"Are you sure that is Gala?" Deviro asked the particular question for the tenth time since we got back from the kingdom.
The young warrior affirmed with a hum.
Deviro swung his head to the side, his thumb and index finger under his chin as he clicked his tongue.
"There was definitely something that happened when you both went back to the kingdom, wasn't it?" Deviro murmured next to Alvaro, his expression contorted in confusion while staring at Gala's back.
Alvaro heaved a long sigh. "You bet it."
Deviro turned his head sharply towards him and said, "Spill the beans, then." His voice was ironically upbeat, despite the possibility that it wasn't a delightful experience.
Alvaro knew that he couldn't deny the faye's request, seeing the enthusiastic expression planted on his face. He motioned the light-blue-haired faye closer to him, which it happily obliged. He then started narrating everything, beginning when they found out that everyone in the kingdom at that time was sleeping soundly, including the faye guards that were supposedly on the look-out during the night.
He then continued when they went to the king and queen, not leaving out the part where the king stubbornly refused Gala's warnings, then to the part where Gala was left in the burning castle until the massive fire suddenly vanished into thin air and the time that he thought Gala was dead only to discover the young whisperer in the rubbles of the palace, who appeared to have taken on a new persona.
"Whoa! I missed a lot of actions." Deviro slightly yelled, throwing his fist in the air. "But, something's amiss, don't you think?" The faye asked, his face serious.
The commanding chief of Aelfrey's valiant warriors agreed to Deviro's observation. "I completely agree with you. One of the faye guards had actually mentioned that before they passed out, they smelt something in the air. I am sure that it was somehow connected to the incident."
The faye, who was younger than him by a year, nodded enthusiastically in his response to his remarks. "Also, where does the wildfire come from? How in the world would a fire so massively form against an icy landscape? It sounded like this wasn't a normal wildfire, Alvaro."
He sighed. "You are right, Deviro. I sensed something inauspicious about the wildfire. Unfortunately, we have no crucial information yet regarding the incident. The king sent us back to you right away to accomplish the mission he had given to us and assured me that he would conduct an investigation right away." The young warrior paused. His gaze fell on the young girl who was walking ahead of them. "I can't exactly pinpoint it, Deviro, but my gut tells me that this isn't the last cataclysm we'll face."
Deviro's brow furrowed furiously. "You confuses me, Alvaro. What exactly are you trying to say?"
He did not throw him a glance but replied shortly, "I have a hunch that these are all related to the barrier's warning to Gala."
The younger faye squinted in perplexity. "I apologize for not following through; what did you say? Gala received a warning from the barrier? Why am I only hearing about this now?"
He looked at him, stunned. "I see, Gala did not mention this to you. On our way to Spîcolion, Gala got entangled with the barrier's soul and received the warning that someone in our land was using the forbidden magic to weaken the barrier that protects our world against the other forces outside this dimension. In short, an enemy had successfully infiltrated the land in disguise. It was a perfect exhibition of charades. Too bad for them, we found out their little dirty plan."
The faye silently followed him, seemingly grasping every word that he said. He completely understood him, as it took him awhile as well to accept the possibility that someone of their kind chose to betray them. The recent incident that unfolded helped him accept the bitter truth.
"So, I assumed that the disappearance of the massive fire had something to do with Gala." It was an affirmation rather than a question.
"I believe so. I haven't talked that much with Gala on our way here. She wasn't her usual self since we found her in the midst of the burnt palace. Her sudden display of maturity still astounds me. This is hard to admit, but I actually prefer her goofy and childish ways. It was easier for her to share such matters to us." Alvaro shared, a subtle hint of melancholy clinging to his voice.
"That means you still don't know what happened to her after you failed to save her."
A familiar pain probed into his chest after being reminded of his first failure since he was hailed as the chief commander of Aelfrey's legion of warriors. He would never forget the excruciating sensation that stabbed his heart that night. It was difficult for him to admit that he had unknowingly regarded the young whisperer with fondness.
He muttered a crushing 'yes' to the faye next to him. A moment of silence enveloped the group as they strode to a rocky pathway. The girl had skillfully jumped over the big, frozen boulders, no longer clumsy as she had been only a few days before. Each of them was left with their own pool of thoughts.
"I've been dying to say this," Deviro trailed off, subtly asking if he should continue. He gives a slight nod, which the younger Faye interprets as a signal for him. "Don't you think Gala was too extraordinary for a human?"
Alvaro tilted his head towards the younger faye's direction, his forehead creased, an invisible question mark hovered above his head. "What do you mean by that, Deviro?"
The shoulders of the other faye dropped as it sighed deeply. "Come on, Alvaro, didn't you ever wonder how she got all these abilities all of a sudden? Do you really believe Elderifrey's statements that Dylareia had perhaps chosen her as our whisperer?"
He strode past the younger faye, disappointed at him for doubting Elderifrey, who had been a loyal aide to the king for so many years and had contributed a lot to the land's abundance before the frost had actually happened. "I can't believe you're saying that, Deviro."
"I didn't mean to, Alvaro, but I can't help but question the coincidence of Gala's arrival in our land, Elderifrey announcing that she could be our whisperer out of the blue just because she 'saw' our sacred-faye. Don't you think all these coincidences are a bit suspicious?"
He came to a halt, his eyeballs twitching restlessly. Now that Deviro had brought it up, the coincidences were indeed fishy. But he couldn't feel anything negative about Elderifrey or Gala, or was he just being biased? He takes his time thinking.
"What about Gala's ability to speak Aeyalafreyn? That was too real to be staged, Deviro. I have witnessed Gala speaking in the sacred speech a lot of times. The beings of our land were as old as our sacred-faye, and their knowledge far exceeded our limited cognizance. I do not think that they will be easily fooled." He countered.
The younger faye bowed his head in embarrassment. He approached him and patted his back. "Don't be ashamed, Deviro, for speaking your mind. You are entitled to it and it is only natural for you to react as this concerns the welfare of the entire land, but we can't just carelessly draw conclusions so hastily without fair judgement. Rash judgements would only obscure our minds and eyes to the real truth."
The faye gave him a small smile, and so they continued walking, while Alvaro was left to reflect on Deviro's words. Would Elderifrey really betray them? He has known the elder faye since he was a child. He grew up to Elderifrey's words of wisdom and even shared her principles, advocating for fair justice and equality. It was out of her character to betray the entire Aelfrey. The elder faye had never shown any inch of greediness in his entire life.
Or was it all just a façade? A role that she was playing? Is the elder faye really using Gala for her schemes?
The chances of Elderifrey being the traitor are never zero, but this is true to all fayes of Aelfrey as well. Anyone could just be the traitor, even Deviro himself, but Alvaro knew too well that it was too early to narrow down the possible betrayers. For now, he would let the enemy carry on with their little play and would observe everything from an eagle-eyed point of view.
"There are a plethora of possibilities that no one could have conceived. Incomprehensible things that are out of reach, and a vast knowledge that our pint-sized brains could never attain. We live every day grasping at straws, believing that it is a gratifying life. We are just nothing but superficial beings in the midst of the infinite universe that we know nothing so much about." Gala said lyrically, out-of-the-blue.