“Don't move,” Olivia ordered him in a whisper.

Even if Silas had wanted to move, he would not have been able to. A shiver ran down his back, as the ogre walked forward, with his back hunched, and his thick arms hanging off his body, as if they weighed him down,

I need to run, I need to run, he thought, but his feet couldn't get off the ground. Olivia was as petrified as he was. They both couldn't stop watching the huge feet rising and sinking into the snow that attenuated the force of the creature's footsteps.

When the ogre stopped a meter away from them, his figure blocked the little light that filtered through the branches, covering them with a fateful shadow. An intense aroma of damp earth, rotting leaves, wild plants and grasses surrounded them.

He was twice as tall as Olivia, whose head must have barely reached its waist. His skin was a mixture of green and brown colors, rough, like the bark of trees, covered in some parts by mosses and leaves, which must have helped him blend in with the vegetation to hunt his prey, Silas thought.

His face was furrowed with scars, as if he had fought with equally fierce beasts. His eyes, a deep emerald, might have been considered beautiful had they not been overshadowed by his powerful jaw and the fangs that emerged from his stern mouth.

Silas watched his nostrils flaring. He was sniffing them, perhaps delighting in the thought of his next meal.

But then he felt something fall on the snow. His eyes twisted to the side and he saw that it was Olivia's saddlebag. Then he saw the ogre hovering over them, but the creature made no attack. In fact, he reached out an arm and picked up the saddlebag, which he continued to sniff for a few seconds, until, to Silas' amazement, he turned away as calmly as he had come, taking with him the saddlebag with all the food they had been so carefully rationing.

Still in shock, he felt hands lifting him up. There he realized that he had returned to his mouse form.

Without letting go of Silas, Olivia began to run, trying to get as far away from the ogre as possible, until she ran out of air, and fell to the ground exhausted.

Under the shelter of some huge tree, they took a while before talking, as they waited for the trembling in their bodies to begin to cease.

“Why didn't you run before?” asked Silas, still between her hands.

“You didn't run either” she defended herself. “Ogres don't eat humans, but you never know how they might react. Luckily, all he wanted was food. Incredible as it seems, they were created centuries ago by the elves themselves, to act as protectors of the forest, and nowadays they just keep curious humans away. They can even be friendly, but only with other magical creatures. We will have to be more alert now, because we run the risk of encountering others.”

“Had you ever seen one before?”

She blushed.

“No... I read about them.... I guess I took a chance. Books can be wrong sometimes... especially if they're written by humans.”

After saying this, she smiled and, for a brief moment, Silas almost gave in to the urge to smile at her in response, though she wouldn't have been able to tell in his current form.

“So... what happened to your promise?” she asked him suddenly with a mocking hint.

Silas snapped back to attention.

“What promise?”

“In Barthra's hut... you told me...” She began to imitate his fox voice. “If you get caught, I'll escape and you'll have to fend for yourself.”

“Ah, yes...” Silas remained thoughtful. “Well, but you didn't get caught in the end so it doesn't count.”

“I know this is going to upset you but... I think that, even if the ogre had caught me, you wouldn't have abandoned me.”

“What a stupid thing to say. I didn't stay to protect you, I was just...”

“Scared?”

Silas would rather admit that first, than admit the other.

“Well, yes, my feet didn't respond. Otherwise I would have run away.”

“It's the second time it's happened to you...”

Silas knew what she meant but was reluctant to talk.

Olivia insisted.

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“In the castle, when Leander saw you, you turned into a mouse... I thought you had done it to escape, but now I see that it happened again, and...”

“Yes, yes, I lose control of my body when I feel afraid, you know that, happy?”

“I also felt as scared as you. It's nothing to be ashamed of.”

“You're so weird.”

Olivia kept silent as she ruminated.

“I've been thinking... about what I told you before... You don't need to learn to read, or, at least read words.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Barthra once told me... The world is a book, Olivia, but not only of words. You have to use all your senses, even those you haven't discovered yet. The Ethereal Codes are just another language that tries to grasp the immeasurable. Yes, you can play at decoding it, even manipulating it with your seals, but never fully understanding it. That is why Elementals are immune to their tricks. The elves know, this and that is why they did not object to teaching humans.”

“Did elves teach magic to humans?” Silas asked interested.

“Of course, the first humans who came to Terrarkana knew nothing about how to handle the Ethereal Codes. Some scholars say they were totally ignorant about it, while others, skeptical, believe that the reason they came here was precisely to seek the power of the legendary magical beings that were said to live here. Anyway, the elves decided to make a pact with them. Eldrin has always told me that the elves were quiet generous when it came to sharing their knowledge, but Barthra...”

“What did she say?” insisted Silas, when he realized she did not want to continue.

“Barthra told me that, actually, the elves only gave up a part of their knowledge, so that the humans would not become as powerful as them, but enough so that they could handle the elves' dirty work.”

“You mean...?” Silas now understood.

Olivia nodded slowly.

“The elves made a pact with the humans, and then pushed them to fight the chimeras, which started the last war.

Silas was not shocked by that revelation. He had always known that the elves despised the chimeras since ancient times, because of the war with the giants, but to think that they were behind the attacks that the humans inflicted on the chimeras, until driving them to the brink of extinction, made his blood begin to boil.

“I will kill them!” shrieked Silas, suddenly blinded by rage.

“Silas!” Olivia's eyes filled with fear.

“I'll kill them! I'll kill them! I'll kill them! I'll kill them! You'll see! I'll kill them all!”

He began to run around the floor. His mouse voice, high-pitched but intense, let out all the frustration he had been holding back for who knew how long. His little paws were shaking, though not from the cold, his tail was stiff, and his body was jumping, as if he was suffering from small spasms. He felt as if his insides might explode at any moment.

Suddenly, his bright eyes met Olivia's horrified gaze.

She couldn't help but reach out and begin caressing his back.

“Silas... Silas, you're...”

Silas had a hard time accepting it, but her gesture helped him to slowly calm down.

“It's all conjecture...” Olivia continued, although she didn't sound very convinced. “That's what Barthra says... while Eldrin...”

“And who do you believe, Barthra or Eldrin?”

His little voice sounded rough and broken, like a wounded child. Olivia could not answer so easily.

She remained silent and, for some reason, the mouse felt sorry for her.

“I don't know what the truth is,” she finally answered. “Although I should tell you something important... I think it's your right. Once you know, you will have to make a decision.”

“What do you...?”

Silas didn't manage to finish the question because, blended with the breeze, they heard the unmistakable sound of the snow crunching under the uninterrupted footsteps of something approaching.

“The ogre again?” Silas asked.

“No... it's something else.”

Olivia took Silas again in her hands and stood up. They listened carefully to determine where the sounds came from, but there was something else, a mumbling that they couldn't distinguish.

Suddenly, the mouse understood what it was.

“Those are voices,” he whispered.

“My father,” and, after saying this, Olivia finally started to run, but if the men approached on horseback they would soon reach them.

“What do we do?” Silas asked, feeling suffocated between Olivia's hands.

“I can't use the seals but I have an idea. Trust me.”

The chimera didn't want to trust her but still didn't complain.

Although he did regret not doing so when he saw that, at full speed, Olivia was rushing against a huge blue-leafed tree, as if she wanted to crash into it.

Which she did.

And, suddenly, everything went dark.

I'm dead, thought the mouse, but next to him something was moving forward and backward in a rhythmic pace. It was the agitated breathing of Olivia who had imprisoned him between her hands and her chest.

The darkness was total, as if they had gone into a cave, although the mouse was sure he had seen the surface of the trunk, before the light was completely extinguished.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“We are inside the tree.” Olivia responded.

“I didn't see any hole.”

“There isn't one. We were absorbed... or something similar.”

“What?” his tiny mouse heart was racing.

“There's nothing to worry about. It's an old trick that... someone... taught me.”

“And why only now...?”

“I wanted to leave it as a last resort. I'm sorry to say, after all we did, but as soon as we get out of here, we must leave the forest immediately. Otherwise, the Lady will end up finding us.”

“No problem for me, I already feel sick of being in this damned elven forest.”

Olivia sighed in exhaustion.

“We will wait some time until my father and his men move away. Now I need to rest for a moment. I really had to concentrate to do this, and it looks like I wasted too much energy.”

“Have you done this before?”

“A couple of times, though I wasn't running away from anything.”

“Is this another wizard's trick?”

But Olivia didn't answer him. Clutched to her chest, the chimera felt her breathing normalizing and getting heavier and heavier. She had fallen asleep.

Silas then decided to rest as well. It had been a morning full of emotions. Besides, inside the tree, it was very comfortable. They should have slept like that from the beginning, but he supposed Olivia would have her reasons for not doing so.

And so, immersed in that coziness, Silas closed his eyes, and it didn't take him long to fall asleep, cradled by Olivia's soft heartbeat.