“...Graawwww…” a whispered groan echoed throughout the cave, waking me up from my deep sleep. I immediately sat up and tried to look around but the fire had gone out at some point and we were enveloped in suffocating darkness.

I reached my hand out towards where Carlsen should be, but I touched nothing except open air. Nobody was lying next to me.

“Carlsen?” I frantically whispered. My heart was in my throat. Where did he go?

I could hear something in the far corner of the cave shuffling around, it sounded... wet.

“Schlop, schlop, schlop.”

Something was coming this way. I tried to stand up but immediately fell back down, my hands shot towards my legs where I realized they were bound together with rope.

Dammit! I can’t believe I trusted him!!

“Yin…”

That was no human voice. That was the voice of a Black Demon. Panic swept through my body, I felt frozen to the spot. I knew that I shouldn’t have trusted a damn human, they’re all the same in the end.

Desperate, I started clawing at the rope that bound my legs, but to no avail. He must have used magic on these ropes, I couldn’t possibly free myself from it.

The darkness seemed to almost swirl around me, my impending death hung heavy in the air; I could feel the Demon’s putrid breath on my face, the dim glow of its soulless eyes staring through me.

I wanted to scream, I wanted to throw up, I wanted to die.

The Demon breathed slowly, each rancid breath washing over me. I started to heave as tears rolled down my face.

“You’ve lost your power…. You are weak.” The Demon seemed to chortle.

I could feel myself starting to blackout from fear. In the distance I heard a piercing noise, it sounded like someone was screaming. The noise continued to get louder and louder as the Demon ran his tongue up and down me, ready to stab through my flesh and devour me whole...

“Yin! Wake up! YIN!”

All of a sudden I was awake, my throat raw from screaming. I tried to sit upright but Carlsen was on top of me, holding me down by my shoulders. His face was a mixture of concern and fear. Once he saw that I was awake, he relaxed his grip. Tears started to flow down my face, he didn’t abandon me.

He turned his face away from me and rubbed the back of his head, “are you...okay?”

I tried to talk through my gasps but the tears wouldn’t stop coming.

“I-I’m… o-okay.” I managed to stutter out as I rubbed my eyes to stop the never-ending tears.

He turned his attention back to me. He looked handsome and kind in the soft glow of the dying embers. His orange hair looked messy from sleep, a few stray strands sticking out on the top of his head.

“I’m going to go replenish the fire, you just stay here. Don’t worry, I’ll be just outside.” He smiled at me before grabbing his sword and heading out of the cave.

I pulled my knees up to my chest and curled up into a little ball, relieved to know that I wasn’t all by myself, lost in the Kosta Woods.

Not long after, Carlsen came back into the cave carrying a bundle of branches. He threw a few of the dry branches onto the fire and watched as it slowly came back to life.

He took a seat beside me and pulled out a canister of water handing it towards me. I accepted the water and gulped down as much as I could, my throat parched from screaming.

“Woah there,” Carlsen chuckled, “there are not many rivers in the Kosta Woods so we have to preserve what little water we have.”

I tore the bottle away from my mouth, apologizing profusely. I knew that humans needed more water than beings such as myself. Although I guess at the moment without my powers, I was the same as a human.

Handing the water back to Carlsen, I took a few berries out of my knapsack and absentmindedly munched on them.

“So, how do we find this mage?” I asked.

Carlsen took a swig of the water before answering me, “Back in the castle, in the King’s advising room I saw a map.” Tucking the water bottle back into his knapsack he continued, “It seems that the King had banished a mage to the Kosta Woods many years ago, luckily I managed to get a quick glimpse of the location where the mage was sent to.”

The King banished a mage? For what reason?

Before yesterday morning, I had no idea that mages existed, let alone that the King had banished one! Although, I suppose since I spent most of my time hidden away from anything that wasn’t an animal; it wasn’t surprising I had little to no knowledge of the human world or other mythical beings. I was also the youngest of all my Sisters, born in the Imperial Garden not long before the War.

“I hope it’s close by,” I grumbled. Already sick and tired of having to walk on my own two feet across the uneven forest floor. I was surprised at how weak humans were, it felt like my feet could just fall off at any moment from exhaustion.

Carlsen tilted his head to the side, “Well… I’m not sure of the exact location.”

I frowned, “So we’re just supposed to wander around and hope we stumble across this mage?”

“Yeah. We also have to look for a large, twisted tree.”

I couldn’t contain my laughter, I snorted loudly.

“A TREE?! We’re in a forest, there are a million trees here!!”

Carlsen looked offended, turning away from me he continued, “it’s a special tree.”

I raised one of my eyebrows, “Okay, well you’re in charge. So let’s stumble around this killer forest until we run into this special tree.” I waved my arms around to exaggerate just how much I hated his dumb plan.

“You don’t have to come with me then!” Carlsen exclaimed as he threw his arms up in the air.

“Maybe I won’t! I never asked to be saved by you and then dragged along on this insane adventure.” I grabbed my knapsack and stood up, the Sky God must be pulling a cruel prank on me. Abandoning my Sisters and me, leaving us to die at the hands of the humans and Demons.

I had no patience left for this world, maybe it would be for the best if I made a swift departure from my Earth and joined my fellow Sisters in the Necropolis. If that’s even where they were…

I stormed out of the cave, I could hear Carlsen packing up his knapsack back in the cave. The cold, brittle air hit my face and I instinctively sucked in a mouthful. Feeling the sharp air fill my lungs, I began to feel more awake and clear-headed.

I surveyed the scene around me - gnarled, rotten trees stood tall and proud blocking out the majority of the sun's rays.

The air smelled damp, like rotten leaves and dead animals. I winced, missing the smell of my forest. It was still impossible to see much ahead of me, but I figured this must be a normal occurrence for the fog to never lift.

Carlsen walked up behind me, “Look, Yin, I’m sorry. Could you please come with me to find the mage?”

Sighing, I turned around to face him, “Let’s get one thing straight. I don’t owe you anything. I detest humans and everything they stand for, especially the knights.”

Turning away from him, I peered back into the forest, “but, I can admit that without my powers I am not much better than a human, and I am in need of...help.” I wrapped my arms around myself, shivering in the icy air.

In the distance, I heard the crack of a tree branch collapsing under an unknown weight.

Carlsen whipped his head towards the noise, grabbing my hand he started to tug me in the opposite direction of the noise with him. He pressed a singular finger up to his lips, the human signal for ‘be quiet’. I nodded and followed quietly behind him.

I heard another crack, this one sounded a little closer than the first one. Carlsen started to pick up speed, he let go of my hand and started to weave in and out of the trees. I could barely keep up with his speed, it seemed like he was almost dancing around the tree trunks; but the fear of the unknown creature that was following us pushed me forward, forcing me to keep up with him.

Branches whipped my face as I ran as fast as I could through the trees. I felt the sting of small cuts starting to appear on my face but I couldn’t slow down. Each time my feet slapped against the mossy, wet earth I was worried that a hole would suddenly appear and swallow me up. Breathing was starting to get harder, I desperately wish I had my powers so I could just fly away from whatever horror was pursuing us.

Carlsen whipped through the thicket, only pausing for a moment to glance back to make sure I was still following him.

“Crack.”

This time, the sound came from directly behind me.

I couldn’t contain my horror as I called out to him, “Carlse-”, but before I could finish, he had come to a screeching halt and whipped around towards me.

He grabbed my arm and threw me behind him. I fell to the ground just as Carlsen lifted his sword high above his head.

The tip of his sword began to vibrate and glow a bright yellow. High up in the trees above us, I could see a large cat-like creature slinking around.

“Emit,” Carlsen whispered. The second that word left his lips, a large ball of light erupted from the end of his sword and flew directly at the unknown creature.

The creature seemed to almost scream as it was hit directly with the exploding ball of light, falling to the ground with a thud.

I blinked in surprise, Carlsen had a decent amount of magic power.

“Surprised?” Carlsen chuckled as he walked over to the creature, now laying in a bloody mess on the forest floor.

“Uhh..” I mumbled as I scrambled to my feet. I walked over beside him and looked down at the creature. It didn't look like any ordinary forest cat. This creature had twenty eyes fixed atop its head; its tongue had fallen out of its mouth and appeared to be covered in hundreds of tiny, sharp teeth.

“Who made this creature?” It certainly didn’t seem like anything that the Gods would have made.

“I dunno, I don’t usually see this one. It prefers to hide away deeper in the forest and not come this close to the edge of the Kosta Woods. It must be hungry.” He stated.

Just how deep are the Kosta Woods? I pondered, I thought we were already quite far into it…

I was snapped out of my thoughts by Carlsen grabbing my arm and dragging me away.

“I was hoping we could lose it by running but since I had to kill it, we don’t want to keep too close in case the scent of its blood attracts other predators.”

I shuddered, I did not want to come across anything scarier than this cat-like creature.

We continued our hurried journey through the forest, putting quite a bit of distance between us and the cat creature's corpse. At this point, I just had to hope that Carlsen knew where we were going.

After a few hours, we stumbled out of the trees and onto the edge of a large clearing. The fog was particularly thick around the edges of the clearing, but no fog penetrated the center of the clearing.

I tried to step forward into the clearing, but Carlsen quickly pulled me back by the hood of my jacket.

“Don’t. There appears to be a magic wall surrounding this clearing.”

I couldn't see anything surrounding the clearing, but I decided to trust Carlsen as opposed to potentially harming myself by walking into a wall made of magic.

Carlsen tentatively picked up a small rock and hurled it into the clearing. To both of our surprise, the rock was flung back towards us with even greater speed than when Carlsen threw it. Carlsen dodged the rock just in time as it smashed into the tree trunk directly behind him.

“This must be where the mage lives.”

“I thought you said he lives in a tree and I don’t see any tree in this clearing,” I mused.

Carlsen scoffed, “He’s hiding behind a magic wall.”

I furrowed my brow, we travelled all this way only for the mage to hide his face? How rude of him.

“COME OUT AND PLAY, MAGE!” I screamed out in the clearing.

The second the words had left my mouth, Carlsen slapped a hand over my mouth. He pressed his lips to my ear and murmured, “Shut...up. Are you trying to get us killed?!”

In my excitement, I had forgotten all about the other horrifying monsters that lived in this forest. I looked up sheepishly at Carlsen.

He glared down at me before removing his hand from my mouth.

“Stay put.” He told me before slowly starting to circle the outside of the clearing.

I huffed in frustration, feeling particularly useless. Without my powers, I couldn’t even tell that there was magic encircling this clearing; I had to rely completely on Carlsen.

Irritated at myself, I kicked at the ground with the tip of my shoe; the wet dirt built up on the edge of my shoe and I flung my foot up to clear the debris off.

I ended up flinging my foot out farther than expected and lost my balance, I started to fall down forward towards the clearing.

I saw Carlsen whip his head towards me and I half-expected to explode into a million pieces from the magic wall but - nothing happened. Falling to my knees I caught myself with my hands, I was now on the inside edge of the clearing.

I looked up in surprise, a humongous knotted, gnarled, barren tree had seemingly appeared out of thin air before me. I glanced back behind me and saw Carlsen frantically circling around the edge of the clearing, could he not see me?

“No, he can’t.” The tree chuckled.

I whipped my head back towards the tree. Did this tree just speak to me?

“I’m not a tree,” a young man had suddenly appeared atop one of the twisted branches that spiralled from the center of the tree.

I gasped at the abrupt appearance of this strange man. He had a remarkable appearance; jet black hair and stunning silver eyes, but I was most surprised that he looked exactly like a human. His outfit was the most peculiar part about him; he appeared to wear a full black suit, a strange outfit choice for living in the middle of the Woods. I stood up and dusted myself off.

“Are you… the mage?” I asked cautiously, although was there any point in asking it out loud as it seemed that this man could read my thoughts.

The man peered down at me, an inquisitive look crossed over his face. He cocked his head, “Who’s asking?”

Before I could answer, Carlsen had appeared beside me.

“So, I guess this magic wall isn’t harmful towards us after all,” he chuckled, looking embarrassed at having made such a big deal about it.

The strange man raised an eyebrow, “Oh, so there’s two of you.”

Carlsen turned his gaze upwards to face the man, “Are you the mage?”

The strange man rolled his eyes at Carlsen’s question. He hopped down from his perch and landed softly on the ground in front of us.

He bowed deeply, “My name is Krivat, I am indeed a mage. How may I be of service to you?”

I detected a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

Carlsen cleared his throat, “We need your help-”

“No.” The mage smirked and immediately turned around. He began to walk away from us towards the tree.

“Wait! Please, we need your help to get her powers back!” Carlsen called out after the mage.

Krivat turned with a mischievous smile on his face.

“Oh?” The mage floated towards me, landing just a few centimetres away from my face.

He took my face in one of his hands, turning it from side-to-side. Before I could react, Carlsen swatted the mage’s hand away from my face.

The mage floated backwards, away from us. He crossed his arms and smirked at us.

“Hmm, a Sister Earth? Without her powers?”

I bit my lip, I already didn’t like this mage and was feeling worried about this whole situation. Will he help me? Can he help me?

“Okay, I’ll help you!” the mage snapped his fingers, “but! Only if you help me, first.”

Carlsen crossed his arms, “What do you want?” he asked cautiously. It seemed that Carlsen was also wary of this strange mage and whatever he had up his sleeve.

The mage snickered, “the head of the King.”

I gasped and whipped my head to look at Carlsen, his eyebrows were furrowed together.

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, pondering what this mage could want with the King’s head.

Ignoring our obvious distress, Krivat continued, “you bring me the King’s head, and I will help you get your powers back! You scratch my back and I’ll return the favour.”

I looked down at my feet, rubbing the tip of my shoe in the dirt. It would probably be a lot easier to get the King’s head if I had my powers back.

With a glimmer in his eye, the mage turned to me, “Oh ho ho, don’t worry my dear. I wouldn’t send you into the lion's den without a little bit of help.”

Without another word, Krivat floated over towards me and stretched his hand out towards my face.

“Close your eyes.”

Before I could protest he pressed a cool finger to my forehead. All of a sudden, I felt a warm sensation rush down my spine. With my eyes closed, images of the forest flooded my mind; I could see a vulture perched high above the treeline, scanning for vermin; I saw a small rabbit darting through the undergrowth.

My eyes fluttered open in shock to find Krivat staring at me with an impish smile plastered on his face.

“See? I have restored your powers, but this will only last a week. Bring the King’s head before the week is up and I’ll give you your powers back for good.”

I was amazed that this mage had such power. I could barely contain my excitement as I plopped down to the ground and pressed my palm into the dirt. Little shoots sprouted up almost immediately as I squealed, thrilled that I was no longer useless.

Carlsen didn’t seem quite as amused as I was. He bent down next to me and looked at me closely, “what do you think? Do you want to try to kill the King?”

I was surprised, he wanted my input for once? As we stood up I tilted my head and pursed my lips. In the distance I could hear the scream of some terrible creature, a shiver ran down my back and I crossed my arms to try to warm myself up. I wanted nothing more than to get out of this forest, but if that meant going back to the castle where the Demons were…

“The King isn’t at the castle anymore,” Krivat said, startling me out of my thoughts.

“How do you know where he is?” Carlson pondered. I was starting to worry, if the King had managed to escape from the Demons then no doubt he was hiding somewhere, how are we supposed to find him?

Floating over to the gnarled tree the mage motioned for us to come closer. We slowly approached the ancient tree, unsure of what we would find.

“Look inside,” he gestured towards a small hole in the side of the trunk.

I peered inside and saw a small puddle, no bigger than a sunflower head. The water was bright blue and seemed to swirl all on its own. The longer I stared into the water, the more I saw an image begin to appear; I could make out a blurry person walking down a long, dark pathway.

Not daring to blink, I watched as the image became clearer; I could make out a few facial features such as a long gray beard on a weathered face. Was this the King? I had only seen him from a distance when I used to watch royal events back before the War.

Carlsen jerked back in shock, “is that the King?! Where is he?”

Snapping his fingers a couple of times, a singular pearl began to rise out of the mage’s pool of water. I stepped back in alarm and Carlsen put his arm in front of me to protect me.

Krivat chuckled, “do not fear, this is simply a teleportation vessel.”

Carlsen and I looked at each other, exchanging a confused expression.

The mage rolled his eyes, “this pearl will only take you from here to Ignero, which is where I suspect the King has gone into hiding.”

Ignero? That was a place that I had not visited in a long time. It lay on the western border between Kranen and the continent of Iselel. A large road connected Kranen and Ignero, this road was the safest road to use to travel between the two places as it was protected by the ancient magic of the Fire God and no dangerous creatures dared to feel the wrath of the Fire God.

Iselel was a barren land where it snowed much of the time. My Sister, Layil, was in charge of that region; but there was no telling if my Sister was alive or what shape the continent was in without her guidance.

Feeling reinvigorated with the sudden reappearance of my powers I turned toward Carlsen. He seemed to be waiting for my word. I nodded my head and gave a slight smile, “let’s do this.”

Carlsen nodded back and cautiously began to reach towards the glimmering pearl, floating silently above the water.

Krivat turned to me and chuckled, “you might want to hold on for this.”

Before I could say anything, Carlsen wrapped his arm around my waist before grabbing the pearl and then everything went black.