It was late and Phyllada was returning back home after a long workday. She'd been going around the forest and trying to cure trees from maginopia. The center of the forest was still in good condition, but it was more and more difficult to take good care of the border regions.
She passed by a large meadow. She could hear a group of children arguing. This somehow reminded her of Elyre and her own childhood. It was difficult to ignore the children's voices, which followed her along the way as they were so loud...
"If you played without summoning unicorns to help you, you'd definitely catch fewer butterflies," a young boy groaned at a girl.
"What am I supposed to do? It is not my fault that you can't summon unicorns!" she retorted.
"What do you keep arguing for? Anyway, I win!" another girl, a young wood-nymph, smiled, trying to calm them down. In this particular game, butterfly hunting, wood-nymphs had a specific advantage. When a wood-nymph was asleep, butterflies would naturally alight on her. Thus the task of catching them would become fairly easy. But the argument about whether it was fair to pretend to be asleep was inevitable…
When Phyllada was younger, she'd used the same tactics to catch butterflies. And she was like a lucky charm! When a game included a dose of chance, she was bound to win. Then usually her friends would suggest playing another game. But it was difficult to choose which one. Dolls were too girly, playing hunters was for boys, and everyone was fed up with Phyllada's favorite game: pretending to be horses.
Suddenly, the voices of children helped Phyllada return to reality.
"You win?! But you don't even make an effort!" one of the children complained.
"You two keep arguing but I am the only one who doesn't have any special abilities to catch butterflies!" the boy frowned.
"Pretend to be a flower," the young wood-nymph giggled.
"Let's play hide-and-seek then," the boy suggested. "It's a neutral game."
"Oh, yeah? You're the only one with the ability to merge with trees. Very neutral!" one of the girls complained.
~They will never stop arguing!~ Phyllada laughed, but she didn't interfere. ~I wonder what Elyre has been doing,~ Phyllada thought.
She was so tired. When she returned to the Sun Manor, it was not very late but it was already dark. Her mother wasn't home. Lyssandria was also still outside with Bayan. Phyllada was going to have a lot of work the next day, so she decided to rest early. She fell deeply asleep immediately.
***
But a few hours later she woke up. That night was very dark. The moon was completely hidden and there were just a few stars. Phyllada's room was almost pitch-black when she opened her eyes.
The wood-nymph closed her eyes again. But she couldn't fall asleep now. It was strange to fall asleep without Elyre nearby. Usually, they would talk together until late in the evenings.
Suddenly, she heard a voice,
"Help me please." And she opened her eyes once again.
"Please help me. I can't bear it anymore." She kept hearing this voice, which dismissed her previous thoughts and distracted her from her other problems.
"I'm going to die. I will wither," the voice sounded as if it was a person crying.
Phyllada's ears could hear not only human beings. As a princess of the wood-nymphs, she could hear plants and learn information about the forest in this way.
She looked around. The voice seemed to be coming from the yard. She stood up, took a lantern and went out, still in her nightgown. She cast her eyes about. There was a vine near the windows of her room. In the darkness, it was more like a shadow that murmured in the wind.
"Help me."
The vine was crying for help. But it was watered. And the soil was good. What could be the problem? Phyllada went back to bring a shovel. She dug around the vine, only to find that there was a snake nest in its roots, which was an obstacle for the poor plant and it couldn't grow well. She helped the vine. She said,
"Don't worry. There was a snake nest in your roots… You don't know what snakes are. They are living things like me and you."
"Are they weeds?"
"No, they are not. They are more like me, I suppose, because they can move."
"I can move too. I like to turn my leaves to the sun!"
"Yes, but it is a bit different."
She sighed because she got a bit tired of digging. She had meant to sleep that night and to wake up early tomorrow. As silence set in, she suddenly heard footsteps.
"Who is there?" She asked, narrowing her eyes. She couldn't see anything in the darkness. Now she noticed she was out alone in the middle of the night, with a shovel in her hand.
When she saw a silhouette it was already too close and she still couldn't recognize the person. She could have used the powers of the Sun Stone to illuminate the space, but she had left the tiara inside. Who could be around the Sun Manor at this late hour?
It was her mother Thyberia… She sighed. Now she calmed down,
"Mother, why are you so late? I thought you came home much earlier and you were sleeping."
"I went to gather some rare herbs. But what are you doing outside so late at night and in a night gown?!"
"I was helping the vine."
"Don't do this again," her mother scolded her. "And you didn't even take the Sunstone... Let's go inside." They both went back. "What if I was a stranger?!" her mother continued.
"I was just outside my room. I didn't go anywhere," Phyllada explained.
"Still, you never know who roams this forest."
"Let's be quieter," Phyllada told her mother. "I think Lyssandria is sleeping."
"How is she doing?" her mother asked.
"Actually, she went with Bayan today... I haven't spoken a lot with her because I didn't see her. I fell asleep very early today. Bayan promised to bring her home."
"Okay," Thyberia said. "Tell her to be careful too. As I said, nobody knows who roams this forest especially at night. I didn't tell you this earlier, but a week ago the archmage himself came to the forest."
"The archmage?" Phyllada was surprised. "Why? What did he want?!"
"It was around the time of the ambush and the scandal with Fierce Wind," Thyberia said. "Maybe the Queen thinks we're not obedient enough. It seems the Queen decided to send him personally as a warning. It's the first time I saw him. I wouldn't even know who he was if he hadn't been wearing this ring that connects him to the Seventh Fire."
"I've never seen him either..." Phyllada exclaimed. "So what? Do you think he's still in the forest? Or that I should be afraid of him?"
"No, neither of the two. At least not now," Thyberia replied. "I am just saying, you never know... The forest is not as calm as it used to be. There are some disagreements and warring factions in Allyria. We're not a part of this, and I think it's better not to get involved..."
"Yes, I agree," Phyllada said. "Mother, I have a lot of work tomorrow, so I will go to bed. It's already so late."
"Good night," her mother said.
But when Phyllada went to bed, she still couldn't fall asleep. Truly she couldn't have imagined that the archmage would personally come to Wild Wood to deliver a message from the Queen.
As she was falling asleep she suddenly remembered she'd seen a mage she didn't know near the Sun Manor. He'd had a horse. It had been the same horse she'd seen a few days later in the harbor, when she was seeing Elyre off.
Could this have been the archmage's horse?! Try as she could, she couldn't remember his face.
Could they have seen the archmage in the harbor? Could the archmage be going to Vahara Arta?
Was he on the same ship as Elyre?... Even if that was the archmage, why did it worry her so much?
Was Elyre in danger? If he didn't know that Elyre was Fierce Wind, he didn't really have reasons to turn against Elyre, did he?
Maybe she'd just seen another unfamiliar mage who happened to be in Wild Wood and then at the docks?... But there weren't so many mages in Wild Wood...
Maybe there was no connection between Elyre's journey and the archmage.
Still, it was interesting that the two would happen to be at the same place. What a coincidence…
~It was certainly the same horse.~ Phyllada thought. It was certainly too much of a coincidence.
The wood-nymph would feel best if she followed Elyre into Vahara Arta to make sure her sister was fine. But she had so many responsibilities this was impossible…