck speed. He didn’t even care for the hundreds of traps that were there to trap him and disclose his whereabouts to the dark elves.

All he wanted was to reach the spring the elf told him about as soon as possible. The treacherous trees, however, afraid that the dragon would set them on fire, straightened their trunks one after the other to reveal his whereabouts. He glanced up.

The dragon was still hovering above him, following his every move without making a single noise, although he couldn’t see it. He… he couldn’t wrap his head around it, but one thing was sure: it was as if he and the mythical creature were one and the same.

He clenched his jaw as the never-ending crippling pain set his soul on fire again. His legs gave in as a clot of blood escaped his gritted teeth. The beat of his distressed heart overshadowed every other noise around him.

It felt like his insides were about to turn into mush and burst out of him. Then he heard it – the rippling spring made of heavenly tunes in the distance. It was somewhere around here, closer than he expected yet hidden from immediate sight.

He forced himself up and followed the spellbinding din, which grew louder with every passing second.

He dragged his feet against the hard ground, his shaking hand placed on his agonised heart screaming for him to surrender and heed its warnings. But he brushed it off and continued towards the hymn of seraphs.

The heavenly spring came into view, and the orbs of light illuminated the consuming darkness like butterflies dancing to the cadence of tuneful chants. He took a step into the cooling spring, then another.

It was up to the dark elves to let him in. He was at their mercy; they didn’t know him.

With these thoughts in his muddled mind, he collapsed and fell sideways into the chilly depths.