After another successful summer solstice festival, I made the crossing over the mountain route to the Izlandi Kingdom. I brought along more goods to be traded, alongside the first samples of wootz steel weapons that I wanted to show to the demon queen. The metalworkers in the human tribes would produce more steel while I was gone but these samples should begin catching the demons’ attention.

The villages and small towns were as relaxed and idyllic as ever. Our frequent travels through the area had eliminated the most powerful monsters, and after the introduction of concrete and cement in the kingdom, many of the roads leading from the regional city of Tephon had been reinforced to withstand long use. Domesticated monsters could be seen pulling carts full of good to and from the city, signaling the rise of a booming trade network.

Bain Rusta greeted our delegation personally. After Kol’s rise to power, his position had been solidified and he was able to surround himself with better advisers. We discussed the journey, but it was clear Bain wanted to talk about what I’d brought to trade. I showed him everything except the wootz steel. After spending a night in Tephon, our trade delegation continued on to the capital. I was frustrated by the slow pace of the humans, lamenting the fact that I had left Kelser behind. Not that his presence would’ve made everyone move faster, but it would have made me less bored. But of course, now that he was in the throes of young love, it was hard to drag him all the way to the other side of the mountains every year.

The sentries on the road to the capital saw us approaching late at night, our torches held aloft, shielded from the powerful wind by magic. They shouted something but it was lost in the wind. I couldn’t see very well in the darkness. There was a new moon tonight, one you could barely see if you squinted really hard in just the right place in the sky. The guards were persistent. Did they mistake us for enemies? This deep into the kingdom? Something must be wrong. No, their spears were not pointed forward. In fact, a couple of them had thrown their spears aside. I frowned and raised a hand.

The wind stilled.

“—ency, please help!” shouted the nearest guard.

“What is going on,” I asked, sprinting forward with magic, leaving the rest of my delegation behind.

“Great elf, thank the Heavenly Eye you are here! We have been asking for help for weeks! Please, you must head to the palace at once,” said the guard, his voice hoarse from shouting into the wind.

I furrowed my brows, and shot a glance over my shoulder at the humans who gave me affirmative signs. I took a deep breath and channeled my energy. A burst of wind and impeccable use of momentum and muscles propelled me forward, right past rows and rows of guards, up and over ramparts, scaling walls, zooming through streets, and bursting through the gates of the royal palace whose guards had just enough time to realize I was someone they could let through.

“Cas, you’re here!” said Kol as the angry lines on her face unraveled into a look of surprise. Her eyes were deeply sunken in, her hair was disheveled, and the ministers kneeling in front of her throne were trembling. The air inside the throne room had been thick enough to taste; the sickly sweet taste of desperation dancing on the tip of your tongue. Despite everything, I took a moment to notice that she had called me with my first name and without any titles.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“We don’t know,” she said, standing up. Her ministers got up and scrambled off to the side. None of them met her glance. Kol walked with a confident gait, very different from her usual careful, reserved demeanor. “Some time a few weeks ago, we lost all contact outside the city. Anybody we sent out of sight of the farthest sentry points would not return. Not even scouts who were going out on routine missions into the woods or down the road. We would have suspected a powerful monster or a daring group of bandits, but it was happening in every direction. Every direction! If I hadn’t mandated long term food storage within the capital after becoming queen, our people may have started starving.”

Sweat trickled down my back. I was still breathing heavily from rushing over. “But there were traders on the road. They were coming from the capital. I talked to them. We even traded some of our goods with them.”

“The last traders who left the city left weeks ago,” she said. “There have only been scouts after that.”

“There was no news of missing traders from the other cities,” I said. My eyes widened. “Wait, if people aren’t able to enter the city, how did I get in? No, there’s no time for that. I have to go back!”

“Wait—”

I ignored Kol’s command and ran back out the palace and through the streets, walls, ramparts and other obstacles right back to the farthest sentry post where I had left behind the rest of the human trade delegation. They were all accomplished magic users since they had to be good enough to deal with the dangerous mountain route. If the reason I had been able to enter the city was because of my high magical power, the other humans should be able to get through too. I raced past the wooden sentry posts, ignoring the worried guard that was sprinting towards me as I tried to get a look for myself.

They were gone.

The sentries, the humans, everybody was gone.

---

“So you went to take a leak and when you returned, everyone was gone?” I asked.

The frenzied guard that I had rushed past before nodded quickly, apologizing fervently for not being able to tell me anything else. “I was too terrified to investigate, so I stayed behind the sentry post and tried to survey the area from afar, but it was as if nobody had ever been there in the first place. There was nothing that could suggest a struggle. No bloodstains, no torn clothing. Nothing. There weren’t even any footprints!” he said.

Kol frowned. I had dragged this guard all the way back to the royal palace, asking him a ton of questions along the way. The poor guy had been so bewildered, he hadn’t been able to calm down until he was brought in front of the queen and attended to by a bunch of physicians. Kol told the physicians to take the guard away for some rest, and turned to me. “I am sorry. I told the guards to warn any visitors to turn back, but I fear they may have been too excited by your return and your ability to enter the city despite whatever it is that is confining us.”

“No, it’s alright,” I said, taking a deep breath. “The circumstances are so strange, I doubt there is anything you could have done about it. If anything, it was my mistake for leaving them behind. Clearly, I am the only one that is unaffected by this strange curse. Is it a curse? No, I do not know what it is. It is not like any magic that I know of. And if it isn’t like the magic that I know, then it can only have come from them.” I leaned against a wall. My chest was still burning from all the reckless sprinting and bursts of magic. “And this situation. It is familiar.”

“So you’ve faced this before?” asked Kol, letting a little hope bleed into her voice.

I stared at the ground. “Once upon a time, Noel and I visited the immortal that had taught us the basics of magic. However, the immortal had disappeared, fleeing, I assume, from the immortal that came up to us next. The Immortal of Madness did nothing. Really. All he did was walk into the room, sending everything around us into a disturbing dancing delirium. We couldn’t do anything in front of him. He thanked us as if we had done him a favor, and made it seem as if our actions had all been predetermined or manipulated by him. And after a short, confusing conversation, he disappeared.” I stopped speaking, reviewing the encounter in my head.

“How does that remind you of the situation my city is in right now?” asked Kol.

“Because after he disappeared, Noel and I realized that we had been thrust into the future, completely unaware of the time that had been passing by. It isn’t exactly like the situation from back then, but the isolation, the strangeness, the fact that the people outside have not even realized that something is wrong in the capital, all of that is very similar. Even if the Immortal of Madness is not to blame, I am sure this has to be the work of an immortal. The only question is,” I said as I walked up to the queen’s throne. “Is there anything that we can do about it?”