“There's no ulterior motive, just another motive.”

  “… Until you woke up in the lake when he freed me, I had never seen you cry. Laughter is scarce and gnashing of teeth unusual, but I never saw tears, no matter how sad I perceived you to be.” She says. “I'm looking for the reason you want to dominate Chaos, not the reasons for doing the right thing. Is it death or morality? What scared you so much that you woke up crying? What is it beyond the Gates that makes everything so difficult? What do you want?”

  I look away. The shadow has come a step closer. I turn to Morgana.

  “I saw light behind the Gates. I think it's the source of the magic that the books talk about. What was pure, was good, but there was something that wasn't. It was me, smiling. I have to reach what's behind that figure. I thought I'd done it in the forest, but it's something much more dangerous than I thought. I've angered them.”

  Morgana sharpens her gaze. “No. It's more than that.”

  I nod to myself. “The Gates… The blinding light… It helped me once, but against that-- I don't know. I can't know. I'm not sure. I don't want to throw myself like that again, knowing that they might…” I shake my head. “No.”

  Matter bends before me, but the meaning of the words is still too abstract for me to affect with magic. Instead, I wander around the field trying to find the right words. Elron would explain it better. I've never been good at it.

  “Science is flawed, but another part of magic is self-knowledge. I want to know. I can say a thousand words about what the Unknown or Chaos is, I still won't understand it until I reach its source. I want to know what was there, why it was there and what it was—if it was there at all—and why I feel it's still there until now. I want to know what's wrong with me. Aldwyn knows.”

  Morgana stares at me for a few seconds, then turns to the dead plants and strokes them. They rise, coming back to life momentarily, only to agonize and die again.

  “It's true. For the majority, self-knowledge, practice and external knowledge are all necessary to understand and use magic. You, however, have never been part of the majority. Chaos, metamagic and miracles. Aldwyn doesn't know the secrets of the divine, or he would have taken over not just a forest, but the world.”

  “How can you be sure? Aldwyn is not human.”

  “Me neither.” She says.

  Silence pervades the field for a few seconds before his voice echoes across the grass.

  “Nobody, Sieghart. Nobody in this world knows. Not completely. Certainly not Aldwyn. If this is the truth, and it is the truth, and you know it is the truth, how can you be sure that mere human knowledge will save you from Chaos?”

  “I don't know.”

  “Then why do you do what you do?”

  “Because it's the only thing I can do.” I say.

  “Meet the Lion,” I continue. “To face him and open the Gates… I don't know how I had the courage the first time. I can't do that again, Morgana.”

  Morgana stops, then slowly crawls over to me.

  “Run away with me.”

  “What?”

  “Run away with me, Sieghart. That's your other option. You stabilized Chaos. You've done enough for this village by not burning it to the ground for how they treated you. We'll figure out a better way to deal with your power, just like we did here. One that doesn't involve throwing yourself into the clutches of an obvious trap.”

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  Morgana stops in front of my eyes. Her gaze seems to pierce through my soul, and I'm almost certain she can see behind any lie I tell.

  “One where you have no chance of losing me, and you can sleep peacefully.”

  “… You can't do that. Not forever. Chaos will take control again. If I get the answers from Aldwyn, I can change that.”

  “What if I can't?”

  “It's better than nothing.”

  “But it's still not good.”

  An emerald forest. A sea of demons. Death, over and over again.

  “I'm not going back to that place.”

  “…”

  “… And I'm not going to run away.”

  She gives a smile that emulates sadness, but I know it's not real. The fairy laughs to herself. “Of course you won't. It's the right thing to do, isn't it?”

  “Yes.”

  She nods and fixes her hair. “I'll never understand you. I'm sorry, child. It's the first time I've seen your anguish in the flesh. I won't question you any further -- but I do have one question: What if you’re wrong? How will you cope if the weight of this knowledge betrays you and consumes you instead of giving you control?”

  “It won't. It can't.”

  Morgana shrugged and sat down. “Your eyes see everything they shouldn't, but you're still blind. I'll have to fix you when this is all over.”

  “That's what I'm trying to do.”

  “You're doing it wrong.”

  I scratch my head. “You look worse than me.”

  Morgana clenches her hand and threatens to punch me, but takes a breath and gracefully places it back on her lap.

  She smiles. The fairy nods to herself. “Very well. I already knew about your stubbornness in leaving the village. The best we can do now is what we came to this garden to do.”

  I stand up. The shadow had come closer. One step after another, I take the lead in approaching it and stare at the face it doesn't have.

  Morgana follows me with her gaze. Living with me seems to have accustomed her to this behavior.

  “What did we really come for?”

  I point my finger at the shadow. Around me, the density of the aura I used to disintegrate the apple expands. Recognized, the creature approaches without changing its position, as if crossing the ground.

  “Destroy whatever you want.”

  Centimeters from me, the silhouette explodes into darkness. Its remains disappear at my command, united with the aura that surrounds me.

  A smile breaks out on my face. I turn to Morgana.

  “What's the next lesson?”

  ***

  “For too long, the forest demon has made us fear its power!” Arlong shouted to the crowd of people around him. Above the wooden palanquin and in front of the village gate, half a dozen soldiers surrounded him, while the others prepared the horses and supplies behind them.

  Iron mesh over gibbons protected the men who conducted the operations undercover. Next to Arlong, however, the only iron and steel armor was on display, some would say more expensive than life itself.

  “We were banished and had the audacity to torment us in revenge! In other campaigns, our men were butchered! He kidnapped our sons and terrified our mothers!”

  I snap my neck. I can feel their gazes pierce the wood and find me inside the box. The metal squeezes my wrists and chains me to the floor, but it doesn't prevent me from seeing my surroundings. The dim light through the gaps tells me who is who or who is doing what.

  Young people he had never seen - or, rather, paid no attention to - took last-minute tests to fit in. They weren't soldiers, but they would have liked to be. With the exception of the disabled, women, children and important people, Arlong wouldn't turn away anyone who wanted to help him on his mission.

  Thus, a third of the battalion is made up of peasants. The number only seems impressive. Not counting me and Arlong himself, the armada is made up of eighteen soldiers, only three or four of whom have full armor. If we fail, two-tenths of the entire village would perish, along with much of its military might.

  The angry shouts are unified next to the statue of the priest who once beat him. While the speech ignites the hearts of the villagers, the carriage that brings me approaches the soldiers outside, and drops of sweat run down their faces.

  “He speaks well, doesn't he?” Elron says.

  I frown. “Elron?” I say from inside the box.

  “Oh, I don't think you knew. I've been admitted. I'll be going to the academy in the kingdom of Magnolia next year.”

  “... And what are you doing here?”

  “Arlong is my father. I have to accompany him to make sure he doesn't die. You too.”

  “That's dangerous, Elron. Go home.”

  He punches the wooden box, then laughs and leans on it. I'm sure the soldiers look at him with a mixture of fear and despair.

  “Sieg, Sieg. Who do you think I am?”

  “I-”

  “It was Aldwyn who killed her. You know that.”

  “... Your father will take care of it, Elron.”

  “I'm going too. No civilian dies while I'm here.”

  “No more!” Arlong shouts. “The creature has sent its curse to us, and we will use it against it! We will end its reign of terror and erase the terrible sacrifices our ancestors made to appease its wrath! We will bring back the bodies of the lost and missing! We will avenge the dead!”

  Elron nods. “Never again.”

  The soldiers get ready. Elron stands back as he equips himself and mounts his horse. Arlong and his men descend from the palanquins to cheers and shouts, the gates open and the onslaught begins against the Black Forest beyond the village.

  “TODAY, WE WILL KILL A GOD!”