The elders had warned him.

Never go beyond the mountains where humans live.

Or you'll end up getting involved with an insufferable human girl.

They had been traveling for three days now, although to Silas, still in his fox form, it didn't seem that they had made much progress.

They had agreed that the safest thing to do was to continue along the edges of the forest, without going too deep, although he could feel the difference in the vegetation that was gradually changing. The more common trees that he knew well, such as firs and oaks, were becoming scarcer and scarcer. Instead, the trees he saw now had their branches twisted and some even kept their bright, uniquely shaped leaves with thorns.

Despite their ugliness, they had proved to be useful to protect themselves from the cold at night, since among their strange shapes a kind of cave, similar to a nest, could be found from time to time.

Every now and then he heard whispers of voices that put him on alert, but Olivia calmed him down immediately. They were Elementals, perhaps hiding inside logs or behind branches, waiting for the two to move away. Not all of them were friendly like Barthra's friends, but, even so, they were not capable of harm either.

Olivia reckoned they must be passing near Dragon Lake, where a festival would be held a couple of weeks later. According to her, it was an old tradition of the Lake Village, whose inhabitants, with each new spring, looked forward to watching what was known as the Return of the Sirenians. A unique spectacle whose fame caused the roads to be crowded with wagons of travelers and merchants in the days leading up to its beginning.

Although by then they should be far away from the lake, on their way to Stormbrace, Olivia could not stop talking about the festival. In fact, she had not stopped talking in the three days they had been walking, and only managed to close her mouth when the night came and she could no longer bear the fatigue.

“My father never took me to the festival,” she repeated over and over again. “I don't know how many times I asked him... I would have liked to see it this year, but we can't risk someone finding out. But he went every year without fail, even if disaster struck. He would leave me in charge of Eldrin and run off. Of course, he had to be present as the Guardian of Circle, but it never seemed to me that he saw it as a duty, quite the contrary. I think he even enjoyed it and when I asked him to describe what happened when he saw the Sirenians, all he would do was give me a very vague idea. Very frustrating indeed. Same thing when he would go on trips. Sometimes he would bring me some trinket as a gift, but he would hardly tell me anything. He would say that affairs in the capital were boring, and nothing serious was going on in the rest of the kingdom. Lies! I've been cooped up reading books all my life, I know all the history of the kingdom, and he thinks he can fool me by telling me that we live in a peaceful land where nothing happens. Although, come to think of it, he didn't like to go on trips. Those commitments did bore him. So I guess it was the Return of the Sirenians that got him excited. But he never wanted to share that with me. Eldrin, on the other hand, has always supported me, cared about my education, taught me how to teach magic, and even got Cormac to help me with the sword, even though I'm not very good, and do worse with the bow because I have poor aim. Magic is the only thing I'm good at, but my father has never been interested in motivating me to continue. What's more, he has put obstacles in Eldrin's way to teach me. And all this I couldn't tell anyone. Eldrin has always been very respectful of my father, and would not allow me to criticize him. As for Leander, he has always been my father's friend since childhood and complies with everything he orders without complaint, as well as Cormac. Of course, I had no one to talk to. Well, there was Barthra but it wasn't the same. I was forbidden to go to the village. I was only allowed to go to her hut, always escorted by my father or someone else. Never alone. I tried to make friends with some of the maids, but I soon realized that it was no use. Some of them were afraid of me because of my position, and I think others were trying to gain my trust in order to marry my father.... Thank goodness I can trust you now. It's good to talk about things to get them off my chest.”

Chimeras had no deities to pray to, but Silas would have liked to have the possibility of begging any of them for the ability to turn into a bear and eat her in one bite, or at least to split him with a celestial lightning bolt so that he would no longer have to listen to her.

Sometimes he managed to get away with the excuse that he had to hunt for food. He was becoming more skilled, and had managed to catch a couple of hares. He would have liked to roast them, but Olivia didn't know how to start a fire.

The food at the castle had ruined him, he lamented now. At night he kept dreaming of the huge feasts the cooks were busily preparing in their enormous kitchen. Dishes of roasted venison, boar, and poultry, accompanied by hearty bread, root vegetables, and thick soups. Sometimes he woke up drooling. Besides winter clothes for Olivia, Barthra had given them a saddlebag full of food, but just in case he continued with his hunting in case some mishap delayed them.

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In addition to that endless speech and the bad food, he also had to put up with the irritating caution that had suddenly invaded the once fearless chattering girl. At this rate, they would never leave the forest behind. One of the reasons he had agreed to accompany her was because he had seen her as very determined, however, since they had been moving farther and farther away from the castle, she had become increasingly cautious.

“What are you doing?” he asked tiredly, when she stopped for the tenth time on the morning of the fourth day.

“Nothing,” she sighed. “I thought I heard something suspicious.”

“I can scent any predator from far away. There's no need to...”

“I don't care about predators,” she confessed.

“So?” the fox's ears twitched.

She took a deep breath before speaking.

Oh, no, not again, thought the fox.

“Have you heard anything about the Lady of the Whispering Forest?” she asked.

“The elf queen?”

“Well, I wouldn't call her a queen. She's really nothing more than the leader of her family branch. What was once known as the Forest Clan no longer exists. The Great Elven Forest that once stood suffered significant changes after the arrival of the humans.”

“I am not surprised.”

She ignored him.

“Actually, that was a product of elven rivalry. It is now divided into three families. The Whispering Forest, the Memory Forest and the Mirror Forest. The castle was built between the first two. The Lady of this forest, moreover, granted, as part of the Covenant, an important extension of her former domain. Actually, we have not yet left the Circle behind.”

“You have never left the castle but you know the territory well,” Silas acknowledged, and, although it was only an observation, he felt annoyed when he saw her smiling, as if he had unintentionally paid her a compliment.

“You have no idea how many times I have studied the maps dreaming that someday my father would take me on his travels!”

Silas was sick of hearing about the Count, especially after the conversation he had with him the night of their escape, but he was suddenly curious about something that made no sense to the chimera.

“Aren't you supposed to be the next Guardian?” he asked.

“Yes, unless I married the prince. That's why my father wanted to prevent the marriage. I guess...” Olivia began to ruffle her hair. “Oh, I don't know anymore!”

“Then you don't care what happens to the Circle.”

Olivia stopped abruptly and stared at him.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you wanted to get married before, and now you're running away to a distant island. As far as I can see, you never wanted to be a Guardian.”

“Of course I do!” Olivia protested, her voice breaking. “But... I was drowning... Don't you know how that feels?”

Silas didn't know what it was like to drown. He had lived all his life in the mountains. But he did know what it was like to fall, maybe that was similar. To feel the ground beneath his feet vanishing, to find nothing to hold on to, to lose what little control he had over his body, to be suspended in mid-air only to plummet to the ground and, finally, darkness.

But he didn't share any of that with Olivia.

“Well...” he watched the thicket as if distracted. “Returning to your Lady of the Forest... what worries you anyway? There is supposed to be peace between elves and humans.”

“I just don't want to attract her attention. She knows my father. If she finds us, she might force us to return.”

“It makes sense...” the fox agreed. “I don't want to run into her either. I don't know how she will react to a chimera.”

“I can't imagine it either.”

“Is that why you haven't used magic since we left the hut?”

“That's exactly right. Magic leaves traces. A normal person wouldn't be able to perceive it but a wizard... or an elf would notice it right away. I'm not used to create seals either. I am an Initiate, though somewhat advanced, Eldrin told me, but I think he was exaggerating. I've barely finished learning how to decipher the Codes and...”

“The Ethereal Codes? I've heard it several times but I don't quite understand what they are...”

“Ah!” Olivia's face lit up, and the fox feared that she was going to start with another speech again. “Well... imagine the world as if it were a book...”

“I've never read a book...”

“Really? And how did you learn to read?”

The fox looked to the side.

“Don't tell me that...!”

“Hey, princess,” he growled. “Not everyone can learn to read. I'm sure there are plenty of people in your beloved kingdom who can't either.”

“I'm no princess!”

“Almost! You can't even cook me proper food.”

“Cook... you? What if I teach you?”

“Magic?” the fox's ears perked up.

“No, to read.”

“Not a chance. It would be more useful to learn how to deal with those codes...”

“Well, it's the same thing. How can you acquire knowledge if you can't read a book?”

Faced with this logic, the fox had little to say.

“Besides...” Olivia continued. “You belong to a magical race, what good are the Codes to you?”

To use them against the wizards and elves, to take revenge, to kill, to erase them from the world, including you, stupid innocent girl, the chimera thought.

That human was driving him crazy, but now in an unknown land he depended on her to survive. He could not risk being separated from her. He had to hold on and get to the damn island.

“What's that noise?” Olivia asked suddenly.

The fox's body tensed. He had been distracted by his own thoughts.

Suddenly, a pungent, earthy smell invaded his nose.

But it was too late to react.

Camouflaged in the shadows of the trees they discovered the imposing figure of an ogre staring at them with hungry eyes.