Morfindel approached the forest.

She shivered in the cold, trembled with fear. She did not know why she was going into the forest. Something was pulling her in.

“Morfindel…”

She staggered through the trees. Their branches grabbed at her hair, roots tried to trip her, but she stayed upright. The leaves rustled under her footsteps. She couldn’t see in the dark, but whatever was pulling her seemed to know the way.

Then she entered a small clearing. The gloomy light shone down on her face.

In the center of the clearing was a towering, twisted tree. A small stream ran under and around the thin roots, brimming with little vibrant fish, swimming around and around. Colorful glass jars hung from the branches.

Tiny pale forms, almost invisible, squirmed inside and pressed their pale little hands against the blue, green, red glass.

Built into the tree was a crude, frail structure of pieces of discarded metal welded together. Wooden steps wound around the roots, up the base of the trunk, and to a crooked door. At the door stood a tall, slender woman. Her skin was white and her hair was curly and black, tumbling down her shoulders and back.

“Morfindel.”

Her lips were of a red Morfindel had never seen before. Then those red lips parted, but no sound came out. Two sharp fangs shone in the dim light, and then she wasn’t a woman anymore, but a giant snake.

The snake slithered over the dead leaves on the ground. Morfindel tried to move, but her legs were made of stone. The snake was almost on top of her. It opened its jaws.

Its fangs glistened.

“Morfindel!”

Her name was coming more hurriedly now.

“Morfindel!”

She opened her mouth to scream.

“Morfindel!”

~:~

She opened her eyes and shot up straight.

“Morfindel!” Belegorn was saying. “Are you okay? It looked like you were having a nightmare.”

Morfindel rubbed her eyes. She was sticky with sweat. “What are you doing here, Belegorn? It’s the middle of the night.”

Belegorn wrung his hands and looked at the floor. “I…I’m scared, Morfindel,” he said.

His confession was followed by silence. Morfindel studied his face. She couldn’t remember the last time he had admitted to being scared of something. All at once, Morfindel was flooded with flattery that he would confide in her what he wouldn’t speak of to anyone else.

She smiled gently at him. “That’s to be expected Belegorn. But if your purpose is noble, the Powers will protect you.”

“And is my purpose noble?”

“Of course it is,” she said. “You are doing this for Aranna.”

Belegorn looked away. “I don’t know if the Powers will protect me. They haven’t before. I don’t know if they even exist.”

“Don’t say that.”

“What if I can’t even find the House? What if I die before I even reach it? What if it takes years to find it?”

She knew what he meant, but she chuckled. “All these ‘what if’s,” she said. “Don’t worry. You know exactly where it is. You remember how Hadhod would recite his old cautionary story about it to the kids: ‘Between three walls of cold, tall stone, the witch’s house makes its own home.’ The obvious location is Aman Loke, as it curls around in a C shape. Therefore, three walls of stone. Just follow a map.”

“You know maps of the forest are never accurate,” Belegorn said. “The hills were all mapped from a viewing point in the mountains, and the daredevil who drifted down the river once to map it wasn’t even a professional cartographer.”

“Will you go with me?”

Morfindel’s heart jumped. “What?”

“I can’t go alone!” He was practically on his knees. His face, looking up into hers, was in shadow, but his eyes, now watery, nearly glowed in the moonlight.

Beside her, Adurant shifted in his sleep. Belegorn dropped his voice. “Please?”

Morfindel’s mind went back to her dream. The pale, thin enchantress, the snake, the souls in the jars.

“Please.”

“You’re going to have to go alone, Belegorn. You got yourself into this mess. You’ve got to get yourself out of it.”

Belegorn hung his head and began to turn to the door.

It hurt Morfindel to see him like that, alone and frightened. His grandparents, on both sides, had died early, leaving his parents as only children. His mother, a small woman, nearly died during his birth and was unable to bear another child. Morfindel was one of the only three relatives he had. She was responsible for him. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself if he were to die in that cursed forest.

But she would die if she went into that forest with him.

“I…I’ll go with you, Belegorn,” she said. “But only to the edge of the forest. No further. It’s more than most would do.”

Belegorn turned with hope in his eyes. “You will?”

Morfindel was silent for a moment.

“Yes,” she said.



Yanta sat on a warm wooden bench in the shade of the house and dug her toe into the dirt. “Well,” she said, “this is fun, isn’t it?”

Maris looked at her with a tilted head. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It was sarcasm, Maris,” Yanta said. “We can’t do anything!”

The other girl raised her eyebrows. “Sure we can,” she said. “I’m sure the mothers would appreciate some help with the cooking, and I can get out the needles and we can finish the blanket we started, since winter is coming in a few months, and it will start raining…”

Yanta stood up. “But that’s boring!” She let her arms drop to her sides. When she stood up her face was hit by the sunlight and immediately the sweat began forming in beads on her nose. She yearned for the shade and breeze of the forest. It had been so long since she had been there, but on a hot, humid day like this one she wanted to be surrounded by the trees. “Let’s go exploring in the forest.”

Maris frowned and opened her mouth to object.

“Would you be quiet?” a voice behind Yanta said. Both girls turned around. Rana brushed up against Yanta’s ankles.

A tall boy was squinting at her in the sunlight, and even from twenty feet away he seemed like a giant. “Your high pitched whine is killing me.”

Kicking up dust, Yanta marched up to the boy and shook her fist at him. “You mind your own business, Draven,” she said. “And my voice is not high pitched.”

Standing this close to Draven, the difference in height and build was obvious. He was tall and broad shouldered, and now he raised his fist, twice the size of hers. “No one cares,” he said. “You’re being loud and I don’t like it. So shut up.”

Maris tapped Yanta on the shoulder. “Um…Yanta?” she said. “I…I’m going home now. See you tomorrow, I guess.”

This was the time that week Yanta had tried to do what she wasn’t supposed to do—shout, run, pick fights with boys—and the third time that week her friends had gone home early. It couldn’t be coincidence. But at the moment Yanta barely saw Maris skip off through the dust.

Rana circled Yanta’s legs, then, with a purr, darted away. Yanta swivelled around when she heard the cat go.

“Rana!” she said. “Now you’re leaving?”

She turned back to Draven. He still had his fist raised. “Hold on a moment, will you?” she said, running after Rana. “I will be right back to break your nose after I catch my cat.”

She followed Rana into the shade of the stables. A figure, unrecognizable in the shadows, bent down and held its hand out for Rana. The figure picked Rana up in its arms.

“Sikke,” Yanta said. “Where have you been? I haven’t seen you since last month.”

Even before Yanta was under the shadow of the stables, before she could see his face, she knew who he was. There was only one other person besides Yanta to whom Rana would willingly go. Sikke was a tangly, rebellious boy and younger than Yanta by a few years—she wasn’t exactly sure how many. He ran away from home, he told her, years before and lived like a nomad, wandering the Valley, eating what he could catch, sleeping wherever he happened to be when he got tired.

“I caught a ride with a carpet seller and spent the weekend in Dor Lorelin,” Sikke said. He stroked Rana’s head. “Would have stayed longer, but it was too crowded. Took the scenic route back here along the edge of the forest. Took a while.”

“I can’t imagine why.” Yanta held out her arms and Rana jumped from Sikke back to his master. “But Dor Lorelin? What’s it like?”

“Dusty, stinky.” Sikke shrugged. “A place I could stay for a while. But too many people.”

Yanta stepped out of the shade of the stable and looked southward. Beyond the town she could see the Great Road stretch out like a pale yellow snake and curve away behind the edge of the forest. In the flat dustiness of Rhundor, Yanta would look out her window and see the road pointing the way to Dor Lorelin. She could picture the bustling crowds, bodies wrapped in colorful clothes jostling against one another to follow the cries of street vendors. It was a world where she could meet people like her, and where girls could do what they wanted to do without disapproval.

“Yes, okay,” Sikke said. “You don’t have to lecture me about your dreams of Dor Lorelin again.”

“Never mind then, Sikke.” Yanta clutched Rana to her chest, stuck her nose in the air, and began to saunter back toward her family’s house. “When I go to Dor Lorelin, never to return to this dreary little town, you can’t come with me.”

Sikke put his hands on his hips and sent her a wet raspberry. “Like I’d want to. You can take your smelly old cat and go away. I’m better off without you.”

It wasn’t ten seconds before Yanta stopped and turned around, the sun shining on her dark hair, and said, “Actually, Sikke…you can come with me if you want.”

Sikke, too, stopped retreating. “Y’know, it’d probably be a lot better in Dor Lorelin with you and Rana.”

Under the shade, Yanta held out her hand. “Friends again?”

Sikke shook it. His grip was sticky with sweat and dirt. “Sure.”

“We do seem to make up like this a lot, don’t we?”

“If we didn’t we wouldn’t be friends, would we?”

“No, I guess not.”

“Yeah, well.” Sikke gave a little salute. “See you later.” He ran off into the forest.

When she first met him, Yanta would have called out and asked him where he was going, but she had learned over the years that he went where he pleased and did what he wanted. She knew it would be futile to try and find out where he spent most of his time. So she put Rana down and ambled back home.

“Somehow, I don’t trust this.”

“Trust what, Morfindel?” Adurant said.

“This whole thing. I don’t know, I’m just getting a weird feeling about this. I think the Powers are telling me it’s not right. Why now? Why does Hadhod just suddenly decide to marry off his daughter? And why has no one ever seen her?”

“I’m sure you’re just seeing things that aren’t there,” Adurant said. “Another question you could ask could be why are you doubting him now? You’ve never distrusted Hadhod before.”

“I know,” Morfindel said. “He’s an Adani, a man of the Powers, chosen by them to lead the people of Nentathar. To go against him would be to go against the Powers, but I can’t help but feel odd about this.”

Adurant shrugged. “I’ve never trusted him myself. That robe he wears can blind. Surely the Powers disapprove of both green and blue being presented on the same piece of clothing.”

Morfindel shot him a look.

“I’m kidding.”

Morfindel put her arms around him. “And I’m scared for Belegorn. This is not going to end well.”

Adurant returned the embrace. “He’s not going to hurt himself, Morfindel. He’s going to be fine. He’s not a child anymore.”

All at once, the six finalists left the ground and scaled up the tree. A boy Morfindel recognized as Ramar, Belegorn’s friend, nearly reached the first branch before he fell and hit the ground with a dull thud. The red ribbon in his hand fluttered down onto the dirt. Morfindel winced, as if it was Belegorn in Ramar’s place.

But Belegorn kept climbing. Branches whipped at his face, scratching at his cheeks before he could see them. He swiped leaves from his sight with one hand, holding the green ribbon in his mouth.

He heard a loud crack. He grabbed the branch above him and braced himself for the branch below him to fall, but it didn’t. The crack was followed by a rustle of leaves and a short cry and a thud.

Belegorn didn’t waste any time looking back at the boy who fell. A twig scraped his cheek drawing blood, but he climbed on. Finally, he reached the highest branch where he waved his colored ribbon in the air. The whistle blew and the remaining contestants leaped down from the tree.

“He won,” Adurant said, “unharmed. See? I told you it would be fine.”

“It’s not over yet,” Morfindel said.

Hadhod pushed through the crowd to get to Belegorn. “Well done yet again, Belegorn!” he said. “I knew you would make it through.”

The other boys moved away, some sighing, some glaring in Belegorn’s direction.

Belegorn wiped the blood from his cheek. “It was nothing.”

“You’re this close to winning,” Hadhod said. “And I’m sure you will prevail. I am sorry to give away my daughter, but I am glad she is going to someone as able and fine a young man as you are.” Then his face became hard and he put a hand on Belegorn’s shoulder. “That is, if you complete this last part. The last task is the hardest. It will not be as easy as these two.”

Belegorn frowned. “Why? What is the last task?”

Hadhod turned his face south. A line of dark trees marked the horizon. Belegorn then knew what he would say, what the task would be, but kept quiet. He was silent partly because he wanted to hear it from the old man’s mouth, partly because his tongue was twisted from fear.

“You must find the House of Teir En-Daglen. You must find it, and kill the enchantress who lives in it.”

Belegorn had seen it coming, but his shock was multiplied. “What?” he said. “But that’s impossible! No one goes in that forest and lives!”

“It is what the Powers have told me to do. It must be done.”

As the crowds dispersed, Belegorn shrunk against the trunk of the old tree, eyes wide and jaw dangling.

From afar, Morfindel whispered to Adurant, “I told you it was not going to end well.”

Then the whistle blew and Belegorn leaped into the water, two dozen other splashes filling the air with little droplets. Belegorn stretched his arms as far as they could go and pushed against the water, swimming across the heavy current, his legs kicking and straining. Somehow, though, the current did not seem quite as strong as this part of the river usually was. He ducked his head below the water briefly to see a line of rocks nearly to the surface that kept most of the water from spilling over. He was at the far end of the line of swimmers, the only contestant on the south side of the line of rocks, furthest from the mountains from which the river flowed. But his arms kept pushing and his legs kept kicking, and he kept swimming hard and fast across the wide river. He couldn’t see the other contestants; the water was splashing to high and thick.

The river was deep now, the current quicker than it was before. Belegorn bared his hands into cups to push more water and his legs kicked wider. His brown hair was flying in his eyes and blocking his view, but he knew he was going the right direction because the current was flowing straight across his back. He had to manage the rest of the race without sight; there was no way he was going to stop or slow down to move his hair out of his eyes. Such problems were trivial compared to the possibility of not getting the reward.

Finally the tip of his toe touched sand and rock at the bottom of the river. His kicks became smaller, but his arms did not stop. The bank should be coming up any second…and there! His fingers grasped dirt. Clutching handfuls of grass, he pulled himself onto the shore and collapsed. His arms and legs burned with triumph, as well as exhaustion.

His hair was plastered to his forehead, but now he moved it away. The other contestants were just beginning to pull themselves onto dry land.

Morfindel stood on the opposite shore, arm entwined with Adurant’s. He was smiling and giving Belegorn a thumbs up with his free arm, but Morfindel’s face was unreadable, her long wavy black hair floating in her face in the wind.

Hadhod had gone across the bridge to the other side. “Well done, Belegorn!” he said, clapping him on the back. “You were the first across.”

“Thank you, Adani,” Belegorn said, swelling his chest, his arrogant smile in place.

“But the contest isn’t over yet,” Hadhod said. “I’m sure you’ll hold through.”

“Is there any doubt?”

Hadhod laughed. “No doubt, my boy,” he said. “No doubt at all.”

Maybe it was because she pinned up her skirt when she worked outside, showing her dark legs to the knee, while other women, their skirts whipping in the wind around their ankles, watched open-mouthed.

Maybe it was because she never knew her parents. Everyone in Nentathar came from families who had lived there for generations. Belegorn’s mother Eleniel could name her ancestors back centuries. Morfindel was told her parents had gone into Teir En-Daglen in a boat on the River Siranim and never come out.

Every time she looked toward the forest, its shadows seemed to whisper the fate of her parents. A chill would shake her from her shoulders to feet, and she would tell herself again that she would never enter the forest.

She had been born fearing the forest, and she knew she would until she died.



Adurant was talking to a customer but looked up when Belegorn came in. “Oh,” he said, “hello, Belegorn.”

Morfindel glanced up from putting away mugs. “Belegorn!” she said. “What happened to you?”

“I had a little tumble in the bushes,” Belegorn said, picking at a bandage on his cheek. “It’s nothing though.”

“Hardly nothing,” Adurant said. “You’re covered in bruises.”

He was covered in bruises, and he had bandages on his arms and face, and his ego was wounded deeply. But he just shrugged. “If you think I’m hurt that badly, I could use a drink to ease the pain.”

Though Belegorn had requested it, he was pleasantly surprised when Adurant began to fill a mug without complaint. Morfindel continued putting away glasses.

Belegorn watched her closely, searching for signs that she knew which bushes he was talking about. If she figured that out, she would be able to tell that he had been climbing up to Aranna’s room. If she knew that, then she would be able to tell Hadhod, who would probably axe-murder him in his sleep, stuff his body, and use it as decoration in his living room. Or put his head on the wall, or use his skin as a rug. Belegorn knew he had made a mistake by saying he’d hurt himself in the bushes. He also knew how much Morfindel would laugh if he were made into a rug.

No, the little voice in the back of his head said. She wouldn’t laugh. Despite her stern nature, he knew she loved him. She was his older cousin—she had to love him.

“Did you hear the news, Belegorn?” Morfindel said.

“What news?”

“About Aranna.”

Belegorn started. Was it Hadhod who had seen him? Did he order his arrest for breaking into Aranna’s room? “What about her?”

“Hadhod is holding a contest,” Adurant said, putting the filled mug before Belegorn, “and Aranna will marry the winner.”

Belegorn jumped up, knocking his stool over, and leaned over the counter. “Who can enter?”

“Anyone,” Morfindel said. “Will you?”

“You better believe I will!” Belegorn said. “I’ll blow every other lovestruck male out of the water! I’ll win Aranna, and I’ll—” He stopped.

Morfindel gazed at him with narrowed eyes. “And you’ll what?”

Belegorn smiled weakly. “And…uh…I’ll win the contest.” Morfindel would skin him alive if he had said he meant to marry Aranna for the wealth.

Her pale blue eyes stared at him intently. Belegorn held her gaze with his own gray irises before she looked back to her work.

Later, Belegorn would wish to have muttered, “That’s what I thought,” but in truth he had been scared out of his mind. Morfindel was perfectly capable of blackening his eye or loosening a tooth—anything that would dissuade him from seeking Hadhod’s money.

But Morfindel did not go back to her work. She lifted her skirts to mid-calf and stalked quickly out of the room, her bare feet slapping softly against the wooden floor.

Belegorn waited until she was clear of the door and out of sight between the pig pen and the barn before he said, “How can you stand that woman? I could hardly bear the fourteen years I had to live with her.”

Adurant laughed. “You know you don’t mean that.”

Oblivious of Belegorn’s curious stare, Adurant took up Morfindel’s job of replacing mugs and dishes on the shelf. Ever since Belegorn was old enough to get on Morfindel’s nerves he had told himself that he couldn’t stand her. “Yes,” Belegorn said. “I don’t mean it. I do love her like a sister, and I know she loves me.” A lie. She only felt responsible for him, said the voice that normally dominated his thoughts. It pushed the little voice to the back of his brain.

“She just doesn’t want you to hurt yourself,” Adurant said. “You’re like a baby brother to her.”

“But I’m not! I’m not a child anymore, Adurant.”

“I know that, Belegorn. But she doesn’t. Not yet.”

Yanta put the box back on the table, smiling at her creation, brushing off her hands on her pale tunic. Her brown hair fell around her face messily, but she let it hang. Her fingertips were too sore and scratched from the rough wood for her to use them to fix her hair.

Something furry rubbed against the back of her leg. Yanta picked it up, forgetting her aching fingers.

“Do you like it Rana?” she said. “It’s still quite plain. It’s no sort of great achievement or breakthrough discovery—just something to keep these in.”

She held out an open palm to the cat, showing him a handful of bent, dirty nails and metal scraps.

“They’re so hard to find, and Father won’t let me use them if he knew I had them. ‘They wreck your fingers,’ he says, ‘and no man wants a wife with wrecked fingers.’ He completely disregards their creative value. See, Rana?” She held out the box to the cat. “These metal corners protect the bottom and make it a bit less boring. Just wait until I sand it. It will be beautiful. I might just engrave something in it.”

Rana sniffed the box, then jumped out of Yanta’s arms and back onto the floor without making much more than a padded thump. He turned his green eyes up to the girl.

Yanta laughed. “Yes, I know,” she said. “You don’t care at all. Are you hungry?”

He licked her scabbed and scratched fingers. She picked him up again and left the small, sunny room and descended the tile stairs to the main room of the house.

The main room was always filled with people. Even without all the friends and associates, Yanta’s huge family would take up the entire room. Fortunately, they were never all there at once. They were either out or in their respective quarters that all attached to the main room.

Families in Rhundor were big, as everyone made it a point to have at least ten children who, if they didn’t die in childhood, married and had ten more.

“Yanta! Put on some clothes!” Yanta’s mother glared at the girl who stood in the doorway in her tunic, a loose white cloth that went over both her shoulders, around her torso, around her hips and hung down to mid-thigh, then wound back up to tie around her waist. “And fix your hair. You’re a disgrace.”

“Rana’s hungry.”

“Your cat can wait,” her mother said. “Or better yet, I just saw a rat. He can catch that.”

“But he hates rat.”

“Then he’ll have to be hungry.”

Yanta sighed exasperatingly and put Rana down. She climbed the stairs back into her room and slammed the door, nearly crushing Rana who leaped in at the last minute. Immediately, a pang of regret crossed her face. Father would punish her later for showing anger so openly.

She looked down at herself, her loose tunic, her pale legs, her bare feet on the wooden floor. She picked at her tunic, which billowed gently in the breeze from the window like a wispy cloud. It was the middle of the summer, and the air was humid, and a skirt and shawl would just make her stickier and sweatier. If men would not marry a girl with wrecked fingers, would they rather one that smelled of sweaty clothes?

Not that she would ever marry a man who cared about either, if she had a choice.

Yanta rested her palms on the warm windowsill. Boys in loincloths and not much else chased each other around in the courtyard of her family’s house, their tanned bare backs shining in the afternoon sun. The dirt kicked up by their racing feet stuck to their legs and hands. Their shouts carried up to Yanta’s window. Again, she picked at her tunic.

It had been almost a decade since she had played outside like that—she had been too young to truly realize how valuable it was. One day her father sat her down and told her firmly that she was not allowed to play like that anymore, that she had to start wearing skirts and shawls over her tunic to hide herself, that she had to stay out of the sun to keep her skin pale and dry, that she could not play outside anymore.

She saw her father’s stern face, a memory that was still true, telling her what she could not do anymore, and she hid her own face in her hands. It was better not to look at the boys outside, some her own age, doing what she was not allowed to do, than to wish she was there doing it with them.

“It’s already the year 287 after the founding of Dor Lorelin, Rana,” she said, “after Aglarnen became a country. Why can’t I go outside without being wrapped up as if it was winter?”

She sighed and picked up the black cat, cradling him in her arms like a baby. “I shouldn’t complain. It’s better than it was a hundred years ago. At least now I can speak in public.”

The cat didn’t reply. Why would he? He blinked his pale green eyes in the reddening sunlight. Yanta buried her nose in his thick fur and did not join her family again for the rest of the night.

Before a crowd of Nentatharins, Hadhod stood on a raised platform under the sun. Behind him flowed the River Siranim, splashing around the roots of the Willow, which grew with reaching green branches over the water. He turned his palms toward the sky and dropped his chin to his chest.

Morfindel, with the rest of the Nentatharins, dropped her head, put her palms flat on the ground, and closed her eyes. As the sun beat down on her black hair she murmured thanks to Serïa, the goddess of water, for the cool, clear liquid that would quench her thirst and rescue her from the heavy heat of the sun.

“You may rise,” Hadhod said, lowering his arms. “You are dismissed.”

The murmuring stopped and the townspeople got up.

Amid the townspeople leaving the square, Morfindel looked around for Belegorn. She had not seen him all day, not since last night when he came into her and Adurant’s tavern with his friends looking for a drink. A year or so ago he and those same trouble-making friends of his had had five too many drinks and had started a fight from which Belegorn received a black eye. He still bragged about the eye, saying that was all his opponent could give him while he himself beat the other man unconscious without breaking a sweat. Not actually true, but no one believed Belegorn anyway.

Since the fight, though, Morfindel and her husband restricted Belegorn from having more than a pint a night. At first, Belegorn had tried getting drinks at other taverns, but there weren’t many in town and word spread fast. No tavern, pub or inn would let him have more than a pint. He had vowed revenge, but Morfindel didn’t worry. He was her cousin, and no one believed Belegorn anyway.

She craned her neck over the crowd, searching for Belegorn’s brown hair and arrogant grin that had grown so familiar to her in the past twenty years since he was born. She could spot it instantly through the thickest flood of Belegorn look-alikes. But that self-centered smirk was nowhere to be found, not here at least.

“Morfindel,” Hadhod said, approaching, “wife of Adurant. You look troubled.” The stout old Adani, the religious leader, was dressed in a green robe with blue sleeves, a brown collar, a red hem with white borders, and a black sash—the religious dress. Each color was dedicated to a Power, green being the most used because it was the color of Cuivië, the goddess of life. “How is your husband?”

“Well, Adani,” Morfindel said. “Business is good.”

“Still no children? You’re twenty-five years old now, Morfindel. It’s getting late.”

“No, Adani. Adurant and I…we prefer life the way it is now. Have you seen Belegorn?”

Hadhod thought a moment. “No,” he said. “Not in four days.”

Her eyes narrowed. This was the fourth worship in a row he had missed. Did he want Serïa, the goddess of water, to drown him in the river? Or Kemenon, the god of the earth, to hurl rocks upon him? Her mouth set in a grim line, Morfindel stormed off in the direction of the hill on which Hadhod’s house stood. She knew where Belegorn was, and she knew why he was there.

~ : ~

“Belegorn!”

Belegorn turned away from his friends. Usually, when he heard a female voice calling his name, he would put on his arrogant grin and try to recall the nearest barn or field where they wouldn’t be disturbed. But this female voice meant business; and even if it didn’t, he knew whose voice it was. His arrogant grin was replaced with a grimace.

“Belegorn, you idiot,” Morfindel said, coming up the hill. “That’s four worships in a row you’ve missed. Instead of being with everyone else, I find you here? Trying to sneak into Aranna’s room?”

“No, I wasn’t!” Belegorn said. “I promise! We were just…”

“Just what?”

“Just…”

Morfindel grabbed his shirt and nailed him to the side of the house. He paled. “Don’t you lie to me, Belegorn.”

“I’m not lying!”

She let go of his shirt. After an eternity, she broke their staring match and trudged down the hill, the grass a bright green against the rippling dark blue of her skirt and her black hair waving in the breeze.

The color returned to Belegorn’s face and he straightened his shirt. He faced his chuckling friends.

“I could have taken her,” he said, “but I won’t hit a girl, even if she’s five years my senior.”

“Yeah,” Ramar, a tall, bulky boy, said. “Just like you could have gone into the forest those twelve years ago, but you’d preferred to run and scream like a little girl.”

Belegorn fixed him with a sharp glare. “Shut up.”

His friends just laughed. “Chicken,” Ramar said, snorting and snickering down the hill.

Belegorn watched his friends leave. When they disappeared over between the houses at the foot of the hill, he slumped against the house and rubbed his eyes. Damn them. It was twelve years ago he was dared by Ramar to go a few steps into the forest. Instead he had gotten scared and ran into the arms of his mother. Twelve years, and they still hadn’t forgotten. Never mind. They didn’t matter. They didn’t understand him. No one did. Not even Morfindel.

Maybe she did understand him a little, said the voice in the back of his head. But only because she had lived with him all his life.

He stood up.

“I don’t need to be understood,” he said.

He rounded back on the house. It was a tall building, for a house. It was two storeys with a shingled roof. Belegorn had always wondered what it would be like to live in so monstrous a house. The rest of the village lived in little cottages with leaky roofs and the occasional dirt floor, depending on how poor you were. Hadhod was the richest man in Nentathar, and the seventh richest man in the northern region. Of course, he didn’t even compare to the rich men in Dor Lorelin, the city by the water, the main trading center on this side of the mountains and the capitol of the southern region. But he was like a god as far as Belegorn was concerned.

Yes, riches were good. A rich man could buy rugs, a soft bed, warm blankets, paintings, furniture. He could afford to paint his house every so often before the old paint began to peel, and reshingle his roof so the rain wouldn’t leak in. But riches weren’t everything.

Belegorn looked up at the rectangular window with green shutters on the second floor: Aranna’s window. He had never seen her himself, but everyone knew she was as beautiful as her father Hadhod was rich. Everyone knew her eyes were as blue as a clear summer morning, her cheeks as pink as the blossoms that would color this hill in the spring, her hair like the gold in the mystic mountain city of Loslonde. Yes, like gold, just like what her father had piles of.

Belegorn pulled himself up to Aranna’s windowsill by stepping up onto the frame of the lower floor window. He put his fingers on the green shutters over the window of Aranna’s room, asking himself if he should. If he did, Morfindel might find out, and that would probably mean the end of his life at the hands of his older cousin. But if he didn’t, he would have no chance at Aranna…or her money. Once again he asked himself if he should.

“Yes,” he said, and gripped the shutters. He tugged, ripping the wooden frame free of the house, exposing the window to the world. He found the window unlocked and he swung the rectangular piece of glass inward. He climbed in and dropped onto a red and yellow carpet, sending a cloud of dust flying. Belegorn coughed and waved the dust away unsuccessfully. It settled like snow on his head and shoulders.

“Aranna?” he said.

No answer came. Belegorn wondered if she was deaf; that could be why Hadhod kept her locked up.

A wooden dresser stood in one corner of the dark, dusty room and a bed, made with dull red sheets and a pale yellow blanket, was located opposite. Belegorn approached the dresser slowly, hoping nothing, or no one, was inside to jump out and scare him. The door was tightly closed, and Belegorn had to pull hard to open it. It did open, though, and the force sent Belegorn sprawling once more onto the carpet, letting loose another cloud of dust.

The dresser was filled with dresses hanging on clothes hangers. A blue and gold dress made of silk and soft velvet hung separate from the others. He touched the shoulder gently with two fingers. When his fingers came away they were covered with dust.

There came the sound of footsteps from outside the door. Belegorn swiveled toward the door. The lock clicked and the doorknob turned. He searched frantically for a place to hide. Not a second before the door opened, he jumped into the dresser, shutting it behind him. Someone came into the room, their footfalls muted by the carpet. Despite the carpet, the steps seemed to grow louder, closer.

Belegorn held his breath.

The dresser door on the opposite side from Belegorn opened. Light shone through the dust on the back of the dresser between the shadows of the dresses that stood like dark pillars on the wood. He heard breathing. He closed his eyes and felt like his lungs would burst. He saw the shadow of a hand reaching for the dresser, but he couldn’t tell whose hand. He prayed to Cuivie, Maegurth, Mellonde, any Power he could think of, to let him live. He silently apologized to Morfindel for not listening. He knew she didn’t approve of his ways, and promised to change if he could just live.

Then the hand stopped. His lungs burned, his eyes bulged, he resisted the urge to breathe. The hand withdrew and the dresser door closed. The muffled footsteps grew softer. Belegorn heard the door of the room open, the footsteps leave, the door close.

He let out all the air he was holding in his chest and gasped for breath, then coughed on the dust. He tumbled out of the dresser, his face white. He breathed, his heard pounding, and thanked the Powers for letting him live.

“I told you, Morfindel,” he said. “I can take care of myself.”

He was almost too preoccupied with congratulating himself to hear the footsteps returning. Almost, but not quite. The lock clicked again.

Belegorn darted to the window and nearly leaped out as if the house were on fire. He felt himself begin to fall and suddenly the ground seemed ten floors down instead of two. He was in open space, nothing between him and the blue, cloudless sky. Then his fingers found the windowsill and his fall was halted.

But he wasn’t allowed a rest because his face was itchy with dust and his sweaty fingertips started to slip, and he fell again. He dropped into the bushes below, twigs stabbing at his sides. He winced, stood, and, spitting leaves out of his mouth, began to run down the hill, only looking back once to see a silhouetted figure in the window, watching him.

The Valley lies in the shadow of an icy mountain range that curves around it like a protective wall of rock and ice, and ends to a vast desert on one end and a wide ocean on the other. And with such differing climates, the Valley is a land that can provide for itself. Even if the mountains were crossable, the desert a little less vast, the Valley would still be inhabited by thousands of contented people, despite the forest that lies in the center.

The forest is dark and unexplored. The River Siranim runs through the forest, coming out the other side, but on the other side it is given a different name: Sir-en-Sereg, the River of Blood, because it is death to drink water that flows from the forest. It is surrounded by four large cities in the north, south, east, and west, and winding around the forest like a snaking ring of thread is the Great Road, along which many small towns are scattered. In the forest there is said to be a house, a frail structure of discarded metal built into a tall, thin tree in the center of the forest. A small stream runs around the tree, the roots like bridges arching over the stream only to dig themselves into the soil on the other side.

The northern region, governed by the city Mantathar, calls the forest Teir En-Daglen, the forest of shadowed green. Their stories say the resident of the House is a beautiful woman, a sorceress, who steals men’s souls if they look into her golden eyes. She keeps the souls in colored glass jars which hang from twine from the branches of the tree.

The city of Baradnumen holds dominion of the western region which calls the forest Enotime-Uduile, Forever Night. According to the western peoples, a twenty foot long snake with black and red scales lives in the house. Its fangs are filled with a burning venom that causes the victim to first lose their taste, then their sight, then their smell, and then their touch. They are only left with their hearing so they can hear themselves scream when their bodies burn from the inside out.

The eastern region is ruled by the city Rhundor. The eastern peoples call the forest Orfuin, Dark Days, and believe a spirit lives in the House, a spirit with unlimited power. It is most well known to send a murder of crows to peck the eyes out of lost wanderers in the forest or making the stream rise to a raging river to drown travelers.

The city of Dor Lorelin, the largest, most populated city in Aglarnen, and also one of the most active trading centers of the world, is in the south, on the coast. It governs the largest region of the valley. There, the forest is called Hasimor, the Land of Mist. There, it is said that an evil magician lives in the House, master to a pack of wicked elves, the Valley’s natives who were corrupted further than their savagery. The magician has a thousand eyes that are always open and if he spies an unfortunate wanderer he turns him to dust and scatters him in the wind.

Long ago, settlers from the north—farther north than Mantathar, farther even than Loslonde, the mountain city, and Ared En-Dinenien—traveled south, driving the natives down and down, along the Coastal Road, and down into the southernmost wilderness. The few tribes that fought back were overtaken by the Northern settlers and cornered into a small piece of land between two thumbs of the forest and the cities of the settlers. This land was called Kemad, also called the land of the savages. The Kemeneans, the last of the savage tribes in Aglarnen, call the forest Sair Lainloth, the Forest of Blue Flowers.

However, all regions, including Kemad, believe that anyone who enters the forest never comes out alive.