More prospectors appeared in the following hours, coming from medium and small villages, but even so, laughter and tears were not lacking after choosing their new apprentices. It mattered little that the products' exploits were erratic or of low level, there was a bet on the future, on tanning the talents of those boys and building long term benefits, preventing the enemy villages from taking them.

Only one prospector from other mayor village arrived.

A lanky man, in a black and white colored robe, which drags and prevents seeing his feet, and which no speck of dirt or dust dares to soil. From his golden sash hangs an onyx insignia with twin gold towers: Fortalementa. He walks with his back hunched forward, his hands clasped behind his back. His vulture nose moves from right to left, mixed with his eyes of latent contempt, giving the impression that he is always sniffing dung.

The four guards accompanying him show no more friendliness than he does. The uniforms are of the same color, pants, a nightgown, and a piece of armor, either a shoulder pad or a breastplate, pieces surely from the hand of some mighty blacksmith. The prospector, with his lips always straight, need only make a gesture of displeasure at the offerings to express his refusal. And so it went, spreading discontent, until he reached the stall at the end of the village, a stall he had trouble identifying as another exhibit.

It is a little boy sitting cross-legged on the grass. In his fingers wrapped by old bandages that hide cuts, he handles a handmade knife, barely a rectangle of metal in an oak dagger. Carves a figure on a piece of wood. The young is short in stature, and his chestnut mane hides his dark eyes. The clothes are little more than rags that expose his left shoulder, where the mark of an arrow striking a straight line and curving it under its trajectory is revealed: The Sculptor.

The boy is alone, with no parents or siblings to encourage or appreciate him. Some natives of the village recognize him as the boy who lives in the old hut in the nearby grove, where he is lost with his grandfather, a grim and cantankerous old man that everyone has not seen for a couple of months.

"What a rustic piece..." The Fortalementa seeker snatches the figure from him and straightens up to examine it. The boy waits with his head lowered. "How long did it take you to make it? Fifteen minutes?"

He moves the piece of wood between his fingers and identifies a hare's body with protuberances on the head that he recognizes as antlers. The production and style are novice, but not amorphous, it can be identified, but even so the seeker does not hesitate to belittle it.

"This is the level of the townies. I don't even know why we bother. All the talent we need is in Fortalementa"

He lets the royal hare statuette slip through his fingers and fall to the grass. Turns and heads for the entrance to the village. His guards accompany him, and a look also follows him, big, calm eyes behind a curtain of brown hair.

Camui recovers his figure and continues carving, polishing, taking out what is left over as his grandfather taught him. Recalls the times he came across the animal during his hunts, that one too fast to be caught.

"That's a nice figurine you've got there" says a woman's voice.

Someone's shadow covers him. Camui stops the knife and raises his face, expecting to find disdainful and distrustful eyes, eyes that think he can steal or do evil, or that he is worthless. Eyes like those of everyone in that village.

But instead, what he receives is cordiality, a curious look under a wide, black hat that ends in a point, with wild flowers and grasses protruding from a maroon ribbon that wraps around the cone. A dark cloak covers the body of the female, only the right arm protrudes to hold a wooden staff, whose knots at the tip look like two faces, that of a man and a woman.... Neither looks happy, and as if to compensate for that the woman who wields them smiles for both of them. What at first glance looks like a crumpled leather glove, wraps around her hand.

"Royal hare. Its horns are like the branches of a young tree, but it's hard to carve such small branches, isn't it?" The woman bends down and reaches out a hand to touch the figurine. Camui stops carving, and doesn't take her eyes off the movement. The witch's fingers stop inches from the piece of wood. "May I take it?"

The boy squints and takes a few seconds to nod, still wondering what the lady wants. She is adult and wise-eyed almost like her grandfather, maybe even more so, but her face is smooth and youthful, and a cascade of silver hair flows down her back.

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The witch holds the crude animal imitation. She observes it and moves it carefully.

"What is your name? How old are you?"

Camui is silent.

"Did a cat rip out your tongue?"

The boy blushes and shakes his head sideways.

"Then talk to me, boy. Living things do that, they talk up to their elbows"

Camui doubts that only the living can talk, but he doesn't dispute it. He half-opens his lips, and the words come out hoarse because of the months he has not spoken to anyone alive.

"Camui. Ten... Winters"

"Ten springs. You're too young to be counting in winters"

As Camui keeps he eyes down, doesn't notice how the witch looks for he expression with her eyes, and when she doesn't get it, she concentrates on the figurine.

"You looked very good even without a master"

Camui mumbles, meaning that he did have a master. His grandfather bears the mark of the sculptor just like him. Since Camui awakened his mark a year ago, his grandfather could only teach him very little, but Camui appreciated the basic lessons he received.

The little boy keeps his head down, confused, wondering what he should do.

"Miss, you shouldn't talk to him"

Another voice joins the conversation. Camui looks out of the corner of his eye under his mane and recognizes the old mayor of the village, bald, with a gray beard, small eyes and loose clothing to cope with the heat.

"He lives far from the village, he is almost a savage. It's dangerous what loneliness can do to a person, even to a child"

"What about his family?" The woman straightens her back and faces the leader.

"The grandfather is a hermit who arrived about five years ago. He never tried to integrate, was content to stay in the nearby grove" The mayor points to a clump of trees to the east of the village, small but thick with old, tightly packed trees. "We don't have a sculptor of our own. Tried to make him part of the community, but he always refused and was aloof. Sometimes we suspected that he was a fugitive or an exile, but that's just gossip"

"If it's just gossip then I'll be fine"

The leader stopped his attempts to convince the woman. She is a visitor, yes, but she lacks any band or emblem that would indicate her as someone important, so the old man left to turn his attention to other people.

"If you have that mark, it means you can do more than carve figurines. Much more" The woman turns to assess the boy.

Camui resumes carving in silence, with each pass of the knife, wood shavings falling on and between his crossed legs. He seeks to make the figure as close as possible to the real hare. Adds everything he knows about the beast, what surrounds and represents it, every feeling.

The witch lingers for a minute spying on the process until she ventures to question:

"Did you come just to stay here on earth, watching people pass?"

The question wants to cause the slightest reaction in Camui... And he gets it. The boy stops the knife and looks up. The boy's dark eyes make direct contact with the woman's gray gaze.

"Are you like that man?" asks Camui, who looks to the back of the crowd, where the mayor thanks the man in the red and black tunic for his visit with folded hands, despite the fact that he merely belittled the people's work.

"The prospector of Fortalementa?" The woman follows the boy's eyes and recognizes the man. "He hunts talent. I hunt mistakes"

She moves the staff forward and rests her folded hands on the thick knots at the tip.

"Although sometimes mistakes also possess talent. That's problematic..."

Unlike her left hand, her right is darkened and wrinkled. Camui assumes it's an old glove, and takes a few seconds to realize it's skin, a burn bed. He swallows saliva, trying unsuccessfully to imagine what must have happened to him to end up with his whole hand like this. The wound seems to continue beyond the wrist, although the woman does not wince. Camui realizes he's being too obvious looking, shivers and averts his eyes in haste for the embarrassment of being caught snooping.

"I'm sorry"

"Sorry?" What are you talking about? I have nothing to forgive you for.

Camui takes a deep breath. He thinks the woman is just being kind by ignoring his rudeness.

"I... I don't want to be taken away. I don't want to leave without settling everything first"

The witch arches an eyebrow at the response. Usually having a prospector choose you is seen as a once in a lifetime opportunity. But Camui has unfinished business.

"If you don't want to be taken then what are you doing here? That's what fairs are for, to sell yourself"

"I came here to..."He hesitates. Resumes eye contact with the woman, and she maintains it, giving him hope. "Something changed my grandfather"

The words come out so sour that a couple of tears threaten to well up in Camui's eyes, but you quickly wipe them away with the back of the hand holding the knife.

"I don't have any coins. I'll pay you with this"

He reaches out to the rough royal hare, but the woman pulls her hands away. Camui tenses.

"I'll only accept it if you show me what you are, Camui"

"He'll be ruined. I won't be able to pay him"

"Creation and destruction are the basis of all things. A little damage to art doesn't scare me, besides the demonstration will be my pay"

Camui lowers his head for a moment. As he raises it again, his eyes gleam with terrifying resolve.

"Promise me you'll help me no matter what happens. Give me your word, your name"

"What a clever boy. All right" The woman lets out a giggle, but soon her countenance becomes serious, as does the timbre of her voice. She places her burnt hand over her heart, "I, Ivy the annihilator, swear by all the trees of this land that I will help you"

Ivy the annihilator. A title that leaves the boy wondering. The oath itself seems strange to him, but he remembers that his grandfather told him that the prodigious of the villages usually use somewhat silly names to distinguish themselves, and the woman in front of him, Ivy, looks like someone from one of those villages.

A mysterious and erudite witch.