Folds of elliptic leaves covered the narrow pathway ahead of Renua and Barathiel as they trodded across foothills surrounded by marsh. Barathiel could see what remained of a road to the castle in the sunken streams where hibiscus shrubs spread out far, rendering the way impassable. He studied the crescent of the moon and the light it threw upon their surroundings.

  "What is on your mind, young Solugarr? Your puss pinches ruminate, and your heels pelt the ground almost childishly. I had thought I had upped your spirits a mere half an hour ago when I suggested our little venture. But it appears that not a joy bears upon your face."

  Renua shrugged as he answered.

  "I was thinking of all matters of things that led me here. I was thinking I am not a hero. In spite of your insistent prodding, I have no business being on a hero's quest. I have a child and a loving wife who will soon burst forth with my second one."

  Renua chuckled; he turned a rueful gaze to Barathiel. He shrugged as he ate a berry.

  "What?"

  "That is not what was on your mind. Your eyes were fixed on the moon. You were wondering if you had taken this matter too far in your vengeance against Fervarryn. Rest assured, you have."

  Palmate leaves switched against Barathiel's face, sticking against him with dewy flower petals.

  "I'll admit she was not that far from my thoughts."

  Renua guffawed.

  "Never is she that far from your thoughts, Barathiel. I have never known a more befitting mismatch than what occurred between yourself and that Sgo?the princess, except perhaps . . . Have you ever heard the story of how Rhoethella tethered the Moon to her own heart?"

  Baratheil chuckled exuberantly.

  "I grant you, Renua, that does sound like quite the feat. But first, where are we headed, and second, how does this story pertain to us?'

  The old druid found a deer's path between shrubbery and pointed it out to his young charge.

  "We are headed to a watch station. We are going to acquire supplies and a powerful ally. We'll need a few of them along the way before we reach the castle. As for the second—"

  Barathiel cut him off as Renua spoke.

  "Does sticking to high ground make us vulnerable?"

  "To what?" Renua asked.

  Berathiel pointed to the western sky above them. "To that."

  The wyvern climbed higher and higher, moonlit on its left side. Its other side was cast in cold shadow just beneath a lead-gray cloud caught in a lonely float.

  "The beast doesn't wander this far out from the ruin without great purpose. So long as we stay clear of the castle until you're ready to confront it, we will be fine. We have time for Rhoethella's tale if you care to listen."

  "You seem to be of want to tell it, Renua."

  The old druid shook his head.

  "If you understand this aspect of Rhoethella, you will understand better the hold the Sgo?the Princess has on your soul."

  Renua grinned, quite bemused.

  "I seem to recall that you once told me that Rhoethella is a demon, so I would assume that she is tethered to the Abyss. So how can she be tethered to both the Abyss and the Moon?"

  Renua snorted and then cleared his throat. "I didn't realize you were paying that much attention to what I was saying at the time. The events I shall describe to you occurred long before she endured the Ritual of Death's Embrace. She was still a mere human and half an elf at that time, though quite extraordinary on both accounts."

  "Let me understand then what you are telling me, Renua: is it the ritual of that festival that turns them demonic?"

  Renua held onto a branch to steady himself. "Precisely. I began the House Lyoneid undertaking, Overtures to the Elves, near a century ago to find out the truth behind the festival. If you have no more questions for me, I will now proceed with the tale."

  Barathiel became distracted by a glob of mud on his boot. While muttering mild curses, he pulled a shrub shoot downward to scrape the heel of his boot. Several seconds passed before he noticed Renua had stopped speaking. He jerked his head up.

  "Oh, by all means, proceed," Barathiel requested as he feigned an agreeable nod.

  Renua nodded in turn, gave the young rascal a grand curtsy in jest, but told his story earnestly enough.

  "If you will, set your speculative site to that of a widow in black, with hair drawn back covered in a mattila whose geld-threaded embroidery spreads along her broad but supple shoulders. She is a raven-haired beauty. Her father, Suüd, and her mother, Haute Elven.

  "She is a slight over six feet in height. Recall our common history with the people of the Suüd; this occurred more than thirty years before she would endure the first of one hundred trials that would contort her body to a height of seven and three, turn her bronze skin fair, her lustrous raven hair silvery white, and grant her immortality through that demonic Elven festival.

  "This day, however, her husband lay in a casket of emerald-tinted glass with mausoleum scaffolding surrounding it due to the memorial buildings being built around the center casket. All of these edifices from ancient days are now deeply buried in the catacombs.

  "This is the seventh day since the king's body was returned from the battlefield. The seventh day in Suüd fashion is the day of Red Wreath. Our lady Rhoethella approaches her husband Izsolt's casket when two D'jestre Blackhoods jump down from where they hid in the scaffolding.

  "One assassin bends down with a pair of hooked throwing knives. The first blade grazes across Rhoethella's left breast. A bloody slice it was. As he readies a second knife, the First Warden, Kel Télsarràs cloaks Rhoethella with his body.

  "The second knife bounces off his shield. the knight throws his shield at the approaching second D'jestre who bears a saber and is closing distance fast between himself and Queen Rhoethella. The shield the First Warden bears is made of heavy iron. Sieur Kel Télsarràs is not only limber and quick but also muscular and stout.

  "The shield knocks the swordsman on his backside. With a twist of his torso, Sieur Kel Télsarràs unsheathes a bastard of a sword. He springs upon the first assassin and relieves him of his head. The Queen's other defenders hold the remaining swordsman down and disarm him.

  "It should be no surprise to anyone who learned his civics from the tales of the Winter Knight that it was Sieur Kel Télsarràs who saved the Queen that day. He was King Izsolt's shield brother by the test of battle and cousin by the bond of blood.

  "At the battlefield of Veld's Rest, two thirds of the king's host was killed in the successful bid to stop the Mad Emperor Izdun's grazeland horde from retaking the Suüd. On that day, lying on the field, the king pulled Sieur Kel Télsarràs to his breastplate, and he made the First Warden swear to protect Queen Rhoethella to his dying breath."

  Barathiel and Renua stared down a ravine in front of them. Silver leaves of wolf willows covered the riverbanks. Renua plucked at high-limbed paw-paw trees, filling up the pouch pocket in his azure robe.

  On the interior of which Barathiel noticed many woven sigils made up of finely and intricately formed filigree. The design made for great contrast with the starkly mannered runes of the cendal robe Leresai Fervarryn wore.

  Runes, which historically originated in wood carvings and are renowned for their sharp, jagged lines, formed the basis of the Sgo?the written language two millennia ago.

  His heart skipped a beat as he was reminded of Leresai Fervarryn, yet again.

  Guilt beset him.

  He had a wife he loved dearly. No man should be so consumed in the thought of another woman, even if she were his nemesis whom he swore to vanquish.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Barathiel decided right then and there that he needed an elixir of forgetting to deal with the troubles his obsession caused him.

  It remade his brain into this flighty person he had become.

  He shook his head as he squinted his eyes upward to gaze at the berries. The forest possessed so many varieties. Here were wild raspberries, deep in scarlet hue while drenched in the lunar light even still.

  "Again with the Sgo?the?" Renua asked with suspired exasperation.

  A common Nincian expression came to Barathiel's mind. The heart knows no gulf in time.

  Renua clapped his hands near the advocate's face to get his attention.

  "Young Salugarr, you will drive yourself mad."

  Renua tensed his head in turn as the druid's large palms smacked closely. The druid was bent on giving him no end of grief about the matter.

  "No. You have got it wrong," Barathiel began. "I was listening to you and wondering about an oddity of which I haven't given much thought, but it goes at the heart of our people and the times that we live in.

  "Rhoethella was saved by a knight. Not just any knight, but a paragon of chivalrous virtue straight out of legend."

  Renua seemed satisfied they were on the same page, but he still gave a ruthful glance at Barathiel before turning away to lead them once more.

  "Yes, it's a quandary. Worthy of another tale, I suppose," Renua answered. "But it is a tale that would shed little light on your fascination with the Princess Fervarryn. Still, if you would like to hear that story instead…"

  "Another day, perhaps," Renua answered.

  Renua jerked his head to the opposite side.

  "Wait. Over there," he said.

  Renua pointed down a switchback trail. They strolled down it and reached a sturdy footbridge made of thick, withe twigs laid out on wooden rods. As they crossed the bridge, Renua continued with his story.

  "When Sieur Kel Télsarràs' men questioned the surviving assassin in the dungeons beneath what was once Castle Barso before Izdun's fleet destroyed it—where now the lighthouses stand—it became evident Izdun was not the only one plotting Rhoethella's downfall.

  "The territories of the Suüd are pregnant with the ambitions of men who question her competence to rule.

  "Understand, she had long been her husband's confidante. Before she was Izsolt's bride, she was a hetaera of renown, given she had escaped the harem of the Mad Emperor and she had made her way back to the Suüd. There she became indispensable in the most urbane wards of Suüd society.

  "Understand that she gives up this life she had created for herself to become the exclusive consort to a man she had fallen in love with who just happened to also be the King of the Suüd.

  "Rhoethella convinces him to turn against Izdun. It would be the start of a two hundred-year struggle to depose the Mad Emperor.

  "The personalities of Rhoethella and King Izsolt, one could surmise, complemented one another well. He was open and gregarious. A knight to a fault

  "She was, well, how do I put this? There survives a play from the era Rhoethella ruled as the Queen of the Suüd where a chef peels a large blooming white onion; inside he discovers a smaller yellow onion.

  "He proceeds to peel that one only to discover a shallot inside of it. He peels the shallot, in which is enclosed a spring of garlic. He is of want to peel the garlic, but now his blade is too dull to go on. In topical fashion, for Suüd plays have always been polemical when they were not entirely brazenly silly sex romps, Queen Rhoethella is, of course, that onion.

  "There were those who blamed Rhoethella for her near-reclusive personality for this unsettled period of uncertainty after the King's death. They said a queen needs to rally people, to inspire them with speech, to give them purpose to go into battle for her, not to be a whisperer, a confidante, or a manipulator.

  "Others would say this claim was unfair. And it was. A queen needs to be all of these things as events arise to be confronted in their unique happenstances."

  "In truth, Izsolt's consort, later to be crowned Queen, was much beloved by the people in the years following Suüd Independence. It was recognized her firsthand knowledge of the court of Izdun and of the players inside the Mad Emperor's regime gave King Izsolt a tremendous advantage in matching wits with the nemesis."

  Renua smiled before he continued and shook his head in wonder.

  "Though a schemer, Rhoethella did not tolerate schemers. In the years before independence, Izdun's appointed governor of the Suüd's largest province was assassinated in a harlot's den. It was widely believed the King's consort at the time carried out the deed herself.

  "As the governor was a brutal mutilator of women, he was allowed to go unchecked for many years. This single act endeared Rhoethella to the people of the Suüd much more than any honeyed words spoken in a public forum ever could.

  "She decides her best course of action will be to keep to her nature. Note how early in her years her reputation began. She is barely forty at this point in her life, with the expected lifespan of one of mixed blood of two hundred and eighty; even as the bloom is still very much on the rose, she is developing the reputation that has us now calling our Divine Mistress, Lady Intrigue.

  "However, I almost digress; in keeping with her nature, she contemplates a means to spy on those men within the Suüd who are planning to depose her. With dukes in near open rebellion, she believes she has little choice but to find a means to give herself an overwhelming advantage.

  "Having an intuition for deep magics, given who her mother happened to be—we all know about her, right? Young Solugarr, I don't have to stop this in midstory and give you a digression on her life story, do I?"

  Barathiel was admiring how the slight silver crescent of the Moon shone through a fir tree as he casually listened to the lecture on ancient Suüd history.

  "No, please continue." He answered.

  "Are you certain, sieur? Because the magic Rhoethella will have to handle can only be attributed to a wild talent she acquired from her mother, as Rhoethella is not at all schooled in the arcane disciplines."

  Finally, annoyed, Barathiel addressed his father's advisor.

  "Yes. Yes. It is common knowledge. Her mother was the notorious elven sorceress, V'ia't'n'alla. Now, please continue!"

  Satisfied, Renua nodded, and he continued on.

  "Very well. She comes up with a plan. A decade before in the deep sands of the High I?vvyr travelers came upon a strange formation of rocks that glow symbiotic, as if alive, to the Moon on every full. With the financial backing of the crown, the University of Barso sent an expedition that discovered the buried motherload beneath those sands. The alchemists determine that the glowing rocks originated on the moon itself.

  "Rhoethella has the rocks ground into a fine soil, sifted with minerals and dead matter until it is fortified rich and poured into a small box garden. She has thousands of silkworms brought in from the eastern lands of the Niaggotte spread out in the box to adapt to the weird soil, to consume it, and build their threads in its finement.

  "Those threads that develop from that soil are interesting, you see, now enlaced with properties that enhance magical abilities. She still to this day wears clothes made from the lunar silk.

  "As for that cendal robe Larasai Fervarryn is so fond of? It may have been given to her by her belovéd father, but the sigils embroidered on it she had restitched in refined lunar silkworm-made material."

  The advocate and druid stood within a grove of trees by a small cliffside whose ledges were even enough to allow an incline down to a stone path through marshlands.

  "Test that incline to see if it is still sound," Renua requested, as he brought a handful of berries up to his mouth while leaning against a solid cypress tree.

  Barathiel studied it with a skeptical frown. "That path that curves around the willow leads to the same route. Not that I mind the incline, but your knees are liable to buckle under the challenge."

  Renua answered agreeably.

  "They do meet up later on down the path, but our destination is quite near. See those trees, just passed them? That is the watchtower."

  "I see…"

  Barathiel squatted down. His eyes caught something odd in the marshland ground several feet below. It possessed a bronze luster and the size and shape of a sentry's boot from a century previous. He would have to climb down the rocky cliff to get a better look at it.

  As he rubbed his hands against his knees to prepare for his descent, he felt a breeze cross his neck. It grew rhythmic.

  It took him back in time.

  How he would love to have such a nice, gentle flow of air across his hammock on the terrace porch of his father's house, the Old Meander.

  A gasping, wheezing noise came from Renua. It stirred as softly as an autumn breeze. Then it occurred to Barathiel that this was all a bit odd.

  He turned his head around to see Renua, cheeks puffed up like a chipmunk, gasping. His hands pressed against his throat, drawing breath rapidly. Berry juice trickled down his jawline; the druid's eyes were fixed upward.

  "Not a good time to be choking on us," Barathiel said in morbid jest to reassure him it was a trifle matter.

  Though berries were stuck in Renua's throat, fortunately for the druid, Barathiel was proficient at techniques to clear throats of obstruction. He was about to stand when he noticed the wyvern clutching a high limb on the tree Renua leaned against. Its wings flapping slowly, spread out, swayed the nearby trees. Barathiel crawled slowly and softly towards the old man to help him dislodge the obstruction from his throat.

  Before he could reach Renua, the wyvern turned its head and stared back at the advocate with its fearsome jaws wide open. Monster hunters, called jaegers, had a word for the effect the wyvern now displayed—vizdavur, the face of fear. Many supernatural beings possessed this ability.

  A gaze fixed upon a mortal man could show him things that chilled the soul and convoluted his mind and senses.

  The latter hit Barathiel now, as for a brief instance he made out an entrancing nude silhouette in his mind. He soon realized those gently swaying hips belonged to Lorasai Faeveran.

  He shook the image from his mind. There was a wyvern ready to pounce on him, Renua choking to death, and here he was with visions of his dead sister's lover. What was wrong with him?

  He shook his head of the vision as Renua cried out a bleak plea. "Help" scraped from his rasping throat. The druid's eyes bulged and the veins within them cracked. Barathiel rushed to him, knowing that any stealthy move he attempted was now made futile. He grabbed Renua by the shoulder and pushed his chest back to force Renua's spine to arch.

  "Easy, my friend, I know what I am doing," he soothed. "I'll get it out."

  As his father taught him the technique to dislodge obstructive matter from a throat, Barathiel punched the wizard as hard as he could just below the sternum.

  A single berry popped out of Renua's mouth. His breath sucked in with a violent, squalling heave. The druid's face was stricken white. As his jowls shook, blood gushed from his eyeballs. Renua's life force faded out of existence before Barathiel's eyes.

  "Oh, ye gods," Barathiel screamed. "I just killed him!"

  He jerked his head back up, and he looked around. The wyvern had disappeared.

  Did Renua just die on him? The blood bursting through his eyes—did that mean his brain hemorrhaged?

  Would he never know how Rhoethella tethered the moon to her own heart?

  Barathiel laughed uncontrollably at the absurd notion that it mattered in the least in the present moment if he ever came to know the answer. He was in mortal danger from a great beast, yet he was most concerned about how a story ended! He searched the skies once more for the deadly silent wyvern.

  Tether her heart to the Moon?

  What in this bedeviled world did that even mean?

  The sky lit up as if it were suddenly day. A great shadow cast over Barathiel from the southeast. He looked up to see and found the wyvern beating its wings in slow motion; it stared into the advocate's eyes but to little effect, for Barathiel's mind had already snapped utterly.

  Laughing, he pointed to the wyvern and shouted, "Found you!"