The Taste of Freedom

Baba Yaga didn’t like to visit humans. That was why she built her home deep in the woods and far away from any human habitats. Yet even after taking such measures, every once in a while a human somehow managed to find her.

Some humans would come to seek her help. Others would come to do her harm, but the most interesting were those, who came by her home coincidentally, unaware of where they were or who she was.

It was already the thirty fifth day of Tsun. The sun was getting ready to begin its daily journey in the cloudless sky. The morning air was still and pleasantly cold, while occasional sounds of movements, made by animals searching for food, could be heard in the woods.

In her usual manner, she was sitting on the front porch of her forest hut. Her house, bewitched by her witchcraft, had far more to it than what it looked like - a small wooden hut, yet the front porch, which only had one simple wooden rocking chair, didn’t look anything unordinary.

Thus she kept rocking back and forth, waiting.

“I’m sure he got my invitation,” she said as she recalled the day, when she sent her broom to the Emperor.

Almost two months had passed and she had been waiting ever since, but the man, whom she was waiting for, wouldn’t arrive. With the damage her broom caused, the Emperor should have already visited her by now, but there was no sign of him having any interest in meeting with the queen of the witches.

“Did he ignore me?” she asked herself.

If the man had indeed ignored her, that would mean she’d have to go and meet him instead. As much as she didn’t want to do that, she understood how important it was to talk with the Emperor about the inevitable war with demons, which would take place in this world.

“Should I destroy some more of his palace?” she wondered.

However, even if she destroyed all of his palace, there was no guarantee that the Emperor, the leader of all humans, would come to meet her.

So there was no other choice. She stood up from her rocking chair and waited.

The door of her hut opened by itself and her broom hopped out with its brush facing up. She grabbed the broom, and put it horizontally in the air. Then she sat down on the broom sideways with both her legs hanging on the same side like a princess riding a horse.

“Let us visit the Emperor,” she said to the broom, which moved up and flew forward above the trees.

The witch held on to her broom with one hand toward the front and another hand in the back, near the brush. The law of gravity didn’t apply to her, who had absolute control over the broom and over herself. Ergo, she zoomed through the air at an extreme speed without experiencing any pressure. Thus throughout her ride, she sat on the broom, as if something like wind didn’t exist at all.

When she arrived at the palace, her broom came to a complete stop in an instant, yet she didn’t move at all from her seat. She pointed her bony index finger at the palace, “now, where is the boy I’m looking for?”

Some guards walking around the palace saw the figure in the sky above and were ready to raise an alarm, but no sooner than they opened their mouths to shout out, all the people in the palace fell to the ground.

“Found you,” she giggled and flew right at a closed window.

The window blasted wide open with so much force that the glass shattered into dust, and scattered far around.

The witch smoothly entered the room, and while still sitting on a floating broom, she smiled toward the man, “hello.”

The Emperor was soon to be an elder in age. He was standing behind a desk, wearing a shirt, knee-long jacket, and thick winter pants. All his clothes were in the color of dark burgundy and since they had no decorations, they appeared simple, but not cheap, as the materials were visibly of the highest quality.

He stood there alarmed at the sudden appearance of Baba Yaga, but he wasn’t as alarmed as the two men, who were standing in front of him. One of them had his sword pointed at the intruder, and was ready to attack or fight back, if attacked. The other one looked calmer, but in no way was he calm. The rings on his hands, the brooches on his clothes, were all shining with colors, warning the witch that the magicals items were all activated and ready to fire.

“I waited for you to pay me a visit, but I guess my invitation wasn’t tempting enough,” Baba Yaga ignored the bodyguards and looked only at the Emperor.

The Emperor furrowed his eyebrows. He recognized the broom. It was exactly this broom, which on the first day of Veuf, flew right into the main hall (the most spacious area in the palace) and crashed into the large statue of the Emperor, located in the center of the hall. Due to the crash, the statue’s head fell off and cracked a large hole in the marble floor, while the broom simply made a turn midair and flew back in the direction, whence it came.

Right after the event, the Emperor was enraged and sent out his troops to find the culprit immediately. but later that day, he heard from Mesquite about his meeting with the witch. He calmed down, called back his troops, and decided to take steps carefully. He knew that witches never changed sides during the Battle of the End, and it was only after the war ended, when the witches acknowledged their defeat and broke up their alliance with the demons. Ergo he had more than enough reasons to be wary.

“I don’t have a reason to visit you,” the Emperor spoke firmly. Even though he was unprepared for this sudden meeting with Baba Yaga, he wasn’t showing any sign of weakness.

Baba Yaga smiled upon seeing the Emperor’s response. Surely, no man could ever rise to such a position, if he was easy to push around.

“Haven’t your servant told you anything?” she was certain that Mesquite Wind passed her message, because he appeared to be the type so loyal that he would never hide anything from the Emperor, whom he served.

“He told me all you had told him. I have no questions regarding that. Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

“The witches wish to ally with humans. I haven’t received your response.”

“What a sick joke,” the Emperor spat out the words.

“Why would I joke?”

The Emperor glared at the witch. “Even if it happened more than ten hundred years ago, none of it was forgotten: your cruelty, your brutality, your practices, your attacks. All your deeds - none have been forgotten.”

“I cannot change the past, but the future is…”

“A future without you is the only future I accept,” the Emperor interrupted her. “You remained allies of demons throughout the war. Why would you ever change your mind now? It makes no sense.”

“Then allow me to explain…”

“Enough,” he interrupted her again and walked up to a shelfcase to grab one of the books there. He opened it, then sorted through the pages until he found, what he was looking for. And he began reading:

… A witch has visited us last night. She told us that she doesn’t agree with the other witches, and she wants to change sides. She cried as she apologized for all the horrible things her own kind had done to us. My men almost believed her, and they began to beg me that I let her come inside, but I didn’t feel a grain of honesty in her words. I recalled that a witch attacked a neighboring town last night, and there, she devoured two newborn babies. Something prompted me to accuse her of that deed, and I spoke, “aren’t you that witch, who ate two babies yesterday night?” She immediately began to deny my words, but my heart wouldn’t soften, and I asked her again, “how did they taste?” and she answered, “delicious”. We killed her before she could escape, and all my men had thus learned never to trust a witch’s words. ...

The Emperor closed the book, which was a compilation of reports written by generals from ancient times, and put it back onto the shelf. “There will be no alliance between humans and witches. Do I need to make myself any more clear?”

Baba Yaga remained silent for a moment, before she said, “give us one more chance,” as she transformed into a young female human, but unlike normal humans she had an abnormally large bosom. Her skin was pure without any blemish. Her long black straight hair sensually fell on her shoulders. She crossed her long legs, which further accentuated her high-contour hips. Her old rags turned into a tight dress with a mini skirt that covered less than half of her thigh and a large neckline just above her nipples with no strips to hold the dress from slipping down.

“What?” the swordman spoke for the first time, as he was too shocked by what he saw and the words just left his mouth. “How dare you… in front of His Imperial Majesty?”

“Let it be,” the wizard was much calmer, but even he couldn’t hide the red blush on his face. “She’s not a human, and that,” he pointed at the bosom, “is hundred percent fake.”

“Even so…” the swordman couldn’t find good words. The view in front of him made him so furious that his whole face was red with veins on the verge of exploding. He couldn’t express himself well, while anger boiled inside him.

“Shouldn’t you be grateful?” the witch smirked. “Or is this not enough?” she put one finger between her bosom and pushed the dress further down.

The swordman began to shake from rage, “how dare you disgrace our women?”

“Enough,” the Emperor interrupted. “It doesn’t matter what form you take,” he said with his eyes locked on the witch. “It doesn’t matter whether you look like a human, like a demon, or like an angel, a witch is always a witch.”

“Hmm,” she hummed to herself, while leaning back and thus further exposing her fake bosom. “I won’t ask twice.”

“Even if you asked one million times, my answer wouldn’t change,” the Emperor responded.

She fluttered her eyelashes like a maiden in love and licked her lips, “as you wish,” she said.

Her broom flew out through the same window, whence she came but it was in no hurry to leave. She was travelling slowly as if expecting the Emperor to call after her.

“Check all the servants,” she heard the Emperor give out his orders. “Check if anyone has died.”

Baba Yaga looked back and yelled toward the room with a broken window, “of course, none of them are dead. I just put them to sleep, so they wouldn’t bother me. If I had killed anyone, my offer of alliance would be a real joke.”

She changed back into her old form and left the palace.

Slowly she travelled high above the human cities observing the world from above. Indeed, the world has changed a lot. It has become considerably more peaceful. No cities or towns were on fire. No armies were slaughtering innocent inhabitants. No rivers were red from blood, and there was no stench of rotting bodies in the air. The world has changed a lot.

However, one thing hasn’t changed at all. Even after more than ten hundred years, humans haven’t changed at all. They were still as simple-minded and easy to deceive as before. Demons often made jokes about it in the past, and they used to say that deceiving a human is easier than killing a baby.

Thus, she felt a tiny bit of admiration for the Emperor.

She knew that denying the alliance was the smarter of the two options. After all, witches would never be completely loyal to humans, who are inferior to them in so many ways. And if there was ever a possibility to destroy humans, witches would have immediately changed sides and forgotten all about any inconvenient alliance.

That’s why Baba Yaga so easily accepted the Emperor’s decision, but she still had a problem with his simple-minded reasoning. At least, other creatures weren’t that simple-minded, which is why she was able to arrive at an agreement with dragons and elves. Humans, on the other hand, weren’t even willing to listen.

She reminisced about the good old times, when she could do with humans however she pleased. Since the Emperor has already expressed his stance, there was nothing stopping her from alliance with demons, or so she thought for a second before she recalled how badly the witches were defeated, because of that unfortunate alliance. Certainly she would never again let that happen.

Witches weren’t some stupid humans to repeat the same mistake twice. This time, they surely wouldn’t ally with demons, but with whom could they ally? Well, it all depended on how things were going to unfold from now on. In the worst case scenario, they could attempt to remain neutral, but that wouldn’t protect them from attacks, so an alliance had to be formed one way or another.

As she flew past the city, she sped up and covered a long distance, before she suddenly felt the presence of a powerful curse. She stopped midway above the forest. The presence was familiar. Even though she had never met with it personally, yet she knew that there was only one being with this curse in the whole world, and no other one.

She flew in the direction of the curse and arrived at an empty town. She lowered her broom just above the roofs to get a closer look. It was already daytime, but the weather was too cold for anyone to walk outside so early in the morning. However, without any humans walking around, the witch clearly spotted one man laying in the pile of snow behind a bench.

“Willow Leaf - what a surprise. If you’re here, then it’s truly a good thing I didn’t ally with the demons,” she turned around ready to fly away. However, she couldn’t help but stop, when she saw another group of rarely seen beings appearing out of nowhere. She was surprised that as many as eight guardians would suddenly appear in front of her.

They were standing on the rooftops in the vicinity but they didn’t come to visit her. The eight guardians were known as the Chtonic Guardians of Recompense, and every dead man had to meet them as part of the process of going to the afterlife.

Yet there was one man, who would never get a chance to see them, which caused these guardians to be unusually interested in the immortal human on the ground.

“So even a witch came out from her burrow,” commented Amunki, the Guardian of Poverty. As one of the eight chthonic guardians, he was in duty of greeting every dead soul, and recompensing him or her with riches for every second spent in poverty.

“What do you expect? She followed the scent of war,” added Api, the Guardian of Peace. It was his duty to reward those, who quietly suffered from conflicts. He gave enormous rewards to those, who responded with peace to war, and with kindness to violence.

“Or she heard the howling of the demons,” speculated Zulki, the Guardian of Mourning, who rewarded men for all the grief, which they had to experience in their human lifetime.

“It looks like she came to snatch some free carcass,” Irpitiga, the Guardian of Need, added his joke. He was in charge of rewarding men for each time period, when they lacked water, food, sleep or warmth. Of course the most rewarded were those, who died from thirst, starved from hunger, froze to death, or died from lack of sleep.

Aduntarri, the Guardian of Persecution, shook his head sideways. He didn’t approve of his colleagues trying to agitate the most powerful witch. Even if guardians were more powerful than witches, they weren’t omnipotent. And even if there were eight of them and she was all alone, it still wasn’t a proper thing to do.

In the underworld, Aduntarri’s duty was to reward those, who were harmed unjustly by other men, such as innocent ones, who were falsely accused, or those who committed no sins and yet were treated as sinners. It was part of his personality that he didn’t like conflict.

Minki, the Guardian of Mercy, and Nara, the Guardian of Purity, had so little interest in the witch that they didn’t even look at her. Their eyes were concentrated on the man sleeping in the snow.

In the afterlife, Minki rewarded those, who showed mercy and forgiveness to their own enemies and hence put an end to the meaningless circle of revenge. Meanwhile Nara rewarded those, who kept their body chaste and their mind pure of evil thoughts. Both Guardians were certain that neither one of them would be giving anything to Willow Leaf, but to their surprise the man’s name was included in their personal list of grantees, even though it was impossible that this man would ever come to meet them.

“It’s too early to tell,” Namshara, the Guardian of Composure, spoke to the other two. “He hasn’t done anything on the outside, so it must have happened inside him.”

Namshara was in charge of rewarding those, who remained calm and reasonable in situations, where others were getting emotional and quick to judge. Willow Leaf wasn’t on his list, but just like the other guardians, he wanted to know, why did this cursed man ended up on two of the eight lists.

Baba Yaga had no reason to react to the guardians’ provocations, so she simply moved on, ignoring their presence altogether. Judging by their arrival around the man, she knew that it had to be something related to the afterlife rewards. However, Willow Leaf wasn’t anywhere near dying, so she decided that it didn’t matter, since it surely wouldn’t happen within the next hundred millennia.

It was only after she arrived back home, when she lost her certainty about the immortality of Willow Leaf. Sure, he was cursed by God and nobody could remove that curse, but that meant nobody except God.

She realized that witches hadn't seen Willow Leaf for many years. She didn’t know how many, but he certainly wasn’t anywhere on Earth during the Battle of the End.

She sat down on the porch, and looked hard through her memory to recall, when exactly did Willow Leaf disappear from the warzone. He surely was there thirty hundred years ago, around the time, when the war was still far from over, but then… what happened afterward? She couldn’t remember seeing or meeting him in the last thirty hundred years.

Witches like all the other creatures of the world, did not live forever. On average a witch lived between four to six hundred years. However, there was one ability so unique to witches, that anyone not aware of their mortality would think them to be immortal.

Witches could pass their memories to other witches.

It was a skill so often used by witches that almost all the witches possessed the same memories. However, the skill couldn’t be activated from a distance, and witches had to be in a physical contact for the memories to be shared. But once shared, any witch would remember events, which she had never personally experienced. 

For that reason, Baba Yaga possessed memories of thousands witches, who had lived in the past. Yet among them, the memories regarding Willow Leaf were scarce and any contact or sight of the man suddenly disappeared some thirty hundred years ago.

To be precise, the last time a witch met him was on the thirty first day of Peizh in the year twenty nine hundred ninety, and the last news they heard about him was when he was heading toward the city of Swanmaze in the month of Byzh of the year twenty nine hundred ninety.

Why were there no more memories of Willow Leaf after the year twenty nine hundred ninety?

Was it really possible that no witch met the man for thirty hundred years? Or was there something else to it? She had the urge to go back, and see how many infos she could squeeze out of the guardians, but she didn’t want to embarrass herself by acting like a spoiled child, so she stayed home and wondered, trying to figure out the answers by herself.

“Any letter from Yew?” Nettle asked, when Kapok returned home in the early afternoon.

She stood by the window in the living room and watched the world outside. On the other side of the glass, the white ribbons of snow blown by the wind were strong enough to push a woman off her feet. The trees growing around the house protected their home from the onslaught of the weather, and it was for that very reason, why Kapok planted them around the house.

After entering the living room, Kapok quickly walked up and in one swift motion, he sat down in front of the fireplace with his legs folded all together, near his torso. His whole body was shaking from being so long out in the cold.

He stretched out his hands, and opened his palms toward the flames. He sniffed the mucus in his nose, which was red like an overripe strawberry.

“No mail what-so-ever,” he responded. “It was supposed to arrive yesterday, but since the weather forecast was warning of a snowstorm, the city didn’t send anyone out.”

“It wasn’t snowing that badly yesterday,” Nettle looked out the window.

“Well, we certainly have a blizzard at the moment, and until it passes away, I doubt we’ll be getting any mail,” Kapok rubbed his hands together, and since he felt warmer, he also sat more comfortably, spreading out his legs.

Sheepcrown was a small village, which got its mail once a week from the city of Owlway. However, in case of difficult weather or other natural obstacles, the city’s post office would postpone mail delivery until the arrival of better times. In order to pick up one’s mail, villagers had to go to the chief’s house, where all the mails were dropped off, or if they were in a hurry, they could personally travel to Owlway to pick it up before it was sent out to the village.

Nettle would never ask her husband to go to Owlway in such a blizzard to pick up a letter, which may or may not have even been there.

“I hope he’s safe,” she sighed.

“I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about.”

A week ago, Nettle wrote a letter to Yew asking him, whether he would be spending the holidays of Raethosu in Hecate, or whether he’d be coming back home. Since the mail was sent on Monday, it should have arrived in Sheepcrown on Wednesday, so both Nettle and Kapok were sure that Yew read the letter by Thursday. Assuming that he wrote his reply on the same day, and sent it out no later than Friday would mean that the mail batch currently held in the post office in Owlway city could contain a reply letter from him.

“If he wanted to come back for holidays, he would have come last week, like Mpingo,” Kapok spoke to calm down his wife. “Don’t worry. He’s all safe in the school, spending holidays with his friends.”

“I should have written that letter a week earlier,” Nettle spoke to herself, as she kept staring outside.

Kapok stood up, approached his wife from behind and put his arms around her, hugging her in his embrace, but she kept staring out through the window with that worried look on her face.

“I hope he isn’t cold,” she spoke more to herself than anyone else.

Kapok rolled his eyes, “how can he be cold in Hecate? It’s a school, not a barn. I’m sure they have heating in there.”

She blushed as she realized, what she said, “I know. I know. I just… it’s just my intuition... I feel like he’s not home… I mean… it feels like he’s lost somewhere...“ she wasn’t sure how to explain herself.

“Oh, you women and your intuition,” Kapok patted her head, then put his arm around his wife’s head, bringing her face closer to his chest.

“Kapok?”

“Yeah?”

“I need to pray,” she spoke in a clear voice.

Kapok sighed and let go of her. Nettle took her prayer beads from a shelf of a shelfcase, sat down on an armchair, and began murmuring. From among her murmurs, Kapok heard the name of their son together with her pleas to have him return home safe.

Kapok rubbed the back of his head. If he had to be honest with himself, it wasn’t easy for him either. Sometimes he also worried and wondered, how Yew was doing. Unlike Hyssop, who always sent letters every two to three weeks, his son remained mute most of the time. Since Yew started Hecate, he contacted them only two times, and in each case he asked for money.

Well, that surely meant he found something or someone more interesting than his parents, but he surely shouldn’t be making them worried like this. At least for holidays, he should have come home or at least written a letter, if he had other plans.

Still Kapok was a wise man and he understood that no kid would remain a kid forever. He knew that time never waited for anyone, and all kids are fated to grow up one day, sooner or later. Since Yew had reached the age of ten, it was his time to leave home and begin his process of becoming an adult. Furthermore, it was impossible to prepare kids for adulthood, without sending them away from the safety of their homes. A little risk had to be taken, in order to gain a thousand times more.

As a wise-saying proclaimed: what you prepare in the morning, will last you all day. A kid, who’s prepared for adulthood, grows up to be a great man capable of challenging life head on. Meanwhile, a kid overprotected by parents, ends up failing in life worse than a cripple.

Kapok recalled the day his parents sent him away to school, and he didn’t regret anything. He learned so much on his own. All his school experiences, the good ones and the bad ones, shaped him into a real man. And he desired the same for his son.

Nettle kept repeating the words of her prayer, while moving her fingers from one bead to another. Even though she was murmuring the prayer without ceasing, her mind wasn’t concentrated on it. She kept thinking about Yew, and about Hyssop.

It wasn’t the first time, she didn’t feel well. When her daughter left for her first year in Athena, she also spent a year worrying about her. However, unlike Yew, Hyssop kept writing her long letters, so she always knew what was going on with her daughter.

On the other hand, Yew didn’t write anything about himself, or about the school, or about his studies, or about his friends. He wrote them one letter to let them know that he needed more money, and he wrote another one to tell them that in the near future, he may need even more money for his studies, and that was it.

Nettle was ready to scold her son in her return letter, but Kapok stopped her and wrote the response himself. She regretted that she didn’t write anything until last week. She wanted to believe that her son was doing fine.

Somewhere deep down in her heart, she was hoping that Yew would realize that his parents worry about him, and one day he’d write more about his experiences in Hecate on his own free will. However, two seasons passed and Yew never wrote anything about his life in Hecate.

Nettle didn’t know, whether he wasn’t writing because his life was so good that he forgot all about his parents, or whether things were going so wrong that he didn’t have the courage to tell them. She strongly wished it wasn’t the latter, but she was already determined to scold him, if it was the former.

Strong knocking on the door interrupted her prayers. Kapok walked into the entry room to meet the crazy guest, because how could anyone normal come to see them in such a blizzard.

Nettle looked in the direction of the entry room. She remained seated, but she was paying attention to any sound and listening in on the conversation.

“Garlic, what are you doing here in this weather?” Kapok spoke.

Mpingo’s grandmother passed by him and entered the living room, searching for Kapok’s wife with her eyes.

“Nettle, my dear,” she spoke and approached the woman.

“What happened?” Nettle stood up, and both women held each other’s hands.

“Let’s sit down,” Garlic led them both to the sofa, where they sat.

Kapok watched them. It wasn’t odd for the matriarch to visit them as the Forest family was close with the Sky family. However, it was odd for anyone to visit them, while disregarding the danger of travelling in a blizzard. If nothing major happened, the conversation could wait until the blizzard was over, and yet the matriarch braved the cold winds and snow piles that tried to bury her alive, just to visit them at this very time.

“I had a dream,” she said to Nettle. “About Mpingo and Yew.”

Nettle gripped her hands harder, as she realized that it couldn’t have been a normal dream, if the matriarch felt such a strong urge to tell her right away. It was common knowledge that sometimes people had unordinary dreams, and these were never meant to be ignored.

“I saw the ocean, an endless sea of water,” Garlic began. “And I saw the sky, just as blue as the water was.”

As she began to tell her dream, Kapok sat down on the armchair.

“A star fell from the sky and into the ocean, and the whole ocean turned red. And then I saw a demon come out of the water, and an angel came from the sky. The angel shot an arrow at the demon, but the demon avoided the arrow and ran away. And the angel couldn’t find him anymore.”

The matriarch let go of Nettle’s hand, and gesticulated as she continued.

“Then the angel came down from the sky and picked up the arrow from the ocean. The arrow turned all red like blood, but it was shining like gold, and the angel took the arrow and shot it up toward the sky.”

Garlic pointed at the ceiling.

“But the arrow never arrived at the sky. It separated into many small arrows, and the wind guided each arrow, so that each one arrived and landed in the hands of different people. Then I saw many men standing on the beach, with arrows in their hands. And there, among them I saw your son, Yew, and my grandson, Mpingo.”

“Did you already talk about it with your family?” Nettle asked.

“We spent the whole morning wondering what it may mean,” Garlic opened wide her eyes, which were filled with wonder and fear, and her countenance quickly changed to a more stern one, “of course, we didn’t tell Mpingo. He was sleeping until late today, and we didn’t want to wake him up. Besides, in the end, we couldn’t figure out what this dream meant, so why tell him?”

“Naturally we shouldn’t tell the boys,” Nettle agreed with her. “What if we scare them?”

“But what can this dream mean?” Garlic went straight to the main topic.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Kapok joined the conversation, “the boys were bestowed with something from the heavens.”

“That’s what we also think, but what exactly is that gift?” Garlic accented the last two words.

“A power to defeat demons,” Kapok had a simple answer. “Isn’t that what that arrow was?”

“Why would they need such power, if there are no demons in the world?”

Kapok shrugged his shoulders. It’s not like he didn’t have the answer. He had thought of a possibility, but it was a possibility that he didn’t want to be true, so he decided to keep it to himself.

“Garlic,” Nettle started. “Do you really have no idea, what this dream means?”

“Nettle, my dear. We’ve been thinking about it so much. We thought of so many things, but nothing fits in the end. It’s as if no matter what we think of, we are always missing something - some major piece of this riddle.”

Nettle was thinking for a long time. She thought of different possibilities, but just like Garlic said nothing really fit. Just as she was to give up, the memories from the time she spent as a book repairman came to her mind. Among them, she recalled repairing an ancient book with legends.

“I’m not sure, if this is related,” Nettle said slowly, “but I read in one legend that before she died, Silphium Moon wanted to leave something behind to protect the people, if the demons were ever to return, so she hid a secret in an arrow somewhere in this world. The arrow would awaken, if a demon ever comes to attack this world.”

“That sounds intriguing,” Garlic commented.

“According to the legend, upon the arrival of demons, the arrow will shoot out from the tomb of Silphium Moon and fly to her descendant to aid him in the fight.”

Garlic was puzzled by the follow-up of the legend. “Is there such a thing as the tomb of the Silphium Moon?”

“Based on historical records, her body turned into void, so there is no tomb. Besides, neither Yew nor Mpingo are royals.”

Garlic looked at Kapok then at Nettle, “could it be that Yew is a descendant of Silphium Moon even if he’s not a royal?”

“I’ve never heard of any non-royals carrying the blood of Silphium Moon,” Nettle answered, wondering why Garlic would ever consider something so absurd.

Garlic nodded, but she also furrowed her eyebrows. She was thinking hard about something without saying anything. This moment of silence lasted for a while until Kapok spoke out.

“If you’re planning to return home, I’ll go with you,” he said looking outside the window, “the blizzard isn’t stopping at all.”

“How about you stay for the night?” Nettle offered.

“No, no, I have so much to do.”

Garlic immediately got up the sofa as she recalled all the housework waiting for her. If she stayed at Nettle’s house, her daughter would surely take care of it, but Garlic just had to be there and do the work. She felt the need to be useful and it was also a part of her personality that she didn’t know how to rest. She headed toward the entry room, with Nettle by her side, and Kapok following both women.

“Stay with God, my dear,” Garlic byed her friend.

“Go with God, Garlic sweetheart” Nettle responded to the matriarch. “May God go with you,” she told her husband on his way out.

“I’ll be back soon,” he responded.

When the two of them departed, Nettle was left alone in the house. She went to the living room, and through the window, she tried to look outside at the street, but the view was too obscured by the white curtains of snow.

She sat down on the armchair and picked up the prayer beads again. This time she was fiddling with the beads without praying, but her mind was deep in thoughts.

Could Yew really be a descendant of Silphium Moon? But if he was a royal, then what was he doing in an orphanage? Royals always married other royals, and even if both parents died, there were plenty of other royals, who always took care of royal children.

No. There was no way that Yew could have been a royal. That possibility was out of the question. However, if he indeed carried the blood of Silphium Moon, that would mean that non-royals can also be her descendants.

Silphium Moon lived more than ten hundred years ago, so maybe within the last ten centuries, a descendant of Silphium Moon married a non-royal in secret, and all their descendants carried the blood without being royals. This wasn’t impossible, but it was highly unlikely, because royals guarded their pure bloodline with extreme measures.

She moved on and thought about Mpingo Forest. He wasn’t adopted like Yew, so if he carried the blood of Silphium Moon, it must have meant that at least one of his parents did so as well. Nettle knew that there were ways to see if someone carried the same blood as another, but she doubted that any royal would be willing to compare his blood with a commoner.

“So in the end, nobody will ever know,” she spoke and something in her soul found peace. She smiled, as her intuition told her that Yew was doing fine.

It was an odd moment. After many days of worrying for the first time, she felt peace even though she hadn’t met Yew yet. Somehow, at this very moment of solitude she came to feel that her son wouldn’t die, because he had the heavens on his side.

Maybe it was caused by Garlic’s dream. She didn’t know for sure, but as she recalled what Garlic told her, she smiled. It would have been nice, if Yew was bestowed the arrow. The only thing all mothers want for their children is to protect them, and what better protection can a child have than a great power bestowed to them from the heavens?

When Kapok returned later on, he added some more wood to the fireplace before sitting on the sofa next to Nettle, who shared with him her insight. He agreed with her with a nod. He also had a lot of thoughts, but he didn’t feel any need to talk about them.

However, he was happy when he saw Nettle speak with a content face. He knew that she was feeling better, even if they still had no letter from Yew.

He wrapped his hand around her head, and gently stroked her hair.

She snuggled closer to him, put her head on his chest and closed her eyes. “I wonder how Yew will grow up,” she murmured.

“You just need to wait and see.”

“I know, but somehow… I just can’t wait.”

“Now you can’t wait, but in ten years you’ll complain that Yew grew up too fast.”

She giggled in response.

During the blizzard one rarely heard any sounds other than the endless howling of wind blowing snow piles and drowning out all the other noises. The walls of the house were hit from every direction. The roof creaked under the weight, and window glasses were shaking in their frames. All the scenery outside was covered in cruel whiteness. In times like this no one would leave the safety of their homes, except in times of dire necessity.

In the house of the Sky family, the fire was slowly dying out as no one added any more wood to the fireplace. The yellow flames disappeared one by one, and only a red tinge was left among the ashes. The living room lost its final source of light, and was completely filled with the darkness of the night. Everyone in the village of Catriddle was asleep, except for the wind, which continued roaring in anger and wailing in grief all throughout the night.

It has been a week since Aspen went home, and Spruce stayed alone in the cottage four and four hundred thirty five. Yet Spruce didn’t waste any of this time. Even though it was Saturday, he woke up early, dressed up and ate the breakfast, which he had prepared from yesterday’s leftovers.

It was right then, when he was wiping his plate dry after washing it, that he saw a student approaching his cottage and waving at him on the other side of the kitchen window. Spruce put down the plate, and ran to the door to let his tutor inside.

Beech Meadow, a fifth year student, who was secretly tutoring Spruce, was dressed in a winter coat, with cap covering top of his eyes and a scarf around his neck, mouth and nose. It wasn’t that cold outside, but he didn’t want anyone to guess that it was him, who was visiting the cottage of a first year student.

After coming in, Beech closed the front door and undressed, leaving all his outdoor clothing in the entry room. Next, he entered the living room, took out some books from his backpack and sat on the sofa while reading them.

To an outsider, it would look like Beech didn’t care about Spruce at all, but the truth was far from it. While Beech was reading, Spruce was practicing magic right next to him, and Beech observed the boy from the corner of his eye.

Most of the time, Beech didn’t say anything, because there was nothing to comment on, but once in a while, when he saw Spruce make progress, he’d add an important point or his insight, and whenever Spruce struggled, he gave him a hint or two.

In the end, the conversations between them were typically limited to two or three short exchanges, while most of their time together they both spent on their individual growth. Spruce practiced, while Beech read books.

“What are you reading?” Spruce asked on his break from practice. It was the first time, that he got interested in Beech’s books, because his tutor’s concerned countenance made him wonder.

“Recollections of people, who lived before the Battle of the End,” Beech looked away from the book, and at Spruce. “When the demons were defeated, two historians went around the world collecting stories of horrendous things that demons did to people. They compiled all collected stories in forty volumes, but less than two volumes survived until today. This is a copy published hundred years ago, and contains stories from both volumes.”

“Can I read it?”

Beech looked inside the book, then back at Spruce, “do you want to have nightmares?”

“Is it so scary?” Spruce came closer to take a look, but Beech closed the book.

The season of Tsun was a bad time to read horror stories. The days were short and fleeting. Sunsets ended too soon to enjoy any daylight, while nights were long, dark, and cold. After the sun disappeared from the sky, it felt like ages passed, before it returned back.

“I want to try,” Spruce stretched out his hand to take the book, but Beech used the book to hit him on the forehead, “ouch.”

“Your goal was something like the top score, right? I’ll let you read it, if you get the top score at the end of the year.”

Spruce massaged his forehead, before he returned back to his latest task: stirring water inside a wooden bowl. Just yesterday, he wrapped up all the basic spells of fire variation of magic, and he began the water variation this morning. He hadn’t succeeded yet, but all he needed was a good idea.

From the beginning of the day, he had been trying different ways to make the water stir. He only had fire magic at his disposal due to the magical dagger that he held, but Beech had already proven to him more than ten times, that magic variation limits the magic used, but it doesn’t limit the results, so it was completely possible to stir water using fire.

Spruce knew that this had to be related to the temperature, so he tried heating up the water in one place, but instead he ended up heating all of it. He wasn’t happy about this, because Beech already told him that if all water ends up hot, it’s hundred times more difficult to stir it.

He looked again at Beech, who continued reading the book. The more he stared at Beech’s face, the more he wanted to read that book, and his curiosity gave him energy to continue his practice.

Using his hands, he grabbed the bowl with hot water and carried it outside. He could have attempted to use levitation on it, but he didn’t feel confident enough of his stamina now that he was quite tired. Thus in order to avoid spilling the hot water, he carried it manually, which was possible because the wooden bowl itself wasn’t even that hot.

He left the bowl with hot water by the entrance door, and took the other bowl, which had been standing there for long enough that the water inside it started to freeze.

By the time it became the afternoon, the sun was already hovering low above the houses. Spruce exchanged bowls several more times with no results. He took out another bowl of hot water outside, but the other bowl’s water was still too warm to practice on it.

He sighed and his eyes looked at the cottages around. Many of them were empty, because their occupants went back home, and those who remained, took it easy, because they no longer had any school assignments to do.

Spruce was ready to go back inside and return later for the bowl, but in the distance he saw a student his age taking a turn at the intersection and coming in his direction. Spruce recognized the clothes almost right away.

“Yew!” he shouted. He ran toward his classmate, still wearing indoor shoes. “Where have you been all this time?”

Yew smiled recognizing the familiar face. He felt as if he didn’t see Spruce for ages, “a lot happened,” he responded. His nose, ears, and cheeks were red from the cold, and his eyelashes were covered with snow. He looked like a kid, who was lost in the woods for at least three days.

“Come inside my cottage,” Spruce said. “It’s warm.”

Yew agreed. He was feeling quite cold, so he followed Spruce and undressed in the entry room. When the two boys entered the living room, Spruce suddenly got a visual reminder of another presence.

Beech looked at him questioningly. Not so long ago, Spruce assured him, that no one would come to his cottage during the Raethosu break, because everyone he knew went home. Ergo, their tutoring sessions would remain a secret from all the other students.

Yew quickly recognized his tutor, “hello.”

Beech nodded in response, and put down the book, “did something happen at home?”

Yew, who wasn’t visiting home, didn't understand the question.

“He wasn’t visiting home,” Spruce explained, then murmured to Yew, “where were you?”

Yew looked through all his memories from the last two and a half weeks, “I travelled.”

“Where?” Spruce kept asking.

Yew tried hard to remember the names of places he visited, but they slipped out of his mind, except for one, “Horselip city.”

Beech narrowed his eyebrows, “but you weren’t visiting your parents?”

“No, my parents live in Catriddle village.”

“So why did you go to Horselip?”

Yew stopped his mouth open for a moment before he answered, “I went there with a friend… to see his friend.”

After spending a luxurious night at the temple, Ginkgo took him to a bar, where they ate home-style breakfast cooked by the owner’s wife. Then they went to the station, where the man bought tickets for both of them to travel to Sheepcrown on a train, which was meant to leave Monday afternoon and arrive Saturday an hour before noon. However, due to heavy snow, the train travelled slower than usual and arrived in the afternoon, an hour before the sunset.

Ginkgo, who heard from Yew all the details about Cypress, decided to head to the villa that belonged to the chairman of Hecate. It was hidden deep in the forest, but Ginkgo said he had his own way of finding a building hidden away from civilization, so Yew shouldn’t worry about him.

Yew wouldn’t even think of showing him the way, because he barely remembered it, so after separating from the man, he went back straight to his cottage in Hecate and arrived late in the evening with the sunset just around the corner.

Beech looked out the window, “it’s late, so I’ll be going,” he packed his books, grabbed his backpack and headed toward the entry room, “by the way, this was one time only. Don’t expect me to help you like this again. If you have any questions, just ask in class.”

“Ah, yeah, thanks,” Spruce quickly responded. He knew that the two of them would have to talk this out later, but he was certain that Beech wasn’t serious about not helping him anymore, or at least he hoped that to be true.

Beech dressed up and left right when the last thin sunray hid itself behind the roofs.

Yew went inside the kitchen and opened the fridge.

“Are you hungry?” Spruce asked.

“Yeah,” he began to look through the several items available. “They gave us breakfast on the train, but no lunch, and the train was supposed to arrive much earlier, but it arrived so late. I expected to be home earlier, so I didn’t eat out.” Yew remembered how Linden often left leftovers in the fridge. “Did Linden go home?”

Spruce shook his head, “I think so or it’s that his break schedule is even more crazy than before. I saw him leave the cottage two days ago in the evening. He suddenly went out somewhere for the night and I haven’t seen him since. But it was snowing like crazy, so I wonder what made him go out in such bad weather.”

Yew sighed with pity, looking at the content of Spruce’s fridge. He recalled all the tasty food Linden always left in his fridge and thought that maybe there was something still left in his own fridge. He closed the fridge in Spruce’s cottage, and headed toward the entrance, “I’ll go quickly to my cottage to see if there’s any food in the fridge, and I'll be back in a minute.”

“You have to be back,” Spruce said. “You still need to tell me all that happened in those two weeks.”

“Sure,” Yew responded and opened the door.

“Yew!”

The two boys heard a man calling and banging on the door of the neighboring cottage.

“Dad?!” Yew immediately recognized the voice of the man in front of his cottage.

Kapok turned toward the voice of his son, “why aren’t you responding to our letters?!” He ran up to Yew and grabbed him by the shoulders, “what happened?”

Yew was too shocked to say anything and Spruce just stood bewildered, staring at the scene in front of him.

“Explain yourself!” Kapok commanded.

“I… I don’t know.”

“Nettle sent you a letter. Did you read it?”

Yew realized that he hadn't been in his cottage for almost two weeks. Of course, he couldn’t have read any letters. He shook his head in response.

“You haven’t read it? Didn’t you receive it?”

“I don’t know.”

“How can you not know?”

“I need to check the mailbox,” he pointed at the door to his cottage.

Kapok looked back at the cottage before he dragged Yew by his arm. He stood him right in front of the door to cottage four and four hundred thirty six. “Go and check it,” he ordered as he let go of his arm.

Yew opened the door to his cottage, turned on the light in the entry room as he entered inside and looked into the mailbox by the door. It was empty.

At that moment, Kapok’s anger rapidly cooled down. His initial assumption that Yew forgot about them and intentionally made his mother worried disappeared, and he patted his son’s arm. “Maybe it got delayed, because of all the bad weather.”

Yew nodded.

“Anyway, I’m glad you’re doing fine. Nettle would like it more, if you sent us a letter once in a while, so she doesn’t have to worry about you.”

“Okay, I will.”

“Great, then I’ll be going back.”

“You’re going home now?” Yew asked, seeing that the daytime was almost over.

“There’s an overnight train to Swanmaze, and I need to let Nettle know the news as soon as possible, or she’d die out of worry about you,” Kapok smiled and waved a bye to Yew, who waved back at his father.

When Yew’s father was no longer in sight, Spruce approached and entered the entry room, “that was your dad?”

Yew took a deep breath, “yeah, but that was close.” He walked inside the living room of the cottage, lighting up the lamps and heading toward the fridge. He opened the door and was pleasantly surprised to find a nice selection of food.

“Yew,” Spruce called out behind him.

Yew looked at his classmate, who was staring at the kitchen table. He followed the direction of Spruce’s vision and saw two letters on top of the table.

Linden must have taken out the letters and put them in the kitchen, which was why the mailbox was empty.

Yew approached the table and saw that both letters were addressed to him. He immediately recognized the handwriting of his mother on one of the letters, and gulped down his saliva realizing his luck.

If his father had stepped inside the cottage and saw these letters, he would have been even more furious after confirming that the letter from his wife had indeed arrived and Yew hadn’t even opened it.

“I’ll read them later,” he decided and looked back at his classmate, “do you want to eat something specific?” he pointed at the content in the open fridge.

“Is this lasagna?” Spruce asked, taking out a square glass container.

“It looks so,” Yew agreed. “Let’s take it.”

Yew turned on the heating in his cottage before the two boys went back to Spruce’s cottage, which was already warm. They moved the lasagna from the container onto plates, warmed up the food, and ate until they were both full.

“You can always depend on Linden’s leftovers,” Spruce complimented Yew’s roommate.

“Yeah,” Yew agreed, massaging his stomach.

“So anyway, what were you doing all this time?”

Yew had a lot of time on the train to prepare an explanation for anyone, who was going to ask him. Thus he was prepared to give an answer without revealing any of his secrets.

He told Spruce how he often heard about Ginkgo the Adventurer from his grandfather, and how he wanted to meet the man in person. He said that he heard from Chervil that Ginkgo would be coming to a certain tower at a certain time, and he went there to meet the man.

He described his meeting with Ginkgo and the events at the Windworm Tower in details, but he omitted most of the events afterward. He only briefly explained that the two of them travelled by foot until they arrived at a city, where they took a train to Sheepcrown and said their goodbyes as they separated at the train station.

“Wow,” Spruce commented every several moments. He couldn’t find any words to express himself, but he was listening attentively like never before. “You’re awesome,” he said after Yew finished his story.

“Why?” he asked.

“I don’t have that much courage. I don’t think anybody has that much courage. Maybe you should become an adventurer?”

Yew couldn’t admit that he had never intended to do anything dangerous in the first place. If not for Liquorice, who made him think that she’d help him, he would have never agreed to go to the Windworm Tower.

“No need. That one adventure was enough for me,” he was honest.

“But that was awesome,” Spruce couldn’t get over the immense sense of awe.

It was already late at night, so Yew grabbed his stuff, byed Spruce and went back to his cottage, which by that time was pleasantly warm.

When he was finally alone, he opened the letters on the table. The first letter was from his mom. He read it and wrote the response right away. He didn’t want to have any problems, so he made sure to put the letter in the mailbox right after he sealed the envelope.

He looked at the second letter, which was addressed to him. He didn’t recognize the handwriting, so he opened it carefully. He was curious about the content and even more about the sender who simply wrote his name as «C». After reading the content, he immediately understood, who sent him the letter.

… I couldn’t contact you, so when you’re back meet me in the villa. I’ll be waiting every day in the afternoon. There’s something more I need to tell you about my older brother...

Yew recalled that Ginkgo planned to head to that villa. It has been many hours since then, so Yew wondered whether they had already met, or did Ginkgo arrive after Cypress left. He wanted to know, but he also didn’t want to interrupt them in case they did happen to happily reunite.

He decided that he was too tired to do anything anyway and that he needed sleep. Everything else could wait until tomorrow.

After separating from Yew, Ginkgo toured around the city of Hecate, until he found a good cheap place to eat. He could have gotten a free meal from a temple, but taking things for free when one was able to pay was no different from stealing.

After the meal, he went to the highest place in the city, which turned out to be a hotel by the name White Crown. He booked a room at the top floor under a fake name, and from the window he looked at the forest beyond the river with binoculars, in search of a villa.

Since most trees had shed their leaves, it wasn’t that difficult to spot a lonely large building in the woods. After he memorized its position, he went to the hotel desk, where he cancelled his booking even though he still had to pay for one night, which he never spent there.

He left the hotel and headed in the general direction of the villa. On his way, he passed by a food stand, where he bought hot dumplings with fried onion and bacon, to eat later for dinner.

After he entered the woods, he didn't know the exact route but he never lost his sense of direction. Even when he strayed away from the straight path, he was steadily getting closer to his goal, although it took him longer than he expected to arrive at the villa.

It was already dark, when he was standing in front of the building. The black sky was cloudless and filled with countless stars. The waxing crescent moon was barely visible, as the new moon was just yesterday. There was no snow falling down, and the wind was also asleep. Even the forest made no sounds.

Ginkgo took a step forward toward the villa. As he was approaching the staircase, someone opened the door from inside and he stopped midstep, watching a guy step out from the building.

Upon realizing someone’s presence in front of the villa, Cypress looked at the person, who was watching him. He couldn’t see well in the darkness, but the figure was large like a male adult. Surely it couldn’t be Yew, or the chairman of Hecate. He spelled a ball of light above the two of them to dissipate some of the night.

Ginkgo watched as Cypress’s countenance was changing. At first the guy looked suspicious, then thoughtful, surprised, disbelieving and finally joyous.

“Ginkgo?”

“Yo, lil’ bro,” Ginkgo walked up the stairs and stretched forward his fist.

Cypress bumped it without any strength, but it wasn’t enough for a greeting after so many years, so he hugged his brother like a woman hugging her beloved, who returned home after many years of war.

“What is this? A dream?” Cypress felt tears gathering in his eye corners.

Ginkgo patted his brother’s back, “long story short, a request from Yew Sky.”

Cypress froze in place, “Yew?”

“He said that you promised to help him find info about his biological parents, in exchange for him helping you to find me.”

“That kid…” Cypress smiled as he hid his face in Ginkgo’s shoulder.

“Let’s go inside. I’ll tell you everything,” Ginkgo patted Cypress’s back.

Cypress let go and led the way to the villa. He opened the door and let Ginkgo enter first. Seeing the back of his older brother, he had the urge to grasp the end of his sleeve, like he used to do in the past, when they were still kids. Both of them were about the same height, and yet, next to his older brother, Cypress felt like a little boy again. In this moment, he felt as if he had travelled back in time, to those happy childhood days, which he had spent together with Ginkgo.

Cypress closed the door, and they walked toward the living room, where he lit up the fireplace with magic.

Ginkgo took off his outdoor clothes. Inadvertently, he brought in a lot of snow, and left a trail, which was melting in the hallway.

Cypress quickly removed it with another set of spells before the water soaked deep into the wooden floor. He also took off his own outdoor clothes, and put them on the table next to Ginkgo’s.

The man sat on one armchair, and Cypress sat on the other. While sitting by the fireplace, they began to talk. At first, Cypress wanted to hear the truth about Ginkgo’s school, so Ginkgo told him all about his education from the moment he received a letter from Hypnos up to the moment, when he graduated from Nike.

Their conversation continued past midnight, and when Ginkgo was done with his side of the story, Cypress told his brother all, which happened in his life after Ginkgo was banished from the Sea household.

Cypress’s story eventually arrived at the point, where he met Yew. He explained his interaction with the boy up until the reaThosu. Then he paused his story and asked Ginkgo how did he meet Yew.

In response, Ginkgo described in detail how he met up with Yew and how they both returned to Sheepcrown together.

“So all this time, he was nowhere near Hecate,” Cypress now understood why he couldn’t mindteam the boy.

“He left without saying a word,” Ginkgo was perplexed by Yew’s actions.

Cypress returned back to his story, and told Ginkgo of things other than Yew. They kept on talking and their conversation had no end. There was so much that they wanted to tell each other.

Whenever Ginkgo was talking,  Cypress couldn’t get enough of it. He felt the pure joy of a little boy listening to bedtime stories told to him by his father. It was a sensation of peace and safety, which he didn’t even know that he longed for, and he didn’t want this night to end.

They asked each other questions and commented aloud on each other’s actions. Both of them wanted to hear more and more, and no matter how much they heard, they weren’t satisfied. Just like this, the two of them spent the whole night without any sleep.

When they finally began to feel sleepy, it was already late morning. The icicles on the trees twinkled like stars in the golden sunlight, and the snow on the ground also shone like a dazzling gemstone.

“Cypress?” the guy by this name, heard Yew’s voice in his mind.

“Oh, time out, Yew’s mindteaming me,” Cypress said to Ginkgo, before he mindteamed to Yew, “thanks.”

A moment of silence preceded Yew’s question, “you met Ginkgo?”

“Yeah, we met last night. I couldn’t believe my eyes. But, to be honest, I did expect you to succeed, though I thought it’d take you several years.”

"Well, I kept my side of the promise. So what about the records of my parents?"

"Sorry, I need a bit more time," Cypress looked a bit embarrassed. He never thought that Yew could accomplish such a feat so easily, and he was ashamed that he didn’t respond in kind. “I’ll get them to you as soon as possible.”

“Okay,” Yew sounded a bit disappointed, but happy.

Cypress looked at Ginkgo, “he disconnected.”

“Did he say anything about me?”

“He asked me for the documents regarding his parents,” Cypress explained.

Ginkgo smirked, “which you haven’t prepared yet, I presume.”

“It would have been weird to get the documents in a matter of days, and wait for years,” Cypress stroked his forehead. “I really didn’t expect this.”

“You better move fast.”

“All phonebooths are always busy on Sundays, so the earliest I can contact Feverwort would be tomorrow.”

Ginkgo stretched out and yawned, “which gives us plenty of time to get some sleep.”

“Yeah,” Cypress also yawned, while he looked toward the staircase, “there are bedrooms upstairs. We can use them.”

Ginkgo purred in agreement and that was exactly what they did.

When the sun was already quite high on the sky and nearing the beforenoon, the two men headed upstairs, where they each chose their preferred bedroom.

Ginkgo undressed and went to sleep in his underwear under the thick fluffy comforters of the beds, while he left his dirty clothes on the floor next to the bed. Cypress had a spare pajama ready, because it wasn’t the first time he spent the night at this villa.

They slept throughout the day. By the time they woke up, the dusk had already ended, and even though today was another short day of the darkest season of the year, waking up at the nighttime didn’t feel right to either one of them.

Both of them were hungry like wolves, since they hadn’t eaten anything from the hour when they met. Throughout the night, they were too immersed in their conversations, and in the morning, the desire to sleep was far too overwhelming for them to notice their hunger. However, after getting enough sleep and having somewhat satisfied their craving for talk, both of them couldn’t think of anything other than food.

Ginkgo took out all he had in his backpack, and they shared it.

It wasn’t a fancy meal, but it was enough to calm down their need to eat. They talked during and after the meal, but they didn’t continue until morning like the previous time. Tonight, they went to sleep before midnight.

They both knew that one or two nights wasn’t enough to catch up on all the things, which had happened over the years. They would need weeks, if not months, to run out of topics to talk about, so there was no point losing sleep for a goal that could never be accomplished in mere hours.

The Monday morning of the forty third day of Tsun marked the beginning of the second week of the Raethosu break.

Neither Cypress nor Ginkgo woke up early, and they didn’t dress up until their bodies reminded them of a very human need that had to be satisfied each morning.

Cypress, who woke up several minutes before his brother, took the shower first. Later when Ginkgo was taking his shower, Cypress used water magic and a bar of soap to wash their clothes and dried them up with a more complex combination of fire and sky magic.

Afterward, they went to the city of Sheepcrown and ate on their way to the communication center.

The building itself was narrow and squeezed between two other large buildings, a bank and a clothing factory. It would have been easy to miss, if not for the large red sign «COMMUNICATION» above the entrance doors.

Cypress walked up three steps and grabbed the doorknob. The doors were beautifully decorated from the bottom and each had a glass window in the top half. Through that window, Cypress saw that the center wasn’t too busy, because there was no queue at the front desk.

He opened the door and came inside, with Ginkgo behind him. They walked up to the front desk, and Cypress asked for a private phoneroom, ignoring more than twenty phone booths arranged on the wall behind him.

The woman at the front desk requested a large sum of thousand fifty hundred syfras. The cost of the phoneroom was precisely why almost all of the visitors preferred to use the phonebooths, all of which costed ten syfras per minute, or one could get a discount and buy one hour for five hundred syfras.

“Any additional hour is fifty hundred syfras,” the woman reminded that Cypress only paid for one hour of use.

Cypress knew that he should be done in less than an hour, but there was no option to buy the phoneroom for any cheaper than this.

He took the keys and went upstairs with Ginkgo. The key had a number five on it, so he searched for the room with that same number on the door. Since there were only eight rooms, it was easy to find the right one.

The two men entered the room, which had only one simple table and four chairs. On top of the table adjacent to the wall stood the phonebooth, which looked like a rectangular block of wood with the keypad on the left side, a handset on the right side, and a display screen above.

Cypress took off the handset and dialed the number one, four zero zero, four zero zero. The display showed the number together with the owner’s name: «Royal Library of World Records».

Ginkgo sat on one of the chairs at a distance from the phone, so as not to interrupt with accidental noises.

“Name and case number,” an automatic voice came from the speaker of the handset.

“Cypress Sea, nine nine zero one,” he didn’t say his case number but a secret code to get right to the main operator.

“Hallo?” a man’s voice answered in a calm manner, but a moment later the operator exclaimed, “oh, Cypress Sea, it’s you. Wait a moment, I’ll redirect you to your aunt right now.”

Two clicks followed by silence before Cypress heard the voice of his aunt.

"Cypress, how unusual of you to contact me," she said in a sarcastic tone, but was pleased with the phonecall. “Aren’t you graduating soon?”

“Yeah, I’ll be graduating this year.”

“I see.”

“Aunt Feverwort, I know I said this before, but this will be the last time.”

“Don’t mind me, I’ll always help the next head get a good standing in the family. So what’s his name?”

“Yew Sky,” Cypress answered. “Thanks for your help.”

"No need,” she chuckled. “I thought that since you’re nearing your graduation, you won't call me this year."

"Well, I also thought that I won't be doing this on my last year in Hecate, but he's a first year."

“Must be quite unique for you to take an interest in someone that young.”

“Yeah.”

"Let me see…”

Cypress heard the sounds of papers, clicks, knocks, and shoves for a long time. He knew that his aunt was checking something on her side, so he patiently waited for her.

“Okay, I found him in the database,” his aunt finally said. “How lucky, he’s the only Yew Sky in the world.”

“Really?”

“I was expecting to have to narrow them down by age, but now that I look at it, Yew is a rare name. Not many people have it.”

“So can you send me the copies?”

“Yeah, oh wait, I don’t think I can. Let me try.”

A sound of clicks and shoving of paper.

Cypress looked at the crevice at the bottom of the phonebooth.

“It’s printing,” he said, when a paper started coming out from the crevice.

“Really?”

Cypress took the printed sheet and checked both sides, “oh, it’s empty.”

“Like I thought.”

“Why?”

“It seems there are some charms on these documents. I’ll make manual copies and mail them to you later, and… what’s this?”

"Did something happen?"

"Well… this boy, Yew Sky… He was adopted when he was less than one month old, but the records of his biological parents are not attached."

"Huh? Wait… so there are no records of his biological parents?"

“Yes, there are no records attached, but there is an interesting note attached to the last page of his records.”

“What does it say?”

“Royal Archives - fourth floor, no. fifty three hundred sixty six.”

"Fourth floor? Isn’t that the archive, where all the top secret records are kept?"

"Yes, it’s that archive. Hmmmm…” she was thinking for a long time before she just shrugged it off, “well, I won’t know until I check.”

"Will you be able to get access to those archives?"

"That's the wrong question, Cypress. The question is how long would it take me. Don't forget that the Sea household has been serving royals for centuries. We have access to almost everywhere."

Cypress smirked at her comment regarding one of the perks of being born in a Sea household, “great.”

"And don't forget that the supervisor of the Royal Archives is your great-grandmother."

"Actually, I forgot."

"I’m not surprised. We rarely need her help."

"I'm surprised she's still alive."

"Don't say that about her. She's still at the young age of only hundred six yrold," his aunt chuckled.

Cypress also chuckled at the joke.

"I will contact her right away, and send you the results in the mail with the overnight delivery, so you should expect to get them by tomorrow.”

"Thank you, aunt Feverwort."

“No need to thank me,” she responded. “We need to help each other in the family.”

Cypress looked at Ginkgo before he spoke to the handset, “I’ll be going now.”

“Take care,” she said and hung up.

After the Cypress put the handset back on the phonebooth, Ginkgo spoke out, “are you really intending to make Yew your knight?”

“To be fair, I had that idea, but he’s still a kid, so it’s hard to know what he’ll grow up to become.”

“Do you always ask her for infos?”

“Aunt Feverwort is naive. She always helps anyone as long as they’re members of the Sea household, and she never asks any questions. The one time she asked me why I’m looking into so many people, I told her that I’m searching for connections to strengthen the family.”

“And she bought it?”

Cypress nodded.

“So who else knows about your Loyalty Vows?”

“Just me and my knights,” Cypress answered and added. “And you, since I told you before coming here.”

“You’re crazy,” Ginkgo shook his head.

Cypress smiled in self-pity. “I know, but sometimes the crazy way is the only way to go.”

“Are they aware of your plans?” Ginkgo recalled what Cypress mentioned to him the night before.

“In all the details,” Cypress answered, then looked around, “let’s go back to the villa. I’ll tell you more.”

Ginkgo saw that Cypress was very eager to tell him, and they both walked back at a quite fast pace, almost as if they were running late.

They weren’t even inside the villa, when Cypress began telling Ginkgo everything while they were going up the staircase to the patio. Without stopping the conversation, they moved into the living room, where they sat comfortably in the armchairs by the fireplace, which Cypress turned as he passed by.

Ginkgo listened and wondered. Was it really possible?

“You’d need people, who are more powerful than royals,” Ginkgo stated.

“And that’s what I’m gathering,” Cypress smiled with a gleam in his eyes.

Ginkgo closed his eyes in deep thoughts.

Before the Battle of the End, it was a pure chaos of ranks within countless social hierarchies, which existed among humans. Only after the Battle of the End, the hierarchy worldwide had been simplified to four classes: royals, nobles, commoners, and clergy.

Commoners made up more than ninety percent of all people, and they were simply normal people. Nobles were commoners, who took an active part in the war against demons, and were given the title as a recognition for their contributions.

Clergy were typically commoners, rarely nobles, who stepped away from the normal lifestyle to seek something spiritual. Unlike nobles, who were always admired by commoners, clergy were typically seen as loony eccentrics, who were tolerated because supposedly some of them were able to make miracles.

Royals were descendants of Silphium Moon. They kept their blood pure, and their lives secret. Not much was known about them, other than several facts, such as that they possessed immense powers, which made it easy for them to take control, or that they never married anyone other than another royal.

Ginkgo sighed.

Cypress’s lifegoal hadn’t changed. It only grew bigger, maybe too big.

“Freedom, huh?” Ginkgo pondered.

When Yew arrived at the villa, naturally the front doors were closed as usual. Up until this moment he was too excited to finally find out about his parents, that he totally forgot about everything else.

He left his cottage as soon as Cypress mindteamed him with news that he has got some records about him. Spruce and Aspen didn’t even have time to ask him why, when he left midway during their lunch meal. On the way out he passed by Linden, who was on his way back to their cottage, but his roommate as usual had no interest in the lives of others.

Standing in front of the chairman’s villa, Yew recalled what happened the last time, when he was exiting this building and wondered whether the doors would once again just open themselves.

He took a deep breath, stepped closer, and looked left and right. After he ensured that there was nobody around to see him, he stretched his hand forward toward the door. Exactly like last time, the door opened outward. This time without him even touching them.

He looked in front of himself inside the building’s empty hallway, and sighed with relief. He was glad that nobody saw the doors opening for him. It would have been rather difficult to explain it without revealing his talent. Ergo, he felt thankful to the heavens, that he was able to keep his secrets.

After he entered, the doors closed by themselves. He walked on toward the living room, where he expected to find Cypress.

The guy was sitting in one of the armchairs and reading through the documents in his hand. When he heard footsteps, he looked up and greeted Yew, “hey.”

“Is that about my parents?” the boy greedily looked at the documents.

“No, it’s about you,” Cypress stretched out his hand with the documents.

Yew came closer and grabbed the papers. Cypress he let go, passing them to the boy, who promptly began reading the first page.

However, the first page had no mentions about his biological or adopted parents. All the infos were about Yew. It listed his names, date of birth, place of birth, physical description, and medical health records.

He turned to the next page. It had his family history and the names of his adopted parents together with the adoption date. There was also a clear record about the orphanage, where he stayed. But still no info about his biological parents.

He turned to the third and last page, but this last page was only half-filled with info about his kindergarten progress, and underneath it, there was another heading “School of Hecate” but the rest of the page was blank.

Yew started turning the pages again and again, carefully looking if he hadn’t missed any page, but after making sure that no pages were glued together, he looked up at Cypress, “there’s no info about my biological parents.”

“I know,” Cypress responded calmly with his fingers on his chin.

“You said you’ll get me my parents’ names! That’s why you called me!” Yew raised up his voice loud enough to count that as yelling.

Cypress was taken aback by Yew’s outburst, but he remained calm. “I called you, because I got infos about you, not your parents,” his mouth remained open as if he had more to say, but Yew spat out his words before Cypress could say anything else.

Yew squeezed his fists, before he spit out, “you’re so useless.” He didn’t yell. He didn’t shout. He just spat out the words like a viper spits out its poison.

Cypress opened wide his eyes, while his mouth remained half-open. He would never expect anyone to say something like this to him. He was also surprised how quickly Yew changed his usual complacent and somewhat stoic behavior.

Just then, he recalled the first time, when he met Yew on the train. At that time, the boy also looked like he was frustrated at something. Thus Cypress realized a fact that Yew most likely wasn’t aware of.

Yew was quick to pick a fight whenever he was feeling upset.

Cypress pondered, whether he should point it out, but decided that it wasn’t the best time. Besides, with a serious flaw like that, sooner or later, someone or something would teach him a valuable lesson. Therefore, by the time he were to grow up, he should have more control over his personality.

Yew, on the other hand, couldn’t stand that nothing was going his way. This was not what he imagined to happen. His anger blinded him so much that he was no longer in control of his words. Moreover, he totally ignored the difference in age, strength and skills between him and Cypress. He didn’t forget how powerful the guy was, he just no longer cared.

Cypress didn’t do what he wanted him to do, so Yew was going to harm him. Even if he couldn’t do anything in a physical battle, at least he could insult the guy as much as he wanted. He didn’t even think of how easily he would end up defeated and humiliated, if the older student didn’t like the insults.

However, Cypress would never react to insults from a kid five years younger. Nevermind age, Cypress was never bothered by insults in the first place. He was looking straight into Yew’s eyes, which were throwing silent thunders in his direction.

“When life goes too well, people’s hearts rot,” Ginkgo came down the staircase opposite to the entrance to the living room.

Yew’s eyesight moved away from Cypress to Ginkgo. “He promised to get me info about my parents!” he pointed at Cypress, expecting Ginkgo to take his side. The boy didn’t even realize that he was looking for pity from the man.

“Fool,” Ginkgo responded without any pity. “You accuse before you heard it all.”

“Heard what?” Yew was confused by Ginkgo calling him a fool more than by the rest of the statement.

“I’m still looking into your parents,” Cypress explained calmly. “I called you today, to share what I found by now. I thought it would please you to know that I’m actually doing something. If you don’t like being up-to-date with the search, I can just call you once I get the results. Fine?”

“So you’re still looking? You’re not done yet?” Yew immediately calmed down once he comprehended that he was too quick to judge.

“Wrong answer,” Ginkgo rolled up his right sleeve, and made a fist in the direction of Yew, as if he was ready to punch the boy, “try again.”

Yew immediately began thinking. Like a genius, his brain was replaying all that happened from the very first moment he entered the villa, trying to solve this sudden riddle. The one thing he knew, was that if he got it wrong, it would hurt.

“I’m sorry,” the boy spoke his final answer, looking at Ginkgo’s fist.

“Wrong direction,” Ginkgo opened his fist and pointed at Cypress with his open palm.

“I’m sorry,” Yew apologized again, this time looking directly at the older student of Hecate. As soon as he said it, he lowered his head, unable to stop himself from feeling embarrassed.

Cypress nodded, “not a big matter.” He pointed at the papers in Yew’s hand. “As you saw, there aren’t any infos about your biological parents, so I don’t know how long exactly it’ll take me to find them, but if they existed, and surely they did, sooner or later, I’ll uncover their names.”

Yew realized that finding his parents wasn’t going to be an easy task. Normally names of biological parents were always listed on the personal data of each individual. Even in rare cases, when the name of the father was missing, at least the name of the mother was mentioned.

Cypress told Yew that he would definitely find out the names of Yew’s parents. However, even if he could easily get all his personal documents, would he be really able to find people, whose names are nowhere to be seen?

Moreover, Yew understood that his own chances of finding his biological parents were ever lower than Cypress’s, now that he knew the content of his personal records. Ergo, he felt remorse and regret building up inside him, as he recalled how just several minutes ago, he unfairly lashed out at Cypress.

“I’m really sorry… for what I said,” Yew kept his head still hanging down.

Cypress looked at Ginkgo, who smiled in response.

The man put his hand on Yew’s shoulder, “one day you’ll grow up into a fine man.”

Yew looked up at him and blinked, unable to understand why Ginkgo said that. Afterward, he looked back at Cypress. He held onto the documents with both hands, and shyly asked for permission, “can I take these with me?”

“Sure,” Cypress answered. “I got these copies for you.”

“Thank you,” Yew bowed down his head, “and thank you for trying so hard to help me find my parents.”

“A man has to keep his word,” Cypress sneaked a peek at Ginkgo.

Yew lifted up his head, took a final look at Cypress and turned around.

“I’ll contact you again, when I get something new,” Cypress added.

Yew turned his head around and murmured another quiet “thank you” before he walked away through the hallway to the front doors. He was so immersed in reflecting on his behavior, that he forgot about his secret and just walked through the doors, which opened for him by themselves.

Ginkgo, who was standing with one foot in the living room and another in the hallway, watching the boy leave the villa, furrowed his eyebrows.

"I have a question about the doors to this villa,” the man looked at Cypress. “From what you said, these front doors can be opened only by those with strong magical talent. Is that correct?"

"Yes,” Cypress answered from the armchair. “The doors cannot be opened by magicless people or less than average talented magi, but they can always be opened by those with strong magical talent."

"So there are only two possible outcomes?" Ginkgo added a strong accent on the words «only two».

"Yes, uhm…" Cypress responded, but then he began considering other options. His brother was clearly looking for something more, and that was when Cypress remembered yet another possibility, "there's actually three possible outcomes in total, if we want to be precise, but the third one’s unlikely."

"And that is?"

"If someone with the royal blood approaches the front doors, they would open on their own. Royals don't have to touch the doors to come in or go out.”

While Cypress was explaining, Ginkgo came over and sat on the other armchair. "Is that so?" he raised a hand up to his face and rubbed his stubble, thinking deeply about what his eyes had seen.

"Why did you ask about that?" Cypress already guessed why his brother was so concerned with the third possibility, but he wanted to hear the answer directly from Ginkgo’s mouth.

The older man looked directly at Cypress and for a while, he contemplated how to word his thoughts. Eventually he presented the situation with the simplest description. "When Yew was leaving, he didn’t open the doors. They opened on their own in front of him."

Cypress didn’t look surprised. He had thought of many diverse possibilities after seeing Yew’s records, especially since his aunt mentioned that mysterious note.

“An abandoned royal?” Ginkgo offered an option. “He couldn’t be lost, because someone knows about him enough to attach that note.”

Cypress didn’t say anything, but he was also thinking a lot.

“Or maybe they’re hiding him,” Ginkgo continued, “but why would they need to?”

“I don’t know if we should just assume him to be a royal,” Cypress spoke. “Maybe there’s another explanation, but we’ll have to uncover it ourselves.”

“Maybe he isn’t a royal at all. Maybe he only has some royal blood in him.”

“That’s impossible,” Cypress immediately denied it. “Royals have a strict tradition to marry only other royals. Any royal, who is caught breaking this rule is killed together with their partner and children. There is no one alive, who would carry royal blood, other than royals.”

Ginkgo blinked, “I know about the rule, but it’s not like royals ever married outside of their blood. Who knows, maybe it’s the first time this has happened, and that’s why nobody knows about it.”

Cypress shook his head. “In every generation there’s at least one royal who has a relationship with a non-royal, but no matter how secret they try to make it, all of them were found out and murdered in secret. To the public, their deaths were announced as either death from sickness or accident.”

“Wow,” Ginkgo commented. “I never knew so much stuff was going on in the royal households.”

“Yeah,” Cypress looked worried. “I also didn’t know.”

“But still, maybe one royal succeeded…”

“There are no exceptions,” Cypress said sternly. “Royals don’t forgive anyone, who marries a non-royal. If they have to, they would mobilize all royals to murder one person.”

“That’s brutal,” Ginkgo openly didn’t like what the royals were doing. “Honestly, I didn’t know that there were royals, who broke that rule. I always thought all of them always follow their rules.”

“You’d be surprised to know how many of them don’t,” Cypress smiled as he recalled something. “But among the royals, disobeying a rule means death, which is why we don’t hear about any disobedient royals. They’re no longer alive to tell us their stories.”

Ginkgo leaned his head on the armrest, “if us two were born royals, we wouldn’t be alive anymore.”

Cypress laughed in irony, “yeah. We should thank the heavens for giving us the right to disobey the rules.”

“The right to choose,” Ginkgo corrected the term.

“I wouldn’t call it a choice,” Cypress got gloomy. “After they’ve disowned you, I’m left as the next heir of the Sea household. They wouldn’t just let me walk off.”

“I think they would. There are still many cousins, who would be more than happy to become the head of the Sea household.”

“Greedy pieces of trash.”

Ginkgo laughed. In the past, he used the phrase himself to describe that household, but he never expected that his younger brother would grow up to be so much like him.

“I’m not joking. What’s so great about being the head? Nothing. But they want it like it’s some miraculous food that can heal any disease.”

Ginkgo continued to laugh, while Cypress kept on describing his relatives.

“I’m sick of how they act. Do you know what our paternal cousins did last year? They offered to be the next Emperor’s knights. They’ve never even met the son of the current Emperor.”

“He’s still a kid, isn’t he?” Ginkgo recalled what he knew.

“Still a kid and already set to be the next Emperor, so he’s kept well-hidden and well-protected. As far as I’ve heard, no one has access to him, except for several people, whom the Emperor trusts the most.”

Ginkgo rubbed his stubble, “the current Emperor is known for his merciless attitude toward disobedience. He even annihilated some rebel group ten years ago, killing not only the rebels but all their families, including women and children. Some say that anyone would make a better Emperor than him.”

“Why have a different Emperor, when we should just get rid of the position altogether?” Cypress included his plans into the conversation.

“If the royals weren’t so powerful, that would have been done a long time ago,” Ginkgo put up a challenge.

Cypress stood up and smiled like a kid planning an innocent mischief. Within seconds the whole scenery surrounding them changed. The two of them were in a palace made of gold and silver, and decorated throughout with millions of gemstones.

"This is … ?! No way!" Ginkgo realized that he was sitting on an expensive armchair made from the fur of griffons.

"It looks real, right?"

"It's certainly not an illusion. But this is not the Eternal Palace, is it?" Ginkgo looked suspiciously at Cypress.

"Of course it's not," Cypress stated the obvious. "The Eternal Palace belongs to the Emperor, and only the Emperor and his family have the right to enter it. I’m a noble, so I could never get access to that place."

"Then how? Don't tell me you created it?" Ginkgo's suspicion began to change into awe as he realized the secret behind what he was seeing.

While no one had access to the Eternal Palace, photos and descriptions of the place were widely available, and almost anyone had a fairly good idea of what the palace looked like inside. There were even those, who tried to build one based on the photos, but the royals banned anyone from building any palace without their permission.

Cypress smiled in response to his brother's stupefied countenance, "I'd be a fool if I wasted such a talent."

"Since when?"

"Since when what? Since when I was so talented in magic? I think I was already born with that much talent," Cypress knew what Ginkgo was asking about, but he played around by avoiding the correct answer.

"Since when did you learn dimensional magic?" Ginkgo stated exactly what he wanted to know.

"I heard about it here in Hecate, and I decided to give it a try, in secret, of course."

"You tried it without any supervision? Did you know that if you fail a magic of this level, it results in things far worse than death?"

Cypress scratched the back of his head. He didn’t have a good response to that.

Ginkgo stroked the top of his head. "Even the most talented magi spend their whole lifetime just to learn to make a simple empty room, and the world sees them as geniuses. No one has ever been able to create a dimension beyond that of a large empty room.”

Cypress chuckled, “There is a legend of a magus from ancient times, who could easily create complicated dimensions as a little kid."

Ginkgo’s memory looked through the legends that he knew about and one name instantly popped up, "Silphium Moon.”

Cypress smirked.

“According to the legends, she was the most powerful magus in all of the history,” Ginkgo recalled what he learned back in kindergarten. “And all the royals are her descendants. I’d never have thought that your desire for freedom has such a skill as your ally.”

Cypress stopped smiling and his face showed a great level of determination, "Freedom is not my desire, it’s my destiny."

Ginkgo smirked in response, “destiny is something you create yourself.”

“So? Will you join me?"

"The wisemen ally with the power, and the fools ally with the dreamers."

"Our father's favorite saying," Cypress wasn't glad to recall the man, but he couldn't deny that his father was indeed a man experienced in life.

"Are you a dreamer with no power?" Ginkgo asked with a grin.

"Do I look like a dreamer?" Cypress responded, also with a grin.

"If you're not a dreamer, then I'm not a fool."

On the eve of the forty ninth day of Tsun, all the people around the world had one and the same goal. Everyone was heading to the nearest temple, regardless whether the temple was near or far.

No one wanted to risk missing this important event, thus most of the people began to get ready many days ahead of time. Those, who lived far from any temple, rented a hotel room near a temple. Those, who couldn’t move on their own, ensured that someone would take them. Those, who didn’t expect to live for much longer, arrived earlier than anyone else.

The month of Holy lasted only one day with the exception of every fourth year, when it lasted two days. However the preparation for this month always started with the first day of Raethosu, and the ceremonious mood lasted at least until the seventh day of Toas.

Sage Moss, who stayed in her cottage for Raethosu, was done dressing up and was checking herself in the mirror. She wore a thick coat made from the deer hide, and decorated with the rabbit’s fur at the sleeves, around the neck and on the bottom seam near her feet. On her head she wore a wool hat with a small brim. She would have preferred a hat with a large brim, but there were going to be many people in the temple, and it was certainly going to be very crowded. A knitted scarf with shapes of flowers added the finishing touch to her attire.

She took her dark brown purse and walked inside the entry room, where she put on her leather shoes with small hills. The hills wouldn’t be too visible in the snow, but they added extra height, which was useful in a large crowd. Before leaving she opened her purse, and made sure that she forgot nothing.

Sage would normally be at her parents’ home at this time of the year, but she had a reason to remain in Hecate this Raethosu. She was looking for a husband, and there was a man whom she has been eyeing for a long time.

Sage had realized since a long time ago, that Cypress Sea preferred to stay in Hecate over the holidays rather than go back to his parents’ home. That’s why typically he was among those, who remained in Hecate unless he was explicitly called to return by his household.

This was Cypress’s last year in Hecate, so Sage had only two chances left to get close. She could have tried earlier, but while she was always bossy around those weaker than her, she had almost no courage to talk to those stronger than her.

For the last two weeks, she was stalking Cypress’s cottage in secret, but the guy went out somewhere on the forty second of Tsun and hasn’t returned back for a week. Sage was worried and began to think that maybe something horrible had happened to Cypress, but the guy suddenly came back on the morning of forty ninth of Tsun.

Relieved, Sage returned back to her cottage. Cypress must have been getting ready in his cottage, so she began to get ready as well. She had already decided that there was no better opportunity for them to meet than on the evening of the Holy vigil. After all, could anything go wrong on such an auspicious day?

Ten hundred years ago, the Moss household was known for its great warriors, who fought against demons and protected the innocent. However, a lot has changed ever since.

The demons were no longer in the world, so the warriors were no longer needed. The main income of the Moss household was gone, as no one had a need to hire such powerful warriors, when an average fighter hired cheaply was good enough to deal with bandits and weak monsters.

Moreover, in a peaceful world without wars, no one had a respect for a family that cultivated an art of fighting. However, the Moss household wouldn’t allow themselves to ever forget their roots and they continued to pass down their tradition to every next generation.

Sage Moss was no different in that matter. Since her early childhood, she was asked to choose her weapon of choice. She didn’t remember any of that, but her father told her, that as a toddler, she wrapped her one hand on the handle of an axe and her other hand on the pike, and she held on so strongly to both weapons, that her parents couldn’t separate her for many minutes. In the end, she began to learn both fighting styles, but she didn’t have any time to practice ever since she began to attend the school of Hecate.

Yet there was something about the Moss household that almost no one knew about. Sage Moss was known in Hecate as the first member of her household to attend the school of magic, but she wasn’t the first one born with a magical talent.

When her great-grandmother from the Sea household chose to marry her great-grandfather of the Moss household, the Sea household was strongly against it. As magi they always looked down on warriors. After much opposition, they finally allowed for the marriage, because it was rare for any magic-talented children to be born from a union between a magicless and a magic-talented.

The Sea household expected all their children to be magicless, since the woman herself wasn’t that talented. To everyone’s surprise the couple had five magic-talented children, and the talent of four of the children was much above average.

After the Sea household had learned about it, they wanted to adopt the children into their magic-talented household, but the Moss household refused to give the children away. The angered Sea household pulled their connections in the school of Hecate and banned the Moss household from getting accepted into Hecate. This ban lasted until eighteen years ago, when the previous chairman of the Hecate suddenly removed it without ever consulting the Sea household.

All five magic-talented children born to the Moss household from their mother of the Sea household, married magicless people and in the end, unfortunately only one of them had magic-talented children. That was Sage’s grandmother, who had two daughters, both of whom were magic-talented, and both of whom gave birth to magic-talented children.

Sage’s aunt, and the older sister of her mother, gave birth to one son before her husband passed away. The son didn’t want to be a magus, so he chose the school of Ares. Sage had a younger sister, but she was still too young to attend any school and likely she wasn’t planning to be a magus either.

The Moss household had nothing against Sage studying magic, but they still carried their hatred for the Sea household and for this reason most of them would refuse to study magic just to show the Sea household that they don’t need this talent anyway.

However, Sage didn’t go to the school of Hecate just for fun. She went there in order to excel beyond the Sea household and ridicule them through her outstanding talent. She knew that she had enough talent to steal the first place from every graduate of the Sea household in the last hundred years, but she didn’t expect that Cypress would be way beyond the level of all the other magi in the Sea household.

Yet her luck hadn’t run out. After the Sea household disowned Cypress’s older brother, it caused quite a scandal by itself. Moreover, Sage heard rumors that Cypress preferred his older brother over the household itself, and that he wouldn’t stay in that household, if he had a better place to go.

Thus Sage thought of making him her husband. If he himself cut ties with the Sea household and joined the Moss household, that would ruin the reputation of the Sea household forever, and she could ensure that her own children would be talented enough to compete… no, to overpower any offsprings of the Sea household.

After getting herself ready to go, she left her cottage, and hurried up through the Hecate schoolground until she arrived near the gate. Surely, any students heading for the temple would have to pass this gate if they wanted to take the shortest route. Thus she waited, while carefully looking at anyone passing by.

As the sun was getting closer and closer to the horizon, she was getting more and more worried that Cypress may have somehow taken a different route, and she wouldn’t meet him on the way. Once near the temple, it would be almost impossible to find him among the crowds.

The plaza and the pathway to the gate became empty. The sky became dark, and only the street lamps shone on the lonely gal standing by the gate. The cold wind blew at her face, and she was wondering. Should she keep waiting or should she go?

From a distance, she saw many shadows of trees swinging in the wind. However one of the shadows came closer and became a figure of a man walking alone. Even though, he was covered by clothes from top to bottom, Sage immediately recognized him by the long hair tied with a bow, which was sticking out from under his leather coat.

She took several steps to catch up to him, “won’t you be late for the liturgy?” She asked the first thing she was wondering about.

Cypress looked to his side, at the gal, who joined his slow pace. “Doesn’t the same apply to you?”

She blinked, “I’m not in a hurry, and I don’t mind if I get late. It’s not like there’s a lot to miss, and it’s the same thing every year.”

Cypress didn’t respond and he walked next to Sage in silence. He had left the villa early in the morning to get some things done in his cottage, and he had agreed to meet up with Ginkgo in front of the shoe repair shop, which was on the same street as the temple, but at a fair enough distance, so there should be no crowds that far away from the temple.

Naturally, the shop was sure to be closed, just like all the businesses on this very important evening of the year. Each year around the noon of the forty ninth of Tsun, all places would begin to close and they remained closed until the midday of the first of Toas. Only certain places related to rescue, like hospitals and firefighting quarters, were left open and operating, but not fully functional.

Because of the global shutdown, the month of Holy had another unofficial name, which was often used by those, who failed to prepare ahead of time. It was called the Dark Day or the Dark Month, because throughout this day, all utilities, such as electricity and water businesses, were shut down. With no one operating the machinery, everything was turned off for safety precautions, and that meant everyone around the world was left with no electricity and no running water during this most important holiday of the year.

However, it was rare to see someone, who hadn’t prepared. More common were people, who started preparing on the morning of the forty ninth day of Tsun, just to realize that the stores had already sold out most, if not all of their goods, which meant their preparations were lacking and thank God, the month of Holy never lasted more than two days, or otherwise some less prudent people would really suffer.

“You know, I’m good at cooking,” Sage said after both of them walked in silence for quite a while. “If you don’t have any food ready for Holy, I could make something for you, like a cheese soup, or fish fillet with potatoes cooked in onion, and a pecan cake for a dessert. How does it sound?”

Cypress let out a heavy sigh. “Sorry to be blunt, but whoever spread that rumor about my favorite food was making it up.”

Sage felt her face getting red from embarrassment, but since her cheeks were already red from the cold there was no visible difference. She spent four years in the school of Hecate, gathering info on Cypress Sea, and now the man told her himself that all of it was useless.

“I’ve had so many gals offer me these dishes, I actually began to dislike them,” he continued looking at the road in front of him, which was more comfortable for Sage, who didn’t want him looking at her. “Every time, I told them to stop, hoping that the rumors about my culinary preferences would disappear, but nope - they didn’t. And every month there’s at least one gal, who’s trying to lure me into marriage with exactly the same menu.”

Sage squeezed her lips and lowered her head, embarrassed about her actions.

“But there’s one thing that intrigues me about you,” Cypress said at looked at the gal by his side, who looked back at him. “I thought the Moss household hates the Sea household.”

“You... !” she shouted out before she held back the rest of her surprise.

“I know who you are. Sage Moss,” he said upon seeing her reaction.

Sage never met him before, so she never expected to be recognized so fast.

Cypress looked away from her and onto the road in front of him. “That’s why I’m intrigued. Why would you want to marry me?”

“Who wouldn’t want to marry the next head of the Sea household?” she responded.

“I don’t think you’re that stupid,” he replied right away. “Are you trying to get revenge? Then you’re wasting time on me.”

“And what would you know?”

“I know that I won’t be the head of the Sea household.”

Suddenly, Sage felt as if she was hit on her head. “What do you mean? Did they change the decision? Are you serious? But it’s a long process to change that, and you’ll be graduating next year. There’s no time for any changes. You’re just lying to me.”

“I’m not lying,” Cypress was calm. “I decided that I won’t accept the position. There are other things I want to do.”

Sage blinked twice, as she was processing what Cypress just told her. “You don’t want to be the head of the Sea household?”

“I don’t,” he affirmed.

Once again they walked in silence.

They didn’t see anyone on the empty streets of the city of Sheepcrown until they arrived midway between their destination and the school of Hecate. Over there, they saw a couple shouting at each other as they were leaving home late for the liturgy.

“Why are we always late?” the woman complained.

“We can stay home, if that’s what you want!” the man barked back.

“And get cursed? Don’t we have enough problems? And because of your jacket, now I’ll have to freeze outside for hours, because there won’t be any more seats available inside!”

“Better than drowning in that smoke!”

“It’s only a little bit of incense!”

“So little that you can’t see a meter in front of you!”

“You’re exaggerating!”

The two ran ahead as they continued their fight.

Cypress and Sage couldn’t hear them anymore, but they thought of exactly the same thing. If the couple could travel by tram, it would take no more than half an hour to arrive at the temple, but with no vehicles operating on this very important night, everyone had no choice but to walk.

The liturgy was scheduled to start at midnight, but whoever wanted a good place to sit would have to arrive at the temple no later than by sunset. And whoever wanted to be inside the temple had better left home no later than sunset. For anyone coming any later, there was no more place inside, and nowhere to stay warm outside.

Cypress kept walking forward at a pace, like he didn’t care about the liturgy at all. Sage matched his pace, while looking at the scenery around like a visiting tourist.

Except for the city lamps, which were powered by charms meant to last for at least three days, all the other lights were turned off. There were no lights in people’s homes and no sight of anyone inside. It was an eerie feeling to travel through a large well-maintained city with no inhabitants.

Sage looked up at the starry sky, which wasn’t too starry, because occasional patches of clouds were covering the brightest of stars.

“What kind of wife are you looking for?” she asked Cypress out of nowhere. She herself didn’t know why she asked that.

“I’m not looking for a wife.”

“So…,” she prolonged the word, “you already have someone.”

Cypress looked at her and smiled, “maybe.”

“But you’re not married yet,” she continued. “Or did you marry in secret?”

Cypress didn’t say anything and looked back at the road ahead.

“Did you marry in secret?” Sage asked again, seeing his reaction. “Oh my, this is big news,” she put a hand to her mouth.

“Or just another fake rumor about me,” he shrugged his shoulders.

Sage stared at him for a while, as if she was trying to read the truth from his figure, but unable to do so, she gave up on the idea. Even if Cypress Sea was married, there was no reason for him or for his family to keep it a secret, so it was more likely that he wasn’t married. But if he had a woman, would that mean that he was already betrothed to her? Or was it a secret just between the two of them?

Sage recalled in her mind Cypress’s statement: I’m not looking for a wife. And then she thought about another possibility. “Hey,” she got his attention. “I know this will sound weird, but you aren’t thinking of becoming a monk, do you?”

Cypress burst out laughing before he answered, “maybe.” Afterward, he kept on smiling as they were heading toward the temple.

Sage was confused beyond words. In one evening all her plans were ruined. She found out that her target had no plans to marry, and he didn’t even deny the possibility of becoming a monk. She no longer knew what to do, and the more she thought about it, the more she was mad at herself for even assuming that Cypress Sea was like the rest of the Sea household. Wasn’t his older brother disowned? Wouldn’t it be normal to assume that siblings are alike? Well, not exactly. She had a younger sister, who was very different from her. 

In the distance, they saw a building towering above all the surrounding buildings. The tall bell tower was surrounded by an aura of light coming from the temple underneath it, and they knew that the place was surely full of people by now.

In less than an hour, they arrived close enough to their destination that they saw streets full of people. Yet they were far enough from the temple that they couldn’t even see the building except for the bell tower hovering above all the roofs.

Many people carried lamps, torches, candles, and other forms of lights, which they used to illuminate their books, notes, and any items they brought to read or play with. Some people set up campfires, where they gathered together around magical items, such as heaters, fireplaces, ovens, and other sources of warmth, in order to merrily talk among themselves.

Thousands of lights coming from all those items, whether magical or not, created a brilliant aura of light that could be visible in and around the temple from kilometers away.

“I guess there’s no point going any further,” Sage said looking at the impenetrable crowds in front of them. “We’ll hear just fine from over here.”

However, since she heard no reply to her statement, she looked to the side but Cypress wasn’t there. She looked all around her, but he wasn’t anywhere near her. She looked farther away at the people gathered for the midnight liturgy, but none of them looked like Cypress Sea.

She realized that the guy must have quietly slipped away, when she wasn’t paying him any attention.

“What a great start of a new year,” she commented and looked around to find a place for herself to spend the next three hours alone.

She stood by a building, but soon her legs reminded her of a long distance she walked, and she felt the need to sit down. After looking around for a place to sit, she found only two options. One was to sit down on the ground, which was covered in snow and couldn’t be used unless one brought some form of a seat with himself.

The other option was to sit on a stone wall surrounding a tree. It was less than a meter high, so it was the perfect height for a seat. Furthermore, two groups of friends set up a campfire near it and melted the snow on both sides of the wall.

There was a little bit of space between the two groups, just enough for one person to sit down, but there was a problem. It wasn’t that both groups were merrily chatting, joking and laughing. It was that all of them were guys.

Thus Sage continued to stand until her legs couldn’t take it anymore. She suddenly moved away from the building as if she got burnt by it, then quickly traveled to the only available spot to sit on the low wall. Without a word, and without asking for permission, she sat down between the guys and closed her eyes. She wanted to turn invisible, but it was an advanced magic taught in later years, which she didn’t know yet.

The guys were so busy telling their stories, laughing and joking, that they didn’t even realize that a gal sat down on the same wall surrounding a tree. None of them noticed, except one.

“Sage?” after she heard her name, she opened her eyes to see the guy sitting next to her and looking at her face.

Just as she realized that she was sitting next to Beech Meadow, the temple bells began to ring. The sound spreading from the bell tower was so loud, that all noises of talking, shouting, yelling, laughing and crying of babies were drowned into one continuous voice of peace and harmony.

The bells rang seven times to mark the beginning of the month of Holy, and the beginning of the most important liturgy of the year.

Cypress met up with Ginkgo half an hour after he made himself invisible and unhearable to Sage, whom he left among the crowd.

The shoe repair shop was quite a distance from the temple, so there was no one else there other than Ginkgo, who was surprised that his younger brother was coming from the direction of the temple.

“I had to take a detour,” Cypress explained. “A schoolmate decided to follow me from Hecate.”

“If we come closer, do you think someone will recognize you?”

“Absolutely certain,” Cypress looked toward the crowd in the distance. “It would be bad, if we were seen together, so we’ll need to stay at a distance.”

“If we’re that far away, we’ll attract suspicion,” Ginkgo began walking toward the crowd. “Have you ever heard of hiding a tree in a forest?”

Cypress began following him. He pulled his scarf higher up on his face so much that it almost covered his eyes, and corrected his hood, which began to slide down on his silky-smooth hair.

Ginkgo chuckled. “I don’t think anyone would recognize you now unless they can recognize you by your eyes.”

“Earlier she recognized me even though I covered my face.”

“A~h, women,” Ginkgo smirked. “They’re always more perceptive than men.”

“That thing called intuition?”

“Who knows? I’m not a woman, so I don’t get that either.”

While talking about intuition, perception and recognition, they arrived at the area, where people were gathered. Ginkgo looked into a direction, where a crowd of villagers were camping together. They were most likely from a local village and came to Sheepcrown specifically for today.

Small villages had their own temples, where they celebrated the midnight liturgy, but some of them would prefer to come to cities. Whenever asked why they travelled so far, they always gave the same reason: something about bigger temples granting bigger blessings.

Cypress understood Ginkgo’s thinking - it was unlikely for a student of Hecate to be in that crowd, so they both headed there and found a place to stand by a building adjacent to the villager’s camping area.

“There’s something I want to ask you,” Cypress started. He spoke more quietly than normal, as he didn’t want anyone around to hear him too clearly. “You told me that students of Hypnos graduate from two schools, and in your case the second school was Nike.”

“Yeah.”

“So, there’s one thing I was wondering about. Have you ever been to Tyche?”

"Isn't Tyche a fictional school?"

"I dare to doubt that. If something doesn't exist, nobody ever talks about it," Cypress’s logic would appear hilarious to any sceptic, but it wasn't something he foolishly thought of.

He came to that conclusion after observing the people around him. As he was growing up, he realized that when adults lied to kids, they could never imagine something that they had never seen before. Quite on the contrary, their lies were always based on something from reality, even if it was detached from the reality.

And when young Cypress was still doubting his own hypothesis, he met with a liar, who used to tell made-up stories just to attract attention. His most famous story was about a demon that he supposedly saw in the woods, and he claimed that all of it was pure truth. However, the description of that demon was made up of unrelated characteristics from different animals put together. For Cypress, this was as if the heavens were confirming that people indeed were unable to imagine that, which they hadn't seen.

And Tyche was exactly that - a school nobody has seen. There were no pictures, nor drawings, nor any images of the whole school. However, there were rumors so unique that Cypress didn't doubt them.

The most crazy of the rumors, which he heard, stated that Tyche was the biggest in size of all the schools, but it had no perimeter walls or entrance gates. Yet a property of that large size couldn’t possibly exist anywhere on Earth and never be seen.

Another rumor said that while in Tyche no matter, in which direction one would go, as long as one would keep going straight ahead, one would always return back to where one started. That kind of thing could be possible on Earth, if the oceans separating the continents didn’t exist. In order to walk on water, one would need a powerful magic, and not even the most powerful magi of history could keep using magic for long enough to traverse an ocean.

"So you believe that Tyche is real?" Ginkgo asked.

"Even if it's not an official school, there must be something behind the rumor. If it was a baseless lie, it would have died a long time ago. That’s why I decided to look deeper into this rumor, so in a sense, yes, I do believe that Tyche is real.”

"Wow,” Ginkgo quietly clapped with the gloves on his hands. “My younger brother is more clever than I am," he smiled.

“Why are you telling me that?”

"I didn't believe that Tyche was real,” Ginkgo acknowledged. “I always thought of it as a pretty tale for kids, but Tyche has close connections with Hypnos, so while I was a student there, I learned quite a bit about it.”

"Seriously?" Cypress’s eyes opened wide as he was smiling with expectation.

"Seriously," Ginkgo responded. "That school really exists."

“Can I go there?”

Ginkgo shook his head sideways.

"Why?"

“Only students of Tyche know how to get there. I heard that there are alternative ways, but they’re more difficult than taming an old dragon.” Ginkgo knew that taming an old dragon was widely used as an idiom to describe impossible actions. “Why do you want to go there, anyway?”

Cypress came closer and lowered his voice even more, “the Tyche magic.”

Ginkgo looked like he didn’t understand, “what’s that?”

“Aren’t graduates of Tyche using rare magic, like no other?”

“Oh, that,” Ginkgo realized what Cypress was talking about. “That’s not magic, but I guess it looks that way to some people.”

“If it’s not magic, then what?”

“I don’t know exactly, but it’s something different. That power is more like incantation, but for humans. Still, not all humans can use it, and even those, who can use it, have a lot of limits on that power. It seems like it’s one of those powers that no one can master, but learning just a little bit of it can really make you appear quite powerful.”

Cypress couldn’t imagine the power, but he was already looking forward to it.

“But there’s one essential requirement. Without it, everything’s useless,” Ginkgo added.

“What requirement?” Cypress instantly worried, feeling that whatever it was, it had to be something big enough to destroy all his chances of getting the powers from Tyche.

“Unwavering faith,” Ginkgo answered. “You know that there’s no proof that Tyche exists. In order to get accepted into Tyche, one must believe in it. Because of your reasoning, you somewhat started to believe in its existence, but the only ones who get to study in Tyche are those, who wholeheartedly believe in Tyche without a drop of doubt almost as if they had been there.”

Cypress lowered his head. Ginkgo’s answer perfectly matched his expectations. “So I need more faith?”

“Too late, I think,” Ginkgo was painfully honest. “Those, who get to study in Tyche, have an unwavering faith in its existence without any proof. Even when the whole world tells them that Tyche doesn’t exist, they never stop believing.”

“And since I lack that unwavering faith, that power is outside of my reach?”

Ginkgo nodded, “unfortunately. You could still try learning it, but very likely, you won’t get what you want. I heard that only those, who were born with an ability to believe without doubt can learn that, which is being taught in Tyche.”

Cypress pondered.

“Do you really need it?” Ginkgo asked.

“In order to secure the victory, one must have every type of weapon at his disposal. If I cannot use that power myself, how about finding someone from Tyche, who would ally with us?”

Ginkgo shook his head sideways, "looking for students of Tyche is like looking for a four-leaf clover. It's really time consuming, and even if we find one, there's almost no chance that they would fit into your plan."

“Why?”

“You want to change the world, but students of Tyche want to avoid the world. They’re loners and eccentrics - at least most of them. But even if they live among people, they always prioritize their personal goals, so they don’t make friends, normally. Of those I met, none of them would ever get involved with anything like your plans.”

"So you’re telling me to give up on Tyche?"

Ginkgo raised up his head in thought. For a while, he looked at the black sky above the building across from the street, before he answered, “if you really want to try finding someone from Tyche, who’d be willing to join you, the easiest way would be to send a spy to the school.”

“You said that only students of Tyche can enter…”

“There’s one exception,” Ginkgo interrupted him. “Students of Hypnos can do a one-year transfer program. For one year they can study in Tyche instead of Hypnos. Usually they don’t learn much, but it’s an opportunity to meet directly with all the students.”

“So there’s a way,” Cypress sounded hopeful. “And if it’s a student of Hypnos, you can find someone, right?”

“I don’t need to.”

“Why?”

“You already know a student of Hypnos.”

Cypress blinked, and looked away as he was trying to remember the people he knew. “Who?” he asked eventually after he couldn’t come up with the answer himself.

“Yew.”

“Who?”

“Yew Sky.”

Cypress stared at Ginkgo for a moment, “you’re not joking, are you?”

“How else would he have found me so easily? The kid has connections in Hypnos, and since he’s a first year that means he has plenty of time to do the transfer program. Also he’s a good kid, so if you help him find his biological parents, or maybe a bit more than that, he could agree to help you out.”

“Yew Sky is a student of Hypnos?” Cypress was still dumbfounded at the news.

“Did it never cross your mind? Then I have to congratulate the boy. He’s really good at keeping secrets, but I guess it’s only expected from a student of Hypnos.”

“Amazing,” Cypress couldn’t hide how overwhelmed he was by this news. “It’s like everything is falling into place all on its own.”

“Isn’t there a name for it?”

“Coincidence?”

“God’s Will,” Ginkgo stated.

Both of them recalled what day tonight was. Both of them wondered why did such fortunate things happen on such an auspicious day.

Ginkgo smiled at his brother, “it looks like you're not only gifted by heavens with enormous talent, but God Himself is also on your side."

“I’d feel honored, if God plans to change the world just as much as I do,” Cypress retorted. “Still I’m quite surprised that Yew Sky is a student of Hypnos,” Cypress didn’t even know how much he was smiling. “Since I met that kid, I felt that he wasn’t average, but the more I get to know him, the more I'm attracted."

"Is this your first time falling in love?" Ginkgo questioned with a smirk of a joker.

“Don’t be jealous, you single patriarch,” Cypress responded and Ginkgo locked his arm around his brother’s head, choking him a bit to make up for the apology that he didn’t hear.

A loud gong of the temple bells cut short all conversations and caught everyone’s attention. The large heavy iron bodies of the three bells slowly swung to the other side and another gong followed.

The ongoing melody was announcing to everyone gathered that the old year had come to an end, and a new year fifty eight hundred was on its way.

While the bell continued to gong, neither Cypress nor Ginkgo said anything to each other. It would be pointless to do so, because no other sound could be heard among the thunder-like gonging of the temple bells.

After the seventh gong, everything fell into a dead silence.

The monks in the temple began signing the chants. The people around them joined, and the chants spread to all those gathered for the midnight liturgy.

It took a while for the voices of chants to be heard by crowds far away from the temple, but people joined in as soon as they recognized the lyrics.

For Cypress it was the first time to be so far away from the temple. Normally, he’d use his money to reserve a room in the restaurant across from the temple. Like all the other rich people, he would spend the midnight liturgy indoors, able to see the crowds through the window of the second floor, while comfortably seated in a fancy armchair.

However, Ginkgo didn’t like this idea, and this time Cypress agreed to experience the liturgy in whatever way Ginkgo wanted to.

It was cold outside, and he felt the frosty air poking at his face, where he failed to cover it, but he didn’t regret staying outdoors.

The clouds in the sky moved away revealing a wonderfully starry sky. Since most forms of lights were disabled worldwide due to the month of Toas, everyone was able to observe the sky in its natural look.

With billions of stars decorating the ceiling of the sky, Cypress thought of colorful grains of sand glued to the sky.

From a distance he heard faint sounds of chants, which gradually got louder as the people closer to the edge of the crowds began to sing along. Both men and women sang as loud as they could.

Making loud noises exerted energy, which was a good way to keep warm in this cold weather. Moreover, the multitudes of people created together a choir so powerful that the ground had begun to shake from their praises of God.

Even the children, who didn’t know the lyrics, sang alongside their parents uttering random noises, while trying to keep up the rhythm. Occasionally, even adding their own choreography.

Ginkgo happily joined the crowds, as soon as he recognized which line the others were singing.

Cypress remained silent. He never sang the chant before. He roughly remembered the lyrics from hearing it, but he had never thought to memorize it. And now he worried about making a mistake in front of everyone. Especially since the villagers nearby were really good at singing.

It was better for him to remain quiet. If Ginkgo asked him later, he could always claim that his throat hurt, or that he wasn’t feeling well, or well - any excuse would work.

The chant was sung three times in total by the monks, although those who had started later would sing it less than that.

In silence Cypress listened to Ginkgo singing alongside others, as he made for himself a mental note to memorize it before the end of the next year.

Then the chant began for the third time: 

...On this night, the day was made

On this night, God came to men

Powerful, glorious, and wonderful

Miracle-maker, God loving and pure

Merciful, wise, and beautiful

Caring judge, spirit of light and truth

Eternal, perfect, righteous and good

Father of all creations and works

Lord of all lords, God almighty

Forever in the world around me

Bless Him my mind, my soul, my body

My heart, give Him all my love

Welcome the holy sovereign

The beginning and the end...

After the initial hymn was finished, a long moment of silence followed.

Naturally, the celebration had continued in the temple, but it was too far away to hear anything. So for those at the edge of the crowds, it was mostly a time of self-reflection.

“Today is the beginning and the end,” Cypress murmured, recalling the hymn, and thinking about the new year that was going to start tomorrow.

“That’s the name of God,” Ginkgo stated. Seeing that Cypress looked confused, he explained. “The chant is about God. The beginning and the end is most likely the most ancient name of God that's known to humans.”

“Now I feel embarrassed,” Cypress admitted. “I always thought the last line was about the change of the year.”

“Can you guess why He’s called that?” Ginkgo challenged Cypress, who was good with riddles.

“Because God created the world, and He has the power to destroy it,” Cypress was quite sure of his answer.

“How about this?,” Ginkgo offered an alternative, “God existed before anything else, so in a sense He was first. And He will continue to exist, even if everything else turns to void, so He’ll always be the last. The first and the last, in other words, the Beginning and the End.”

“So I was wrong?”

“No,” Ginkgo answered. “There are many explanations, so you’re free to pick the one you like the most. After all, as long as we’re stuck in the material realm, we’ll never know for sure.”

“So we can think about it, but we’ll never find the answer.”

“Never will never happen,” Ginkgo corrected. “Everything always gets revealed at the right time. It’s just that some things get revealed while you’re alive and others have to wait until you’re in the afterlife.”

Cypress agreed with Ginkgo through the silence of his voice, while he observed the crowds around them.

Young babies were sleeping in the arms of their parents, while older ones fell asleep in their strollers bundled in many thick warm blankets or comforters that their parents dragged with them all the way out here.

Kids of the kindergarten age of five and up were sleeping bundled in the many layers of their warm clothes and blankets, which they shared with their grandparents, who were sitting on foldable chairs that they brought from home with them.

Older kids of school age were kept awake by the irritating poking of their older siblings or parents, who were showing off their own endurance.

The teens and adults weren’t doing much better, as they would have also happily drifted off to sleep if not for the keen awareness of the importance of this once-a-year midnight liturgy.

An hour later, the smell of the temple incense spread all the way to the people, who were standing the farthest away from the temple.

Cypress closed his eyes. The burning fragrance of rare herbs made him feel as if he was inside the temple. Yet as soon as he opened his eyes, the sensation disappeared, and he was very aware of the snow under his feet as he continued to stand.

Like most of the people around, he had a conversation going on with Ginkgo about a variety of topics. Anything was a good topic to keep oneself awake in this cold at this hour.

Two hours later, and the people were hoping for the end to come soon.

In order to keep warm, women were swinging from one side to another, as if they were dancing. They blew air at their hands covered in gloves, and hugged together near the campfires to keep warm.

Men, on the other hand, especially guys, were determined to show off. Even though all of them were clearly feeling cold, they tried their best to hide it. They kept their hands inside their pockets, and occasionally changed positions to be one step closer to the campfire, but not too close. No one among them wanted to be seen as a weakling.

The kids were the most clever ones, as they put their hands under the heavy comforters of their younger siblings, where it was so hot that the difference in temperature made them shiver at first. Unfortunately, the cozy sensation of that heat didn’t last long, because their mothers soon scolded them for bothering the babies.

From a distance a single man was shouting, and people around him began to kneel down. A monk was walking in the direction of the edge of the crowd.

As was the custom of every liturgy, the monk blessed the attendees with the same three words, “God bless you.”

Another monk could be heard doing the same to other people, but he was too far away to be seen by Cypress. When the monk came closer, Cypress and Ginkgo knelt down.

“God bless you,” he shouted at another group of people, before he turned around to face another group of people, “God bless you.”

Upon receiving the blessing, everyone crossed themselves, while uttering, “may this blessing descend from heaven, and spread all over my life.” Afterward, they all stood up.

However, those who felt like they hadn’t received the blessing would move closer to the monk, and knelt down again until they felt that the blessing had been given to them.

Cypress felt sorry for the monk, who had to repeat the same three words non-stop for at least several hundred times, until everyone was appeased. For a monk to refuse a blessing was a sin, so he had no choice but to patiently bless everyone.

When the monk directed the blessing in the general direction toward the group in front of Cypress, both he and his brother crossed themselves, accepted the blessing and stood up. There was no reason to keep kneeling and forcing the poor monk to give them another blessing up-close.

The liturgy from outside had no visual appeal. However, nothing of importance was lost. Whether it was that mystical otherworldly sound of the bells, or those chants that had never changed, or the unique smell of the temple incense, or final blessings that the monks gave out at the end of the liturgy, everything had an overwhelming sense of peace and holiness to it.

When the liturgy finally ended, it took people several moments to wake up from the spiritual atmosphere of the night and begin to pack.

Suddenly a human wave filled the streets. Some headed straight home, while others headed to the hotels. Fathers carried the smallest babies, while mothers were pushing strollers. Grandparents were walking behind holding hands of older kids, who were walking while yawning after having their nap interrupted.

Cypress grabbed Ginkgo’s arm, and without asking for his permission, he teleported them both way ahead of the frontline crowds. They quickly walked forward in order to get out of the street before the crowds would catch up to them.

After they finally returned back to the Hecate chairman’s villa, they changed their clothes and went straight to bed. The next day, they did exactly what almost everyone around the world did. They slept on until afternoon.

“God bless you on your birthday!” Spruce said right after he ran into Yew’s bedroom.

Yew, who was still sleeping in his bed, rubbed his eyes and murmured back, “God bless you on your birthday.”

Neither of the two boys were born on the first day of Holy, but it was an ancient tradition that nobody really wanted to change. And there was a good reason behind it.

The material realm was created on the first day of Holy. In other words, the existence of the physical world started at midnight of the first day of Holy. Thus, the first day of Holy was often called the Beginning of all beginnings.

Furthermore, some creatures claimed that each year God created new souls on the first day of Holy, and these new souls are born as humans in the following years. Everyone knew that the soul is born before its body, and everyone knew that it happened sometime in the year prior to the birth of the physical body, but no one knew the exact date, when souls are born. While some doubted the claims made by other creatures, most humans accepted it as an interesting trivia knowledge.

Thus, on the first day of Holy, all humans celebrated their birthdays as well as the birthday of the world.

Although the celebration appeared minor, as it mostly consisted of blessing each other, it wasn’t a trivial matter at all. A birthday symbolized the start of one’s existence. It symbolized a new beginning. It symbolized a steady progress. It was a symbol so powerful that there was no more respectful way to celebrate it other than to invoke God’s blessings on this special day, which occurred only once a year.

“Too bad Aspen and Linden aren’t here,” Spruce sat on Yew’s bed near his feet.

“Linden was here,” Yew spoke with his eyes closed. “He came back at night, then left somewhere again.”

“So maybe he was in the Sheepcrown temple? Did you ask him? We could have gone together!”

“I’m never going together with you ever again,” Yew murmured as he remembered the liturgy.

They came early enough to get inside the temple, although there was no place to sit anywhere so they had to stand between the benches. Halfway through the liturgy, Spruce fell asleep while standing and fell on top of Yew, who fell on top of some missy, who was caught at the last moment by a man, who was standing behind her.

The commotion brought them attention from all the people around them, and while Yew was dying from embarrassment, Spruce happily slept through the rest of the celebration. After the liturgy ended, Yew had to slap him really hard to get him to wake up. After all, Spruce had to walk back on his own legs, because there was just no way Yew would ever carry him.

Upon his awakening, Spruce was shocked to find out that the liturgy ended without him getting his blessing, so he lined up at a long queue of people, who wanted a personal blessing. Yew had to wait another two hours, before Spruce got his blessing and they could finally return home.

“Sorry about that,” Spruce apologized, “I’m more of a morning person, so staying up late was hard for me.”

“But waiting two hours after midnight for that blessing didn’t make you sleepy at all,” Yew pointed out.

“Because I was terrified,” Spruce explained. “I don’t even want to imagine how horrible this year would be, if I started it without a blessing. What if I were to totally fail this year?”

“Then your father will send you to Ares,” Yew answered.

“But I don’t want to go to Ares!”

“I knooow,” Yew heard this more than enough times.

They both heard the front door opening. Someone clearly entered the cottage, and based on the sounds of steps he headed toward the kitchen.

Spruce walked out of the bedroom, and greeted Linden with a wide smile, “God bless you on your birthday.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. God bless you on your birthday,” Linden responded as he began looking through the fridge.

Meanwhile, Yew got up and still in his pajamas he entered the kitchen.

“God bless you on your birthday,” still half-asleep he spoke to Linden.

“God bless you on your birthday,” Linden responded in a monotone, not paying any attention to what he was saying as he was busy concentrating on the contents inside the fridge.

“Are you looking for something?” Yew asked.

“My jelly cake,” Linden responded. “I left it here at night.”

“I ate that,” Yew stated, and Linden stopped searching.

“When?”

“Yesterday, after you left.”

“Weren’t you asleep?”

“I was in bed, but I wasn’t sleeping yet, and it smelled nice.”

Linden jumped onto his feet. In less than a second, he rolled his hand into a fist and punched Yew, who was too sleepy to dodge. The punch landed straight at Yew’s nose, and the boy hit the wall with his back.

“That was one of a kind!” Linden yelled. 

Yew put his right palm to his hurt face, and felt a warm liquid slip onto his hand.

“Do you know how hard it was to get it?” Linden asked, then looked away and cursed to himself, “demonshit!”

While Linden was cursing like an adult drunkard, Yew looked at the blood on his hand with a calm countenance of someone, who had no idea what was going on.

Spruce looked like a rabbit, who wanted to run away but had no escape route.

“Demonshit! Witchpiss! It was a once-a-year specialty and a limited edition! Curseddamndevil!” Linden turned around to the fridge, but there was no sight of his cake. He felt a hand on his right shoulder. Just as he sharply turned around, a full-force punch landed between his eyes.

Spruce’s jaw dropped, when he saw Yew hitting Linden back. With his mouth agape he watched as Linden fell back onto the fridge. Then he looked at Yew, who was staring at Linden.

The blood from Yew’s nose was smeared around his face by his hands, which were also painted with the same blood, which painted his sleeves red. His right hand was still clenched into a fist, and his countenance spoke without words: wanna fight? bring it on!

“I apologize for eating that cake,” Yew said, “but that was no reason to hit me.”

Linden gazed at him for a while, completely taken aback by Yew’s response. However, a moment later he burst out laughing.

Yew was confused at his reaction, and Spruce felt like a passerby caught in a fistfight between two drunk madmen.

“Ok, ok,” Linden said with a smile, “I overdid it.” He stood up and stretched out his hand toward Yew, “peace?”

Yew took the hand, which Linden squeezed hard. In response Yew also squeezed as hard as he could and for a while both of them struggled until they ran out of energy and let go at the same time. Their hands felt the pain, but both boys were smiling at each other.

“That punch was good,” Linden complimented.

“If I end up with a crooked nose, I’ll get you back for it,” Yew said as he took some tissues and began to wipe off the blood.

“It didn’t feel like it broke, and it looks straight to me,” Linden remarked as he pointed at the blood smeared below Yew’s chin.

“You seriously scared me,” Spruce said as he put his hand on his chest to calm down his fast-beating heart.

“Why?” Linden didn’t understand. “It was just a fight.”

“Do you fight a lot?” Yew asked.

“Enough experience to make me a veteran,” Linden laughed with satisfaction, as he sat down on the sofa.

“I hadn’t fought for a long time,” Yew said and joined him on the sofa. “The last time I fought was more than a year ago with a younger kid, who tried to steal my backpack. I gave him a beating, and he ran away to call his mommy.”

“And his mom scolded you,” Linden concluded.

“Not exactly. My dad told her: «what’s between the boys stays between the boys, and women must get out».”

“Hahahah,” Linden laughed, “I already like your dad.”

Spruce sat by, on the armchair, and added his words to the topic, “I’ve never fought before.”

“Why?” asked Yew.

“How?” asked Linden.

Spruce just shrugged his shoulders.

“You went to a kindergarten, right?” Linden asked, and Spruce nodded. “And nobody ever picked a fight with you?” and Spruce nodded again. “Are you for real?”

Spruce nodded again, “yes, nobody ever picked a fight with me.”

“On one hand, I’m jealous. That’s a pretty comfy life you had, but on the other hand, I wouldn’t want a peaceful past like that. Fighting is what makes a man into a man.”

Yew rolled his eyes, as he clearly had a different opinion. After all, it was hard to see Linden as a man with all the beauty features that made him look more like a cheeky princess than a manly fighter.

“By the way,” Yew asked. “What were you doing during the break?”

“Nothing special,” Linden smiled. “Just visiting old friends. What about you?”

Yew told him the same story, which he had already told Spruce.

Linden listened, but he wasn’t impressed at all. “That’s it?”

“Yeah,” Yew was confused, why Linden was so uninterested.

“He almost died, and you don’t care?” Spruce on the other hand was almost angry at Linden.

“So what? It’s not that unusual. If you ask people around, you’d know that Yew isn’t the only human with a near-death experience.”

“But that was just an amazing adventure!”

“That was nothing in comparison to stuff that happened to me.”

“What stuff?”

“I was caught by pirates, when I was trying to steal their treasure…” Linden began and seeing the countenance of disbelief on both faces, he dropped the subject. “Fine, I won’t tell you. You wouldn’t believe me anyway.”

“Why would anyone believe you, when it sounds so super made-up?” Spruce pointed out.

Yew didn’t say anything. He looked back in his own memories, and considered that maybe it wasn’t such an impossible happening to be caught by pirates, but why would Linden try to steal their treasure? It wasn’t a normal thing to do, but knowing Linden for more than three months, he couldn’t outright deny that his roommate might have attempted such a crazy feat.

A knock on the front door interrupted them, and Spruce went to check who was the guest.

“God bless you on your birthday!” they heard Wasabi’s voice from the entrance.

“God bless you on your birthday,” Spruce murmured back, but the boys sitting in the living room didn’t hear him.

She took off the outdoor shoes, and walked into the living room, “God bless you on your birthday! God bless you on your birthday!” She repeated once toward Linden, then again at Yew. “What happened to you?” she asked as soon as she saw Yew holding a bloody tissue under his nose.

“God bless you on your birthday,” he replied. “It’s nothing,” he answered her question.

“Just a nosebleed,” Linden stated the obvious, and as courtesy demanded, albeit not too willing, he said to Wasabi, “God bless you on your birthday.”

Spruce passed her and sat down back on the armchair.

“What’s good for nosebleeds?” Wasabi looked up at the ceiling as if she was trying to remember some homemade remedy.

“It’s okay,” Yew said after he took the tissue away from his nose. “It already stopped.”

Wasabi took a long look, before Yew put the tissue back to his nose.

“Good. Then I’ll be going,” she turned around. “There’s still a lot of people I need to bless today,” she walked into the entry room, put on her outdoor shoes, and left as suddenly as she came.

“I bet she’s one of those,” Linden said.

“What those?” Spruce asked.

“A blessing squirrel.”

“What?” Yew and Spruce asked simultaneously.

“You know how squirrels go around gathering nuts? Blessing squirrels are people, who go around on the first day of Holy gathering blessings. Going out to bless others is just an excuse to get the blessing for themselves.” Then he looked at Yew, “by the way, do you remember that you owe me twenty thousand syfras for the brooch?”

“I do.”

“Add to that ten thousand for the cake you ate last night.”

“That was just one piece!”

“And it costed me ten thousand syfras.”

“How can a piece of cake be that expensive?!”

“It was baked by the hermit from the Tigerwing village. He bakes one cake every ten years, and each piece of that cake is ten thousand syfras.”

“If it was that special, shouldn’t you have eaten it right away?”

“I would, but according to instruction, you need to go to the morning liturgy on the first day of Holy before eating the cake. Otherwise, it doesn’t work.”

“What doesn’t work?”

“The cake has a special blessing to it. If you eat it on the first day of Holy, you’ll have a dream about the most important event that is yet to happen in your future.”

“Wow,” Spruce looked at Yew.

“I didn’t go to the liturgy this morning,” Yew pointed out.

“Yeah, you ate the cake before sunrise,” Linden specified, “so you just wasted ten thousand syfras.”

“How was I supposed to know?”

“Fine, I’ll take half the blame for not warning you in any way, but you still owe me five thousand syfras for that cake.”

Yew was surprised how quickly Linden dropped the loan by five thousand syfras, and he agreed to pay him back twenty five thousand syfras someday in the future.

The boys spend the rest of the day playing cards as they talked about their childhood before they came to the school of Hecate.

That night, Yew had a dream. He woke up suddenly but quietly. His eyes were wide open. His body was covered in sweat, but his mouth was shut tight as if frozen from fear.

For a moment after waking up, he vaguely remembered several flashbacks.

There was a large beast flying in the sky. It surely wasn’t a dragon. Its body was long, but it had no wings or legs. It was snake-like except for its head, which had no eyes nor nose, but a long beak-like structure with a sharp fang at its tip.

There was a person on top of that beast. Yew couldn’t recall what that person looked like, but that person was smiling. Underneath the beast there were mountains, and all the trees were on fire from one end of the horizon to the other. It was indeed a scenery of endless wildfires, powerful, huge, gigantic, unstoppable, and inescapable.

In his dream, Yew was calling for… whom? He didn’t remember whose name he was calling.

All at once, he forgot his whole dream.

However, a feeling of dread remained. He stared at the room, as if something truly terrible had just happened, but he couldn’t remember what it was.

He felt an urgent need to go and warn someone, but where should he go? Whom should he warn? What should he warn him or her about?

He stayed in bed trying to recall anything, but the longer he tried the more distant the dream became. With time, all the feelings and emotions left him.

After he completely calmed down, he forgot everything. Once again, the sleep overtook him, and when he woke up again in the morning, he had no recollections of anything from what happened in the night.

Not only did he forget the dream, he also forgot having the dream. He even forgot the feeling of dread, which he had felt for so long, while trying to recollect the forgotten dream.

Thus in the morning, Yew Sky woke up certain that he had slept throughout the night without waking up at all.

“Did you dream of anything?” Linden asked him from the other bed.

“No,” he answered honestly. He wished he had a dream. He actually did have expectations after hearing about the cake. Even if he couldn’t see the full event from the future, he hoped to see at least a tiny bit of it.

Linden got out of bed and began to dress up.

“What about you? Any dreams?” he asked his roommate.

“My mom was scolding me in my dream about something related to school,” Linden answered, “but that happens all the time outside of my dreams. So I bet that was my trauma kicking in while I’m unconscious.”

Yew sighed again. He had really hoped for something unordinary to show up in his dreams, and yet he woke up with nothing.

Sycamore looked out the window and wondered how many days had passed since he saw the sun.

Outside, the frost painted silver flowers on the windowglasses. Countless icicles formed on the temple edges, and on the nearby large tree, whose green needle-like leaves contrasted with the white emptiness of the land.

Strong ocean winds piled up a snowy hill behind the building in an attempt to make a white mountain, yet Sycamore didn’t worry about the excess of snow.

The temple was built firmly, so it wouldn’t cave under the weight. Furthermore, the built-up snow on the walls provided an extra layer of insulation, which was truly needed during the winter. Even the garage, which he had built before the snow, should easily last through until the month of Faev, and hopefully much longer than that.

Ever since the snow fell down, Sycamore didn’t travel anywhere, and he rarely stepped outside. He remained home even for the month of Holy. After all, the official obligation on the Holy vigil was that everyone needs to be at or near a temple. Since Sycamore already lived inside a temple, there was no reason for him to go anywhere, so he quietly spent the night in a beautiful somber silence, occasionally interrupted by the howling winds and wood creaking under his steps.

Nana, who was lying down on the rug near the oven, got up and approached the door with a woof. Sycamore opened the door for her, and she ran out to do her business. As soon as she was done, she was back barking at the door, and once again Sycamore opened the door, to let her in.

Himself, he didn’t go out. There was nothing to do anyway. The whole sky was clear, but there was no sun even at noon. Moreover, the tall mountains to the south blocked the precious source of light, so even if the sky did light up, it wasn’t that bright anyway. The sunless days were short and felt like fleeting moments passing through an endless night.

Sycamore didn’t dislike the darkness, because it allowed him to think. Immersed deep in his thoughts, he travelled back into the memories of his life in that other world. Those were memories of things that for many years he didn’t want to remember.

When he was still a kid, he did everything in order to forget that world, because whenever he recalled what happened there, he couldn’t stop the flood of pain, grief, hatred, anger, and fear, which poured into his heart like a tsunami of venomous memories.

He didn’t want to become a man ruled over by emotions, so he decided to distance himself from his past. However, soon after he graduated the school of Iris, the Most Elder Father invited him over. Originally he thought that he was being invited to be a monk, so he refused, but the monk reinvited him with a clarification that he only wanted to meet Sycamore, and talk.

Curious as to why the monk of such a high rank would want to talk to him, Sycamore went to the Divine Temple in the city of Turtleroof. Even though all temples were divine, only the headquarter of all the temples was called the Divine Temple.

The Most Elder Father wanted to meet him in the Divine Temple, because that was the location of the Divine Mirror, which was once created by God and left among humans. However, except for the elder monks and elder nuns, almost nobody knew about it.

The Divine Mirror had the power to show to the viewer any scene from any time. Most people saw nothing in the mirror except their own reflections, but occasionally some people saw scenes. Usually those were the scenes about events, which had already happened in the past. Rarely, they were scenes of events taking place currently, and only several times in the last ten hundred years, people had seen scenes from the future.

The Most Elder Father, who called Sycamore over, had seen a scene from the future. However he had never told anyone what exactly he saw. In a private conversation between the two of them, he said that Sycamore would need to prepare for the worst, because all his fears were to come true.

Sycamore wanted to throw something at the monk, preferably something hard and made of stone or iron, but he held back his temper and listened on.

The monk told him about demons, and Sycamore wondered how did he know so much. There were no demons in this world. At the end of their conversation, the monk told him about the Divine Mirror, and requested that Sycamore must take a look to see what it would show him. Unwillingly Sycamore went to the room with the mirror.

The Most Elder Father stretched out his hand and slid it up in the air, removing the charm that protected the mirror by creating an invisible barrier right in front of it.

Once the barrier was gone, the mirror sparkled as if it was reflecting gemstones. Sycamore took several steps forward to get closer, and when he was nearer a scene appeared in the mirror.

He watched as a family with a newborn baby was attacked by two men. The parents were killed, but the murderers spared the life of the baby boy.

He recalled a similar event that had happened in his world.

A family with a newborn baby was attacked. The parents were killed, but the attacker wasn’t after the parents. The demon, who was nesting inside the newborn, manifested and defeated the attacker, who came to slay the newborn before it grew up into a monster.

It was just one more failed attempt to stop the evil from gaining any more power, and it was completely unrelated to the scenes, which the mirror was showing him. He just recalled it, because of a minor similarity.

However, he didn’t want to remember any more of that world.

In that world, there was nothing but evil. Evil resided there. Evil thrived there, and evil lived there. It was the evil, who fought against evil. It was evil, who was defeated by evil. And in the end, winners or losers, it didn’t matter. There were no good men in that world, because everyone was possessed by evil.

After the mirror finished its presentation, Sycamore said, “It’s so different,” because the very world, which he wanted to run away from, wouldn’t leave his mind.

“What’s so different,” asked the Most Elder Father.

“Everything,” Sycamore didn’t even have to think about this answer.

The Most Elder Father continued the conversation between them, trying to get Sycamore ready for a battle against the demons.

However, Sycamore just couldn’t do it. He didn’t want to. He wasn’t ready to. He tried his best to make the monk understand that, but it didn’t work. He couldn’t listen to anything else said by the monk, so he promptly left the room and left the monk there together with the Divine Mirror.

He wanted to run away, as far away as possible. He wanted to go to a place, where there were no demons nor evil. He wanted to be free of all that burden, and yet he knew that there was no escape.

He spent so many peaceful years in this world, and even if his new life wasn’t perfect it was Heaven compared to that Hell-like world, where he had to live as a slave of demons.

Staying in this world among all that, which was good, he slowly regained the sensation of inner peace and a will to move on, but what was the purpose for that, if soon everything was to get crashed again?

He remained at the Divine Temple. Running away was meaningless. Standing by the gate, he acknowledged the inevitable, and began to look at the situation through reason rather than emotions.

The demons were coming, yes, but not as tyrants. They were coming as enemies. Sycamore was born in this world. As a baby he was sacrificed to God through baptism. He wasn’t a slave of demons anymore, and now that he carried the name of God as his only owner, the demons couldn’t even dream of enslaving him. He was free, and even if he were to get surrounded by demons from every side, he would always remain free.

God was giving him a chance to fight, something which he had attempted in that world, where he had no chance of winning. It was his heartfelt desire back then to overthrow the demons and make them pay for enslaving him. Unfortunately, a possessed man was like a puppet in the hands of demons. No matter what he wanted to do, in the end it were the demons, who decided whether he could do it or not.

Sycamore calmed down his tangled emotions after he realized that God was giving him a chance to beat the crap out of all those demons, who had been wrecking his life for so many years.

How sweet would it be to whoop them down and look from above at them, who used their powers to enslave him and made themselves his tyrants. How delightful it would be to show them who’s the real tyrant.

But was he strong enough to do that? What if he went to fight demons just to realize that he was as powerless in this world as he was in that world? He quickly kicked the last thought out from his mind. No, he wasn’t that powerless. Now, in this world, he was no longer powerless. He wasn’t almighty like God, but he wasn’t hopelessly weak like before.

Sycamore didn’t have the best opinion of God. It irritated him, that God ignored the situation in the other world. After all, he would have much prefered it, if God would storm all by Himself into that world ruled by demons and cleanse it from all evil, but that had never happened.

Recently, he began to understand why. If God had used his almighty powers to force the victory of good over evil, then He would be no different from demons, who use their superior powers to force the rule of evil over good.

If God wanted to truly let the good defeat the evil, He needed not power, but weakness, because God, who was almighty Himself, could not use any of His power without it being an abuse of power - an act of totalitarian tyranny.

Therefore, in order to fight against evil, God chose the weakest from among the men, for the purpose of achieving the most undeniable victory.

“But how does a weakling defeat a beast?” Sycamore spoke out loud in the temple.

Nana looked at him, wondering if he was speaking to her.

He looked at Nana. Her gaze took him away from his thoughts, as he recalled that he needed to feed her.

Just like this, another day had passed, as he hadn’t done anything substantial. He kept drowning in his thoughts. He kept recalling his memories. He felt as if most of the time, he wasn’t even present in the temple. His mind was travelling somewhere, and he didn’t even know where that somewhere was.

He began missing the sun, and the warm days. The constant darkness and cold air surrounding the temple locked him inside the building and forced his mind into the past, which he so wanted to be free of.

If only those things didn’t happen.

After he gave Nana her late evening meal, he decided that he needed a break from this jail, or else he’d end up mad. He put on himself the warmest clothes he had. He ended up covering himself with so many materials, that he looked like a tall pile of laundry.

He opened the door to the outside world and stepped out onto the front porch. Nana ran out after him and stood by wiggling her tail. He closed the door, and took several steps forward toward the stairs.

The snow, which was of the same height as his boots, squeaked after each step he took. Sycamore’s eyes steadily got used to the darkness as he slowly moved on. He stopped right at the edge of the porch, in front of the stairs, and stared out at the land surrounding the temple.

Everything was covered with a thick layer of snow, up to his waist or higher. He didn’t dare venture out anywhere into that cold ocean of whiteness, aware of how easily he could drown, if he happened to fall into its unknown depths. Nobody would find his body until after the meltdown, and that only in case, if anybody would have a reason to come here in the first place.

He died once, so he wasn’t afraid of death, but he didn’t want to leave this world yet. If it was that world, he would have gladly taken even the most risky action just to get out, but this world was different. Compared to that world, this world was his piece of Heaven like a soothing sleep in a comfy bed by a fireplace after a day of cold and painful journey. That’s why he wanted to stay in this world for just a little bit longer.

Today was a night filled with plenty of light. Unlike the sun, the moon wasn’t hiding behind the mountains and shone straight down from the sky above. The stars around him were hiding in his aura, but those farther away decorated the firmament like tiny gemstones. And just like gemstones, they appeared to be in different colors: white, yellow, orange, red, even blue and green.

And between the stars a delicate ribbon of greenish light painted the darkness of the sky. Aurora borealis was the greatest treasure of the arctic sky, and it could only be seen during the winter, when the weather was at its coldest and most unwelcoming to living beings. It was almost as if the Heavens were giving to the men, who were freezing to death, a peek into the magnificent beauty of the afterlife.

However, Sycamore wasn’t dying. Not now. Not yet.

He looked at the land beneath the sky. The pure snow carpet without any trees or bushes spread evenly on the land. And even if it wasn’t even, one couldn’t tell the hills from the ditches, because everything was uniformly glittering in the moonlight in a silver shade of navy blue.

There was a weak wind blowing from the land toward the ocean, where the waters sang a lullaby woven from the eerie sounds underneath the thick deck of ice. That was how the ocean was telling to the world its amazing stories about marvelous things, which occurred secretly in the deepest parts of its abyss.

Sycamore knew that there were two more months until all this snow was going to melt, and he wondered how was he going to survive until then.

Nana began running here and there on the porch. Sitting in one place only made her cold, but she also never stepped off the porch. The young dog was clever, but Sycamore wasn’t surprised, because he got her locally. He watched Nana for a while, before he looked into the distance at the dark shapes of mountains on the horizon.

And he returned back to his thoughts.

He decided to grow a vegetable garden once the snow melted, but he wasn’t sure how much work it would need. For sure, he would have to start with a fence. Even though he never saw any dangerous animals around, at times he heard the howlings of wolves or the roars of bears, and he wouldn’t be surprised if one day they got attracted to his home following a smell of food.

He began to feel cold after standing still for a long while, so he decided that it was good enough for a break from his usual winter routine. He turned back toward the door. As he opened it, the flood of light came out from the inside. Right in the center of that illuminated stage, Nana was standing with one of her hind legs raised up and directed at the railing next to the stairs.

Sycamore wondered if he should wait until she’s done with her business. However, she finished before he made up his mind, and she happily ran inside, satisfied with the fresh air of the outdoors and with the warmth of the indoors.

Sycamore closed the thick heavy door, and put up the lock. Meanwhile Nana lay down on her back and turned around several times, before she finally snuggled onto the rugs by the oven.

Once inside the temple, Sycamore appreciated the warmth of his home. It was a good idea to take a break. It was a great idea to remind himself that no matter how bad things were, it could always be worse.

He felt like he couldn’t stand being locked in one room for weeks, but just now he realized that he could. He realized that, because he understood that what he really wasn’t able to do was to continually stand in that freezing cold. If he hadn’t had this temple, it wouldn’t even take a day for him to freeze to death.

He spent most of his time in a moderate climate, so he wasn’t used to such low temperatures. For the first time in his life, he was challenging the nature, who tested his endurance with pleasure. However, he enjoyed her tests as long as he had this warm temple and the food to last him until summer.

Throughout the winter, he became more aware that he was indeed alone. There was no one around the temple, except for Nana, but she wasn’t a human. However Sycamore was glad nevertheless that he had her as a companion on these lonely nights leading to an uncertain future.

He lay down on his bed. Once again he looked into his past, but no longer did he immerse himself there. He looked at his past through the eyes of a stranger, as if it wasn’t his past, but a past of someone else - a past of someone, with whom Sycamore had no connection. For the first time in his life, he didn’t see himself as a man tortured by life, but as a sword still in process of forging.

If a swordsmith took an ore, he first needed to melt it down completely. Unless its original shape was all but destroyed and turned into liquid, the ore was of no use. However, once melted and purified of other materials, the iron was poured into its shape and allowed to rest until it hardened. However, as soon as it hardened, the smith would mercilessly heat it up, before brutally submerging it in cold water. The smith would repeat this process over and over, until he was finally satisfied with the results.

And God did the same with people.

Unless men were broken and destroyed to the point, where nothing was left of their former character, they were worthless - a mere trash. However, defeated and fallen, they were allowed to rest, before God would pick them up again and through various challenges, he would begin to forge them into finely tempered weapons against evil.

Thus the long period of peace after a life-changing event was never a reward for the victims, but a necessary step for the smith. That was why in life, joy was always followed by pain, and pain was always followed by joy, over and over, until the soul was forged into perfection.

A perfect soul was the worst nightmare for the demons. It was something all those, who sided with the evil, truly feared.

A perfect soul was something that God needed, but no man knew why. No man could ever understand why.

“What do you want from me?” Sycamore asked into the air, knowing that he would hear no answer.

He recalled the short time he spent in the afterlife, and wondered whether it really happened. Maybe it was just a dream. Maybe all his memories of that world, which was ruled by demons, were nothing but fake ideas that he came up as a kid. Maybe he only existed in this world only. Maybe he was insane.

He put his hands on his face.

Unable to find an answer, he felt like a kid lost in the woods. He didn’t even know what was real anymore. He wasn’t even sure, who he was.

He walked up to his bed, hid under the covers and curled up like a kid.

He desired to turn into a wind and freely roam the world without any worries or needs. With those desires, he fell asleep.

On the noon of the seventh day of Toas, the students of group four of four B, who returned the day before or on the Sunday morning, were playing outdoors in the snow. Not so long the boys were having a snowfight, but after getting tired of throwing and getting hit by snowballs, they were having a competition over who can build the biggest snowman.

Among the boys, Spruce was the most excited about the idea, but unfortunately for him and for the others, the snow didn’t stick as much as they would like to, and making a large snowman turned out to be difficult. While they were laughing at the failed snowmen, a boy whom Yew knew, passed by them and entered the cottage four and four hundred thirty six.

“Was that Linden?” someone asked in the crowd, and all the boys froze in place, like kids who were caught staging something inappropriate.

And somewhere in the distance, Yew heard a whisper, “did he visit you?” and another whisper in response, “you, too?” and then all the boys were looking at each other. Their eyes had the looks of shock, but at the same time, a sense of fellowship.

“Did he visit you?” someone eventually asked Yew.

“They live together,” someone else pointed out.

“Did you know that Linden doesn’t like, when you call him a girl?” another boy asked.

“Yeah,” Yew responded. “He punched me the first time we met, because I mistook him for a girl.”

The boys looked with compassion, and one of them said, “he’s a demon.”

“What do you mean?” Spruce felt like he was the only one, who didn’t understand.

“Didn’t he visit you?”

“I don’t think, he ever laughed at Linden,” yet another boy commented.

“You’re so lucky.”

“Never laugh at Linden, or call him a girl,” the other boy gave Spruce the advice.

“What happened?” Yew also didn’t understand what was going on.

“Over the break, Linden visited my home. He listed every time I laughed at him for looking like a girl, and then he punched me.”

“Yeah, and when I told my parents, they didn’t believe me,” the boy standing on the other side added his half of the story.

As they continued to tell their stories, it became apparent that Linden had a very busy Raethosu. Somehow, the beautiful boy managed to find out the home addresses of all his classmates, and he visited each one to get his revenge for being called a “girl”.

The boys felt terrified of Linden, because when they sought help from the adults, none of the adults believed them. They all thought that a small kid is not capable of such a complex revenge plan, which would require access to personal infos - something that even adults couldn’t get easily.

Feeling that there was nobody to protect them, Linden’s classmates did what anyone would do in their position, and they decided to keep their distance from this dangerous individual.

The next day, on Monday the classes restarted, and no one dared to even look at Linden. The boys, who sat far away from him, felt relief at the safe distance. However, the unlucky ones, who sat close, felt like chickens sitting next to a fox.

The History class was fairly calm. The students felt fairly safe, with Cacao Bark walking among the desks as he talked about historical events. However, the atmosphere got tense, when they moved to the next classroom.

Yew looked to the back through his right shoulder, and felt pity for the boy, who was sitting next to Linden. His face was white like the snow outside, even though his cheeks and the nose were red from the cold wind that assaulted them on the way from one classroom to another.

Sorrel also realized that the boy wasn’t doing well, and she had excused him. The boy could go and see a doctor together with another student from a seat nearby, who volunteered to go together, just to be far away from Linden.

After the Process class ended, Linden quickly left, and all the boys moved to the side as if they were servants making a path for a king. Sorrel furrowed her eyebrows, and tightened her lips. She knew that she had to talk with Linden, but it was unlikely that her son would explain it to her.

Most of the boys had left the classroom, and only Yew and Spruce were left. Spruce was waiting for Yew to pack up the books, but Yew wasn’t in a hurry to do so. When he finally packed up, Spruce went for the door, but Yew went to the teacher’s desk.

Sorrel was still looking at the documents on her desk, when Yew came up and stood in silence.

“Do you have a question?”

He nodded.

“I’m listening.”

Yew slowly opened his mouth, “I have a question about Linden.”

Sorrel took a deep breath, and pointed at the chair by the desk, “sit down,” and she took the teacher’s chair and moved it nearer the desk in the first row.

Spruce, who was standing by the door, saw Yew taking a seat, but he didn’t want to be involved, so he contemplated between leaving and remaining by the door.

Sorrel sat down on her chair, “so what did Linden do?”

Yew shook his head, “it’s not about what he did. It’s… I was thinking… that he’s not like us. He’s… more like… he’s different. He… sometimes he acts like an adult.”

Living together in the same cottage, Yew met and talked with Linden daily. In the beginning, he thought that Linden had an attitude. He always spoke like he was better than everybody else, and he always looked down at all his classmates, and even at older students from later years.

However, with time, Yew saw that Linden’s attitude wasn’t baseless. In every aspect, he was above his classmates. If it was only his skills and knowledge, he could be easily marked as a genius, but there was another thing that stood out about Linden.

Linden was mature.

Just like Ginkgo, or his parents, Linden was independent, responsible and righteous.

Like all independent men, he didn’t beg. He didn’t go around leeching off of others. He didn’t demand the life to be easy. He understood that anything in life can be achieved, but never by whiny babies, who want everything to be free and easy.

Like all responsible men, he didn’t run away from consequences or problems. Sure, he often asked for troubles, but he never hid behind others. He never tried to run away from a blame. Even if he was unfairly accused, he didn’t cry like a victim, but took on whatever life brought.

Like all righteous men, he never ignored a man in need. For Yew, it became obvious, when he got sick after drinking pwa-pwa. At that time, Linden took care of him, which was something his roommate didn’t want to do.

That wasn’t the behavior of a ten yrold boy. All kids acted based on their feelings. If they felt scared they ran away. If they didn’t want to study, they didn’t. If something was a bother to them, they spent a lot of energy trying to wiggle their way out of doing the right thing.

But adults were different. Adults controlled their emotions. Adults chose to follow their duties over their feelings. Adults did the right thing, even when they didn’t want to, even if it was a bother, even if it was disgusting, even if it was difficult, or even if it was dangerous.

“He acts like an adult?” Sorrel repeated the last thing that Yew said, and squeezed her mouth as if she ate something sour.

“It may be just me,” Yew was scratching his head, “maybe I just don’t get him.”

Sorrel looked at Spruce, who was still standing by the door, “by the way, boys, it appeared to me that all your classmates are avoiding Linden. Do you know anything?” she changed the topic.

Spruce looked at Yew, and Yew looked at Spruce. Neither of them wanted to be the first one to tell Linden’s mother that her son went around on a revenge trip over the holiday of Raethosu. Would she even believe them?

The teacher sensed that she wouldn’t get an answer, so she stood up and put her chair behind the desk. “I’ll talk with Linden. Is there anything else you want to ask me?”

Yew shook his head sideways, got up and farewelled the teacher, before he left the classroom together with Spruce.

They slowly walked back home. The cafeteria was open, but there was a lot of food in Yew’s fridge that Linden had stored over the break, and someone had to eat it. Linden, who brought the food for “later”, usually forgot what food he had in the fridge, and even when he remembered about it, he still preferred the fresh taste over the overnight dish.

“I don’t think Linden acts like an adult,” Spruce said. “He’s more like a spoiled brat.”

Yew nodded, but he didn’t say anything, and they both walked the rest of the way without another word.

It was cold outside, so both boys hid their mouths into the scarves wrapped around their neck, and pulled their wool hats over their eyebrows as they tried to protect as much of their skin as possible from the low temperature that ruled over the land.

The leafless trees stood looking like dead, with icicles hanging down their branches, while the needle trees were covered by piles of snow, and looked like tall monuments or pillars of white stone. Only occasional needle branches sticking out from under the snow, proved otherwise.

The whole land was covered by a layer of snow, which had leveled up the ground, and it was impossible to separate roads from lawns and flowerbeds. During the warm seasons, the students avoided walking through flowerbeds, but on a snow-covered earth, any flat ground was a walkway.

No one was desnowing, so foottracks were visible all over. The school of Hecate didn’t see the snow as a problem, since everyone travelled by foot within the schoolgrounds. Furthermore, the total snowfall each year wasn’t that huge. On the worst years, the snow built up to a bit over half a meter, which was still not a problem for older students. As for the earlier years, the teachers organized magical sledges to pick them up and take them to their classrooms.

Both Yew and Spruce heard about the sledges, and wanted to ride in them, but the snow this year was no more than twenty centimeters high, which wasn’t enough for the school to do anything for the poor students, who had to travel by foot every Monday through Thursday.

Yew stepped away from the snow that had been flattened all over, and walked in the snow with infrequent foottracks. He didn’t need to walk on the flattened snow to learn the most important winter lesson. He spent his childhood growing up in the mountains, so he already knew that the flattened snow could easily turn into slippery ice. As for Spruce he had learned that lesson over the Raethosu break, but he would never admit it.

A squirrel ran through the road in front of them, and climbed another tree.

They were almost at the cottage, when they saw Linden standing in place and staring up. They both looked up toward the sky, but the only thing they saw were the shining dark clouds looming high above.

Yew stopped by Linden, and once again looked up, hoping to see something, if he looked from the same position.

“Those aren’t clouds,” Linden spoke. “You see that. Those aren’t clouds.”

Yew looked up, but all he saw were clouds.

“So what are they?” he asked.

“Those are smokes that dragons breathe out.”

“How do you know?” Spruce asked, also looking and not seeing anything special.

“They are slightly different color. Look, there’s something like a path among the grey clouds.”

And that was when both Yew and Spruce realized that indeed there appeared to be a path in the sky made up of clouds of a different color.

“When dragons migrate together with all the members of their clan, they fly on cloudy days. And they cover up their migration with a smoke that they breathe out of their nostrils,” Linden spoke like an expert in zoology. “This isn’t normal.”

“Why?” Spruce wanted to know what Linden meant.

“Dragons rarely migrate, and when they do, it’s always something serious. There may be a large-scale natural disaster, or some other form of a catastrophe coming up.”

Both Spruce and Yew were surprised how calm Linden was, when he spoke.

“But it doesn’t have to be this year,” he added. “It may be the next year, or the year after that, or maybe five years from now on. Even dragons cannot accurately predict the future.”

Linden continued to look for a while, then he just walked away toward the cottage. Yew and Spruce also followed him, and the three of them entered the cottage four and four hundred thirty six.

Yew continued to stare at Linden, and Spruce stared at Yew, who was attracted to his roommate’s face like a maiden is attracted to her beloved.

“Something you want from me?” Linden was aware of the stare.

Yew moved away his eyes, but then he looked back at Linden, “I want to be like you.”

Linden blinked once, then twice and then he showed a challenging smile to Yew. “Good luck,” he said and headed off to take a warm shower.

“You want to be like him?” Spruce bent his torso away from Yew, as if his classmate was the source of some very nasty smell.

“I don’t mean personality,” Yew explained himself right away. “I want to have that same aura of an adult. You know, like when he was telling us about dragons. He was so calm, and knowledgeable.”

Spruce looked up, recalling Linden from not so long ago. “May… be?” Unlike Yew, he didn’t sense any aura of an adult coming from Linden. “Anyway, let’s eat, and then we still have our homework to do.”

Yew didn’t talk anymore about Linden’s aura, but he couldn’t get rid of the thoughts in his head. When later on, Linden was sitting together with them, and copying from them the homework answers, Yew began to wonder why did he even bother copying the answers, when he was much smarter than them, and if he did it all by himself, he’d surely get a perfect score.

When Yew was already in bed, he wondered what he could do to have a more adult-like aura around him. He certainly didn’t need to change his appearance, since Linden had that aura even with his girly look.

He jumped into a sitting position, when a realization hit him. “Linden?”

“What?” the response came from the other bed.

“Are you copying our homework to give us money for food?”

There was no answer.

“Because you know that my parents don’t have a lot of money, and Spruce’s father is against him attending Hecate, so you’re helping us…”

“Go to sleep,” Linden interrupted him. “You’re so tired that you’re coming up with the craziest ideas.”

Yew lay down on the pillow, then after a while he said, “thanks.”

“Twenty five thousand syfras. I’ll surely be coming back for the money, so don’t hope for a debt pardon.”

“I won’t,” Yew smirked into the covers. To help out people, and to hide one’s involvement, was another trait that added to Linden’s adult-like aura.

Spruce yawned for the tenth time on their way to the History class.

“Didn’t you sleep last night?” Yew asked.

“He had nightmares, and he kept waking me up,” Aspen yawned as well.

“It’s not my fault,” Spruce fought against the embarrassing accusation.

“I didn’t force you to read that book,” Aspen pointed out.

“What happened?” Yew wanted to know.

“He has a book about vampires,” Spruce pointed his finger at Aspen. “I didn’t know what a vampire was, and he wouldn’t explain it, so I read a bit from that book.”

“What’s a vampire?” Yew asked.

“They’re really scary monsters, who kill you by sucking out your blood, and neither magic nor weapons work on them, so there’s no way to protect oneself.”

“Holy water and holy light,” Linden joined in the conversation. “Wasn’t that in the book?”

Spruce took a moment to understand Linden’s words, “I didn’t read that much.”

“You know about vampires?” Yew was impressed, but he wasn’t surprised. His roommate always knew a lot of things.

“Vampires were originally inhabitants of the deepest underground caves, where no light or air gets in. They were able to live there by drinking water out of stones, but when they allied with the demons, they began using their abilities to suck blood out of humans.”

Yew and Spruce glanced at each other.

“Initially vampires do appear immortal, but that’s because they’re among rare beings, who can switch between a physical and a spiritual body. When they look like bats, they’re in their physical form, so then you can kill them with magic or weapons.”

Spruce sighed in relief.

“That’s if you can land a hit. They’re small and fast, and at any time they can change into their spiritual body, which looks like a ghost of a deformed human. When they’re in their spiritual form, neither magic nor weapons work. The good news though is that they cannot drink your blood in that body. In order to attack you, they need to change into their physical form.”

“So I can just ignore their spiritual form?”

“I wouldn’t do that,” Linden lowered his tone. “It takes them less than a second to switch forms. The best strategy is to last the fight until the night is over. Because they were never meant to live aboveground, their bodies have no protection against sun radiation. Just one ray of sun will burn them to death, regardless of their form, and then there’s nothing to worry about.”

“That’s a lot of info to fight against something that no longer exists,” Aspen commented.

Linden shrugged his shoulders. He still wasn’t sure whether the witch, whom he saw four weeks ago was real, or just something else that he had mistaken for a witch.

“How many creatures allied with demons?” Yew asked his knowledgeable roommate. “I know about witches and giants, but I never heard of vampires before.”

“A lot of them were allied with demons,” Linden answered. “In the beginning, only angels were allied with humans. Other creatures either didn’t care or sided with the demons, like dragons, for example. However, after thousands of years of an ongoing war, wiser creatures, like dragons switched sides and allied with humans.”

“But witches remained loyal to demons until the very end,” Aspen added. “Which is why everyone knows about their alliance with demons.”

“That’s not exactly true. A lot of other creatures remained loyal to demons until their defeat. Vampires, zombies, ghouls, necromancers, krakens are just some examples. The list is much, much longer. All of those, who were allied with demons until the end of war, disappeared, and most of them have been forgotten. But there are books with detailed infos on every creature who had allied with demons, and how to defeat them.”

“I’m so glad, they’re all gone. Vampires are too scary,” Spruce said.

“They may not be gone,” Linden pointed out. “They disappeared, but nobody knows what exactly happened to the creatures, who disappeared. They may still be around. Just imagine, one day they all return and….”

“Stop scaring me!” Spruce interrupted. “What if you jinx it, and it’ll actually happen?”

“They haven’t shown up for ten hundred years. Why would they show up now?” Yew spoke out his thoughts.

“Exactly,” Spruce’s voice was shaking a bit.

After a little more bickering against Linden, they dropped the topic, and walked the remaining way to the classroom in silence. After school, Spruce offered to go eat in the city, because it’s been a while since they went out, and they pressed Linden to take them to a good place, until he agreed.

“This restaurant has only one item on the menu,” Spruce pointed his finger at the big poster on the wall, after all four of them were already seated at a table.

“This isn’t a restaurant. This is a home bar.”

“What’s a home bar?” it turned out that Spruce had never been to a home bar.

“A restaurant for poor people,” Linden explained, and Aspen shook his head in disapproval.

“It’s a home bar, because it’s run by a family,” Yew began the explanation that he had once heard from his father. “In a home bar, a family cooks a different meal each day, and they cook a lot of it, so that they can sell the excess to support themselves.”

“Got it,” Spruce nodded.

“The food is cheap, because they’re selling the leftovers of their own lunch,” Linden looked at the woman giving out bowls with the soup at the other side of the room. “And you’re not allowed to be picky here. Either you eat what you get, or you pay for nothing.”

The women approached their table with a tray on wheels, and without any friendly smile or kind words, she just took two bowls from the tray and put them in front of Linden and Yew, who were farther away. Then she put two more bowls in front of Spruce and Aspen, and moved on with five more bowls on her tray to another table.

Each bowl had a large spoon, which was already inside the bowl. Linden took out his spoon, and licked the soup off of it, before he started using it to eat the meal inside the bowl.

The other boys followed in his steps, and they were pleasantly surprised to find out that the thick greyish-brown liquid with overcooked noodles was actually really tasty, even though, for all three of them, it was the most unappetizing-looking dish of all, which they have seen or eaten up to this day.

After their bellies were full, they paid on their way out, and began returning back to Hecate.

“You can go back, I need to go to the cemetery,” it wasn’t unusual for Linden to go somewhere alone, but it was unusual for him to give them a reason.

“Is it far?” Yew asked curious about his roommate’s statement.

“Not far, but not on the way to Hecate.”

“I’ll go with you,” Yew said and Linden looked at him as if he wanted to ask why would Yew want to go to a cemetery.

Spruce didn’t wait long, “I’ll go as well.”

And Aspen just quietly tagged along to the cemetery with the other boys led by Linden. Once there, Linden began walking between the graves as if searching for something.

“Did you lost something here?” Yew asked. “Do you want me to help you search?”

“Sure, let me know, if you find anything odd,” he said, and not only Yew, but also Spruce and Aspen began looking at the ground in search of that thing, which Linden was looking for.

“Maybe you could at least describe what it looks like?” Spruce asked.

“I don’t know what it looks like,” Linden said. “But if you find anything out of the ordinary, especially things that don’t look natural, let me know. And maybe it’s better if you don’t touch it. I don’t know what will happen, if you touch it.”

The boys had gloves on their hands, but even with gloves on, Linden was warning them not to touch whatever they were to find. This made them even more interested in what was Linden searching for, even though Linden himself didn’t know what the item looked like.

“Maybe it’s better to come back after the snow melts?” Aspen suggested. He had a good point. With snow covering the ground, any small items would end up buried underneath the white fluff.

“Doesn’t matter,” Linden responded.

If the snow didn’t matter, then the object had to be at least big enough that it wouldn’t get buried, so the boys ignored all the small things that they saw on the ground, and concentrated on trying to find something big.

“THERE IS!” Spruce yelled after running out of an area with many trees. “There is something out of the ordinary!”

“Where?” Linden immediately followed him, as did Yew and Aspen.

Spruce led them near the edge of the cemetery and pointed at the area behind a grave and under a tree. “That’s not normal,” he described his find.

An underweight man without any clothes other than his underwear was sleeping on the snow with a large empty bottle in his hand. A smell of alcohol was coming out of his mouth whenever he mumbled in his sleep.

“Yeah, that’s abnormal, but that’s not what I’m looking for,” Linden approached the man, squatted down by his face, and slapped him hard, “wake up, loser, or you’ll freeze to death.”

One slap didn’t work, so he slapped him again, and when even that didn’t work, he used magic to create a flame of fire right next to the man’s chin. At first, the man tried to remove the fire by moving his hands, as if the fire was just an annoying fly, but when that didn’t work, he opened his eyes and sat up.

Just then, Linden removed his spell and spoke again, “you cannot sleep here like that.”

“Oh, sorry,” the man mumbled in a sleepy voice. “I was going to make some money, but that dealer. I bet he was using some tricks on me. There’s no way my luck is so bad.”

“You shouldn’t gamble,” Linden stated. “And all dealers are scammers - that’s a known fact.”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s a fact. The world hasn’t changed much, huh?” he looked around, and it was as if he just realized that he was surrounded by kids. “An adult man getting lectured by kids, that’s the first for me.”

Linden got up to a standing position, and walked up to his friends, “let’s go home.”

“Wait, wait,” the man stopped them.

“I’m not taking you home,” Linden responded right away.

“Are you students of Hecate?”

“And if?”

“Learn to be strong. In the world, only the strong survive, and you’ll need strength, a lot of strength.” He looked in the direction of the large rock corroded by the elements. “The last time, when I was here, this cemetery was outside of the school of Hecate, and there was no city here.”

“Are you drunk?” Linden grimaced, not interested in mumbling of a drunkard, but the man continued.

“The school of Hecate was a fortress built by the river, with tall walls and twelve towers, each one guarded by powerful magi, day and night. And at the gate, there always stood two most powerful wizards. One day, in a battle too many have died, and too many bodies were lost, so to all those, who were murdered by demons, a memorial was built: a statue of a wizard stepping on a demon, but it no longer looks like a statue.”

The man pointed at the large corroded rock.

Linden looked at the rock. If he tried hard, he could make out the shape of a human stepping down on something.

The man stood up and walked up to the rock, bowed down and drew a sign of the cross on the stone, “may the blessing of God come down from the Heavens, and spread across this world once again.” Then he turned around to the kids, “learn how to be strong. You’ll need it. You’ll really need it.”

“What do you mean?” Spruce asked him out of curiosity.

“The Almighty Highness is wrecking up the peace,” he said with a sour face. “I wish I knew what that madman is planning this time.” He began walking away toward the exit gate.

“What madman?” Linden yelled after him.

“That madman,” he yelled back as he pointed his finger toward the Heavens.

The boys looked up, but they saw nobody flying or levitating above them. Only Yew was still staring at the rock, which used to be a statue.

“Drunkard,” Linden commented. “Let’s go home.”

Yew waved his hand toward the rock, and Spruce stared at him. “What are you doing?”

“He waved at me, so I just waved back.”

Linden looked at the rock, as did Spruce and Aspen.

Aspen smiled and chuckled. Linden rolled his eyes, and Spruce looked sick.

“What?” Yew didn’t understand their reactions.

“That was lame. There’s no one here other than us,” Linden explained.

“But he was there just a mome…”

“Stop,” Spruce yelled. “I have enough. I don’t like this type of jokes,” and he moved fast forward. “Let’s get home. I don’t like this place.”

“Oh, look, someone’s scared of ghosts,” Linden smirked.

“Shut up,” Spruce yelled and ran ahead.

Yew walked behind Aspen and Linden, and kept on looking behind. He could no longer see the person standing next to the rock, but he couldn’t forget what that man looked like.

He wore long red robes with golden clips. His yellow hair was tied in a thick braid falling down on his right side. He had something like a golden crown with red jewels on his head, and a long golden cane with a dark red jewel on its top. The man looked young, and his beard had just begun to appear on his face, but he had that unmistakable aura of a veteran warrior, who had won countless battles against enemies more powerful than him.

That was a real wizard, a small thought passed by Yew’s mind. He knew of wizards. He could easily meet with wizards of the present times, and there were plenty of wizards in the history books, but there was one type of wizards, which have been mostly lost in the history. There was little to no info about wizards, who fought against the demons.

The little amount of info, which had survived the war, only told of how amazing they were. Those infos praised their creativity and quick-thinking, their calmness in the most dire of situations, their knowledge and powers in battles. However, those were exactly the same thing that all warriors of ancient times were praised for, such as magi, swordmen, archers, or hunters. Reading about them felt like everyone in the ancient world was awesome, while those living in the modern world were nothing in comparison.

Yew recalled Ginkgo. The man was amazing on his own, but how could he compare to those from the ancient times? Would he live up to his current fame, if he lived in those ancient times?

Willow Leaf left the cemetery, and headed for the temple. He didn’t pay attention to all the stares, which he was getting while he walked through the streets naked except for his underwear.

On his way, he asked for directions from two men, both of whom were quite amused by his dress-up. When he finally arrived at the temple, he followed the signs with the label ‘charity’, and he arrived at the doorsteps of a small room at the side of the temple.

When a young nun, who worked at the reception desk, saw him, she immediately ran out to call her supervisor. A minute later, an older woman came back with her and shook her head.

“I need some clothes,” Willow ignored the younger nun, who was trying to look away, and half-covered her face with her hand.

“That I can tell,” the older nun said, and began looking through the shelves. “But at this time of the year, clothes are always scarce.”

“Mother,” the younger nun talked quietly, “someone came earlier and dropped off clothes,” she pointed at a brown bug in the room corner. “Sister Late washed them, and I think they may be drying in the laundry room.”

“How great,” the older nun said, went to the laundry room and came back with a bag of clothes. “It looks like God is watching over you. Dress up, and whatever you don’t need, just leave it here.”

“Thanks,” Willow said as he took the bag.

“Don’t thank me. Thank God. I have no power other than what He gives me.”

“Will do,” Willow looked into the bag, and instead of words of praise and gratitude, he cursed, “screw that joker.” He took out his own clothes from the bag, and dressed up in exactly the same clothes that he lost gambling last night.

He put the empty bag on the desk, and left the charity without another word. The sisters blessed him on his way out, but he didn’t respond. Only once he was outside the temple grounds, he looked up at the sky and grumbled, “that wasn’t funny.”

He headed to the nearby alcohol store, and walked up to the counter, “do you have anything for a dog?”

The young clerk looked confused at the question, “no, sir. I don’t think so.”

“Maybe something that ain’t selling? You sure, you didn’t throw away any bottles?”

The clerk looked around searching with his eyes between the shelves. Another older man spotted his look, and came up to help.

“Anything I can help you, sir?”

“I want whatever bottle you’re going to throw away.”

“Unfortunately, we don’t have anything like that. If you’re worried about the price, I can recommend something cheap.”

Willow smirked, “I’ll buy it as long as it doesn’t cost more than zero syfras, because that’s how much I have.”

The older man’s attitude changed immediately, “there’s nothing for you here, so get out.”

“Do you know whom you’re threatening?” Willow tried to straighten up, but before he made another move, something caught him and in one swift movement he was thrown out of the store, and landed face down into the pile of snow.

He sat up, spitting snow out of his mouth and cursing all the magical items that exist in the world. He tried to go back to the store, but as he approached the store, once again he ended up thrown out before entering the store.

To him, and to all the people passing by the street, it was obvious that he had been blacklisted from the store, and could no longer enter it. Spitting out snow, he walked away, mumbling more curses at the store owner.

The snow began to fall, and slowly gathered on top of Willow, who moved slowly forward. When the sun set, and the streets grew empty, he sat down under a building and let the falling snow turn him into a snowman. He closed his eyes, and fell asleep.

His sight drifted away into the land of dreams, and he dreamed of things long gone. He dreamed of his hometown - a beautiful village surrounded by golden fields, with mountains, rivers and forests decorating the horizon.

In his dream, he went to play in the forest, and he stayed there until late evening. From the distance, hidden behind the trees of the forest, he saw a sunset like never before. It was filled with deep, but bright colors. The red color was redder than the blood, and the orange color was like a blast from a blazing flame. Amazed at the colors, he stood adoring the horizon sky.

It was already nighttime, when he finally decided to go back home. From the distance, he could still see the disappearing colors of the sunset, as he walked toward the west, back to his village, but when he stepped out of the woods, a terrible reality appeared before his eyes.

The sunset was not the source of all the colors. The sun had already gone down a long time ago, but his village was still burning. The dark smoke was almost invisible on the canvas of the night, but the flames devouring the village were still hungry for the remains.

He ran through the green fields. It was only the season of Dzon - too early for the harvest. He ran up to the village, and all he saw at the outskirts were leftovers of the buildings, which were burned into dust. Among the buildings and all throughout the streets he saw black charcoaled bodies of the dead.

He coughed as some of the black smoke entered his lungs. He covered his mouth and nose with his hand. He had nothing else to use. He didn’t wear anything other than a pair of pants. And he wasn’t thinking about himself at all. Like a blind dog, he ran by memory.

In the darkness of the night he ran forward, around the dying flames, between the destroyed buildings, through the areas of thick smoke, and among the scattered corpses, without seeing the path he took. He took the turns all from the memory of his body, because there was nothing around him to tell him his location, until he arrived at the place, where his house should have stood. But there was nothing there.

Instead of a house, he saw a carpet of ash, and three black corpses in the light of the nearby flames. There were two adults, one hugging another, and between them a third black body of a kid.

It didn’t take him long to understand. He fell to his knees, and screamed so loud that the birds from the surrounding woods flew up into the sky and away. He wasn’t crying. Those weren’t cries. Those were the screams of a tortured soul, which would never forget its pain.

When he breathed in too much smoke, his head got dizzy, and he fell to the ground onto his back.

Slowly the flames died out, and the smoke moved up toward the sky. With his eyes still open, Willow saw a monster fly above the village, and a woman was riding that monster. She rode above the sky with a smile of triumph on her face.

Willow opened his eyes and met the empty night street of Sheepcrown. With his hands, he began to remove the snow that piled up on him, and he thought about the dream. Most of it was true. In his childhood, on the day, when he went out playing in the woods, the demons attacked and destroyed his village, murdering all, who lived there. However, the last bit about a woman riding a monster, was new to him.

“Is that the current enemy?” he asked himself, knowing that dreams are more than just night delusions.

He got up and started walking. He was already near the city border, so he headed out, and slowly he stepped onward through the snowy landscape. Somewhere under the snow there was a road, but at this time of the year, it was hidden, and the roadsigns were the only marks of a road that led out to another city.

He stood by one such roadsign, trying to make out the letters under the stars, which were the only source of light. Unable to read anything, he grabbed the roadsign’s pole and bent it, so that the plates with the names were on the same height as his chest. He put his hands on the convex letters, and read them out by touch.

Once he roughly knew, which direction was which, he headed out. After not that much walking he heard sounds coming from ahead. One was the voice of a man, another that of a woman.

“I’m in a good mood today, so don’t make me mad,” the man said.

“Leave me alone,” the woman’s voice warned.

Willow approached closer, and he saw two men standing next to each other. One man was holding a lamp, the other one was talking with a kid. That was when Willow realized that the voice he heard wasn’t the voice of a woman, but it was the voice of this kid. He smiled as he immediately recognized the boy by his pretty face.

“Shit,” the man, who was talking, realized that someone was approaching them.

Until now, Willow walked slowly, taking his time to move forward. However, upon seeing the scene, his old reflexes returned back to him. He felt as if he had returned back to his familiar environment, like a shark plunged back into the ocean, after spending countless days in a water tank. Once again he felt a reason to live. From a slow pace, he jumped into a run. Sure, the snow was slowing him down, but even then he was still fast.

The two men quickly realized that something was going wrong, and they began turning to a defensive position. Yet Willow was much faster. He was right in front of the first man. He landed a punch right in-between his eyes, sending the man off his feet, and into the air. The other man, who had never seen such an effect of a punch, was totally unprepared, when Willow grabbed him by the arm and threw him at a tree.

Both men somehow survived the initial assault, but any will to fight was gone. As soon as their feet regained contact with the ground, they quickly got up and ran away toward the city of Sheepcrown.

“That was good,” Linden commented the man’s power.

“I got weak,” Willow did some stretching exercise on his arms.

“I didn’t need help, but I got to see something fun today, so I’ll let you ask me for one thing as a repayment.”

“And what can a kid like you give me, hm?”

“How about you try and ask?”

Willow thought for a moment, “do you have something that can let me breathe underwater?”

Linden smiled, “you’re lucky,” he took a hairpin off his hair, and handed it to Willow. “It’s quite expensive, so I don’t want to give it away, but I’ll let you borrow it. You can give it back to me the next time, we meet.”

Willow closed his hand around the object. “What if we don’t meet again?”

“We will,” he said with a smirk. “By the way, is it okay to know why do you need this item?”

“To pick up my sword. Without her I’m too lonely.”

Linden didn’t ask anything else. He explained to the man how to use the White Sea Gleam, and after listening to his explanation, Willow looked him straight into his eyes.

“What is a kid your age doing out at this time of night?”

Linden waved his hand, “don’t let it bother you.”

“The times sure have changed,” Willow said, then he stretched out his hand to Linden, who shook it. However, he didn’t let go and instead he squeezed harder.

“Ow-oh,” Linden caught his arm with his other hand, “what are you doing?”

Willow let go of Linden’s hand, “I’m glad you’re not a demon.”

Linden rubbed his hurt hand.

“You’re a fun little guy, so don’t hang out with demons or I will have to kill you the next time, we meet.”

Linden looked behind the man, who was walking away. He breathed hot air at his hands, then yelled after the man, “demons are long gone!”

Willow raised up his hand, and waved it at Linden, without looking back. He didn’t feel any need to prove his words. There was never any need for a man of truth to prove himself, because everything in the world would gladly do it for him, as was made famous by a fairytale, which was still taught in kindergartens.

The fairytale reported that a long time ago, there was a king, who surrounded himself with lies. The wise sages spoke to him the truth, but he refused to listen. One day, when he had enough, he ordered all sages to be killed. He thought that the truth would die together with those men, who spoke of it, but the truth didn’t die.

The truth never dies.

Time passed, and when the king least expected it, the truth triumphed over the lies. The king brought upon himself his own downfall at the hands of the justice, known as the sister of the truth. Whether the story was real, or not, nobody knew, but this fairytale was as ancient as the world itself and has never faded out of favor. Some storytellers would embellish the details, and others would add characters, but the gist of the story has always remained the same.

There is only one truth.

So even if men were to cover the world with countless lies, all the world would unmistakably fight to destroy the lies and the lying men. Therefore, at any time and at any place, it is wise to accept the truth, for whomever spun lies and denied the truth, prepared his own doom.

As Willow walked through the dark night on a road through the forest, he began listening to the sound of his footsteps resonating in the silence. The snow crumbling under each step, sent out an echo, which travelled between the trees and returned just in time for Willow to take another step forward.

Everything around him was dark. The shadows of trees were more black than the blackness in the air, which was the only reason he hadn’t hit a tree yet, but as the sky was getting more and more cloudy, he stepped into a bush, and stopped.

He looked up, but there were hardly any stars left to guide him toward the ocean. He sat down on the cold snow, but it was only a bit less cold than the air. Neither one of which was comfortable, but he hadn’t known comfort for too long. In his immortal body, no pain or suffering could kill him, and over time he paid less and less attention to whatever he felt.

It was as if his body grew tired of sensing pain over the centuries, and slowly the feelings faded away leaving only a weak reminder that something like pain existed.

Blindly he moved on, coming in contact with trees, walking into bushes, and tripping over fallen branches. In the distance, he saw something like a blue light, and he headed in that direction.

He walked out of the woods, and stood in front of a vast plain. The clouds on the sky spread apart from each other and let some of the starlight shine onto the earth, creating an eerie blue glow above the snow-covered fields.

From the opposite side, a patriarch with a white beard, was walking toward Willow. The elder was wearing a long white robe with a hood over his face. And in his hand, he held a white cane as long as his own height. Both the robe and the cane were glittering like snowflakes in the sun.

The patriarch walked past Willow, but not without touching the man’s shoulder, briefly, almost as if by accident. But it was no accident. Just as the patriarch put his hand on Willow’s shoulder, all of Willow’s body turned cold and he froze to death.

“Hey,” Wasabi grabbed a chair from another table in the cafeteria and sat together with the boys, who got used to her just randomly hanging out with them every once in a while.

“Hey,” Yew responded without any energy.

Spruce didn’t have time to speak. He had to finish the food, and make it on time to the Exercise of Magic class. Today was Wednesday. Beech was teaching it, and when Beech was the tutor, everyone was looking forward to improving their skills.

“I finally found this,” she said and took out a thin book from her backpack.

Linden had no interest, so he didn’t even look up from his plate.

She sorted through the pages, until she found what she looked for, “right here,” she put down the book and pointed at a paragraph.

Aspen, who sat next to her, looked inside, and read the lines: «And God chose them to bring the light into the world of darkness, and the angels drew a mark of a cross on each one’s forehead, so the demons would not be able to touch them.»

“Does it sound familiar?”

Yew and Spruce looked at her with that questioning look, Linden looked up from his plate and directed his eyes at the book.

Aspen took the book, and checked the first page, “this is from the holy scriptures,” he said, “the book of visions.”

“Holy scriptures?” Spruce repeated with a tiny hint of awe.

“Isn’t the book of visions the most useless scripture?” Linden pointed at the book.

“I wouldn’t call it useless,” Aspen responded as he gave the book back to Wasabi. “It’s just not as clear as the other scriptures. A lot of descriptions are very difficult to understand, so there’s a disagreement, whether the events in the book have happened in the past, or will happen in the future. There are also those, who think that they’re happening right now.”

“What events?” Spruce asked.

“Hard to tell,” Aspen returned back to eating, “the descriptions are unclear, just like the one I read a moment ago,” he handed the book back to Wasabi. “Have you ever seen anyone with a mark of a cross on their foreheads?”

Spruce shook his head sideways.

“Neither did I, and nobody did. A mark of a cross drawn by an angel has never been seen in this world, so some people think that it’ll happen in the future, and others choose to take the description figuratively.”

“Figura-what?” Spruce couldn’t repeat the yet-unknown-to-him vocabulary.

“Figuratively. It means that the mark of a cross is a codeword for the clergy, and not an actual mark.”

Wasabi looked at Spruce, with disappointment clearly painted on her face, and she put the book back in her backpack. She was clearly expecting something else, but whatever it was, what she expected, didn’t happen.

Spruce finished his meal, and quickly left for the Exercise class. 

“Aren’t you going?” Wasabi asked the other three boys, while she was also getting ready to leave.

“The class is optional,” Yew said. “We don’t have to come.”

“But you can still learn something, if you come.”

“Not everyone agrees with you,” Linden was less rude than usual.

Wasabi didn’t take it personally, because she didn’t even have time to argue. She didn’t want to have to explain to her tutors as to why she was late to class. Moreover, she was already getting used to Linden being less-than-friendly to her. She just accepted that it was his personality to be mean, and for that reason, she wouldn’t let Linden’s boorishness affect her in any way.

After she byed the boys, she left for her class. However, the boys didn’t even finish eating, when Spruce returned back.

“What happened?” Linden was the first one to get curious.

“Beech has a cold, so the class is cancelled,” Spruce sat down on a chair with a gloomy look.

“Who said that?”

“Maca was explaining that in the class.”

“So the class was cancelled or not?” Yew was confused how Maca could be in the class, and yet the class was being cancelled.

“I mean the class with Beech was cancelled. It seems that Maca and Sage are tutoring today instead of him,” Spruce explained and sighed. He was clearly looking forward to the class.

“Well then, you’re going to have to find something else to do,” Linden said before he stood up with the intention to return the dirty dishes.

When Linden began to walk away, the other three boys also got up from their seats, and returned their dishes and whatever was still on them. Afterward, they continued to follow behind Linden, who was on his way out of the cafeteria.

The beautiful boy turned around and looked at his classmates. “Do I look like your mom?”

“But I don’t have any idea, what to do right now,” Spruce was honest.

“You’re always going somewhere, once in a while, you could take us with you,” Yew stated.

“Yeah, why not. Or what? Are you doing something illegal?” Aspen smirked.

Linden shrugged his shoulders, and moved on toward the city, with three boys following him like three chicks following a hen. They got on a tram right after leaving the schoolground, and without even knowing their destination, they looked forward to finding out where Linden was heading.

The three boys were fairly surprised, when Linden entered the templeground, and headed straight for the backyard, where the four of them were all alone.

“Why are we here?” Spruce asked.

Meanwhile Linden began to count the trees growing in a row by the fence.

The boys watched Linden stop in front of one of the trees and knock on it twice, then a pause followed by three knocks, and then from the top of the tree, a small package fell down into the snow under the tree. Linden took it out and put it in his backpack.

“What’s that?” Aspen asked.

“I’m doing something illegal,” Linden smirked at Aspen, who didn’t ask another question.

All the boys wanted to know the answer, but neither one of them had the courage to start a brawl with Linden just to find that out. They weren’t scared of Linden’s strength, because the boy wasn’t that strong, but he was certainly tenacious. Linden’s disposition to never accept defeat made him more scary than any physical strength could.

When the boys began to head back, they saw an old monk sitting in the shadow of an alcove in the temple. He was sitting on the bench, and facing right where the boys were standing.

“I think he saw us,” Spruce murmured.

Linden walked up to the old monk, and waved a hand in front of his foggy eyes. “Excuse me?”

“Don’t we have a beautiful weather today, mister?” the old monk asked.

The boys looked up at the sky. It was mostly covered with clouds, which threatened to snow at any moment.

“You’re blind, aren’t you?” Linden asked straight.

“You cannot see?!” Spruce was surprised, as if it was his first time seeing a blind man.

“Oh no,” the old monk denied, “I can see. I can see very well.”

“And what do you see?” Linden asked.

“I see four brooks, which have crossed paths and now flow as one creek. But with time, even more streams will join them. Together they will form a mighty river - so mighty that even an unliftable boulder will have to move with the current.”

“What?” Spruce looked around but there were no brooks, creeks, streams, or rivers anywhere in the temple backyard. “I only see trees, some rocks, and a pathway,” Spruce described things, which were visible from underneath the snow.

Linden stared at the patriarch in silence, then he just walked away. The three boys also followed soon after.

“Where did he see the brooks?” the monk’s words kept bugging Spruce.

“I think it was about us,” Aspen said. “There’s four of us.”

“But we’re not brooks. We’re humans.”

“Shut up,” Linden looked angry, and neither of the boys knew why.

The boys left the templeground, and walked down the street toward the nearest tram station. During warmer months, they might have walked back to Hecate, but in winter, a warm interior of a tram was a preferable method of travelling.

After a long time of silence, Spruce spoke again, “remember what Wasabi said earlier, about some chosen ones? I was wondering, maybe it was about us.”

Aspen and Yew looked at him with pity.

“You think too highly of yourself,” Linden commented.

“But why else would she bring it to us?”

“And how would she know that?” Linden asked.

“Know what?”

“How would she know who are the chosen ones?”

“She didn’t. It was the destiny from the Heavens,” Spruce stated as if it was the most obvious thing in the world and everybody knew it already.

“What?” Linden stopped and turned around. “What destiny from the Heavens?”

“My grandmother always said, that coincidences don’t exist,” Spruce explained. “Everything is a destiny from the Heavens. First it was Wasabi, who brought that book about chosen ones, and then the old monk said about brooks joining together to turn into a mighty river. Maybe we’re destined to become mighty heroes in the future,” Spruce's face was so bright with joy that one could mistake it for the sun on this cloudy day.

Aspen sighed with pity and looked away. Yew scratched the back of his neck, unable to comment, and Linden burst out laughing.

“Why are you laughing?” Spruce was annoyed. “You think this is so stupid?”

“Yup,” Linden said once he stopped laughing. “Don’t you know there were thousands of men throughout the history, who had thought that they were some chosen ones? Do you know how each one of them ended?”

“How?”

“Damned.”

“What do you mean?”

“They were damned - doomed to eternal condemnation,” Linden crossed his fingers in a symbol of an X. “If there’s one thing you should learn from history, it’s this «those, who think well of themselves, will forever be remembered for all the evils they have done.»”

Spruce hung down his head, and Linden began walking again.

“Chosen by God is not a one-way road,” Aspen put his hand on Spruce’s shoulder.

“What do you mean?” Spruce asked.

“Even the chosen ones can turn evil,” Linden answered. “That’s why it’s pointless to wonder about stuff like that. One man may be chosen by the Heavens to be a hero, but he’ll grow up to be the most evil monster. Another man may have never been chosen, but he’ll go and defeat the evil monster thus becoming a hero. That’s how real life is, and all those prophecies are nothing but a waste of time.”

“Do you want to be a hero?” Aspen asked Spruce.

“Who doesn’t?”

“Then what you need to do is work hard to be a good person,” Aspen said.

Linden yawned as he turned his face away. The tram station was not too far away from them.

“But that doesn’t guarantee anything,” Spruce whined. “And I want to be like the heroes of the past. I want to be so awesome that everyone will know my name.”

“Idiot,” Linden commented.

“Hey!” Aspen reprimanded him. He was the first one of the boys to realize that Linden’s words were already too cruel.

“If you think that your fame decides your powers, then you’re an idiot,” Linden stopped, turned around and looked back at Spruce and Aspen. “The most amazing men in the world have always remained mostly unknown.”

“What?”

“Take for example the man, who invented the first door. Can you imagine a world without doors, but the guy didn’t leave any info about himself. The only reason we know about his existence, is because we have doors all around us.”

Spruce looked at the doors of homes and businesses on each side of the street.

“Or look into the past. Humans have been fighting with demons for thousands of years. During that time, there were many powerful slayers, who annihilated monstrous demons, but left no info except for the stories of those, who saw them fight, and their empty nameless graves.”

“Well…” Spruce started, but Linden didn’t let him continue.

“The only ones, who are famous are cowards, who ran away from the battlefield, and scammers, who took credit for someone else’s achievement. Only idiots adore the famous, and only losers want to be famous.”

Linden’s speech shut up all the boys for good, because even though they didn’t understand everything he meant, they had a general idea of what he implied.

An arriving tram further interrupted their conversation, as they dashed the remaining twenty meters in order to make it to the tram station before the tram did. 

Neither one of them said anything anymore, until they all returned back to their cottages, where they did their homework as usual.

Thursday's news came like a thunder.

The students, who already had plans for the weekend, were the most affected ones, when Sorrel Cave announced at the end of the Process of Magic class, that at the end of the next week, they were going to have a midterm exam, which was going to cover all that they had learned since the beginning of their first year.

And so, all the first year students of the class four of four B returned back to their cottages in foul moods, except for Aspen, who was always ready for a test, and Linden, who never cared about tests.

“I don’t remember what I learned last month. How am I supposed to remember what I learned two months ago?” Spruce was grieving in Yew’s kitchen.

Yew took out the textbooks and looked at the number of pages, which they had covered until now. They were halfway through the history textbook and almost halfway through the process textbook.

“It’s a total of two hundred seventy six pages,” Yew summed the total number of pages from both textbooks, which their class had covered since the first of Byzh, as if knowing the number of pages would somehow help them remember the content.

“Nobody can learn so many pages in one week!” Spruce already gave up.

“You don’t need to remember all of it,” Aspen said after he was done pouring himself a glass of orange juice. “You only need to know it in general.”

Linden got up from the sofa, went to the entry room, and started putting on outdoor clothes.

“So lucky,” Spruce looked at him. “I wish I could be so carefree.”

Linden left the cottage without saying even one word. Spruce and Yew, unwillingly and without much hope, began to review the old content with Aspen’s help. They soon moved to the living room, as sitting on the soft sofas was much more comfortable than sitting on wooden chairs.

After an hour, Linden came back and took off his outdoor clothes in the entry room, before he walked inside the living room. From his backpack, he took out at least fifty pages of papers and he put them down on the table between his classmates.

“What’s this?” Yew asked and took one from the top. The three pages of papers were clipped together.

Aspen also took one, and together with Yew, he was shocked, “this is…?!”

“Last year midterms,” Linden said and Spruce grabbed another one. “I thought that maybe some second years still have theirs, so I went around asking.”

“They just gave it to you?”

“Not for free, but I offered them a good deal,” he sat himself next to Yew, on the sofa. “I plan to use it as well, so don’t damage it,” he glared at others as a warning.

“What is the difference between a spell and a charm?” Yew read the first question from the paper in front of him. “A spell is an active use of magic, while a charm is a passive use of magic,” he read the answer. “It was marked as correct, two points.”

“What are blessings and curses?” Spruce read the first question of the exam paper, which he held. “A blessing or a curse is a type of magic that is activated as a wish, which someone has about someone or something else,” he read the answer. “Two full points,” he was amazed. “We can totally use it to study!”

“Explain how blessings work?” Aspen read another question. “A blessing travels from the giver to the recipient. If the recipient is worthy, the blessing materializes relative to the recipient’s worthiness, and another blessing of the same kind is returned to the giver. If the recipient is unworthy, the blessing returns to the giver doubled in strength.”

“Over here, there’s a similar question: Explain how curses work?” Spruce said. “The answer is pretty much the same, except the word curse is used instead of the word blessing.”

“These are official definitions from the textbook,” Aspen said.

“Poor kids stayed up all night memorizing them,” Linden summed up, and looked through some more papers, “but not all of them are like that,” he said then read the question: “What are chants? They are songs that monks and nuns sing or speak in the temples,” he smirked. “Half a point, and a teacher’s comment: Chants are holy words used by humans to guard the world from evil by contemplating the incomprehensible existence of God.”

“We can seriously use these,” Spruce was overjoyed. “If we just memorized the questions and the correct answers from these, we can totally pass the midterm.”

That Thursday evening, the boys read the exams by themselves, trying to see how much they already know and how much they still need to prepare for. Naturally, the amount of things they still had to learn was far greater than they expected, but they were also pleasantly surprised to find out that they could already score about forty percent with what they could answer right now.

The night fell by the time they finished reading through all exams.

Before going to sleep, they realized two more important things. One was that different classes managed by different teachers had a different level of difficulty. Some teachers asked more difficult questions, while others asked fairly simple questions. Unfortunately for them, the teacher’s name was not included on the papers, so they couldn’t have known which exams were administered by Sorrel and/or Cacao.

The other important thing they noted was that exams given in the same class had the same set of questions, but always in a different order. Thus they realized that trying to cheat by looking at someone else’s answer might be difficult, but they weren’t even planning that in the first place.

The next day on Friday, they played a game of guessing the answers for the exam. Aspen, who already knew all the answers, kept the exam papers and read the questions to Yew and Spruce, who had to answer as many of them as possible in order to see who could score higher.

“What creatures can use incantation?”

“Angels, spirits, and…” Spruce hit his forehead as he couldn’t remember the answer.

“Yew?” Aspen redirected the question.

“Angel, spirits, and fairies.”

“Spruce - two points. Yew - three points,” Aspen noted down in his notebook. “Next question: Which creatures can use magic?” he pointed his pen at Yew.

“Only humans,” Yew answered.

“Correct, one point,” Aspen looked at Yew’s competitor. “Spruce, what is a magic variation?”

“A category of magic named after the resulting outcome of the spell or the charm.”

“Two points,” Aspen noted down in his notebook. “Yew, how many magic variations are there in total, and what are they?”

“There are six primary magic variations: fire, water, earth, sky, light, and shadow. All the other variations are either a subcategory or a combination of two or more primary variations.”

“Great, six points. Spruce, give one example of what each primary magic variation can do to a pen.”

“Fire magic can burn the pen. Water magic can soak the pen. Sky magic can levitate the pen. Earth magic can bury the pen. Light magic can brighten the pen, and shadow magic can darken the pen.”

“Awesome, six points.”

“Why is shadow magic called shadow magic, and not dark magic?” Yew interrupted the game, because of his sudden curiosity. “Isn’t darkness opposite to light?”

“It’s not,” Linden, who woke up late, entered the room still in his pajamas. “The opposite of light is shadow.”

“How?” Yew asked.

Linden took one of the books from the shelfcase and put it on the table between the three boys, “can you read the title?”

“Thirty best places to visit in the city of Sheepcrown,” Yew read the title of the book.

Linden tapped a button on his pajamas. A pitch black shadow-like pieces flew out of the button and covered every window and surrounded the lamps in the room. In the complete darkness, Linden spoke again, “can you read the title?”

“Like this?!” Spruce thought that Linden must be crazy to expect them to read anything now, when they couldn’t even see their own hands in front of their eyes. 

“No,” Aspen answered calmly. “Can you remove this darkness?”

“Yeah, remove it,” Spruce hurried him also, as it was getting kind of scary.

“What you want removed is not darkness, but shadow,” Linden said and removed the spell. “Darkness is created by shadow, which covers the light. Just like brightness is created by light, which covers the shadow. That’s why shadow is the opposite of light, and darkness is the opposite of brightness.”

“It makes sense,” Aspen agreed. “I just realized that the difference is also clear in speech. Without any skylights, we have dark nights, and when there’s a full moon out, it’s called a bright night. Not a light night. Similarly, we use the terms dark days and bright days, but never light days, because that has a completely different meaning.”

“Yeah, that’s one way to understand it,” Linden praised Aspen’s smarts. “By the way, if you combine together the light and shadow magic, you’ll get the reflection magic, which is one of the hardest magic variations to use.”

“And what is the number one hardest magic variation?” Spruce asked.

“It’s in the textbook,” Aspen opened the book, and pointed at the page. “We didn’t cover this in class, but you’d know if you paid attention to the text.”

“...among the known magic variations, the hardest one to use is life magic…” Yew read the text. “What’s life magic?” he asked, as there was no more info in the text.

“I don't know," Aspen answered. "But I'm sure we'll cover it in the future."

"Unlikely," Linden remarked. "Life magic is a combination of all six primary magic variations. It's something that was accomplished only by highly talented magi working together. It's impossible to do it alone."

"And what does life magic do?" Aspen was curious, since he didn't hear anything about life magic until now.

"Isn't it easy to guess? It protects you from dying, and it can resurrect people, who have died."

"Awesome," Spruce liked the idea of having such power.

"Awesomely unlikely that you'll ever encounter it."

"Why?"

"The only time in history, when life magic was used, happened ten hundred years ago during the war with the demons. And It was a cooperation between six most powerful magi of that time." Linden stretched out, as he headed to the kitchen to get something to drink.

Spruce looked like he wanted to ask more, but Linden clearly finished talking before he left the living room. Spruce was wondering whether Linden would say more about it after he was done drinking, so he waited for Yew’s roommate, while Aspen spoke out.

"Anyway, let's finish all the questions from this exam. There’s only eight more to answer." Aspen just closed the off-topic, and all three of them returned back to the game, which they decided to play earlier.

They stayed up late that Friday. They were planning to keep going until midnight, but after they started to feel sleepy, the questions and answers were getting messed up, so they decided to leave the remaining exams for review until the next day.

Yew was already falling asleep in his bed, when Linden jumped onto his own bed, and made enough noise to stop Yew's mind from drifting into sleep. Yew turned around to face Linden, who was happily jumping up and down on the bed.

"You look happy," Yew commented.

"Sure," Linden responded. "I almost forgot how much fun it is to jump on the bed."

Yew laughed, "you can always do that."

"Nope," Linden stopped jumping.

"As long as the adults aren't watching," Yew recalled his parents scolding him for doing that, because they seriously thought that he was going to break the bed.

"It's only as long as you're small," Linden hid under the comforter. "One day you'll grow up too big, and if you jump onto the bed, it'll break under your weight," his voice sounded as if he was speaking from experience.

"I wish I could grow up faster," Yew spoke.

"I wish I never had to grow up," Linden answered. "By the way, Yew."

"Yeah?"

"Have you ever heard of the seventh primary magic variation?"

"Weren't there only six?"

"Officially, there are only six, but there are legends."

Yew thought for a moment, "and what is the seventh variation?"

"Time," Linden smiled. "It's the power to control time. The magus, who has mastered the time magic can turn back time, or they can stop time, or make it go faster, or they can travel through time as they please. Doesn't it sound more awesome than life magic?"

Yew didn't answer, so Linden looked at his face, but in the darkness he couldn't see his roommate's countenance.

"Don't you think it's awesome?" he repeated the question.

"It is awesome," Yew finally answered, "if it's real," he added. "I was thinking about the stories we used to read in the kindergarten, and there was that one story about time magic, but can that kind of magic really exist?"

"Have you heard that nothing is impossible?"

Yew chuckled.

"What's so funny?" Linden asked, not expecting that reaction.

"Nothing. I'm sleepy. Good night" Yew responded and put the comforter on top of his head, as he chuckled a bit more, muffling the sound into his pillow. For a while, he's been admiring Linden for how mature his roommate acted, but just now Yew got an amusing reminder that Linden wasn't mature at all. He was still a kid, like the rest of them.

"The final verdict is Hell," said a giant angel with a stern face.

A man of average height looked terrified at the tens of demons smirking behind his back. They were awaiting the end of the trial, and from the beginning they knew what to expect.

"I'm innocent. I didn't do anything wrong," the human began to fight back against the Divine Justice. "It was her fault. She didn't listen to me. She should have obeyed me. I'm her father."

"You are no one's father," the giant angel responded. "There is only one Father in the world, the Creator of all mankind. He is the Father of all, and whoever harms another human, harms His child. You have killed a daughter of God, and for that you shall be punished."

It should have been a common knowledge that all men were children of God - their Creator. Thus, no man was ever a true son or a true daughter of their biological parents. All young children were merely put under care of other humans, who had a duty to protect them until they matured. Yet sometimes, some foolish humans thought that the children, which God gave them to nurture, were their slaves to do with as they wanted.

However, in truth, all human children were given to human parents for them to protect the little ones, and by doing so earn a just reward from God. In order to protect the children, the adults were allowed a small piece of authority over them. That authority was necessary, but it wasn’t without a limit.

God permitted all parents to set rules for their children, as long as the parents were doing it for the wellbeing of the children. In other words, parents could hinder or prevent a small child from playing with fire, and they could verbally command an older child to avoid dangerous activities, but that was the limit of parents' authority over their children.

No parent could ever beat their small children for crying after a dangerous object was taken away from them. And no parent could use any force on older children, who didn’t follow their commands, because older children had more important commands, which came from God, and no human commands could ever be more important than the divine ones.

The man, who was just now judged before the gates of Heaven, had killed his own daughter, because she wanted to choose her own future, and that was not the future he wanted her to have.

"I had to protect my honor," he yelled even louder while the demons began to approach him from behind.

"You have no honor." the angel responded. "You only have pride. Honor means to do good for others. Pride means to do good for oneself."

"I had no other choice!"

The demons grabbed the man from all sides, and it was impossible to understand his words anymore among the shrieks and screams of pleasure coming from the demons.

A demon, who looked like a human kid, sighed and made a black hole appear right underneath the man. The black hole sucked in the man and all the demons, except for him.

"What an idiot," the child-like demon said to the angel, "he was so afraid of the people, he never once looked into his own soul."

The angel didn't say anything, but when the demon closed the black hole, he furrowed his eyebrows. He wanted to know why this one demon, who should have left with all the others, was still there.

"I have some business with God, so I hope you'd let me pass."

All the angels present at the gate of Heaven stared at him with an overwhelming disbelief.

"You may pass," the angel standing closest to the gate touched the gate softly, and the bars of light melted into the pure white mist.

The demon walked in and without wasting any time, he shot straight forward like a bullet of dark crimson directly into the palace of God. He flew by the monumental entrance, and continued through the stunning hallway, and onto the majestic hall, where God resided - a tiny speck of light floating above a magnificent throne.

When the demon arrived before God, he bowed down with his head on the floor, causing an uproar among all the inhabitants of Heaven.

A demon showing respect to God hasn't happened ever since Satan has rebelled. For all the demons went to follow their leader, and they vowed to bow down to nobody other than Satan. Ergo, even the smallest, weakest and worthless demons refused to bow down to God.

"Thou knowest everything, so Thou knowest what I'm doing," the demon spoke with his face toward the floor. "I have come to acknowledge my mistakes. I have followed the wrong god, and I have come to beg Thee to take me back as Thy servant. I have prepared myself for any punishment."

Everyone awaited in absolute silence the response of God, and when the voice of God filled the hall, it felt like a soft breeze of fresh air on a sunny morning.

Upon hearing God's response, the demon bowed down his head even lower, before he left Heavens as quickly as he entered. Once outside he smiled the widest smile possible, and he started laughing to himself like a madman, unable to hide the overwhelming joy.

He teleported to one of the worlds, which God had created.

From high above in the sky, he looked down at the vast lands. "So this is the world that Anagape Infida wants to take over? And all I need to do is help humans in the upcoming war to defeat the demons. And once humans win, I’m all forgiven. Sounds too easy to be true…"

He turned himself invisible, and flew around different cities, towns, and villages. As he traveled through he commented aloud on many things, but no humans could hear him, because he didn’t want to be heard or seen by them.

"Any war between demons and humans will always end with a human victory." He knew this from bountiful years of experience. "Unless the humans themselves choose to ally with demons, the war is always in human favor." It was something he learned from Anagape Infida's victory, which happened in a different world.

He stopped right above a temple, and stood down at the highest tower. While observing the people from above, he smiled to himself. "The humans of this world are far more intelligent, so an alliance with demons won't be happening, which means," his wide smile returned to his face, "I'm already an angel."

And just then, his smile disappeared as he felt a familiar presence right behind his back.

"Well, hello," he said to Anagape Infida.

"Traitor," she responded.

"News spread fast, don't they?"

"Traitor, traitor, traitor…" she kept repeating in a mad trance.

"If you keep calling me that, somebody might think that's my name," he joked but his tone was heavy and cautious.

She stopped, closed her mouth, and stared him down with her eyes that wouldn't blink.

He wasn't scared of her cold stare, but he was aware that in power levels she was way above him, and in a one-on-one fight, he had no chance to win. However, there was one thing that he was willing to bet on. "Are you fine?" he asked.

"Traitor," she murmured again.

"I guess it must be hard for you," he was going to say more, but she disappeared as soon as she appeared, and he didn't feel her presence anymore.

A templeground was every demon's nightmare. The weaker demons wouldn't even dare to step onto a templeground, as the divine energy would have turned them into mush literally immediately. However, stronger demons occasionally tested their powers by checking how many minutes they can last near a temple.

The ex-demon flew down onto the ground, and hidden among the human crowds, he undid his invisibility.

Just like angels, demons had two appearances. One appearance was that of a beast, and the other appearance was that of a human. He was now, in his human appearance, so from the perspective of the people around him, he was just a kid visiting a temple.

He put his hand on his heart, which was still raging with thrill. He didn't expect to meet Anagape Infida as soon as he quit being a demon, but he knew that it was unavoidable. From this moment on, he was going to be the target of all the demons, and he had prepared himself for this.

Walking through the crowds, he moved to a place in the temple with less people. From there he scanned all the templeground using his demonic senses. In less than a minute he knew every single room of the temple and each room's content in great details.

He needed to keep himself safe, and there was no safer place for him to be than a temple. He was also very glad to have found an old storage room that had a thick cover of dust accumulated all over the area and its items. A room, which nobody paid attention to, was exactly what he was looking for.

He walked away from the publicly accessible areas, and toward a door leading to a private hallway, which in turn led to the storage room. The door was unlocked, because many clergy members were constantly walking in and out of there, this whole day.

Naturally, someone would notice him entering the storage room, but he had powers to deal with it. As a demon, he could use his powers to make everyone notice and adore them, but he could also use his powers to make himself unnoticeable like a drop of water in an ocean.

Smoothly he passed monks, who were talking about someone requesting a house visit, and then he also passed a nun, who carried fresh laundry. The monk, who was in a hurry, didn't notice him at all, and he was almost at the end of the hallway, when a hoary monk greeted him.

"Hello."

He turned around unsure what happened. Did his demonic powers weaken, because of his new association? It shouldn’t be the case. God hadn’t forgiven him yet.

"Hello," he responded politely.

"What's your name?" the patriarch asked.

He thought for a while. Demons never gave their names to humans. There were two reasons for this. The first was that a human knowing a demon's name was humiliating for that demon. The second reason was that demon names were too difficult for humans to pronounce anyway, and teaching humans how to say them correctly was a waste of effort.

Normally humans created nicknames for demons, based on each demon’s unique characteristic. Just like that, the strongest demon got a nickname of "Satan", which simply meant “adversary” - in other words, an enemy of humans.

And the demon, whom he met just several moments ago, "Anagape Infida", also got her nickname in that very same manner. Naturally, all the demons detested the nicknames, which humans created for them, but no demon was willing to share with humans their real names, so there was no solution, which would please both humans and demons.

The eventually-to-be-ex-demon never had any major role in any human world, which meant that he never stood out enough for humans to notice him and give him a nickname. Sometimes, he wondered what nickname would humans give him. Well, right now most likely it would be…

"Traito…" he stopped himself before he finished the word.

"Traito? Is that your name?" the old monk had really good ears.

Getting called a traitor by demons didn't feel bad at all, and he had no better idea what name to use, so he just nodded, and accepted "Traito" as his new name.

"Traito, hmmm…" the old monk was deep in thoughts over the name.

Realizing that something didn't fit, he scanned the names of the people around, and realized that this world had a unique pattern of naming males after the names of trees or tall bushes, while the females were usually named after flowers and shrubs.

What a bummer. In this had been another world, Traito would have been a valid name, but in this world, his name stood out like crazy.

"I have to go back," he said and ran down the hallway. He looked into the chamber, where the liturgy was being performed. Then he looked at the doors, which led outside.

"I'm going to have to find another temple, and start all over" he thought, and went outside.

Amidst the cold, he walked out dressed in thin clothing. After he attracted some attention, he realized his mistake, and made himself invisible again. He passed through the front gate, and just as he stepped outside the templeground, he was hit in the side, and thrown down the street.

He understood right away what happened, but before he had a chance to react another hit came from above. This time, however, the hit was blocked by a barrier of black butterflies.

He got up to a sitting position, while his attacker narrowed his eyes, "you dare to steal from Hell, traitor?"

"So what?"

"Give it back."

"Try and take it," he said. His eyes turned dark red and something like blood began to drip from his eyes, ears and nose. Then from the wounds in his skin, red whips came out and cut his attacker like blades.

His attacker swiftly moved away, and he used that chance to get back onto the templeground.

The humans around were confused as they clearly saw the damage on the road, which just cracked out of nowhere. Yet all this time, they didn't see or hear the demons, who fought right next to them.

Once safe inside the templeground, the traitor-demon had realized that indeed all the demons were out hunting him, and even if Anagape Infida herself had left, there were still powerful demons waiting for him right outside of the templeground. He scanned the area, and he wasn't surprised to find two demons stationed at every exit.

"So it looks like you'll be staying with us, Traito," he heard the voice of the old monk, and when he turned around the monk was already standing behind him.

"Brother Hasty," a young nun approached the patriarch. "You'll catch a cold, dressed like that."

The young nun clearly saw the old monk, who went outside without any warm clothing, but she couldn't have possibly ignored a kid in the same state, which meant that his invisibility was working on her, as it did on everyone else except for the old monk.

"Let's go back," the nun said as she wrapped her arm around his, and slowly led the way.

"Sister Cold, you don't need to help me. I can see just fine," the old monk said.

Traito followed after the old monk, as it was the only logical thing to do. If God gave that monk the ability to see through demonic powers, that could only mean that the monk was certainly not his enemy.

"There are two steps in front of us," the nun stated the thing that anybody could see, and at that moment Traito scanned the old monk's body and found out that Brother Hasty was physically completely blind.

It has been two days since Traito began living in the temple. The blind monk wasn’t bothering him, and it appeared that no other human could see his invisible form. He couldn’t leave as the other demons were still waiting for him outside, so he spent his time observing humans and wandering within the templeground.

By the evening of the sixteenth day of Toas, he already knew everything, what was happening in the temple, and there was nothing else he could do to alleviate his boredom other than to meet and talk with Brother Hasty.

When Traito entered the room, the monk was kneeling in front of the window with his eyes looking up into the sky. The demon sat on the man’s bed and waited until the monk finished his evening prayers.

“May God send down his blessings and spread them across the world,” the monk spoke while making the sign of the cross. He stood up and walked up to his bed. “May I sleep?” he asked the demon, who in response moved to sit in the corner near the footboard of the bed.

“I’m bored,” Traito complained. “Can you do something about those demons?”

“What do you want me to do?” the monk asked as he pulled back the comforter.

“Make them regret ever coming to this world,” Traito smiled at the thought.

“How?” the monk lay down on the bedsheets.

“Aren’t you a monk? It should be your specialty.”

The monk pulled the comforter on top of his chest, and kept his eyes open and directed at the ceiling. To Traito, his eyes looked like they were watching something, so he looked up but there was nothing else there other than a ceiling.

Of course, the patriarch couldn’t see, and even if he could see, there was no way he could see anything in this darkness. Traito looked outside the window, and while there were many stars on the sky, the moon was so thin, that it looked like someone cut the black curtain of the sky with a sharp knife.

“Tell me a bedtime story,” Brother Hasty requested out of nowhere.

“What bedtime story?” Traito was confused

“You decide.”

He didn’t know what the monk was asking for and he didn’t understand why he would even request something like that from a demon. However, he was bored, so he just went along with the idea.

“Then do you want to know what happened to a man, who murdered his two daughters?”

The monk remained silent.

Traito waited several moments, but after hearing no answer, he began the tale. “In another world, far far away from here, lived a man with his wife. He had a son and two beautiful daughters. He arranged a marriage for his daughters, but his daughters had already chosen their beloved ones in secret.”

He stared at the monk’s face. “Why in secret, you may wonder. Because the young women knew that, if their father had found out, it wouldn’t end well for them. Unfortunately their father did find out about it. He killed both of them and ran away to another country. No one caught the man, and he lived the rest of his life without any punishment. However, that is not the end of the story, but only the beginning.”

He raised up one finger. “The first one to die was the man’s father. At his judgment, he was asked why he hadn't condemned his son, and the father said that his son did the right thing, because as a father he had the right to kill his children, and it was the daughters, who deserved the punishment for disobeying him.”

A nasty grin painted on Traito’s face, “and when the demons were dragging him to Hell, he claimed that he was obeying the words of God spoken by a prophet. Isn’t that hilarious? God has written the Divine Law in the hearts of all the humans, and yet the humans prefer to obey the words of liars over the Divine Law already present in their souls.”

He chuckled and continued the tale, “and then the murderer’s wife died. And at her judgment, she was asked why she hadn't condemned her son, and she begged for mercy, because if she had condemned her son, her husband would have killed her, too. A beautiful excuse that all mankind would have fallen into, but an excuse like that doesn’t work on the day of judgment. After all, fear is evil, and any action taken from fear is a sin.”

“A pitiful one,” the monk said.

The grin disappeared from the demon’s face and he just looked bored. “There are plenty of such souls in Hell. If you were to shed a tear of pity for every single one, by tomorrow morning you’d end up a dried-up corpse. Anyway, the next one to die was the murderer’s wife,” his evil grin returned, “but her question was different. Why didn’t she protect her children?”

It was an ancient hierarchy of the human world that men protected the women, and women protected the children. And so, the greatest of men was always the one, who fought to his death to protect his woman, and the greatest of women was always the one, who shielded her children with her own body at the cost of her life. If the woman were to die before the man, it was the man’s duty to protect the children, for whom the woman sacrificed her life.

“Her daughters often told her how they felt threatened by their father, but she ignored that. She was so in love with the man, that she was blind to his actions and behavior. She prioritized protecting her husband, over protecting her children, turning the hierarchy upside-down. And her only excuse at the judgment, was that she didn’t know about her duties as a woman. Can you believe it? A woman, who didn’t know that it was her holy duty to protect her children.”

Traito crossed his arms. “Of course, she was lying. That duty is one of the Divine Laws that are written in the heart of every woman. She knew what was the right thing to do, but instead of listening to the voice deep inside her heart, she followed her lust and suppressed her motherly instincts. There was no way that she could have avoided Hell.”

He grinned wider as his eyes narrowed. “And then, the next one to die was the murderer’s son, who was the brother of the two murdered daughters. Even he was asked, why didn’t he condemn his father? At first, he lied that he didn’t know what his father did. But lying at the time of judgment is like growing seaweed in a desert. It didn't work, so he changed the strategy, and went down with that same excuse of following the words of a prophet like his grandfather did.”

He straightened up his posture. “But there was one difference between his grandfather and him. He was near his father, and had the power to protect his sisters. He had the power to face his father, but instead of following the Divine Laws, he choose to follow his father like a dumb dog. Not only did he earn his place in Hell, he even got extra points for his ignorant behavior at the judgment.”

Traito stopped afterward, and observed the monk lying still in bed for several moments, before he renewed his story. “Finally, the murderer had died. By the way, monk, do you know why evil people tend to live so long?”

The monk sighed before he answered, “because God, in his mercy, is giving people time to repent. The greater the sin, the more time is given to repent.”

“Correct, but there’s an exception to that rule. If a human were to accumulate more sins than what they were able to repent in their lifetime, the death becomes imminent for them, which is why a murderer of one man can live a long life, but a murderer of many has his life cut short the moment he crossed his limit of sins per lifetime.”

Traito smirked again. “Anyway, after the man died, of course, he was asked questions regarding all his sins, and it was going all well for him until he was asked the very last question: Why did he kill two innocent women? Do you see how this question was phrased? It has no mention of the women being his daughters. Do you know why?”

“God created every man and every woman. Because they’re His creations, they’re His children. Every man is a son of God, and every woman is a daughter of God. All human parents are adopted parents, whom God temporarily gave a right to parent some of His children.”

“So when does God take that temporary right away from human parents?” the demon was further testing the monk.

“When a child makes his or her own decision about his or her own future. Human parents can command children, only as long as the children are unsure of what they want to become. Once children set their lifegoals, they are no longer under anyone’s control except for God, their only Father.”

“You’re really good at this, monk,” Traito complimented. “Both women already had the goal of their life. They had made their own decisions as to whom they want to marry, and with whom they want to spend the rest of their lives with. By all definitions, that man had no more power over them. Yet, after hearing the question the man tried to defend himself with claims that he was doing the right thing as their father.”

“Traito,” the monk spoke his name.

“Yeah?”

“I’m sleepy, let’s end here.”

“What? I didn’t even get to the good part. I was going to tell you what torture each of them earned in Hell. It’s super fun, you know.”

“Traito,” the monk closed his eyes.

“We have so much fun in Hell with all those souls. Some of them unfortunately leave because of God’s mercy, but there are also many lucky ones, like this murderer, who for all eternity will remain in Hell.”

“Traito, please,” the monk’s voice was weak and distant.

The demon stopped grinning, and fell silent. He listened to the patriarch’s breathing slowing down and becoming more and more regular, confirming that the monk had indeed fallen asleep. Not wanting to interrupt the monk’s rest, Traito silently sat at the corner, staring at the old monk’s sleeping face, like a cat staring at his owner.

When Brother Hasty woke up in the morning, the demon immediately greeted him with a continuation of yesterday’s conversation. “Depending on the sin, there are different tortures, and especially the ones that involve murder are especially hilarious.”

The monk was still in bed, when he asked, “yesterday, before I fell asleep, what was the last sentence you said?”

Demons had perfect memory. It was so perfect that they could perfectly reconstruct anything that had occurred in their past. “Some of them unfortunately leave because of God’s mercy, but there are also many lucky ones, like this murderer, who for all eternity will remain in Hell.”

“What do you mean some of them leave? Isn’t Hell eternal?”

“Right. In human language you have two words: Hell and purgatory. Technically speaking, it’s the same place, but different end results. Those who are condemned eternally go to Hell, and the other ones eventually learn to regret their action, and leave Hell in order to go to Heaven. The second type is said to have gone to the purgatory, which is kind of like saying «went to Hell for a limited time period».”

“Can you be more clear?”

“On which topic?”

“Why do some souls get sentenced to eternity in Hell, whereas others don’t?”

Traito rolled his eyes. He would expect monks to already know something so basic. “Death freezes the spiritual state of a soul, because, just like all the other spiritual beings, a soul cannot change unless it’s inside a physical body. When a human dies with a strong sense of commiting no sin, his soul is frozen in that state of mind. Thus no reform is ever possible. As such, Hell is the only place, where such a soul can be without causing harm to others.”

“What about souls that go to purgatory?”

“Any man, who regrets his actions upon death, in other words, someone who is willing to admit to his sins and receive punishment for them, ends up in a purgatory. And as I said, it’s the same place as Hell. There, the regretting sinners choose their own punishments for their own actions. After their souls get purified from torture, they leave and go to Heaven.”

“If a soul chooses its own punishment, wouldn’t that be too light?”

“Souls filled with regret don’t choose a light punishment. Quite the other way around - they often choose punishments so harsh that even the demons would be afraid to suffer like that.”

“But after the purgatory, they go to Heaven,” the monk said as he sat up on the bed.

“Of course, as long as they have the minimum requirements.”

“I never heard of minimum requirements to enter Heaven.”

“I’m sure you have, the requirements to enter Heaven are very well known: faith, hope, and love.”

“The three greatest virtues,” the monk slowly got off the bed.

“Yeah, yeah. You humans always have a different name for everything. We just call them three requirements to enter Heaven. By the way, do you know what are the three requirements to avoid Hell?”

“Isn’t it the same?” he walked up to his chair, where his robe was and began putting it on top of his sleep gown.

“Wrong answer, but I’ll give you a hint this time. One is an ability to understand and acknowledge one’s own weak and flawed nature. The other is to loathe the evil that resides inside one’s own body and to hate one’s own evil actions and words. The last one is to deeply desire to undo one’s own sins, and to change for better by removing evil from within oneself.”

“Ah yes, the three requirements for purification of sins: humility, remorse, and regret,” the monk joyfully gave his answer.

“You got it,” Traito wondered why so many humans go to Hell, if they already possessed all that knowledge.

“There’s one question from me, if I may,” the patriarch’s tone of voice became serious. “Are the demon the ones, who spread the lie of reincarnation in the human world?”

Traito smiled, “unfortunately, no. The demons would love to take responsibility for it, but we did nothing here. It’s all human misunderstanding of the process of incarnation.”

“How?”

“A long time ago, a sage explained to men how a human soul, born in the spiritual world, incarnates into a physical body, and how after it leaves the physical body, it incarnates back into a spiritual body. Humans, who were listening to the story, misunderstood that after death people are born again into another body.”

“I see.”

“But it’s not the end of that misunderstanding. The people capable of reading the names of human souls added more to all the confusion.”

God named every creature, which He created. For that reason, all the beings in the world carried at least one name - the name given to them by God. Some cherished that name, others didn’t. Meanwhile, humans, who usually used the name given to them by their adopted human parents, would often forget the name, which they received from God.

“As you know, souls with the same name carry a lot of similarities. And when the child’s soul had the same name as the soul of the child’s great-grandfather, it was easy for humans to assume that the great-grandfather had been reborn in the body of the newborn child, when in reality those were two different souls, whom God gave the same name.”

Brother Hasty took a deep sigh, “it would have been so much easier, if people knew what happened to them before they were born.”

“They do know.”

The blind monk shook his head, “being told is different. It would have been good, if each person remembered what happened before they were incarnated. I wonder why God takes those memories away.”

“He doesn’t,” Traito sounded perplexed. “God wouldn’t do that. Human souls are made of memories. If the memories were to be erased, the soul would dissipate. From the moment of its birth, spiritual beings carry their memories with them. Humans still carry the memories of their pre-incarnated existence.”

Brother Hasty stared at the demon in disbelief. “Then why don't they remember anything from that time?”

“The same reason, why they don’t remember most of the things in their lives. In order to recall the events of the past, they use the brain of the body, which has limited capacity. If the mankind were to use the mind of the soul, which has unlimited power, they could have easily recalled everything in all the details.”

“Mercy cannot exist without justice, and justice cannot exist without mercy. Humans are always unjust in their judgments, because they never know the whole story. And they’re always merciless, because they never know what exists inside the heart of another human.”

Yew yawned, and wondered why did he bother coming to the liturgy. He recalled that he didn’t want to be left all alone in that majestic chamber on a Monday morning, so he tagged along with Ginkgo without asking where the man was going. And now both of them were sitting in the front rows listening to a monk.

“However God knows everything. Therefore He is always just. For His judgment is based on the complete record of all actions and all events. And God always knows what’s inside the heart of every human being. Therefore He is always merciful. However, mercy should never be mistaken for leniency, because mercy is a form of justice. To a man, who regrets his actions, it is merciful to lessen his punishment. However, to a man of stone heart, who takes pleasure in hurting others, it is truly a merciful act of God to increase the punishment beyond the mere penalty for the physical acts.”

It was the same monk, who invited Ginkgo over, and the two of them seemed to be friends, although Yew never asked about it.

“That’s why God’s mercy is an act greater than justice. For justice means to judge people by their deeds alone. However, mercy means to judge people not only by their deeds but also by their hearts. Because an intentional harm is a far worse evil than an accidental one, and only God alone knows the difference, because only God alone can read what’s in the heart.”

It wasn’t the first time, when Yew was in a liturgy, but it was the first time, when he sat in the front row. He never came on a weekday before, and unlike Sundays, the church was mostly empty. He was glad that there weren’t many people around, because he was already feeling weird by sitting so close to the preaching monk.

“The other day, someone asked me: is God good? Last week, I explained to you all how God means the One, who is everything. I may have failed to properly explain the topic last time, so I shall answer this question. Everything is the synonym of good by itself, because evil comes from lack, and when everything exists there is no lack, thus evil becomes impossible.

The monk cleared his throat, “Starvation, for example, is a lack of food. Homelessness is a lack of home. Even human actions, such as murder or robberies, occur due to lack of compassion towards one’s brethren. Therefore, no lack means no evil, and since a lack cannot exist within everything, thus everything means only good. As such God, who is everything, is the true good in its purest form.” The monk closed the notebook in his hand and put it away.

Yew stood up together with Ginkgo, who stood up as soon as the monk put away his notebook. The monk led a prayer, which everyone knew except for Yew, who didn’t participate. He found prayers too boring to memorize them, and he didn’t even pay attention to what was said. Quietly, he copied whatever Ginkgo did, and awaited the end of the liturgy.

After the final blessing, some women came up to the monk, and had a talk with him for quite a long time. Ginkgo meanwhile sat down on the bench and patiently waited, while Yew regretted coming in the first place.

When the women finally left, the monk headed to the exit door, and Ginkgo followed him. Yew went as well, thinking to ask Ginkgo to take him back to the chamber, but the two men started a conversation as soon as they started walking down the hallway, and Yew didn’t feel like interrupting.

“Hey,” Ginkgo said to the monk, “if I said that I saw all kinds of men in the bathhouse, then did I commit a sin?”

The monk smiled at Ginkgo’s test. “What’s your assumption?” he asked, sensing an intellectual trap.

“I didn’t exclude women when I meant men,” Ginkgo smirked.

“Where in the world do you find a bathhouse that doesn’t separate men from women?” Brother Stupid responded.

“Maybe it exists in another world?”

“Sure, I bet there’s one in Hell,” they both laughed. “Are you still single?”

“Uhm,” Ginkgo found it hard to answer.

“You really picked a hard nut.”

“By the way, do you know this joke: Why should you never complain to God?”

“Why?”

“Because that time, when a man complained that no animal understood him, God gave him a woman,” the two of them laughed again. “So even a monk gets this joke,” Ginkgo noted.

“I get to hear a lot from married couples,” he looked at Yew. “Your disciple?”

“Good question,” Ginkgo also looked at Yew, who looked away from their gazes.

But then he looked back at them, and asked, “are you friends?”

“We used to be,” Ginkgo smiled at the monk.

“Don’t bring it up,” the monk waved his hand near his face.

“We went to Nike together,” Ginkgo started. “We started at the same time, and we went on adventures together. We made a great team. I thought we’ll become an adventurer duo, but after graduating he went to be a monk. Can you believe it?”

“Adventurer duo was all your idea. I never agreed to that.”

“But you never even once mentioned monkhood,” Ginkgo sounded upset.

“I wasn’t sure about it,” the monk looked straight at Ginkgo.

“And then you left me,” rather than an accusation, Ginkgo’s voice sounded a bit like a joke.

The monk shook his head as he sighed.

“So you’re no longer friends?” Yew asked.

“Yes, we’re no longer friends,” Ginkgo stated. “We’re brothers,” he threw his arm around the monk.

“I didn’t force you,” the monk spoke right away, and Ginkgo smiled in response.

“You’re brothers?” Yew didn’t understand what was going on between the men, and neither one of them explained anything.

Brother Stupid freed himself from Ginkgo’s arm and walked forward, albeit at a slower pace.

“Because monks are always brothers to each other,” Ginkgo smirked as he spoke to Yew.

“You’re a monk?”

“Half-monk.”

“There’s no such thing,” the monk quickly reacted.

“I did the vows,” Ginkgo exclaimed.

The monk waved his hand in the air as if he was chasing away a fly.

“Brother Stupid doesn’t want to accept me as a monk, but you call me Brother Genius,” Ginkgo spoke toward Yew pointing at himself.

“What did you do?” Yew asked out of curiosity.

“Well, you see, right after graduation my best buddy left without a word, so I got upset and went to search for him. When I finally found him in a temple, I decided that our friendship cannot end like this, so I also joined the temple.”

“Joined is a wrong term,” Brother Stupid poked at the word. “The monks had asked you to wait, and after three days you broke through the main gate and barged inside like a bandit.”

Ginkgo laughed, “how was I supposed to know that I was being tested?” he asked the monk, then he looked at Yew, “I was told to wait outside the temple. Anybody would think that they got ignored and denied, if they spent three days and two nights sitting in front of the main gate.”

“What?” Yew was surprised how resilient Ginkgo was to wait that long.

“That’s crazy, right?” Ginkgo smiled at the boy. “I had no idea then, but it turns out all temples have some secret test that they apply to whomever wants to join. And the test of this temple was to make each candidate wait three days and three nights outside the temple. If they left in the meantime, they failed, but if they remained, then on the morning of the fourth day they were accepted.”

“And you failed superbly.”

“I dare to disagree. I never walked away.”

“You destroyed the front gate and demanded that they accept you or else you’ll burn down the temple. There was no way any temple would accept someone so violent.”

“I never hurt anyone, and I was desperate.”

Brother Stupid looked right into Ginkgo’s eyes and furrowed his eyebrows. “What did the Elder Father tell you?”

“Oh, you still want to know? I’m not telling you.”

“I spent nine years with you in Nike, and one thing I thought I always knew about you was your unwavering determination. Once you had set your mind on something, it was impossible to change it.”

Ginkgo walked faster to be ahead of the monk, who furrowed his eyebrows.

“Yet the Elder Father only spoke with you for several minutes in his cell. And after both of you left the cell, your determination to be a monk was all but gone. I never thought it to be possible, so I’ve been wondering what could change your mind like this, but I still cannot think of anything.”

Ginkgo didn’t answer. He just smiled at Brother Stupid, who gave up on the answer. He made a turn into another hallway, and walked into a room, where he took out a cleaning robe from the cleaning closet, put it on top of his robes, and started sweeping the floors.

Ginkgo hung around, sometimes helping, sometimes just getting in the way as the two talked about old times, and many things which only they understood.

Yew found it boring to be around them, so he began exploring the temple by himself. He walked into different rooms and touched random items, which he would find there.

All doors were wooden, sturdy with huge iron locks, but decorated with carvings of angels surrounded by words from the holy scriptures. The walls in the rooms were painted snow-white with tiny spots of gold almost as if a golden snow was falling down all around him. But the ceilings were painted dark blue with golden sparks, which looked just like the starry night sky. It was so much more simpler than the elaborate scenes painted on the hallway walls.

However, unlike the hallways the rooms weren’t empty at all. Large shelfcases were filled with heavy thick volumes of scriptures bound in leather hardcover and decorated with sophisticated handwritings. Walls were almost hidden by paintings of all sizes, each one protected inside the sturdy wooden frames engraved with intricate carvings. Every painting felt like a real scene, as if Yew was looking not at a painting, but into a window showing him another world.

On one painting there was a street scene from above, and Yew felt as if the people down there were real and moving, even though neither one of them changed his or her position. On another painting, he saw a woman with long hair combing her hair, and when he walked away, he could swear that the woman was staring at him, even though her eyesight on the painting was directed downward at her own brush.

He opened a drawer on a tall chest by the door, and he saw so many objects inside, that he didn’t even know what he should start looking at. He took out a small statue of a bird with his wings hiding his face. He looked at it from the bottom, and saw that there was something inside the bird’s mouth.

“Don’t drop it.”

Yew heard the voice, and immediately put the small statue back. He looked toward the door, where he saw a patriarch standing there looking at him with one eye, while his other eye was almost closed.

The elder monk was bent forward like a man with a hunchback, and he leaned with both of his hands on top of a cane. He had a thin but long beard and mustache, and quite a lot of hair on his head, which was loosely falling around him.

“I’m sorry,” Yew responded immediately, and closed the drawer.

“You came with Ginkgo?”

The boy nodded, “yes.”

“You’re too old to be his son,” the old monk said.

“I’m… I travel with him…” Yew realized that he had a hard time explaining why they were together.

“Nevermind,” the monk interrupted him. “What about her?”

“Her?”

“Caraway,” the monk spoke a name that Yew had never heard of before.

However, before Yew could ask any question, Brother Stupid came from another room carrying a broom in his hand, “Elder Father, shouldn’t you be resting?”

Ginkgo followed behind Brother Stupid, albeit at a distance so as not to interfere with his work.

“I rest while I walk,” the Elder Father responded and he slowly walked away.

Yew approached Ginkgo and asked him, “who’s Faraway?”

Ginkgo looked at the boy puzzled by the question.

Yew realized that the name he had just heard slipped away from his memory. Unable to recall it, he dropped the topic, and instead concentrated on a more important matter.

After all, his schoolmates were sure to ask him what he was doing, while he was gone. Thus he had to have a good excuse to tell them, so he began to plan a backstory, which he would later repeat to Spruce, Aspen and Linden.