That was a disaster, and Fidelia didn't think so because of the charred huts lining the lakeshore. Rebuilding the village would be the least of their concerns. The worst would come later. The real problem was much deeper.

A new war was threatening to break out, and this time the sirenians would not be able to stop it.The Lake Tribe had been attacked, and on the night of the Return itself no less. For centuries the sirenians had been considered an untouchable race, sacred even to some of their followers. They had been blessed by the Blue Dragon after the war between the Prairie and Forest Clans. Later, at the end of the last war, they were responsible for restoring peace to Terrarkana. They had even managed to get the secluded Island Clan to send their own delegation to join the Covenant.

A large part of the human population admired the elves for their beauty and perfection, but they had never wanted to mix with them. After all, they were descendants of Yorgad and Nemertyss. Elves had taught humans some of their magic, true, but only for the purpose of using them as a weapon to hunt the chimeras. The elves could not harm the chimeras due to the Dragon's curse, but the humans, free of that punishment, used the magic learned from the elves and slaughtered that innocent race, which, decimated, had to flee to the mountains.

In contrast, the sirenians, who were seen by some as an inferior race compared to the elves, had opened their arms to humans from the beginning. They had not taught them magic, of course, which was not, at the end, as powerful as that of the elves, although they were excellent healers. Instead, they shared with the humans the rites of the Dragon and the history of Terrarkana of which they too had been part, to some extent.

However, that friendly gesture also generated a new division, this time among the humans, who split into two factions: those who followed the cult of the Nymph, and those who began to worship the Blue Dragon. Some settled on the lake, raising families with the sirenians, and founding what was now known as the Lake Tribe.

Others adventurers set sail for the sea, and created the League of Pirates, which during what became known as the Sea Revolt fought against the Royal Navy and played a decisive role by invading some important ports such as Stormbrace, and almost Nemertya itself. They even seized some of the islands further north, several of which, even a hundred years later, were never recovered. This forced the royal family to cease attacks against the chimeras and enter into negotiations.

And behind all that the sirenians had been guiding the tides. A very cunning race, Eldrin had told her, though not with admiration but with despise. For him, the sirenians were hypocrites who went on about honesty and fraternity when they themselves had manipulated the humans as much as the elves had done. The difference was that the elves, according to him, had valid reasons to treat humans as the inferior beings they were, and would only accept those who achieved a worthy power equal to theirs.

And to think that all that history lesson Fidelia had learned from the mouth of his former teacher. It was he who had opened her eyes to the prospect of a much larger world beyond the walls of Shadowrock.

She had been born from servant parents. From a very young age she had been taught that the only thing she could aspire was nothing more than to be loyal to her lord, the old Count of Shadowrock, who ruled the castle with an iron hand, and Fidelia had watched countless times how her father was whipped for making such trivial mistakes as dropping a tray due to fatigue.

Still, her parents were able to protect her, and give her a happy childhood with what little they had. Among her fondest memories, she recalled her mother inventing all kinds of games and songs to make the time at work go by faster. Her father was a skilled carver of wooden toys. She still kept three of them that had been left in the shelter of The Missing Helm Tavern: a horse, a soldier and a mountain goat.

But then the epidemic of the red disease struck the castle and she was orphaned. Eldrin, who had tried to save her parents, seemed to feel guilty, and took her under his wing. Her first job was to help him organize his study, which since the onset of the epidemic had been in complete chaos. She spent hours there, sorting through countless mountains of books and scrolls. But it didn't bother her, because it was a way to distract herself from her loss during the day while at night, stripped of the warmth of the two most beloved people in her life, grief seared her like a cold fire, until once again the sun rose over the horizon, and she was forced to begin the new day.

She had learned to read thanks to the insistence of her mother who had enlisted the help of the newly appointed Master Leander, a humble and kind young man, a villager like herself. But that was as far as his teaching had gone. In the study, however, she came into contact with other kinds of symbols quite different from the letters she had so proudly learned to recognize.

At first she was bored, then she was deliberately delayed so that she would not be put to other tasks, and remained in the study, attentively analyzing the manuscripts of the old wizard, as well as small exercises that he made his younger disciples solve. Among the latter, there was one that caught her attention. It was a seal to invoke air waves. It seemed very simple so she tried it. She had seen from afar how the young Initiates moved their fingers to manifest the seals, and she tried it several times without result the first few times. It actually took her quite a while until one day she managed to activate the seal, but it seemed that not so well as the airwave got out of control, and formed a small whirlwind that blew the books and scrolls away, which ruined all the work she had done so far.

The Master, who was just arriving, heard the commotion, and burst in to discover the little maid squealing like a sheep and escaping from a swirl of torn parchment, which in a matter of seconds was dissolved with a wave of his hand.

Well, yeah, there was a punishment: twenty lashes. She did not get up for days, and the wounds took their time to heal. Had the young Count been there, she would have been spared but, for some reason, he had not yet returned from the lake.

Despite his initial anger, Eldrin called her back to his study. She was a bundle of nerves thinking that a new batch of punishments now awaited her. But that was not the case, quite the contrary. The old Master asked her if her interest in magic was sincere, and if she was willing to endure intense training to one day become a wizard.

Fidelia accepted without a second's hesitation.

The first years were not easy. Her generation peers did not respect her. Not only because she was the daughter of servants, but also because they considered that she had been accepted only because Eldrin felt guilty for the death of her parents, while all of them had had to go through several tests before being accepted as Initiates.

But if there was one thing that had become clear to Fidelia over the years, it was that Eldrin was not capable of pitying anyone, especially not her.

Under his tutelage, he subjected her to a rigorous regimen of writing and memorizing seals until she felt her hands would break in pain, in addition to physical tests in inhospitable terrain such as the mountain itself in the middle of winter under extreme temperatures. This was followed by sessions of combat after which she would end up with her body bruised from head to toe. He pushed her to the limit, and, no matter how much she emerged victorious from the trials, he never seemed to be satisfied. He demanded greatness from her, while at the same time treating her like a worm. Every mistake was punished severely, and every achievement minimized, forcing her to push her own limits.

She felt grateful, and at the same time loathed him, though she would later discover that many of the great wizards were similar, though none compared to him.

To reach each level of magic required a minimum of four years. She went from mere apprentice to Initiate in no more than two years, and then needed three more to reach the level of Acolyte at the early age of fifteen, so she was already well ahead of the very peers who had underestimated her. Two years later she would complete her education by going on her training tour throughout the kingdom.

However, her circumstances took an unexpected turn the night Rovenna Astra, the newly ordained Master Arcanist, visited the castle. As was tradition, Eldrin organized a demonstration of magical fighting with his best disciples.

Fidelia remembered how excited she was to be able to show herself before such an eminent figure. She did not hold back at all. She won very easily, casting spells with astonishing precision and power that left everyone speechless, including the Count. His attacks were a perfect sequence of fluid movements, as she summoned waves and shields, combined with her strength, a product of her intense training. One of her peers would later comment to her in amazement that it looked as if she was performing a fatal dance.

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The only ones who seemed indifferent were Eldrin and Rovenna. When it was announced that Fidelia was the winner, Eldrin stepped forward but, instead of congratulating her, he started fighting and defeated her in less than two minutes, as if to show her that she hadn't done much and to always remember not to be so proud of herself.

Rovenna thanked everyone for that interesting evening that had done justice to the already well-known reputation of the Order of the Shadowrock, and retired to her room without adding anything more.

The next morning, Fidelia was called by the Master Arcanist who, without any detours, offered her the opportunity to continue her education in the capital before leaving on her training tour. There was also the possibility that, if all went well, she would join the Council.

“You still have a long way to go,” Rovenna had told her. “However, I think you already have a good foundation, and if you have survived Eldrin's training you will be able to perform well with the Council Masters.”

“Why me?” Fidelia asked suspiciously. Everything she had achieved had been thanks to her persistence, she didn't possess any special ability that made her different from the rest.

“Before I came to talk to you, I spent some time to find out a couple of things. My parents were also servants, and I see in you the same flame that helped me to rise. Maybe someday you too can get to the same place.”

Her? Fidelia Dabrus, daughter of servants? Master Arcanist someday?

She dared not dream so much. All she wanted was a better life, serving her magnanimous lord, as her parents had hoped. She aspired to nothing higher.

And there was that woman offering her the heavens.

She thought she would have a hard time making her decision but, other than Leander who had proven to be her best friend and teacher, she had nothing else to tie her to Shadowrock. In fact, she couldn't wait to leave, and when she saw that she didn't have to wait two more years, the anxiety got the better of her.

Eldrin was furious. He went so far as to demand the Count to intervene, but fortunately for Fidelia he did not want to meddle in the affairs of the Order, and believed that Fidelia had the right to make her own decisions.

“Ungrateful bastard, I had great plans for you!” Eldrin told her the night before leaving for Nemertya. “Far greater than what Rovenna could offer you, but if you abandon me so easily and without any sense of loyalty, then I am glad I never shared anything with you. It proves you were never worthy. Someday we will meet again, and you will wish you had stuck with me.”

In the end, things had not ended well for Fidelia, but, despite being expelled from the Council and her cross seal, she did not regret leaving Shadowrock. If someone had told her what would happen next, she would have made the same decision over and over again.

“So... this was your plan, Eldrin? Really?”

The attack on the lake would mobilize the entire kingdom. The believers in the Blue Dragon, who saw Nemertyss as his servant, as well as the nymph's followers, who would take the opportunity to point out that, despite the attack on the lake, the Dragon had not awakened to defend it. What could this mean?

Fidelia could already imagine the questions: had the Blue Dragon existed, had it died, why had it not woken up, or had the sirenians done something to lose the favor of the legendary creature?

If this escalated, both the sirenians and the Lake Tribe could be in danger of being attacked by the followers of Nemertyss, which would force the League of Pirates to act, and they would also have something to say.

“Actually,” said Fidelia aloud looking at the calm surface of the lake, “you should have woken up a long time ago, and you haven't done it. As far as I'm concerned, you could rest until eternity, but there are a lot of people here who do care about your presence, and they are about to kill each other.”

To that explosive formula had to be added several wizards responsible for all that, among them Eldrin, which would give the sirenians and the pirates a reason to attempt against the Council. The elves would take sides with the humans, since their hatred for the rest of the races was superior to any contempt they felt for the humans. And who's to say the island would abandon its neutrality and join the sirenians. In the end, the safest ones would be the chimeras hidden in the mountain who could regain their lost territory, while all the other races ended up exterminating each other, which would be quite ironic.

That even seemed like a conspiracy devised by the chimeras themselves...

She shook her head. She was going to end up as deranged as Myrius.

She had been sitting on a rock watching some sirenians dive deep into the lake to assess the state of the tomb. When they returned to the surface after a while, they reported that the temple appeared to be intact although covered with rocks that had fallen from the promontory. This had been completely destroyed as if the explosion had been replicated in a sequence downwards until it reached the tomb.

The person who had done that possessed a power never seen before. If it had been an elf it might not have been so surprising, but it was impossible for them to leave the forest unless they risked losing their priceless immortality. She found it hard to believe it was Eldrin, but there was no one else to blame. She had tried to question the captured wizards but had gotten nowhere, not even rubbing her scar in front of their faces. It seemed that these had been specially chosen by Eldrin because of their blind loyalty.

Anyway, it wasn't her problem, she was already doing more than Rovenna had expected of her. Leave the rest to the Council. She had already solved the mystery of the Elementals who had done nothing but mischief while helping the Count's daughter escape.

Little Olivia, who would have thought it? When Fidelia left the castle, the girl must not have been more than five years old. Several times she had been caught playing pranks, and had even had the idea of spying on the wizards while they were training, something that worried her father, who watched over her as if she were made of glass.

Fidelia couldn't imagine her becoming such a bold woman now.

Now that she thought about it, where would she be? No one was saying anything about her. While touring the camp she had seen the Count meeting with a family of sirenians. It appeared that one of the chiefs had been wounded to the point of almost losing his life. He seemed to have a special relationship with the Count because they had set him up inside a tent all to himself, and his relatives had accompanied him throughout. The Count had joined them and remained inside the tent for a long time.

However, Fidelia could not help thinking that, rather than resembling the scene of a united family watching over one of their own, it seemed more like an assembly where an important issue was being discussed. From the tent she had seen several annoyed sirenians come out. The other chiefs, on the other hand, had remained aloof and silent. There were many wounded members of the tribe.

“Not my problem, not my problem,” she muttered to herself, as she headed to a campfire in search of food. Maybe they were just making agreements about rebuilding the village? It couldn't be anything else.

The other person who had been acting weird was Myrius, and that was also related to the Count. While she had been dealing with the traitors, she had watched them walk away to where a group of sirenians were and then, busy with the interrogation, paid no more attention.

Now Miryus was sitting in front of a campfire, next to Korinna and Leander, who had been for a long while talking about their inventions. That seemed to bother Myrius because he was very quiet and crestfallen. His food plate was untouched in the grass next to his feet.

Fidelia thought that her leader must be jealous of all the attention Korinna was devoting to the Shadowrock's wizard. He had nothing to worry about, though. Leander would never notice her like that. Fidelia could bet all her power again, though that wasn't a good idea, better to forget it.

Fidelia decided to sit next to him and cheer him up a bit, as she began to swallow the first bites of rabbit stew.

“Master Myrius...” she whispered. “What about the chimera?”

Master Myrius shivered and jumped. His breath hitched.

“The chimera? Ah, the chimera...” he whispered too.

His reaction seemed rather strange... but it was Myrius after all.

“What did the Count tell you?”

“Ah, well, it escaped during the confusion.”

Fidelia was surprised.

“So, it was really here?”

Myrius jumped again, as if he had spoken too much.

“Yes, it was here, but it's gone. I failed to sense its presence.”

“So... The Count's daughter?”

“She was kidnapped by Eldrin.”

“What?” Fidelia let out an exclamation, and both Leander and Korinna interrupted their excruciating debate about the various ways to modify small parts of the seals to tune the magicar's speed.

Myrius waved a hand to indicate that everything was fine, and the other two continued as if nothing had happened.

“We still can't make it public," Myrius whispered. "It's all so delicate. The Count confided in me when I asked him about the chimera. Peace is hanging by a thread.”

"Do you have any idea where he might have gone?”

“The man dissolved into thin air, like a ghost.”

Myrius sighed, and Fidelia didn't want to ask more. It was very hard to lose something you thought was within your reach. She knew that feeling of defeat all too well.

Did the sirenians know something, and was that why there were arguing with the Count?

Fidelia shook her head, and continued eating.

Not her problem, not her problem.

She felt very sorry for the Count's daughter, but she was useless at that moment. Other far more capable wizards would take care of it.

She, on the other hand, would help Myrius with whatever he needed. Then they would return to Nemertya with Korinna. Fidelia would sail to the island, leaving all that behind. Once she recovered her power, she planned to spend the summer in the northern islands, before the war broke out, of course. There was nothing better than celebrating with a good glass of rum, lying on the warm sand, and listening to the constant and soft sound of the waves.

Everything would depend on the goodwill of Rovenna Astra, who showed up at the lake a week after the attack.