Something strange was going on in Varnhold.

  An elite soldier of the Varnling Host, a halfling known as the Bruiser, didn't show up in Tuskdale on the pre-arranged day he was supposed to hold a series of unarmed combat workshops for the Nightvale troops. Not even on the next day or the day after. The bird Baroness Guelder sent to Varnhold Town to inquire about the reason returned with its message undelivered. An attempted Sending by Tristian, trying to reach Regent Cephal Lorentus on Valerie's behalf, bounced back in failure, just like a similar attempt directed immediately to the baron in Guelder's name.

  By the time Lady Jamandi's letter arrived in Tuskdale, asking the baroness to check on her eastern neighbours, Guelder was already prepared to set out. She offered Edrist Hanvaki a place in the expedition, in case they would find out something about his missing brother over there. The nobleman accepted the opportunity with thanks. Admittedly, he was bored with his stay in the lackluster capital of Nightvale.

  After some consideration, the baroness decided to include Hazel, Valerie, Amiri, Harrim and Linzi in the Varnhold rescue team. Reg and Via were still busy researching the secrets of their own pasts, and Guelder was happy to leave them to their work. Tristian had his hands full organising the school system to be rolled out at the onset of autumn in Tuskdale, Levetonsk, Tatzlford and Silverstep Village. Ekundayo was out scouring the Narlmarches with a unit of Embeth Travellers to track down Morhalan, the celebrated tailor-genius of Tuskdale, who'd turned out to be using skins of sentient creatures in some of his masterpieces. As to Jaethal... Despite how much the baroness had grown to trust her, it seemed to be a terrible idea to let her tag along. If the three zombie cyclops incidents Guelder knew about were part of a larger trend, a companion refusing to fight fellow undead for religious reasons would prove to be a real pain in the neck.

  Guelder expected to step out of the palace to a sunny day on the main square of Tuskdale, with cool and crisp morning air, full of the promise of new adventures – the complete opposite of the nagging unease she felt inside whenever she thought of Varnhold and her friends across the border.

  Instead, as soon as she stepped through the threshold of the palace, a sudden queasiness took her, as if she'd been crouching beside an unidentified mushroom for too long and then stood up too suddenly. For a moment, the world went dark, and she lost control of her limbs. Then it was all over, and as she found her footing on a carpet of strange, soft, bluish-green grass, she established with horror that today the heavy double door of her palace opened straight into the First World.

  Had she just been kidnapped?

  As she looked back over her shoulder, the palace door was right there, neatly closed behind her. She could walk back if she wanted to. However, now that she was here, she became curious why. Patting Pangur on the back, she walked forward to see what the First World had in store for her this time.

  It was only a short stroll among the already well-known trappings of the otherworldly landscape, the iridescent plantlife, the dumpling-shaped mushrooms that couldn't scare her anymore with their venomous little inhabitants, and the odd monkey munching peacefully on something until Pangur gave it a chase. Her host was already waiting for her, the leaves sprouting from her green skin softly beckoning the visitor closer. She smelled like freshly cut grass, with a peculiar note Guelder's brain had come to associate with fey.

  "You killed my flower," she said, looking the baroness up and down, as though she saw her for the first time. Her voice betrayed surprise, perhaps even a hint of awe.

  "You killed my people," retorted Guelder, with as little awe in her voice as was physically possible. "Having your toy taken away is the least punishment you deserve. Why am I here now?"

  "Ah," laughed the nymph in a voice of tiny pebbles bouncing in a glass bowl. "That silly old gnome. Did he not tell you to expect me anytime? Soft footsteps behind your back, just on the verge of being heard? A flash of a billowing green cloak at the edge of your vision, appearing for but a fraction of a moment? A dagger in your back, when you least expect it, and where it hurts most?"

  "I need no old gnome to remind me of that. Did you do something to him?"

  "The gnome?"

  Guelder sighed in dismay, but also in relief. So the "where it hurts most" part was not as obvious to Nyrissa as she'd feared.

  "No. Baron Varn."

  Her ilduliel laughed again.

  "Oh, no, no. I do have a hand in everything that happens on the Stolen Lands, but no, you will not find him here. Good luck to your next suicide mission, my hound."

  Guelder raised an eyebrow.

  "Hound? Seriously? Is that the best you could come up with? Or did you not expect me to become more than a random adventurer who slew a wine-addled bandit? Tell me, Nyrissa, did Would-be King Janush drop a grain for you, or was he just another lootless kill, like the Stag Lord?"

  The nymph took a step backwards, as if slapped across the face. The temperature of the idyllic-looking environment fell considerably. Guelder bristled her imaginary fur and pushed on.

  "Yes, I know about your game. And guess what, I am willing to cooperate. Give me a few quiet years or decades to grow, and I shall obtain some of the missing grains for you. In exchange, you shall leave me and my lands and people in peace."

  The answer came all too quickly.

  "Hah! I don't need your compassion. And you help me anyway, willing or not. You're but a fly in a spiderweb that thinks itself important, up until it gets eaten."

  "And you are the spider. Well, bad news for you: I am immune to poison."

  "No. I am the web, enveloping the entire land you brazenly call yours. There is no escape from me."

  "I see allegories are not your forte," spat Guelder. "You are not a web. A web has no mind, no choice. It just exists. You do have a mind, and if you weave a web and feed on the thousands of flies it catches, you do that by choice. Farewell, my spider, I have a suicide mission to embark upon."

  She turned and left the nymph standing there among the weird-coloured flowers, but couldn't help glancing back once more.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  "Next time we meet, you had better call me your leopard."

  With that, she stalked back to the door and, through it, to the mortal plane.

  The morning sun cut into her eyes with unpleasant radiance after the soft blue haze of the First World, and the well-known smells of her waking town filled her nostrils. She leant her back against the door and breathed deep until she regained full control of herself, relieved to be back on familiar terrain.

  If only she didn't feel like a traitor for trying to negotiate a special agreement with Nyrissa, without a single thought about including her allies.

  "Finally!" A grumpy voice interrupted her musings. It was Hazel, sitting on the stairs by the bulletin board and checking the fletching of their arrows. "I was about to sprout roots from my arse here. What took you so long? Trying and failing to choose a backpack to match your boots?"

  "Something is wrong with this door," muttered Guelder. "Maybe I should nail a horseshoe on top, like the locals do. I would love some degree of certainty that if I step out of the palace, I will not end up in the bloody First World again."

  She wiped her hand into her cloak, leaving a blotch of pollen shimmering in all the colours of the rainbow and more.

  Hazel jumped up, as if stung by a wasp.

  "Let me try," they said and entered the palace, not even waiting for her permission.

  It took about ten minutes for them to reappear.

  "It functions just fine for me," they said. "Nonetheless, I alerted the Storyteller about the problem. He will check the door and see what he can do about feyproofing it. Let us not waste more time. The others are waiting."

  They both took off across the increasingly busy main square towards the meeting point at the town gates.

  "Did you encounter anyone special over there?" asked Hazel softly.

  Guelder nodded, looking forward to getting a second opinion.

  "Nyrissa herself made me pay a visit to her."

  "What for? Does she have Varn?"

  An incredulous grin spread across Guelder’s face, like it always did whenever Hazel seemed to be reading her mind.

  "My thoughts exactly. But no, she does not."

  "Good. Then perhaps we can finally get an adventure without her ubiquitous presence."

  "You wish. She says she is everywhere, and I am starting to think she is not lying. After the Janush incident... I wonder whether she will go on trying to turn my companions against me or attempt something new." She took a deep breath and blurted out the most uncomfortable part. "Also, I have offered her my help. More grains in exchange for being left in peace."

  Hazel halted her in the shade of an alley, under the sign of the barber shop, and grabbed her shoulders.

  "You did WHAT?" they hissed. Their fingers pressed against her leather shoulderpads so hard that their nails turned white. "Bargained with her? Are you out of your mind? No, do not even bother answering. Just tell me one thing. Did she agree?"

  "No. She was quite... dismissive. She said I was helping her anyway."

  Hazel let out a sigh of relief.

  "You dodged a big barbed arrow there, Guel, and not thanks to your wisdom. It is all well and good to stab Varn in the back and make him drop a grain for Nyrissa, but you need to do it on your own terms, not bound by an agreement with her."

  "Excuse me?"

  Then she understood. Hazel was just putting two and two together, like the good Treasurer they were. Baron Varn was in trouble, and Guelder offered to collect more grains for Nyrissa before striking out to, well, "help" him. That was quite easy to misinterpret.

  "Guel, you have finally started to heed my advice and leave small fry like Morhalan to your subordinates to deal with. But today you are personally leading the field team to Varnhold. Surely you are not doing that out of some foggy-eyed emotion of friendship!"

  "I thought you cared about them, too. At least about Darlac. I thought she meant something to you."

  "Oh, Guel. You do not expect me to think like a politician, do you? Darlac is sweet, and I would love to hold her in my arms again one day, but when it comes to you... I mean, to Nightvale's interests, she is of secondary, no, vicenary importance. If she has to go, she has to go."

  "Vicenary? Is that even a word? Or have you just come up with it in order to make me feel bad about myself?"

  Hazel's dark eyes twinkled with excitement, and something like a smile of approval played around their lips.

  "It is all right, Guel. If you feel bad, that is just growing pains. You are evolving into a true ruler, ruthless and fierce, who first and foremost thinks of her own interests, and has no qualms doing whatever needs to be done to safeguard her land and her power. I love this new face of yours, love to see you coming into your own. Perhaps, after all, Jaethal is good... I mean, positive... no, I mean, useful influence."

  Guelder extricated herself from Hazel's hands still on her shoulders and turned away. They misunderstood her so badly. They were supposed to help her stay true to herself and her set of values, not to push her in the other direction. If they couldn't give her that kind of support, were they even worthy to be called a friend?

  That thought frightened her. What was she even doing, considering a breakup with her best friend over a difference of alignment present in their relationship since forever? Was this her way of helping Nyrissa, cutting herself off from people loyal to her till the bitter end and collapsing without their support? The mere idea of losing Hazel scared her to the marrow of her bones. But so did the thought of keeping them around and, at some point, actually starting to follow their advice – and most of all, the certainty that Hazel's feelings for her were much more complicated than pure and simple friendship.

  She was not ready to deal with this right now. She told herself she needed advisors with different stances and viewpoints, not yes-men catering to her delusions. Hell, she even tolerated Jaethal and seldom had any regrets. And whatever Hazel thought about morality and rulership, they were always ready to protect her with their life or drag her back from the Death's Door against all odds. She owed them so much. In a fairy tale, she should have married them long ago. The two of them would have become a power couple ruling the Stolen Lands with iron claws and a cunning mind, to the terror of their enemies and allies.

  Then again, fairy tales didn't really account for people like Guelder. A 'frozen' heart had to be thawed by true love or pierced by a sword. There was no other way.

  Next thing she knew, she was wrapped up in Hazel's arms. They were reading her mind, weren't they?

  "I know it is hard at first, Guel," they whispered. "I promise I will not rub salt into it anymore. Whatever path you decide to take, I want to walk it with you, if you let me."

  It was not an embrace, more like a drowning person clinging to a plank to keep their head above water. Too tight, too suffocating. Still, Guelder returned it. She needed Hazel by her side, to keep her on her toes. And maybe, just maybe, she really needed to toughen up in the face of hard decisions. Something told her she would encounter a number of those soon enough.