Join me in night painted with crimson and black.

The Wisps danced in the air, their mouths sucking it like the void… and they disappeared, leaving behind the afterglow of their blue flames – the glitter and shimmer that remained in this reality, like a trace left by their ethereal bodies.

Tiyan knew this was the place. The dark night around them seemed to catch at their clothes with the wind, which began to blow again with renewed strength, the wail of the gusts piercing his ears with mournful dirges.

The wind knew.

This was the place where two realities met, a door to the faerie realm. A hole in the world. A gateway to horror.

And he had to silence his fear, which wailed like the wind, and pass through.

He remembered how he had toyed for a moment in his house with the idea of not going. To leave Mina and try to save himself. What chance did he have? He will die with Mina. Mina is already lost.

But these were wrong thoughts, thoughts of a lost man who had replaced his heart with cowardice. He may not have been a hero, but he would never leave his sister to die.

He felt Ona more than he saw her, as she put her hand on his arm and squeezed. Her presence, even though they had known each other so briefly, was a poultice on a weeping wound. She taught him that the weak can win. And that fear doesn’t define us.

Noyd’s memory suddenly slipped into his mind and he thought of the promise. When, if. Though he promised her he would return, he knew – and she knew too – that it wasn’t up to him. But when he returns, he will make up for all the mistakes. He will give her back the years they have lost. Love her as she deserves. And be the friend he always was – but more.

“So here we are,” Ona said. That was enough. He hadn’t expected her to come with him. Surely she had her own business to also had suffering sister and he understood that she had a mission too.
And since she hadn’t tried to force him to fulfil his promise to her, he wouldn’t do that to her.

“I am afraid,” Tiyan admitted, and it was honest and natural.

Ona laughed bitterly.

“We all are.”

Tiyan approached the place where the Wisps had disappeared. His hand reached out. Cautiously he moved closer and his hand passed through the soft barrier. A tiny blue spark of energy enveloped his hand and began to creep up. Tiyan quickly removed his hand and the sparks dispersed, sinking to the ground where they fell.

“You must know something,” Ona’s voice was doubtful. Hollow and silent.

He turned to her, his gaze curious. The barrier behind him became more visible, like a glass, like a face of water.

“I know… you burn, Tiyan,” he could clearly see how hard it was for her. But not for him… not as hard as he thought when he started his journey. He had burned many times in his dreams. So many times in the last few nights. He didn’t feel the flames, but he set the world on fire and watched in horror as he burned it to a cinder. “When you sleep. The Fae…”

He swallowed a hard bile. Perhaps Ona thought he might abandon his mission. He sensed her will to speak. Explain. Try to find common sense.

“They want something from me, don’t they?”

Ona looked at him, a well-hidden worry on her painted face. Her eyes… they changed colour again. Now they were blue and green at the same time. Strange.

Just like him.

“Yes, Tiyan. They want you. And when the Fae want something, it’s never good.”

“Maybe I am not good,” Tiyan chuckled darkly and a shiver ran down his spine. How easily he accepts the reality that a mortal enemy of humanity wants him – for whatever purpose. That he burns – really burns, not only in his dreams. A casual thought. An unimportant detail.

The barrier behind him began to move, sending water-like tendrils in his direction.

“Now it’s too late to think about whether I’m good or not,” he said, the darkness creeping back into his voice. “But I am not a coward.”

“No,” Ona looked at him, intensely. “No, you are not.”

He felt unreal. The unreal world he was going into wanted him, desired him like a dark lover. And he was going to submit.

His hand met the shadowed vines. They were slowly drawing him closer, hungry, so hungry. He felt his breathing stop and his feet carry him closer. He suddenly caught a scent of pine, so real, as if it had come straight from his past, when everything was simpler and the sun didn’t shine on the frozen land.

He was already facing the glass-like structure of the now fully visible door to Ain’asel.

He didn’t turn to Ona. Ona didn’t expect him to.

Do not turn back.

Never.

He said this to himself so many times that he believed that if he turned back, he would lose all strength and run, run as fast as he could and hide under branches – like a coward.

Which he was not.

One step.

Two steps.

You can still turn back. You can still save yourself, as you always have.

No.

His face met the gate, his body sucked in, like a rock sinking into the dark lake. He disappeared, devoured by the maw of another world.

Ona looked at the vanishing gate with hope and doubt. She looked long. As if to find an answer in the afterglow of light it left behind – just like the Wisps.

Until reality didn’t force her to set up camp and think about her risky plan to free Isnan. She was only a week of walk from Arelt.

Good luck, Tiyan.

Do not let them use you.

Do not let them kill you.

We all have our dark scores to settle.

The Wisps appeared twice in the distance, and Ona wasn’t convinced. It looked too much like the typical things these wandering fires did, but Tiyan looked restless and almost excited, as if the spell promised him to find his sister safe and alive, and the mere presence of the Wisps meant her safety and Tiyan’s victory.

She didn’t blame him… yet his ravenous trust was as naive as it was cruel – for him and him alone. He was sure that the solution lay where the gate to Ain’asel let him into the fairy realm. But no one ever really returned from there – sane. Who knew what dangers awaited him there – for it was obvious that it was dangerous.

And she couldn’t go with him.

Not because she was afraid. Not because she thought he would betray her if Brusha spoke for him. Because she didn’t know how much time she had left – she only knew that she had little of it. Both her siblings have been kidnapped. Neither will ever sacrifice their own cause for the other.

Isnan wouldn’t make it if Ona decided to help Tiyan. If Tiyan forgot his sister, she would be condemned to a cruel death. No decision was easy in this macabre reality.

Tiyan’s normally brown eyes burned white in the darkness, and that alone reminded her of the white and blue flames that consumed him.

The Fae waited for him. For his flames. And somehow Ona suspected that they wouldn’t use them for good. At least not in the name of humanity. Their plans could cause even more suffering. And Tiyan was – unwillingly – a key to that.

“Do you hear that?”

Ona looked at him in surprise. It was the first time he spoke today. It had become a rather comfortable habit for them not to speak for hours. They didn’t feel the need to fill the silence with words. They didn’t need words. They were replaced by a silent understanding of each other’s situation. Even if Ona never told him about Isnan, not completely, for fear he would ask more.

About magic. About witchcraft.

People hated magic now. Ona wasn’t a witch herself, but Isnan was a very strong one, blessed by the Goddess with healing powers. Her good heart was supported by an inner flame and strength of personality. She was prepared to fight for her beliefs and for those she loved. Ona only hoped that she was the same.

Ona listened.

No. Nothing.

But that’s what Tiyan meant. No wind. There was no wind. No branch moved. No rotten leaf whispered in the falling darkness, rustling softly.

The world seemed dead.

She nodded. She heard that. Listening to the silence, she caught the absence of all life.

The night came, dark and unforgiving, and Ona, prepared as she was, suddenly felt the emptiness in her chest. These trees were always dead… but not petrified forever, turned to stone, eternal and cold, lasting for centuries.

That was part of the Fae enchantment. And somehow Ona felt that they were very close. Very close to Ain’asel. Which was in the north… but not in the strict sense of the word.

Tiyan’s eyes lit up, he understood that too. Ona could feel the suppressed worries emanating from him. They were almost tangible.

And then time stopped.

The first thing Ona felt was an intense smell of blood. Heavy, hanging in the air with crimson notes; old blood that was still fresh enough to stink.

She couldn’t help but notice how Tiyan had changed – had to change – over the past two weeks. With a sullen, stern expression on his face, he decided to check it out. Ona almost suspected that the fire he burns at night was slowly, very slowly, hardening him.

The branches and snow-covered bushes stood in their way, but both Tiyan and Ona managed to clear them from their path, literally feeling the heavy atmosphere that hung over this part of the forest.

Something was happening here. Something wrong that still had a rotten smell of magic on it, pressing everything down with its power.

Tiyan went first, and so he saw it.

Ona, following in his footsteps, emerged from the white overgrowth – but she wasn’t ready for the sight that unfolded before her, like a sick painting made of dark bark and blood.

A young man was tangled in the branches, his legs spread, his spine bent, his skin on his back, his hands sunk into the tree as if it were trying to swallow him. Tiny sprouts were growing from his skin, and Ona was horrified to see them coming straight from his veins. The blood pooled beneath him, slowly feeding the hungry snow. The tiny sprouts seemed to be eating him alive, Ona realised. Some of them burrowed back into his flesh, deeper, to return to where they came from, trying to widen his veins.

Worst of all, the man just looked at them, no longer desperate. He was still alive, for Goddess only knew how long.

Tiyan groaned, a small, painful sound. They approached the man, felt the aura around them tense and begin to attack their minds.

Ona touched the young human’s tortured skin and almost felt him tremble with pain. She quickly pulled away.

“It’s my fault,” Tiyan said, his eyes fixed on the human’s. Ona could see real guilt in them.

“You realise it was the fey,” she didn’t want him to blame himself again.

“The Fey,” he said, his throat tightening. “They told me I was too slow.”

Meanwhile, Ona inspected the young human. He was completely drained of blood, but somehow still alive. And she knew what had to be done.

But that didn’t make it any easier.

The man moaned as he saw her reach for the knife. And she saw in his eyes an even stronger plea, a death wish so intense that it moved her more than the sight of sprouts growing from his veins.

She took a breath, gathered her courage and before Tiyan could react or even say anything, she buried the knife in the man’s still beating heart.

Tiyan gasped.

The man wheezed in pain. The branches of the tree that held him captive reached Ona at once, but as the life drained from the human, the tree became less animated.

As his head rested on his chest, the branches began to pull back, less and less alive. As if trying to catch the last bit of life, they dragged through the blood that was spreading under the man’s feet and then… they stopped moving at all.

“I’m sure they want you to think it’s your fault,” Ona summed up, still feeling the unpleasant sensation of how easily the knife had sunk into the man’s heart, “but the more you torture yourself, the more unprepared you’ll be for what awaits you out there.”

She knew her words were harsh. But Tiyan was the least guilty of all. Her initial suspicion that he was working for Ain’asel was reduced to almost nothing. She saw only a desperate man, forced to make a journey that was too much for him. One that had given him – or cursed him – strange powers of which he probably had no knowledge.

She decided to tell him. Perhaps then, when – if – they parted, he would know better what they might want from him.

In the distance, flickering fires appeared.

Tiyan looked stunned, but he saw them too. The Will-o’-the-Wisps danced across a small path that led to the grove of dead trees. Their open mouths, which now seemed to be eyes again, opened and closed in an eternal, hungry dance.

For flames.

For the flames that Tiyan carried.

Ona found the sight of the wisps strangely comforting. Perhaps if they hurried, there would be no need for reminders. The last thing she wanted was to be the cause of another death. Even if it was not their fault, she had to remember, something she wanted Tiyan to understand.

Even if she had just ended a life.

Even if sometimes… death was a blessing.

“We must tear him from this tree,” Ona said heavily. “Bury him, at least under the branches.”

Tiyan nodded gravely and they began to pull the man out slowly, carefully. To give him the last honours. And not allow anything to feast on his body.

It was the least they could do.

Noyd jumped over the fallen log, Tiyan jumped after her. The forest seemed to sparkle as the sun shone through the branches like jewels between spread fingers. Tiyan felt the sun enter his eyelids and blind him for a moment, only to release him suddenly when the leaves dimmed the light.

“My mother said it is unwise to look at the sun,” Noyd said with a light, friendly sneer. “You could lose your eyes.”

Tiyan’s face lit up with one of his special smiles with which he broke the hearts of adults: light, innocent. Puppy smile.

The forest was their second home. It surrounded Inamora and stretched throughout the Vennklan Valley. Bright and safe during the day because the villages were undisturbed by predators; mysterious and tempting at night. The perfect place for children to disappear into the thicket, recklessly – and bravely – and then suddenly reappear for supper, guided by instinct and their inner compass.

Tiyan has had such a compass since he learned to walk. He always knew where he was, he didn’t even have to look to see. Noyd said he was a wizard. She herself got lost easily as they entered the dense forest.

“You’re a mage, not a knight,” she laughed. “You don’t have to have a sword. Magic is enough.”

Tiyan preferred the sword. He had never held a sword in his hand, but he felt that he could fight, save damsels in distress and compete in tournaments,

The magic was strange. Too wild for him. Too chaotic. At least the sword had shape and lay securely in one’s hand.

Besides, real mages didn’t exist. There were only witches, but they were blessed by the goddess. And they were only girls.

Tiyan wouldn’t want to be a medic anyway, like the witches did. The blood scared him a bit.

Noyd joked about how he would become a knight when he was afraid of blood. Knights shed blood. In war and defending damsels in distress.

Tiyan didn’t know how to respond to this, so he got offended and didn’t talk to Noyd until she dragged him away for another escapade.

“Where are we?” Noyd, despite her warning, looked straight at the sun.

“You’ll lose your eyes,” Tiyan grinned.

Noyd gave him a killer smile.

“I think I know where; we should reach Nagava soon.”

Nagava was a small river flowing through the forest. It was the outflow of the Solma, which stretched far, far away to the sea in the west.

“We’ll be able to get our feet wet,” he added because he was a little tired.

Noyd ran, so he followed her – soon they saw a river, surrounded by grass and stones, shallow enough at the ford for them to get wet.

Tiyan entered first, delighted to feel the clean water washing his feet. The sun was shining, warm and bright, and the forest looked like something out of a fairy tale. Tiyan went deeper, the water reached his knees.

“Noyd, come!”

But he heard no answer.

“Noyd?” he turned around, because it was very out of character for his friend to fall silent at the climax of the fun..

Very slowly.

With a questioning eyebrow raised.

And then he saw the flames.

Noyd stood by the water, her mouth open in a silent scream, her body ravaged by fire so intense it was white. Her arms were spread to her sides, as if she wanted to embrace the flames and embrace him, to share the burning embers with him.

And Noyd… moved towards him.

Tiyan shouted.

He screamed for a long, long time. Millenia, eons. Screamed until he couldn’t scream anymore, his voice choking in his throat.

Until he felt fire on his skin.

He woke up, disoriented, scared and still half-asleep. The warmth embraced him with heat, and the scent of burn reached his nostrils, and the feeling of water dripping over his head.

He watched with horror, how the white hot flames crawled over his body. He was ready to scream, sure that he is only numbed by shock and the pain will come soon, but it didn’t and Tiyan slowly raised up, sitting on the blanket. His clothes, his warm thick jacket and pants, were unaffected, the fire, even if he felt its heat, wasn’t burning him.

It was in some way… beautiful. Like the dance of the light and shadows. The snow melted around him, but the fire didn’t drown in water, it was water which started to evaporate.

It was that hot.

And it was both scaring him and hypnotizing. The flames licked his fingers, untamed and wild.

His gaze darted at Ona. In fear, in doubt. This was the same fire that burned the deadling, making a pulp from his arms. It was the same fire that he didn’t tell her about. He was almost sure that if she saw it, she would either leave him on the road, not allowing him nearby.

Or… the worst scenario was that she would think he is cursed or is a servant of the Fae… and he knew her maybe not long enough, but he was sure she would kill him then.

His eyes moved with the flames, which didn’t harm him, at all, almost kissing him, placing tender caress on his skin.

And thought crept into his mind. Wild, unnatural and mad. If he was able to do that, how could it help him to pry Mina from the talons of Ain’asel? How much these burning white could harm the fey? But mostly, how much they knew about it and why they wanted it so much for themselves? Because he was sure that this, nothing else, is making him so valuable in their eyes.

It scared him, but something deep in his soul protested before this fear. Use it. He felt almost… like the fire speaks to him to give himself to this, how it tempts him. But that… was scaring him even more.

Ona slept. He at least thought so.

Her half-lidded eyes observed him, though. Pierced him, like daggers. Green eyes in a blackened face, so dark, that almost invisible.

But she didn’t say anything.

The flames seemed to sink into Tiyan’s skin. Disappearing, like mist. He caught himself holding breath. He almost felt as his lungs sucked in air, when he inhaled. The scent of heat dispersed, like the fire never was there.

He felt a huge bile forming in his throat. This was evil. This was not a gift.

But he wanted, suddenly, for it to not be a dream. He needed everything to save his sister. Even if his heart protested and squeezed at the possibilities.

He hated killing. He hated magic. But the imagination of screaming Mina, tortured by the beautiful darkness, was enough for him to hate enough to take the Fae’s life.

The woods seemed endless. Like they were closing around them, trapping them in a perfect circle, making them go after their own footsteps. Ona didn’t try to pull his secrets off him, and he was grateful for that. Though he was catching her gaze on himself, a watchful one, a bit distrustful, a bit curious.

Whatever she saw in him, was making her interested, more than before.

Tiyan slowly was getting numbed by monotony and his own worries. Only two days since the fey beast attacked them. The landscape was gloomy, and mentally devastating, in peculiar, soul-draining way. They hunted and had food, at least, the last animal though was almost not rotten and they had maybe more clean meat – but, due to that stronger, less pained, more agile. Deadly in its fury. A doubt entered even Ona’s eyes. No one wants to die, when has a goal to take.

Ona getting not only curious, but also restless. It was long since she heard her talking like in the beginning. Her eyes were sad and he knew, he felt, that she would go her way, if he ever found the passage. Her summons were elsewhere, not in Ain’asel. And Tiyan was an emphatic observer.

Maybe fae were showing him the path all the time… Maybe he was just a fool, and thanks to his foolishness, Mina may suffer. Maybe the night fires were always present, but he was blind to them.

He tormented himself, and his torture was painted with heavy, grey clouds during day and enchanted gleam during night – lighted up by their bonfire and moon reflecting in the snow. By the stars which looked down below, possibly pondering why he even tries. For stars, everything was short and irrelevant. For him, it lasted way too long.

But…

When the sun started to set over second day, when they were both too tired to go on, he saw them. He really saw them, and his eyes lit with hopeful enthusiasm. At last. He would fall in the snow, straight on his knees, thanking the goddess, if he dared to lose them from sight.

Dancing in the air, small enchanted flames, blue, green and white – they seemed small and harmless. At first they looked like eyes, blinking at him, luring him, inviting him to spend time in their company. But as they came closer, Tiyan could see their tiny mouth; they moved, licked the flames and sucked in the air – no eyes, no faces, just mouth, mouth like holes, dark as night, surrounded by cold blaze.

“Ona” he caught her by the jacket; she looked in the direction he pointed out. Her faces immediately formed a frown, her lips tightly shut, like she wanted to bite through the array of the flames.

“What the fu—“

Tiyan shook his head. He couldn’t lose them now.

“I think… They are the Wisps. I heard about them in Inamora. They tend to send humans straight into fae hands. Making them lose their path, showing wrong ways.”

“I know what Wisps are,” whispered Ona. Her eyes never left the fires, which were coming closer. “Are they… the ones the fey promised you? If no…”

“I think so” Tiyan was sure of this, the first time during the whole journey.

“I think… it may be a trap” said doubtfully Ona, when the Wisps slowly arrived and surrounded Tiyan with their ghastly presence. Their mouths opened and released long tongues which started to check Tiyan, tasting him, leaving coal trails over his jacket, trousers and face. Ona looked at it, not sure if she should allow this, or pull out the iron. The fact that Tiyan just stood there, almost happy that he sees these sprites, crawled into her head with an image of him burning, enjoying the flames.

She would too – a sudden thought. It that was to save Isnan.

Tiyan heard something. A song. It was coming from nowhere, like sounding straight in his head. He saw the tilted head of Ona. Was she hearing it too? The song was sad, melancholic, pulling all dark cords that housed in his mind. This was a song of lost hopes and unfulfilled dreams. Freezing as the fae land, and somehow filled with certain desperate fire. Beautiful, and scary, like midnight fairy tales.

Song of oblivion, of empty passages in deep ice. Of hidden caverns awash by cold underground water. Of moonless fens which didn’t know the human presence.

And suddenly, Tiyan knew the direction. He felt it in his skull, under his eyelids and in his heart.

Delicious human… he was so slow… so blind on signs.

Tiyan swallowed. Hard. His mind was open, even if he didn’t clear it from all thoughts, even if he didn’t allow. More powerful spell worked here, something that was filling him in, taking his mind as a hostage. He felt dark presence in his head, darker than the Wisps.

He will witness our lord’s anger. He will witness it, whether he wants it or not.

The Wisps slowly disattached from him and flew in the direction which he knew was right.

It was not my fault, do not harm her. I couldn’t see.

It’s not his fault? Not her fault? It’ the fault of weak minds. But the blood spilled already. Tasty, tasty human blood.

Ona was looking at him with a doubtful expression. Her usually mossy green eyes, now turning deep aquamarine. He wanted to ask her so many times about it. But now, it seemed so irrelevant.

Please, do not harm her. I will do everything you wish for me. Just give me some more time.

Only a few nights, he heard a tingling laughter, his patience has limits and his anger… not.

When the small cold flames disappeared, he felt as places they touched on his skin started to burn, slightly, but painfully. He touched his face, smearing the coal trails over the skin.

Now I look like Ona, a crazy thought came to him and when their gazes met, he couldn’t stop a pained grin. He was afraid and that made him amused, in a dark way. This was so unreal, all of this. He went so far, showing how worthless he is, how many mistakes he made. How low his chances are, even if the Shadow won’t kill him and Mina on the first day of his presence in Ain’asel.

But he was going, even if he was scared. He passed the point of no return. The fear, the courage, the cowardice and will to survive, all merged in him into a pulp made of lack of choices, giving him strength to enter the cursed realm… and taking all hopes from him.

“You don’t look good” a crooked smile bloomed on Ona’s face.

“I look like you.”

“You will never look like me. Only if you spend a whole hour at night painting your face.”

This bad joke, told by Ona – who almost never joked – soothed his heart, in some odd, scary way. In a way that he never expected.

Do not harm her.

Of course they won’t. Otherwise he would never enter the passage leading to Ain’asel. And if they killed him, they would lose any chance to drag him there.

They needed him.

They needed him, for goodness’ sake.

He really hope they did as much as he thought.

Ona was sitting on guard, not able to lose tension. Tiyan stopped burning an hour ago. She should have woken him up and told him it’s his time to guard her… but she somehow couldn’t force herself to do it.

What happened was as unnatural, as terrifying. Her city was fighting with the fey for long time before it was massacred, but no one ever witnessed something like this. Or maybe did – but never told anyone. Fae possessed winter magic, cruel, cold and hungry. This was something completely new to her.

She didn’t know as much she would like, facing this cruel world. Her sister helped her, after Feirne fell – much older than Ona, she knew more and taught her everything she learned during growing up in Feirne. Among this, was fighting – because all Feirne was taught to work with sword, bow and daggers or knives. With steel amd iron. She taught her all the city knew about the fae. It were hard lessons, Ona was only seven years old. But as she was growing up, she realized all comes to her much easier. That she feels the bow in her hand like it was her friend. And that Isnan maybe always was a harsh teacher, but thanks to that, Ona was able to learn things needed to survive.

Faster. Better.

With time, Ona became better than Isnan. And her sister took it with pride. They settled in Rotlas village, where people took them at first with a big dose of distrust. But when fae came to… play with the villagers and they managed to pry their victims from their hungry claws, they were accepted – even if with a portion of fear.

No one can kill the fae. It is known.

When they kidnapped Isnan, Ona at first was terrified. Terrified and lost. But she knew what could await her sister and didn’t intend to let it happen.

Her gaze again drifted towards Tiyan.

She was almost sure he can help her, but then, again, he was much less used to fight, he could even be a nuisance. If he didn’t work for fey. But this doubt slowly was leaving her, very slowly, dragging itself on the way, leaving a void filled with hundreds of new ones.

Does he even know what is happening to him when he sleeps?

He seemed clueless and innocent, like he wasn’t marked with the brusha of the fae king.

She was tempted to just tell him, see how he reacts. How dangerous could it be for others? For him, of all? She learned to never share her knowledge with others, not let her guard down, not let them know how much she learned, and how much she still can learn. Secrets were her second skin. Only Isnan knew about her past and her training – and they both never trusted anyone as much to even let them guess they came from Feirne. Which was a legend now, destroyed, enchanted and… dead.

How many secrets Tiyan held? Was he a clumsy, naive tool? A perfectly masked traitor? Or just a young man, trapped in a story that wasn’t written for him?

Ona heard the batting of the wings.

She closed her eyes. She knew that it would happen, a heartbreaking routine, which still held her straight and on her feet. Which harmed her but was giving her hope.

Her sister managed to send her a message.

A mockingbird, a tiny familiar, which usually held to his witch. Not rotten, a real animal, a relic of times, protected by Isnan’s spells. Ona was often terrified that the Praetor’s people would find out and capture Neir, and she wouldn’t even know that happened.

But Neir was intelligent and so far managed to not only stay uncaught, but also always find her, no matter where she was.

He didn’t even need the food, as long as the goddess’s strength from Isnan’s aura was feeding him.

You dream, Ona, but you still don’t recognize the dream.

Neir sat on her arm and pecked her. Ona silently took him in her hand. The bird looked at her with completely blue, unusual eyes. A creature of elden times.

“Show me.”

The mockingbird suddenly looked behind. His eyes turned green, changing colors, just like Ona’s. Just like Isnan’s. And he looked just at Tiyan. It wasn’t any fear of doubt in his almost human eyes. Just… curiosity… repressed but honest. The witches’ familiar were creatures closest to the goddess, woven from her magic. Opposites of darkened spells of the fey, who were created by much different power.

This is only a dream. But it looks so real.

“Show me, Neir” urged Ona, afraid that Tiyan will awaken and see her conversation with a bird.

And the images flooded her.

The Arelt city, smaller than she remembered. More poverty than in her latest vision. Horses are still in the stables, but thin and sicker than before.Arelt didn’t thrive, it was falling apart. Like an old aristocrat, already decomposing, but still wearing the rich robes and filling his palace with huge feasts.

Dungeons.

Dirty, wet, cold. Freezing cold. Wind stinging even protected parts of the body.

No blood, no tools of torment. But amassing shadows slipping through crevices and gaps.

Darker than night, channeling the will of much more cruel lords.

And… in one of the cells… Isnan. She looked as bad as horses, and Ona felt bad because of such comparison. Frail and pale – they gave her warm clothes, so she didn’t pass too soon, but they were not enough. Her eyes were filled with sadness Ona never has seen in them. That made her scared. Isnan never resigned, she always knew there are more outcomes than just one. And every situation is begging to be solved – somehow.

But now she looked beaten – how long already she was kept in these dungeons? One month. But it seemed like many years.

“They fed me with so much of it. Ona. Do not come here. It’s stupid. Hopeless. If you come, they will capture you too.  They want all the people from Feirne, who are still alive. And you are the last. Please, do not risk.”

You are last. No, we are last. You.

“I beg of you…”

Curse it.

The image of Arelt overlapped with Isnan’s and Ona suddenly saw dying, sick horses standing just near her sister. Their teeth trying to reach her like they wanted to swallow her, famished and tortured.

The dirt from the streets suddenly surrounded Isnan. She looked like she was about to drown in filth. The horses started to eat the offal as her sister looked at her with a desperate expression.

No.

It can’t end like this.

NO.

Ona found herself awakened in the snow.  Tiyan still slept, like enchanted. His breath is stable, light and his lips smiling.

It was not real. The bird, the voice, it was just a dream, an elusive vision. She passed into sleep on guard.  A dream sent by the sleeping mind of her sister, who was afraid of her and who didn’t want her to come her way.

As always.

It was real enough to know that Isnan can die any day.

How she could show in what condition she is and ask her to not come to save her? That was impossible. The bond between them screamed and wanted to rampage. Do something.

This made her even more relentless.

Ona curled her knees and looking into the burning fire, she tried to think of a plan. Any plan that could work. Anything that wouldn’t need her to rely on Tiyan, and which would not allow the captors to kill her or Isnan. She tried for so many days already and only one formed in her head. Dangerous. Deadly.

She had to admit that it was more difficult now, than she thought at the beginning.

And the more she looked into the fire, the darker her thoughts were becoming.

Her eyes observed him from under the scarfs, which she pushed deep onto her nose. The cold intensified, like winter decided to torment them even more, trying to beat them. Yet they managed to find a circle made of amassed stones, which worked for them as a roof and walls. A touch of luck, second this night. Winter disliked them, but it didn’t mean they were supposed to die. They were only tested.

He was tested.

His hands were all scratched up, so as soon as they managed to find the hiding, she pulled out bandages and helped him to put them on. Her own wounds were not as serious as amount of blood could indicate. She bandaged them too, cleaning both first with freshly melted water.

It didn’t bit her. She will not catch the rot. But it could.

But now, when he rested near the fire, flames well guarded by solid walls, Ona couldn’t not think about intensitity of hatred the fey beast felt for him. It looked like it was almost personal vengeance. Hatred lit up by something she saw only by the glimpse of an eyes… but it engraved in her mind immediately.

Because she knew the sign that was burned up with scars under Tiyan’s chest, under his heart. When she stood over him in the moonlight and his skin wsa still exposed, she saw it in the dim light.

It was carved over tree barks, left in stone circles. It was painted on the walls of abandonded buildings. Sometimes, by the lesser folk. Sometimes, with devotion, by humans. She knew people who made a cult over fae and fae gods.

And these people had her sister now.

It was the sign of the fey king. The brusha beast, shadow creature, eating its own tail.

How and why it was carved in her companion’s skin? It made her cautious again. How much did she know about Tiyan? Only things he told her. His nice and almost clumsy way of being could be only a camouflage. He could be one of fae’s willing servants. Maybe he was sent for her… or Insan.

Why? Because she killed many lesser faeries and she could guide him now to her sister. And what would be a better revenge than leading a fey servant to Insan and let him kill her on her eyes?

Tiyan didn’t look like fairy ally though. Especially this night. As always silent, as always closed in his thoughts, now, even more. The meeting with the creature really shook him and she knew he wasn’t pretending. In his eyes, she saw an utter and pure shock.

But her doubts could be still valid.

“Tiyan…”

A cloud of chill escaped her mouth and she pulled the scarf up. At least the stones protected them from worst wind.

He was digging a hole with a stick, just in the light snow, painting undeciphered shapes. His mood somber, sullen. He looked pressed, and she thought that maybe she isn’t pondering about the fey beast… but his own goals. His own mission.

“Tell me about your sister” she decided it was the best way to start this. “Where she is? Where have you lost her?”

He looked at her, fast gaze, almost fearful. But it quickly was replaced by pain, which she knew – as well – was real. He looked like he was battling his own emotions, but evidently decided that if she saved his life… she deserves some truth.

“The fae kidnapped her” his voice was dull.

Ah yes. That was something she suspected.

“That’s why you go north” she guessed. “You want to enter Ain’asel.”

This was so stupid, so suicidal, that she felt all of it at once: respect for his sacrifice, pity for him being a fool, and fear – that he really thought prying his sister from the heart of this nightmare was even a good idea.  It was mad.

She probably was already dead.

“Of course” he smiled bitterly. “But I won’t get there. Not if I still aim north.”

Ona watched him intensely, until he spoke again.

“I know that it’s said to be there. But I have a strange feeling that I go wrong way. The fae told me… that I should go after Will-o’-the-Wisps. I haven’t seen even one.”

Ona took the blanket with herself and sat closer to fire, putting freezing hands over the flames. Slowly, the warmth, slight and delicate, slid into her skin with tendrils of relief.

“I heard… that Ain’asel is everywhere” Ona decided to share that with him. Even if the Unseelie blackmailed him with his sister’s life to kill Insan, she really prefered to not judge him that fast.

She was judged way too often already. And she wanted to give him a chance. Anyone could be pulled into darkness, with threat and pain. Unwillingly. If that was the truth, it was not his fault.

“I am a green bean” he smiled meekly at her. “In my village, no one really wanted to talk about fae realm. It was “far, too far, like a bad dream”.”

“And you?” the shadows played with Ona’s feature in really peculiar way. Reflecting in her green eyes with stars and moons. Now, they were paler. Like it changed colors. Which, was true, in fact.

“Me too. Imagine that. Someone who can’t even look reality in the eyes, goes to save someone from a place that he pushed down so deep, that it disappeared for him.”

“Such things don’t like to be forgotten.”

“Oh, definitely. They like to be seen in full sun, while they take cotrol over your life.”

Ona also took the stick and started to paint with it on the snow as well. On the bark of the tree leading to her city, before it was taken by force by the enemy, she once saw the brusha beast. It was carved by someone, and she didn’t even know what it was. Back then, she was green bean too. She was young, and was sure that her father, almost always absent, knows all answers and saves her from all black spells. A warrior, who fought the immortals, and was victorious. She wanted to be like him, so much.

A week later, the fae invaded Feirne.

And she saw more that day, that she was able to take.

The question was pushing on her lips. After all, better to confront him now. Try to change his mind, if he serves the fey. She knew he was a good yet lost soul. She could feel it, deep. He didn’t deserved being used by darkness.

If it was even true. So much she didn’t know about him.

“What is the sign you wear?” she asked, slowly, her tone involuntarily ominous and low. “The one that creature wanted to claw from your body?”

Tiyan looked more resigned than shocked. It was painted so well on his face, that she could believe him in anything in this moment. He started to pull something from under his jacket and shirt. Where he managed to find it, he showed her.

A small pendant. On a black cord, made from bronze. A bit tarnished, yet still recognizable. The brusha creature, of course. The sign of the fae king. The sign of the Shadow.

“Mina had it when I found her. I don’t know what it is, but I have it burned out in my skin. And I don’t even want to guess, what does that mean.”

Ona took the pendant. The brusha looked at her with empty eyes. Swallowing its tail with an uncanny, almost perverse expression.

“This is the fae sign” she shook her head. “Are you sure you never were in Ain’asel? Maybe they took you…”

“No” cut suddenly Tiyan. “I am not the fae born. No one stole me after birth.”

“And you don’t even remember the creation of this huge scar? I saw it, Tiyan, it had to hurt.”

“No” Tiyan seemed to sink in himself. Maybe he really didn’t. Or he repressed it so deeply, because it was so painful, so traumatic, that he preferred to forget, rather than allow it to surge in his memories.

The silence reigned between them again. Ona was almost sure she had right to him. She saw genuine fear and insecurity which couldn’t be feigned. He could be manipulated, but was not vile by himself.

But she didn’t expect from him to tell her everything, nor she thought he will tell her more. Perhaps taking him to Arelt, was not the best idea, Initially, maybe was. But now, when she knew him better and when she was aware of his own scores to settle, it was amost wrong.

It would be, like she killed his sister.

That would be inhuman. And Ona was a human, from bone and red blood.

*

The night suddenly bursted with a wild blaze. Ona, sitting on watch, looked, terrified, as flames sudenly envelop Tiyan, bright, almost white, with blue hues. She felt the immense heat that reaching her, was melting snow under her feet. It was hot, very hot, and smelled of burning wood. She was ready to start to put out the fire with her blanket, or  try to quench it with the snow…

… but…

… Tiyan didn’t scream. His clothes were untouched. His face was calm as he slept, and when the flames licked his face, she saw a serene smile on it, like he welcomed the fire and enjoyed it’s hot caress.

Ona slowly approached, shocked, almost sure that it all is an illusion, and Tiyan will become a black debris on her eyes.

But he didn’t. He just burned, like he was himself made of flames. Like bathing in them. Like manifesting primal strength of the elements.

Ona felt… she didn’t know what she felt.

But she knew that it may attract the fae, if didn’t attract them already.

Perhaps that’s why he travelled to Ain’asel.

To feed their curiosity and darkness with bright flames.