• Faug and Valin finally reached the inn where Dalar said that they should meet him, The Lazy Dog. They went up to the bar to ask about Dalar and were told that he hadn't been seen for many weeks. "What do we do now?" whispered Valin.
    “We can only wait,” replied Faug. "He's bound to show up eventually. He promised us he'd be here. For the time being, sit and act normal."
    So that is what they did. They sat at a table in the corner with some drinks and discussed their mission in low voices. Valin glanced up often, very nervous. He wasn't comfortable if Dalar wasn't around. Dalar was stronger than both Faug and Valin, and he had magic. After glancing up for the tenth time, Faug finally said, "Would you stop it?"
    "No," Valin replied. "I'm not comfortable until Dalar gets here."
    "Relax," Faug said. "You're being paranoid. I'm younger than you. I'm the one who's supposed to be freaking out, remember?"
    "You're right," Valin agreed, not entirely convinced. Just then Valin noticed a shadowed figure in the corner opposite who seemed to be watching them. The figure seemed to be female and not much older than fourteen, fifteen tops. Her face was half in shadow because her hood was pulled over most of her face, so Valin could only see her mouth, which was in a calm, impassive line. She was dressed all in black, and her clothes were so loose fitting that Valin wasn't sure whether she was wearing a skirt or overlarge pants. He wasn't entirely sure the figure was a "she". The person's hands were hidden in the folds of the long, loose sleeves. Valin could not see what color the person's hair was because it seemed to be tied back and hidden by the hood. Valin didn't know why, but he didn't think he or she or it or whatever was going to help their situation, even if it transpired that Dalar had sent him or her or it. The person looked almost evil, really, with that hood up and the long black cloak and the black clothes. Valin decided to stop staring at whoever it was behind that hood and actually listen to what Faug was saying.
    “So, what do you think, Valin?” He asked.
    “Huh?” Valin asked, not having paid attention to Faug’s monologue.
    "Do you think we should stay here for the night or find shelter elsewhere?”
    “Stay here, definitely. Dalar said we should meet him here, so we should stick around until he shows up.”
    “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. But what if he came here ages ago, like when he originally said we should meet him, and then got abducted and killed?”
    “Dude, you sound like me.”
    “So what? It could happen.”
    “I don’t know. I mean, he wouldn’t think to send us here if he knew there was going to be danger.”
    “But that’s the thing, though. What if there was danger that he didn’t know about until it was too late and he couldn’t send us a message because he was abducted and kept in a sack for two weeks and fed on bread and water?”
    “Come on, you can’t stuff Dalar in a sack. He’s too tall. And he’d probably be able to beat up anyone who tried to hurt him, and if that didn’t work he’d probably use his magic. So more likely than not he’s still on the move and whoever tries to challenge him is in a heap of dung.” Valin glanced over at the figure in the corner. As far as he could tell, whoever it was, they were still looking at them.
    “What are you looking at?” demanded Faug.
    “Don’t look right away, but there is a person sitting in the corner opposite us, right behind you,” Valin whispered. “I think it’s a girl. She looks no older than fourteen or fifteen and is dressed all in black and has a black cloak with the hood up.”
    Very discreetly, Faug turned around and looked at the person in question. Then he looked back at Valin.
    “Very fishy,” Faug agreed.
    “I’m going to ask about her, once the waiter comes around again,” said Valin.
    He did so, and the waiter said, in a very quiet voice, “That’s Shyasha Rinkari. She’s a strange one, even for an Elven Fairy.”
    “Shyasha Rinkari,” repeated Valin. “And a hybrid, too. Interesting.”
    “What does that mean, anyway?” asked Faug. “Shyasha Rinkari?”
    “It’s an Elvish name,” the waiter said. “It means ‘the shadow warrior.’ She has a reputation for never being loyal to anyone longer than a year and a day. Fierce, she is. Rumor is she was betrayed by a man when she was younger and now she doesn’t trust anyone except a rare few, Dalar among them, I think. Rumor says that the pain of it nearly killed her. She’s a darn good fighter, though, and is as silent as a shadow both in the way she moves and the way she speaks, since she never does speak, as far as I know. Nobody roundabouts has heard her utter a word, and she’s been around locally for quite a while.”
    “You say she was hurt when she was younger by a guy,” Faug said. “But she can’t have been around long enough to have enough boyfriends to hurt her, can she? I mean, she can’t be older than fifteen.”
    “Aye, you would think she wasn’t, which was why it pained her, you see,” replied the waiter. “She’s immortal-all hybrids are, so she would have to live with the pain until she actually did or the world blew up. Mind you, even if she was just an elf or a fairy she would still be immortal. It pained her because, well, even though she stopped aging at fifteen, I think she’s really around four thousand years old, and immortal. Her lover apparently betrayed her and ran off with her sister or something, and she had loved him dearly. Immortals get to choose what age they stay at for the rest of forever, so that’s why she only looks like she’s fifteen.”
    “But how do you know all this?” Valin asked.
    “Well, the basic hybrid stuff is common knowledge,” the waiter said. “And the rest is just stuff she was willing to let out in the open. Half of it is just rumors, mind, so I’m not sure some of it is true.”
    “Well, thank you for your time,” Faug said.
    “Anytime,” the waiter replied. “Is there anything else you’ll need?”
    “No, thank you,” Faug said.
    The waiter left and the two men sat talking for a long time afterwards. It was after midnight when the tavern at the inn was finally devoid of anyone except the staff, Faug, Valin, and Shyasha Rinkari. The two humans didn’t seem to notice, and they talked intently about all they had learned about Shyasha Rinkari and her past.
    Soon, however, Valin looked over at Shyasha Rinkari’s corner and realized she was gone. He had barely pointed this out to Faug when he glanced at the table next to them and realized she was sitting right there. She saw his glance and rose, walking over to their table. She bent over to whisper in his ear, “I am Shyasha Rinkari. Do not be surprised. Dalar has sent me to aid you in your quest. Follow my instructions exactly. First, pay for your meal and then ask for a room. I will be around but out of sight long enough to learn the number of the room. Then, slowly, very slowly, make your way up to the room. I will meet you there. It is very important that I reach the room before you do. There are dark creatures about and I am stronger than the pair of you put together, so I stand a better chance if there are any of the creatures up there that are a danger to you. Do as I say soon. I will be waiting for you, Valin.” With that she strode with a mysterious elegance back to her corner. Valin and Faug exchanged glances.
    “Let’s do it, then,” Faug said. And they followed Shyasha Rinkari’s instructions exactly, and indeed, when they reached room fifteen she was there.
    “Welcome,” she said, in the same strange, musical voice that she had used downstairs when talking to Valin. Valin noticed also that although there was no light, she still had her hood up. “I need to get this over with soon so I can report to Dalar. He sends his regrets that he cannot be with you tonight but he had other business to attend to and he hopes that you will not hold him accountable, you see, he has run into a bit of trouble with the creatures I mentioned earlier. They are called Wylds, and they are very, very loyal to the dark lord Sonru. The Wylds are very violent and will kill you at once and anything in their way if they so much as see a strand of hair that looks similar to either of yours stuck to a tree trunk. This is why you must keep the Blue Crystal Star completely hidden and entirely safe on the return journey.”
    “Oh, so that’s what we’re after,” Valin said. “I was wondering. Dalar wasn’t too specific. All he said was that we had to join him on a quest and he would meet us here.”
    “Correction,” said Faug. “He sad you had to join him. I had nothing to do with it. He only made me come along because he didn’t want you to travel alone.”
    “And he was quite right,” Shyasha Rinkari said. “If the Wylds had gotten you before I had, the quest would have gone downhill from the moment you stepped out the front door.”
    “As I recall, you begged him to let you come,” Valin reminded Faug. “And you wanted to know what was going on so badly that you pretended you were my blind housekeeper instead of my best mate in order to learn something worth telling everyone else about-”
    “I did not,” Faug insisted. “I had just stopped by and started listening to the conversation; I wasn’t there on purpose-”
    “-Which is why he sent you on this mission in the first place, so you wouldn’t go gossiping about it. Mind you, it wasn’t a bad idea.”
    “When you two have finally stopped arguing about who entered what conversation at whatever time-” Shyasha Rinkari interrupted.
    "But he wasn’t in the conversation,” Valin insisted. “He was listening to the conversation, and Dalar only found him when he was about to leave-”
    “POINT IS, THOUGH,” Shyasha Rinkari almost yelled, “that it was a very good idea for Faug to have decided to snoop or impersonate a blind housekeeper or stop by for a visit or whatever he was doing, because it is a very bad idea for anyone to go around alone, especially you, Valin, because you are the person the Wylds are going to by looking for the hardest, both when we are on our quest to find the five pieces of the Blue Crystal Star and our journey to the inner sanctum of the Invisible Castle to destroy it, and then back to your home again, the Wylds are going to be looking for us. So, therefore-”
    “Wait, us?” Faug demanded. “What do you mean us? You surely aren’t coming with us. It’s too dangerous.”
    “Well of course I’m coming with you,” Shyasha Rinkari replied in a clearly exasperated tone. “What do you expect? Dalar is obviously not going to be able to join us anytime soon, and you to obviously have no idea what you are doing, and I’m way more powerful than either of you, and you’ll need some sort of protection until we get to Norasona, where we’ll be joined by-”
    “Hang on, there are more of you?” Faug demanded. “I though that Dalar wanted us to bring along as few people as possible, because of the attention we would get if we were toting three dozen people around the countryside-”
    “First things first, Faug,” Shyasha Rinkari interrupted, the irritated edge in her voice growing. Both humans could tell that even though she was older than either of them, she still retained a lot of the fifteen year old characteristics that she was stuck with. “For one thing, there are not more of me, but there are more people who are like me, and different races, too. Life in Anana must have been really confined if the only races you know about are human, elves, and fairies. No, there are way more races than that, and, what’s more, we’re going to need more than two humans and a hybrid to get where we’re going. Second of all, however many races there are, we are not going to be taking representatives from each of them to lug around the countryside, because first of all, there are barely a dozen races in the first place, and second of all we’re going to be dealing with mountains, mostly, so there won’t be very much countryside to lug people across. No, it’ll be mainly the Graynote Mountains and the Silvercourt Forest we’ll be dealing with. And let me tell you, I’m seriously navigationally challenged to a certain extent. If I hadn’t had Tiba with me when I was exploring, I wouldn’t be here because I would still be lost in the Silvercourt Forest. We’re going to meet up with her and a few others later on. Anyhow, the point is, you cannot travel with just each other for company, because, number one, you would get killed in the first three seconds of walking through the Silvercourt Forest, there’s so many different creatures in there who would be very willing to have you for a snack, number two, there are spells and dangers that even I am not entirely sure of, so it helps to have some extra brains that know different things, number three, you have no idea where you’re going, and number four, Dalar would murder me if I let you guys go alone. And besides, if you guys don’t survive, who else is going to finish the mission if you don’t confide in someone?”
    “Who is Tiba?” Valin asked.
    “She’s a friend of mine,” Shyasha Rinkari replied. “She’s a sorceress.”
    “You mean like a witch?” asked Faug.
    “No, witches and sorceresses are two entirely different things; they have two entirely different brands of magic that have two totally different means of execution. It’s hard to explain. But do you see what I mean? Life out there would be hard for you since you both are from Anana and obviously know about a hundredth of what the rest of the world knows about magic and whatnot.”
    “I think we should let her come with us, Faug,” Valin said. “She knows a lot. And she’s immortal.”
    “What’s that got to do with anything?” Faug and Shyasha Rinkari asked together.
    “Well, that mean’s you can’t be killed, doesn’t it?”
    “Not exactly,” Shyasha Rinkari said. “I can be killed, it’s just really hard, and it doesn’t happen very often anyway. Not many immortals even bother with love anymore, number one because they think that living longer than everyone else means that you don’t need romance, for some reason, and number two, because it’s so risky for us.”
    “What?” Valin wondered.
    “There are two ways for elves, fairies, and their hybrids to die-a broken heart or bloody murder. Mind you, the latter is hard because the elves have made so much light but indestructible armor and the fairies move too fast and are generally too small and fast to be killed and all of us have stronger immune systems than humans so poisons have pretty much no effect. Plus I’ve developed immunity to every potentially lethal plant out there, so I’m pretty much indestructible. But I’m not entirely indestructible.”
    “Still, I think she should come with us,” Valin insisted.
    “True enough,” conceded Faug.
    “Well, then,” Shyasha Rinkari said. “Since we’re traveling together, I’ll have you know that my contract is with Dalar, and I never sign out my skills longer than a year and a day, so if we don’t get this done in less than the six weeks I have left, then I’m going to have to leave partway through. I’m not going into detail about my reasons for only signing myself out for that amount of time; it’s just the way I do things.”
    “Fine,” Faug said. “When do we start?”
    “Tonight, that is to say, when dark comes again. I’ll have paid for everything and will come for you. Be ready by midnight. We’ll be on the move by dawn.”
    “Why?” Valin wondered.
    “If you’re traveling with a blind ranger, you’ll need all the time you can have. And it won’t hurt, either. If you’re being tracked, leave when they don’t expect you to, in order to catch them off guard so they’ll have a job tracking you for a while.”
    “You’re-” Valin started, but Shyasha Rinkari cut him off.
    “Blind, yes. I don’t talk about it. It gives people the wrong impression. They think I can’t do anything except walk in a straight line and think things up because I can’t see. But the truth is that I can probably do more than some of the senior rangers.”
    “How?”
    “Instinct and hearing. Sight is only an asset; if you have it, great, but if you don’t, it won’t harm you.”
    “What do you mean?” Faug wondered. He had been through combat training, and he had learned that sight was practically the only way to plot your next move, especially if you were going to have to block.
    “You have a sword?” She asked Valin.
    “Yes.”
    Shyasha Rinkari drew her own sword. “Strike at me,” she ordered.
    Apprehensively, Valin drew out his sword and aimed at her head, not intending to actually come in contact.
    “Come on, boy, I’m not going to be able to prove anything if circumstances aren’t what they should be. Do a proper hit already.”
    Valin obeyed, taking a quicker jab to her side. The other sword was there before he even got close.
    “When you’re as old as I am, and you’re a hybrid, and you’re blind, it’s easier to tell, but the blindness helps.”
    “How?”
    “I think there’s something about the nature of anything when you lose one of the important senses permanently. Losing my sight has enhanced my hearing and my peripheral senses. Again, hybrids have very good hearing to begin with, but blindness makes it all the better. It will be harder for you, but you can do it.”
    “I still don’t get it.”
    “I can hear the sword,” she said simply. “It makes a noise when it goes through the air. I feel the wind of the motion so putting it all together, I can judge where it’s coming from, and block accordingly. It isn’t that hard. I can also sort of sense where people are, even in combat. Well, I can sense there’s something there, at least. But the point is, sight isn’t important. What are important are the sensing and the hearing. Sight is only confirmation of the truth.”
    “But how can you tell that we’re guys?”
    “That, my friend, is the most obvious thing ever. Even YOU could figure it out, and that’s saying something.”
    “Meaning what?”
    “Meaning you should have realized by now that guys have deeper voices than girls, even though they sometimes appear to be four or six years apart.”
    "What do you mean, APPEAR to be four or six years apart?” Faug demanded. “And how do you know that he’s nineteen and I’m nine?”
    “Good lord, you really do talk too much,” Shyasha Rinkari muttered under her breath. “Anyway, didn’t that waiter tell you that I was around four thousand years old? Well, I’m older than that. I’m four thousand seven hundred and thirteen. I froze at fifteen because; well…I think he talked about that, too. As for knowing your ages, Dalar told me. Enough talk for one night. I’m next door if you need me, but only need me if it’s an absolute emergency, here meaning if one of you is having a seizure, one of you is having a heart attack, one of you died, or the Wylds are downstairs and have set the place on fire. I trust you both brought your teddy bears. The bathroom is over there. Go talk to room service if you need some water or anything.” She turned to leave.
    “Um…Shyasha Rinkari?” Faug said in a tentative voice. Valin knew it was his “I’m-jokingly-going-to-tick-her-off” type voice. “Can I have a bedtime story?”
    “Fine,” Shyasha Rinkari said, pausing and turning around in the doorway and leaning against the frame. “Once upon a time there were two guys named Faug and Valin who were going on an adventure with an Elven Fairy who was cooler than both of them. Shyasha Rinkari was not in a very good mood on the night they met because she was tired, so by the time she started telling a story to Faug, who was nearly a grownup, she was ready to punch him in the face. The end. Goodnight.”
    Laughing slightly, Faug and Valin said goodnight and turned to collapse into the beds. Thankfully, Shyasha Rinkari had gotten a room with two.
    “I think she secretly likes me,” Faug said smugly in the dark.
    “You are ridiculously full of it, my friend,” Valin replied.
    “Well, she can’t like you, because you’re the chosen one,” Faug said. “And that boyfriend of hers from before ditched her, so she could use a guy to love her. What do you think?”
    “I think,” Valin said, “that you have completely lost it. She’s more than just a pretty face, apparently. And I don’t think she likes you that way.”
    “Why? I’m decently good looking, right?”
    “Well, that’s beside the point. I don’t think girls like her are into guys like you. That’s not her type.”
    “Oh, and you’re her type?”
    “No.”
    “You like her, don’t you?”
    “No, I don’t.” Valin’s voice was defensive because, for the first time, he really wasn’t into a girl. Well, not this girl. Maybe Swega Perby in Anana, but not Shyasha Rinkari. She wasn’t the kind of girl he’d fall in love with.
    “Who, then?”
    “You know who.”
    “Swega Perby?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Why do you like Swega Perby anyway? She isn’t that good looking.”
    “Come on, just because a girl isn’t a looker doesn’t mean she’s not nice.”
    “What do you see in Swega Perby?”
    “A person who cares about things that are worth caring about, you know? Like she’s willing to wait if she needs to, and she’s really caring and gentle and stuff.”
    “Yeah. Wish I knew a girl like that.”
    “You’ll find someone eventually. Maybe that sorceress has a twin sister.”
    "Or I could get together with that sorceress.”
    “Shyasha Rinkari would murder you. And then chop you up and murder your individual little pieces.”
    “Oh, well. Good night.”
    “Night.”

    The next night, there was a soft knock on the door of room fifteen. The door opened silently, and two dark figures moved out to join the third, smaller figure in the hall. The three moved off quickly and silently and soon were on the road that led west, towards Norasona.
    Shyasha Rinkari was glad to be out. She wasn’t blind, the farthest thing from it. She had only said that to get these two overly-talkative humans to shut up. She had closed her eyes during the demonstration, however, and she had been talking from personal experience when she talked about how you had intensified hearing and senses when you were blind-she had spent three years in a semi-blind state because of that near death experience when she was sixteen. Man, she hated that guy right now. That’s why she had nearly died-she had been in love, and he’d been nice, and they’d been together for years, and then he randomly decided that he was going to break up with her. She had even frozen at fifteen because she had been in such great shape anyway and it was such a good time of life. Her dad had frozen at thirty and then refrozen at fifty, and now all h did was complain about his back and cramps and whatever else. Shyasha sometimes got cramps, but that was only when she was dehydrated. From what she’d heard, her ex had gone into the wild and unfrozen, aged thirty years, and gone back to Norasona and taken over the ruled the city after her father because she’d run away. She hadn’t wanted to see that jerk’s face ever again. And yet, here she was, leading her two charges to witness her certain death. Death not because of the fact that her heart might break again, but death from the fact that she was going to end up trying to beat him up (which was now her lifelong ambition) and get killed by the security guards. Shyasha was now 2% in love with her ex (even after four thousand years and the fact that he looked old enough to reasonably be her father) and 98% ready to rip his guts out, mash them to a pulp, and feed them to his dog. That is, if he had a dog. If he didn’t, then the cat would get them. If he didn’t have a cat, then she would force feed them to someone. Maybe Faug. Faug was annoying. Really annoying. But reasonably funny.
    “Shyasha Rinkari!” Faug said at that moment.
    “It’s just ‘Shyasha’ when you’re talking to or about me,” Shyasha said. “If you stop talking so much you’d realize how stupid ‘Shyasha Rinkari’ sounds when both words are together.”
    “It’s a cool name,” Valin said.
    “Thanks,” Shyasha replied. “I honestly think it’s the worst name ever.”
    “Well, don’t you know what ‘Valin’ means?” Valin asked.
    “No.”
    “Squirrel dung,” Faug sniggered.
    “Very funny,” Shyasha said skeptically.
    “It’s true,” Valin said.
    “Seriously? That’s mean. Who’d want to name their kid ‘squirrel dung’?”
    "Beats me,” Valin replied.
    “Well, guess what ‘Faug means?” Faug insisted.
    “Let me guess,” Shyasha joked. “Overlord of the idiots?”
    “No,” Faug snorted. “It means ‘intelligent’.”
    “Right,” Shyasha said in a skeptical tone. “Well, once you start living up to it; let me know, will you?”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?” Faug demanded.
    “That you’re immature. And you haven’t picked up an obvious fact.”
    “What obvious fact?” Faug demanded in the whiny tone that he did so well, being nine. “And I’m not immature.”
    "Oh,” Valin said, comprehension suddenly dawning on his face.
    “What?” Faug complained.
    “I’m not blind.”
    “WHAT?”
    “I’m not blind,” Shyasha repeated. “Come on, you honestly expect a blind person to be able to walk through this town without guidance and somehow manage to not fall in the gutter at least twice? And about walking through this town, let’s shut up, because we could wake enemies and that’s not good, and we could provide more of a target for the Wylds, if they find us. Come on.”
    They walked the rest of the way out of the town in silence. Shyasha was secretly laughing at Faug. He was so much fun to tease.


    Shyasha, Faug, and Valin walked steadily for a while, and then Faug started actually to wake up, and, as Shyasha had predicted in her head, he started complaining. What she hadn’t predicted was how much Faug picked up, and the extreme expanse of his imagination of language. He complained about everything, and cussed something out in the weirdest ways whenever he was annoyed. By the time they sat down for a proper breakfast, when the sun was properly up, he had gotten to the stage of plodding along with no real enthusiasm, his head lolling one way on one step and the other way on the next one. His face was pink from the strain to walk, talk, and complain all at the same time. He complained about everything there was to complain about-the time, the weather, the fact that they had to wake up at dawn, the speed at which they were going (first they were going too slow, now they were going too fast), the fact that his feet hurt, and everything else he could think of. He asked questions occasionally, but they usually consisted of words related to “when,” “are,” “we,” “going,” “to,” “get,” and “there.” Sometimes Faug would trip on a tree root, and he would holler out something like, “HOLY SON OF A YELLING POOP HEADED WORMY GOBLIN!!!”
    “Where does he get these ideas?” Shyasha asked Valin, who was walking beside her. The pair was several paces ahead of Faug.
    “He’s a writer,” Valin said. “Well, not a writer. His thing is really his comic books. He does stories about people who can shoot fire out of their noses and stuff. He’s really quite good. He’ll probably end up being either a comedian or have his own comic strip in the local newsletter.”
    “What about you? What do you do?”
    “I…don’t know.”
    “Well, what are you good at?”
    “It’s weird. You wouldn’t get it.”
    “Really. Try me.”
    “No, seriously. You wouldn’t understand.”
    “Valin, you have to remember how old I am.”
    “What’s your point?”
    “My point is that even though there are still a couple of surprises out there for me, I doubt that one of them is going to come in the form of a 19-year-old’s lifelong ambitions. Besides, if you don’t tell me, I’ll start singing, and you do not, on any terms, want to hear me sing."
    “All right, all right. But don’t laugh, okay?”
    “Okay.”
    “Fine. I like to sew and…well…I knit.”
    “You knit?”
    “I told you it was weird.”
    “No, it’s not weird.”
    “Yes, it is.”
    “No, it’s not really. When you open up your own fabric shop, contact me and we’ll do a joint business or something. I can knit. Sort of.”
    “Really?”
    “Yeah. Mind you, I haven’t picked up a pair of sticks in about fifty years, but, you know, I can learn. Or re-learn. Or whatever. I mean, I don’t have a lot of time to do it, but still.”
    “Seriously? You’re not joking? And you don’t think I’m completely out of my mind or anything?”
    “Yes, I’m serious, no, I’m not joking, and no, I don’t think you’re completely out of your mind or anything.”
    “SWEET!”
    “What?” Faug complained.
    “Nothing,” Valin said, grinning.
    “When you say that-”
    “It means he isn’t going to tell you why he’s grinning, so just drop it,” Shyasha told him.
    “Are we there yet?” Faug moaned.
    "No,” Shyasha said. “And you can stop asking that for another few days.”
    “Are we going to eat soon?”
    “Yes.”
    “When?”
    “Now.”
    “Really?”
    "If you promise to shut up for a while.”
    “Done!!!”
    “Wait,” Shyasha ordered, suddenly tense.
    “What?” Faug demanded. “I’m hungry.”
    “SHUT UP!” Shyasha yelled in a stage whisper at him. “I think I hear something. Shut up so I can listen.”
    All three were quiet for a moment.
    “I knew it,” Shyasha muttered.
    “What are we supposed to be hearing?” Faug asked blankly.
    “Shut it already!”
    “I did!”
    “Keep it shut unless you want me to tell you to run in the wrong direction!”
    They were all quiet some more. Neither Faug nor Valin heard anything, but their hearing wasn’t as good as Shyasha’s, so it was harder for them to hear what she was apparently hearing.
    Then, very faintly, the two humans heard it, too. There was a very faint sound of hoof beats, growing ever louder. The two males couldn’t tell where the sound was coming from, but they could tell by the way Shyasha was poised, catlike, in a defensive sort of way, that whatever was coming was probably not going to be pleasant.
    “Who’s coming?” Valin whispered.
    “Multiple people,” Shyasha hissed back. “On horseback. They’re very fast horses, maybe even destriers. They’re covering ground like mad, and we’re not going to be able to outrun them if we try. They’re coming from the northeast, behind us, and heading right for us. There’s no time to run-they’ll be on us soon.”
    “What do we do?” Faug asked.
    “Up there,” Shyasha ordered, pointing at the branches of the strong-looking oak above their heads. “Now.”
    “Why?” Faug demanded.
    “This is not the time for questioning people’s judgment,” Valin said. “Get up there now or when we get back I’m telling mom the exact number of cookies you stole from the cookie jar!”
    “You wouldn’t dare!”
    “Yes, I would!”
    “Well, we’re not going to be able to test Valin’s daring when it comes to telling your mom about cookies and jars if you guys don’t get off the road and into hiding!” Shyasha said. It was true. The hoof beats were so close that they shook the ground and felt like it was rumbling through the bodies of the trio. The three could almost hear the heavy breathing of the horses and riders as they climbed the tree. Valin went first, ad then Shyasha handed Faug up, despite Faug trying to wriggle free. She was surprisingly strong. Shyasha went up last, hesitating to look over her shoulder before reaching up to grab the nearest branch and pull herself into the leaves.
    Three figures rode below. One was on a white and grey horse, wearing a white cloak. They could see him for only a moment, and all they saw that might distinguish him in the future was that he had long grey hair and was carrying a long staff. The second figure was a young man on a chestnut horse who looked no older than eighteen. He had curly dark hair and was carrying a javelin. The third figure was on a black horse. His hair was black and close-cut, and his age seemed somewhere in between his two fellows. He wasn’t carrying anything.
    “Telsiel,” Shyasha said quietly, looking after the three figures.
    “What did you say?” Valin asked.
    “That was Telsiel,” Shyasha said. “With Dalar. I don’t know who the other guy was, though.”
    “You could see their faces?” Faug asked in awe.
    “You couldn’t?”
    “We’re not amazingly amazing, remember?” Faug said.
    “Whatever.”
    “Which one was Telsiel?” Valin asked.
    “The one on the black horse.”
    “Who is he?” Faug demanded.
    “He’s just…nobody.”
    “Really?” Faug said, as if he didn’t believe that Shyasha didn’t know the guy.
    “We knew each other a while ago.”
    “When was a while ago?” Faug asked.
    “Before you were born,” Shyasha said shortly.
    “Why do you keep saying that? Are you speaking in code?”
    “Of course she’s speaking in code,” Valin said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
    “Really?” Faug asked eagerly.
    “Yeah,” Valin said. “‘Before you were born’ is really, in all reality, code for ‘I am a moose.’”
    “Really?”
    “Use your brain, dummy. Of course not.”
    “BOYS!” Shyasha said sternly.
    “What?” they protested together.
    “Who wants food?”


    The next few days passed without much hassle. They always woke up before dawn and ate hardy but uncooked ranger food while they were still moving, only stopping for meals when it was light out. This kept them on the move and proved good for several reasons: the Wylds couldn't find their camp, they could cook food, albeit with only certain types of wood that made small flames but also little smoke so they would lower the risk of being seen, and it kept Faug's mouth occupied doing something other than complaining about the pace, distance, time of day, or other thing that might cause him to start bugging Shyasha out of her mind. When these times came, Valin often came to Shyasha's aid by saying something to get him to shut up. Shyasha was grateful for this-the two boys got to sleep all night while she was keeping a watch from dusk till dawn, making sure that the Wylds, who usually traveled at night, didn't come upon them. She didn't need to sleep, technically, but she did need some form of rest or sleep every so often. Those brief moments of rest were very few, as Shyasha forced herself to keep Faug and Valin moving in order to get them to Norasona quickly. Since they had seen Dalar on the road, he would probably expect them to be at the city before him, for some reason unknown to her. Maybe it was just the fact that they hadn't seen each other at the Lazy Dog.
    The three arrived in Norasona at dusk on the fourth day of travel. Faug, for some reason, still didn't entirely believe that Shyasha wasn't blind, because he was so impressed with her blind instinct when they first met officially.
    “But what if she DID go blind, though, at one point?” Faug wondered to Valin when he was rather sure that Shyasha couldn't hear. They were on the very outskirts of the city, just beyond the crumbling stone wall.
    “I did, at one point, a long time ago, before you were born,” Shyasha hollered over her shoulder. Faug had forgotten about the fact that she still had amazing hearing. “HURRY UP!!!”
    "How did you know how old I am, and when I was born, and all that?" Faug asked, running up to her.
    "Dalar told me, remember? You're nine."
    "Well, how old are you?" Faug demanded.
    “You honestly want to know?”
    "Yes."
    "Fine. I am four thousand seven hundred and thirteen years old. And I think I already told you."
    "How do you tell time, anyway, when you can’t see anything?" Faug wondered.
    "I can see," Shyasha said exasperatedly. "I TOLD you. But when I was blind, I told time by the temperature of the air, mostly. And just by intuition, like my body knew around what time I went to sleep and what time I woke up and when it got dark and stuff."
    "When did you tell us?"
    "The night before we left. And I ALSO said how old I was then, too. So, for once, will you PLEASE stop asking?"
    "Huh? When did you tell us you weren’t blind?"
    "At the Lazy Dog. Don't you remember ANYTHING?"
    "Well, when were you blind?"
    "A long time ago. It was really annoying because, for that type of blindness, I could only see when I was around my true love. Dalar told me."
    Faug and Valin snorted.
    "Look, I didn't make it up, okay? I don't do a lot of magic or prophecies or anything. That's Dalar, and he's not here right now, so you can't ask him why love is supposed to cure all curses. I CAN do magic, though.”
    "So it was a curse?" Faug asked.
    "I didn't say that."
    "Yes you did."
    "When?"
    "Just now."
    "I SAID that Dalar isn't around to be asked about curses, I didn't say-"
    "But you said that you could only see when-"
    "Yes, but that-"
    "AND you said 'for that type of blindness-'"
    "Yes, but that doesn't mean that it-"
    "And normal blindness doesn't work like that!"
    "I KNOW that, but that-"
    "SO," Faug yelled over her. "You must have had a curse."
    "Whatever. Either way I couldn't see for three years." She said that as they walked through the decaying wood door of the city.
    Shyasha stopped suddenly, and Faug nearly walked into her, and Valin walked into both of them.
    "Something is wrong here," Shyasha said slowly, moving forward slowly, staring around. Almost subconsciously she took her bow from around her shoulders and put an arrow on the string. This wasn't just a display of the Amazing Senses of Shyasha Rinkari and The Quickness at Which They React to Things. Faug and Valin could sense it, too. As they walked through the streets in a small clump, they saw nobody else on the streets and there were no lights in the windows, even though the sky was steadily darkening. Most of the stone buildings were still firmly intact, but there wasn't any life in the city, no sort of buzz that meant that even though you couldn't see the inhabitants, they were there. The ground was slightly wet, as if it had just rained. A breeze made a wooden sign creak on its hinges and blew around the edges of Shyasha's hood. Then silence. There was no other sound except for the soft footfalls and slight breathing of the three travelers.
    "This isn't right," Shyasha said, and for the first time, there was something that wasn't sarcasm or certainty in her voice.
    "Where is everyone?" Valin asked. "It's like they just all left or something."
    "Or maybe they died," Faug whispered.
    "I don't think they died," Shyasha said. Then she muttered to herself, "I'm gonna kill him."
    "Gonna kill who?" Faug asked. Shyasha had to admit, although he never seemed to get his head around some stuff, he definitely picked up on a lot.
    "Nobody," Shyasha said shortly.
    "Come on," Faug pestered eagerly. "Who's gonna die?"
    "The stupid idiot who calls himself King of the Three Cities."
    "What are the Three Cities?"
    "The Three Cities are Norasona, Lira, and Nojura. They’re the biggest concentrated populations of people in the area. Whoever is king or queen has domain over the Three Cities and the general area in between and has to keep order."
    "Why are you going to kill him?" Valin asked.
    "I might not have to. But if he doesn’t tell me what happened here I swear he’s going to die. And I’m also going to kill him if he doesn't give me a straight answer."
    "Do you know him?" Faug asked.
    "Yes."
    "How?" he wondered.
    "Not now, Faug," Shyasha told him, and or once he realized that he really had to shut up.
    She led them quietly through the streets, taking the alleyways and back roads whenever possible. The area was getting more and more shadowy, and the effect was not pleasant in the slightest.
    "Shyasha," Valin asked tentatively. "Where exactly are we going?"
    "To my old house," Shyasha said.
    "You used to live here?"
    "Once upon a time."
    "I thought we were going to see the ruler guy," Faug said. "Why are we going to your old house?"
    Then they rounded a corner and the two guys stared.
    "Is that your old house?" Faug asked.
    "Yeah," Shyasha grunted.
    "House" didn't exactly cover it. "Mansion" might have been a better term, but still not exact. The best term would either be "palace" or "castle".
    “When did you live here?” Valin asked Shyasha.
    “When I was younger,” Shyasha replied.
    “Why did you leave?” he persisted.
    “It’s a long story that we’ll have time for when some guts get pounded out of the current ruler.”
    Shyasha went up to the wall and hollered, “OY!! YOU!!” up at the guard’s post on the top of the wall.
    “I WILL NOT BE ADDRESSED AS ‘YOU!!’”
    “WELL, AS YOU’RE OBVIOUSLY NOT THE SAME GUARD THAT WAS HERE WHEN I LEFT, I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO CALL YOU!!”
    “NOT THE SAME GUARD? I’VE BEEN HERE SINCE BEFORE THE SCARRED PRINCESS WAS BORN!! HOW LIKELY IS IT THAT YOU LEFT BEFORE SHE WAS BORN? THERE ARE ONLY FOUR PEOPLE STILL ALIVE WHO ARE AS OLD OR OLDER THAN HER!! NOW, WHAT DO YOU WANT?”
    “WE WANT TO SEE THE KING OF THE THREE CITIES!!”
    “BY WHAT AUTHORITY DO YOU WISH TO SEE HIM? DO YOU HAVE AN APPOINTMENT?”
    “WE DON’T HAVE AN APPOINTMENT!! BUT YOU AREN’T THE SAME GUARD WHO WAS HERE WHEN I LEFT!!”
    “I AM CEROB!! BY WHAT AUTHORITY DO YOU DEMAND ENTRANCE? AND WHO ARE YOU?”
    “BY THE AUTHORITY OF PRINCESS SHYASHA RINKARI, THE SCARRED PRINCESS!!! AND I’M SORRY I DIDN’T RECOGNIZE YOU!!! ”
    "DID SHE SEND YOU?”
    "I SEND MYSELF WHERE I CHOOSE!!! I'M THE PRINCESS!!!"
    With that, for the first time in thousands of years, Shyasha lowered her hood. She had dark brown hair that was pulled back in a braid. It was long enough to disappear behind her cloak, but the males couldn't see where it went from there. She had chin-length bangs that were swept back by a fabric headband. Her skin was pale, and her round hazel eyes glared upwards at Cerob. The most startling thing about her was the scars. It looked like a bear had slashed the left half of her face, and then someone took a sword and cut a large X over her face.
    “Princess?” Faug and Valin gasped in unison.
    "Since when?" Faug demanded.
    "Since I was born," Shyasha said. "Shut up."
    "Good Lord," Cerob muttered. "It's the princess."
    There was the sound of a person going down a long, wooden stairway. Then a trapdoor in the wall opened and Cerob's head poked out.
    "You're back," he said.
    "Yes, I am. Can we come in now?"
    "Do you want to see-"
    "Yes, I do. Can we, or is it now illegal to admit princesses who chose exile over long and painful death?"
    "Fine. But it might hurt."
    "I'm ready. We saw him and Dalar and a third on the road. I didn't die. Can we come in now?"
    "All right, I guess."
    “But one thing first-what happened here?”
    “The Wylds came. They didn’t do a load of killing, but they did take a few prisoners. The people who were left took sanctuary in the castle.”
    "Okay, that’s news. I never thought the Wylds would take prisoners. Thank you."
    The door opened. Shyasha pulled her hood back up and the scars, the hair, and the riveting hazel eyes were hidden again as she led the way inside.