Elder Konri Oko passed me a dried gourd filled with a hot liquid. I blew on the drink, watching the vapors get pushed aside by my breath, and sipped it. It was a kind of tisane or herbal tea, made from a leafy grass that grows behind the retreating snow cover at the edge of the Oko tribe’s lands and is ready for harvest when the snows arrive the following year. It was then dried in special caves for several months, until the shadows reached a certain length in the summer. It was that time of year, and elder Konri wanted me to try it. The drink had a warming, mellow taste that I enjoyed greatly. Kol, the demon princess, didn’t like it as much, and complained that it was too hot and bitter.

This was our final night on the Oko tribe’s lands. Everything was packed up and everybody was ready to make the journey to the Imm tribe, and then on to Bek Tepe. I was sitting around a campfire with Elder Konri and Princess Kol. We were done with dinner, and were mulling around, asking each others questions like we had been doing ever since Kol joined us.

“So you do not have elders in your tribes?” asked elder Konri, sipping her tisane.

“Yes, wait no, it’s complicated,” said Kol. “Villages and towns might have elders, but the country, which controls many villages and many cities, is ruled by a king. The king rules over his subjects like a father, and passes his power down to his descendants, who rule the kingdom after his death.”

“Like a father? But he isn’t their father. And passing power to descendants? What if the king doesn’t have any children? Or if his children are still young? How could a single family hope to lead so many people. Why not divide yourselves up?” said Elder Konri.

Kol frowned. Someone who had been raised as a princess might have found some of the elder’s questions offensive, but also difficult to refute. Feudalism runs on power and hierarchy, which are both very difficult to justify on moral terms, especially to people who have not experienced it before. Kol had realized quite quickly that she had very little to say on the matter once she couldn’t refer directly to her father or family’s history or to matters of theology.

Speaking of theology. “You said last time that the king is your god’s chosen representative on Earth,” I said. “The elder and I dismissed that reasoning because we don’t believe in your god, but could you tell me a little bit more about this god of yours?”

The princess’s eyes brightened. “Yes! The Heavenly Eye created this world with his gaze. Today, our planet is suspended in his gaze, like a mote of dust in a sunbeam or a small particle in water. He created humans from his tears, and when we die, our souls are whisked away and return to tears, ready to take on a new form through reincarnation.”

“I see,” I said, with a frown on my face. These discussions had been getting more concerning by the day. By now, I always left the campfire emotionally drained. “And there were other countries on the other side of the mountains. Do they believe in the Heavenly Eye, too?”

“No,” she said, emphatically. “The barbaric kingdoms do not believe in the true god. Many years ago, two evil beings drifted into the Heavenly Eye’s gaze from the great abyss, and have been fighting for control over our reality. Those dumb barbarians do not realize what they are doing. How they are dooming us all to ruin. They worship their heathen gods: the so-called ‘God of Music’ and the ‘Beast of the Valley.’ But our people believe, that if our kingdom conquers the others, and unites the continent in worship of the Heavenly Eye, the evil gods will lose their power and drift back into the abyss.”

The rest of the conversation faded into white noise in my ears. I was thinking about what Kol had said, and mulling over it. And it was made more complicated by the other things that she had revealed about her people and their society and beliefs.

On the first day after we returned to the Oko tribe, Kol told me how she came to be on this side of the mountains. She was the only heir of the current king, but was forced to go to the hinterlands due to political pressure. Her escort party had been chased all the way to the mountains by assassins, and just when she thought they’d lost the assassins, they were chased by a strange flying monster. The flying monster had chased her all the way through the mountains. The journey had been so stressful, she could barely remember it. She said she felt like she’d run through a dimly lit tunnel and appeared on the other side. Then, they hadn’t been able to find any food, and most of her party finally succumbed to their injuries and to hunger. She still had no idea how she’d survived long enough to be rescued by me.

Her whole story was suspicious, which was why I suspected supernatural forces were involved. I wanted to help her get back home, but there wasn’t much I could do about it for now. The plan had been to slowly explore the North over the course of a few years. I didn’t want to risk the lives of the human tribesmen just to get her home a little faster.

Another thing that made me want to take my time in sending her home, was the technological level of the demons on the other side. Kol confirmed that her glass lantern, which had already become a source of wonder for the tribesmen, was actually a common item back in her kingdom. The demons also used iron tools, and had access to all sorts of medieval era weapons and inventions. The biggest problem was agriculture. If they’d developed agriculture to a certain level, their population had to be massive. There was no way the tiny human population of the double river basin could stand up to the demons if things went south.

Elder Konri rekindled the fire with magic. Princess Kol stared at it wide-eyed, as she usually did. She had that expression every time she saw one of our magic spells. She was especially surprised to see that the humans could use those spells too. After all, elves were magical, but she hadn’t even heard about humans before.

I frowned. Wasn’t it strange that she knew about elves but didn’t know about humans, who lived a lot closer to them? It didn’t sound like they’d met the elves from the other tribes either, since the demons told stories about elves from before the elves came to the Plains of Serenity. Judging by Kol’s stories, they may have crossed paths with the demons before the time of the Mad King.

I twiddled my thumbs as I watched Kol ask Elder Konri about magic again. The elder laughed awkwardly and avoided the question. I’d told the tribesmen not to share the secrets of magic with the demon princess just yet, since we weren’t sure if she was a friend or foe. More importantly, I needed to know if she was involved with the immortals, somehow. The circumstances of her arrival were suspicious enough, after all.

Princess Kol made a dissatisfied face but dropped the subject. She’d mentioned that she knew magic as well, but had never shown it to us, so I suppose she thought it was fair that we weren’t sharing our magic if she wasn’t sharing hers.

But the thought that consumed my mind for the longest time was the first question I’d asked her when we’d returned to the camp. It was the question that I asked her every night around this campfire, hoping for a better answer.

“Princess,” I said, waiting for the princess to meet my gaze. “Do you have an answer yet?”

The princess frowned, rubbed her temple, and shook her head. “No, I’m afraid not.”

“You still can’t remember it?” I asked.

“I don’t know if there even is an answer to give you,” she said.

“Not even a hint. I’ve already described it to you, multiple times. I even gave you synonyms. And you saw my translation magic is translating something. That it isn’t gibberish. It sounds like a word to you, a real word from your language! And yet?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, lowering her head. “I don’t know what that word means in my language. I have never heard it before.”

I sighed. I leaned back, stretching my arms onto the ground behind me, and stared up at the sky. “Annihilation… why did the secret to my return have to be a word like that. A puzzle so small, it can’t be unraveled, because every time I get a little closer, all I find is another layer.”