Aylah stood on the edge of a cliff, overlooking a storm below. Beside her stood a tall, scarred man.

  “This will slow you,” He said with a grave voice

  Aylah shifted in place, “Father, What if my mission is not-”

  “To do what is right for Onterrin?” Aylah’s father cut her off and glared at her, “No, you must do as I say.”

  “But what about the Elder? He doesn’t-”

  “AND HE WON’T! That’s the problem Aylah!” Her father growled in frustration, “We should not have suffer the lower countries anymore! When you return, we can usher in a new order, you and me.”

  As he spoke those final lines, he began once more to shift and change. Arms to wings with sharp talons. The face of an angry man to the ferocious roar of a wild creature. The creature turned on Aylah, poised to strike at her. However, unlike before, as the massive winged beast lurched forward, another animal rushed between them. The razor-sharp talon ripped through the animal’s chest and pierced through its back.The animal let out a howl of pain. It was a death blow.

  “NO!” Aylah cried out, tears streaming down her face.

  The animal fell to the ground and the massive beast bellowed a cruel laugh. Aylah’s tear-blurred vision began to oscillate. One moment she saw a beast, the next a man in black armor, and the next her father. Until finally all she saw was a face so hideous and cruel and void of all things bright and good that it caused her to lose all hope at a mere gaze. When she looked down, she expected to see the animal lying there, lifeless. Instead, she saw the form of a person, taking very shallow breaths. She tried to stand and rush forward to help, but firm hands gripped her shoulders and kept her still. A gruff voice spoke,

  “Let it be! It has to happen!”

  Aylah watched as the evil face became a beast once more. The beast picked the wounded person up with its fangs.

  “NOOO!! Please! Please, no!” Aylah screamed at the beast.

  The beast payed her no attention and threw the limp body over the side of the cliff and into the storm clouds below.

  Aylah sank to her knees and wept and all the world faded to black. Sounds of her sobs echoed into endless nothingness. She was alone.

  Suddenly a sound cut through the black void, “Are you alright Aylah?”

  Aylah woke with a start and shot up, her reflexes taking over. She swiped with her knife, but the blade tasted nothing but air. Aylah was confused for a moment, but then her brain settled,

  “Thatch?” She thought.

  “Sorry to wake you, we are getting ready to break camp.” There was concern etched in the words of the weaver.

  “Oh…thanks for telling me. I’ll be right down.” Aylah said wiping her face clear of dried tears. She felt a heavy headache.

  “Are you okay? Last night, you seemed to be-”

  “Thatch, please tell Finch to stop whistling before I come down. Otherwise, he loses his tongue” Aylah interrupted, unwilling to talk about last night and annoyed that he would bring it up.

  Thatch must have picked up on her attitude. He broke the connection with Aylah and moments later the whistling below stopped. Aylah could hear their conversations loud and clear, but she chose to ignore most of it. Lost in the memory of her dream. It was so vivid and gave her a sense of dread. It felt eminent and condemning, like something she could never escape and it made her feel trapped.

  What was the dream saying? Was it supposed to mean something? Was it nothing to be worried about? Nightmares are often constructs of fears we harbor and can often simply be ignored. However, the Onterrins believed that dreams were often the minor work of Fades. They believed that the Fades were skilled in all forms of weaving, in ways that even the Great Weavers could never understand because the Fades learned it directly from the Great One. The Onterrins claim that the

  Fades use mind weaving to create messages and warnings in the form of dreams.

  This, having a much less potent effect on the receiver of said warnings.

  That was just a claim. Just a claim and not real. That is what Aylah was saying to herself anyway as she descended the Demon Tree to the clearing below. It was still somewhat dark out. They were trying to leave before the hoard of hungry creatures began swarming the base of this mighty beacon of fear. She stepped off the final ridge of jet-black bark and onto the verdant grass below and looked up to see Diago petting Saama and packing her saddle bag.

  She felt that same anger well up within her that compelled her to approach him last night. There was a small part of her that regretted what she said to him. She knew it was hurtful, but she didn’t care. She pushed the regret aside. There was too much at stake to allow this foolish-

  “Still mad, Tantoos? You wanna stop looking at me like you want to gut me?” Diago looked over with a blank expression. He looked completely unaffected by her.

  She hadn’t realized how obvious she was being. She stalked away and tried to help the others pack. Ignoring the fact that in the corner of her eye, she saw Diago’s gaze change from blank to genuine searching…what he was searching for, she couldn’t tell, but she ignored it anyway.

  “…Diago?” Came the voice in Diago’s head. Aylah had just stalked away and Diago was attempting to understand why her attitude had changed so suddenly, but it was just making him annoyed and frustrated.

  “Huh?”

  “Try not to lose focus, it makes things more difficult” Thatch was aware that Diago was losing track of thought, which was making their woven mental connection waver.

  “Oh right, sorry”

  Thatch was lazily trying to put things away in a very mundane way to make it easier to maintain the conversation. Finch was close by and therefore regular conversation would have been unwise. Diago was feeling very odd. His mind felt lighter and he felt dizzy. The night passed in the strangest way. Under normal circumstances, when one sleeps there is some awareness of time having passed in the night, but to Diago, it was like he blinked and the night was over. Like that space between evening and morning never even took place.

  He was still in a daze even as he spoke with Thatch about the things he learned last night from Trig, who was still asleep. Diago was able to ingest all the information, however imperfectly. From what Thatch gathered, Trig had not been lying, however, there were pieces in Trig’s memory Thatch saw that were clearer than what the Tarrin thief had recollected. The chief example? The argument between the Tarrin miners.

  As it happens, the miners Trig had followed were arguing that they needed to dig deeper, but the ones they met up with were warning them that they were not allowed. The argument got heated when one of the minors said they were going to dig deeper anyway because that’s where the best Tarrin would be. The other minors mentioned something about not getting too close, but it was not clear what they were referring to.

  “So you think that the fades sent us here to direct us toward the mine?” Asked

  Diago after he had come back from his dazed look.

  “I do” Thatch affirmed.

  Diago finished packing Saama’s saddle and he thought he saw Finch glaring at him in the corner of his eye, but when he turned the old man simply waved and smiled wide. Trig was only just stirring from his sleep and Aylah was putting a saddle on the talard she had ridden here. Diago walked over to the Aazotas and placed a hand on her snout. She stirred awake at the contact,

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  “Well then, it looks like we’ll just have to get into that mine,” Diago said in his mind.

  “Yes, but how? Trig said it was blocked off,” Thatch pointed out.

  Diago smiled big at the Aazotus, “Trig didn’t have a Desert Guardian to help him.”

  Thatch looked up from his mundane task and saw the massive creature rise from her resting place and flex her spikes and stretch. She yawned and shook herself. The motions were surprisingly quick for a creature of such massive size. Thatch smiled, “no, he did not.”

  Diago and Thatch agreed that they should break the news after everyone was ready, which came very quickly as camp was rudimentary at best. There was a little meat left over from the night before which they divided among themselves. Diago watched Aylah as she ate, it looked like she had improved a little since the morning (in terms of wanting to gut Diago), but he didn’t want to take the chance that he was wrong. So, Diago leaned over to Thatch and whispered low,

  “I think you should be the one to say it”

  He was wrong.

  “Say what, Sunburn?” Aylah said, clearly annoyed.

  Thankfully, Thatch stepped in before Diago could say something that would have put a swift end to his journey via a blades edge or an arrow’s point, “Finch, we want to thank you for your help to us, but this is where Diago, Aylah, and myself will have to part ways with you. Trig I am assuming that you'd like to be as far away from here as possible?”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “Thought so,” Thatch continued, “Then this is where we split company.”

  Finch eyed Thatch warily, “Where are you off to, I wonder?”

  Thatch didn’t reply right away, as he was wondering how to, but Finch just started cackling as usual, “Ha! I don’t care! You can stay here and get eaten for all I care!” He cackled again.

  Diago thought he heard a different vigor in the man’s voice. It almost sounded like excitement, but it put Diago on edge. Saama also squirmed beside him. However, it didn’t seem to matter. In moments, after some halfhearted farewells, and a few embarrassed “thank you”’s from Trig, the old man and the Tarrin miner rushed off through the woods and out of sight. This left Thatch, who was watching to make sure they were gone, Diago, who was petting Saama and avoiding eye contact with Aylah, and Aylah, who was staring daggers at the both of them, all by themselves.

  There was a rather long and uncomfortable silence that followed after Finch and Trig’s departure. There were a lot of uncomfortable glances and fidgetings. Aylah finally became exasperated by the wait,

  “Just come out and say it. You have a plan don’t you?”

  Diago nudged Thatch, who then explained the information that had been gathered and the plan they had come up with. Aylah’s face maintained the same glare, focused primarily on Diago, throughout the entire interchange. When all was said, Aylah said,

  “Well, thanks for including me in all this.”

  For many reasons, Diago just couldn’t take it anymore. Her attitude made no sense and it made him mad. If he was honest with himself, he also would have found that her words from last night stung and he wanted to shoot back.

  Diago glared and yelled, “Oh come off it, Tantoos! You were too busy sulking and throwing knives! Maybe, if you weren’t entirely useless it would have been easier to include you!”

  “Diago!”

  Diago expected her to bite back. He expected her to try to throw something at him. Instead, what happened was far worse. She looked hurt. Her face was still angry, but Diago could see the tears she was fighting back. He had struck something.

  She turned her back quickly and walked off, trying to conceal the effect it had on her.

  Thatch looked down at Diago. Diago knew the look well, so he turned away, but Thatch stopped him with a hand on his shoulder and a sigh, “Diago…I know she said things to you that hurt, but if you are going to love someone, you can’t-”

  “Woah, woah, woah. I am going to stop you right there. I do not love her!” Said Diago angrily

  “Diago, that’s not what I mean.”

  Diago tried to walk away, but Saama stepped in front of Diago and nudged his chest with her snout, pushing him toward Thatch.

  Thatch, seeing the opportunity provided by the jynx, continued, “Love can be romantic, yes, but its also a responsibility we all have. To our family and to our friends.”

  “Well, that excludes Aylah then, perfect. Good talk.”

  For the first time since they met, Saama growled at Diago. It caught him utterly by surprise. He had forgotten that she was a vicious animal. Thatch tried once more,

  “Diago, I am not going to tell you what to do. That’s not my place. But I will offer you some advice. Fighting wars and slaying beasts are both infinitely easier than human relationships and nothing can hurt you worse. In wars, you fight with a sword, with people, you use your mouth… there are debates as to which one cuts deeper. Just like the Honor Guard have to learn the responsibility, honor, and challenge of wielding a Kurigan, so we all have to learn to wield our words.”

  Diago turned and faced Thatch. He expected a stern glare, but what he saw was a face full of understanding. Diago wanted to tell him off, but he quickly realized that doing so would just drive his point home even worse. Diago felt Saama’s nose brush up against his back,

  “Alright!…alright...I’ll go-…I’ll go apologize. Happy?” Diago looked back and forth between Saama and Thatch.

  “Only if you mean it,” replied Thatch.

  Diago almost wanted Thatch to order him to go apologize, mostly cause he knew it was the right thing to do, and if he was ordered, he could have the comfort of doing it unwillingly. Thatch wasn’t ordering him though, which meant that it was on Diago to make the call to do what’s right or not. Diago heaved a sigh, “Okay…let’s get this over with.” He started walking forward.

  Thatch smiled and then chuckled, “Harder than facing an Aazotas?”

  Without turning back around, Diago took a deep breath, “Yup”.

  “Go away, Sunburn”

  Aylah sat by a pond and was chucking pebbles into the water. Diago watched as Aylah waited until the ripples bounced off the shore and back toward where the pebble had been thrown. Just when the ripples collided, Aylah threw another pebble with pinpoint accuracy right where they met. This sent out new ripples that were twice the size as before. She repeated the process a few times until the pond was all a violent pattern of splashing.

  Aylah sighed, accepting that Diago was not going to leave. She stared at the water, “It’s something we do back home…we have these big bowls of water that we place in our gardens. Sometimes, if we are upset, we take pebbles and toss them in until the waves start to spill over. It's supposed to be relaxing, but it also reminds us that something as small as a pebble can eventually cause a great disturbance in something that was once so peaceful. Then, you stop throwing pebbles…and watch the waves begin to slow and become still again…and that is supposed to remind us that peace can come again. You just have to stop throwing pebbles…and even then it takes some time.”

  She spoke wistfully, almost like she had forgotten that Diago was there. As she spoke he watched the waves become still again and the pond became like a mirror. She spoke so lowly Diago almost couldn’t hear her and it sounded more like she was reciting than explaining. Aylah sighed again, it was long and shaky, like she was holding in a swirling pond of her own,

  “My-…my mom taught me that.”

  Why was she telling him that? It was personal information. Up to this point Aylah had seemed so strong and capable. For the first time, she seemed vulnerable. Diago wasn’t sure what to say. So, instead, using a steady gate, he walked up, grabbed a pebble, and threw it in. The ripples bounced back and forth and they both waited until the water became still again.

  It was Aylah who broke the silence. She stood up and turned to face him. Sincerity permeated her gaze, “I’m sorry for what I said earlier. It was cruel and I shouldn’t have said it.”

  Diago was stunned again, he hadn’t expected that. He frowned, “Hey, that’s not fair, Tantoos. I came to apologize. Now it’s just going to look like I’m copying you.”

  Aylah slowly smiled and then let out a small laugh. It was a pleasant sound. Diago could not help but admit that he’d like to hear it again if he ever got the chance. She looked at him after she stopped laughing and was still smiling. Her eyes firmly fixed on his. A pebble dropped inside his chest.

  It made him uncomfortable, so he tried to accomplish the task he came here to complete so he could retreat as soon as possible. He fiddled with his ring and shifted in place, “You-…you aren’t useless. I’m sorry for saying that. Call a truce?”

  Diago held out his hand. Aylah looked from the hand back to Diago and smiled, “Truce.” Something behind her eyes seemed unresolved though, like she was still burdened with something.

  Diago held the gaze a moment despite himself and felt like he needed to know one more thing, “…Why do you want the armor?”

  Aylah’s face fell and she looked away. She breathed in deeply, “It’s complicated.”

  Diago’s head tilted and his brow furrowed. She paused a while before continuing again, “That’s the reason I got mad. My father is one of the chiefs on the counsel of Onterrin and after…after mom.. he came to really hate the low countries… He has forced me to train all my life and he was never satisfied with my progress and I was never as good as others…so to him, I was…I was useless.” Those words struck Diago like a hammer to the scalp. He understood, now, why she was so hurt when he said that. She continued, “When he heard that I had been called by the Fades he…he finally began to look at me with something other than frustration and disappointment. He made me swear to bring him the armor. So I did…I thought I was the only one meant to look for it, then you two showed up. At first, I was glad that I had some help to get the armor. Then I kept having to be rescued or helped by you and Thatch and barely being of any help. It made me fear that I wouldn’t be able to fulfill my oath…it made me feel useless. So, I got scared and mad…”

  It was a lot to take in and Diago was unsure how to respond to it all. He also wasn’t sure that the armor should go to Onterrin if that’s who it would go to, but he wasn’t about to say that to her at that moment. He didn’t want to make things worse, so he took a moment trying to think of something to say. Finally, he remembered something Sulien said to him the last time he saw him.

  “Look, I don’t know how this is going to play out, but we were all called by the fades, right? Then one way or another we are all in this together, right? So, by definition, doesn’t that kind of make you specifically not useless?”

  A look crossed Aylah’s face that Diago did not recognize and she gave no words to give hints as to what it was either. Was it appreciation? Gratitude? He couldn’t tell and it was starting to make him uncomfortable. Having reached his reached limit of what he was able to handle emotion wise, he said,

  “We should get back. We have a cave to explore.” Diago said trying to sound like they had never had the conversation or the issues that precipitated it.

  Aylah caught on. She nodded and together they made their way back to the clearing.