Leaving the outpost behind, the Stumps spent a week traveling along a wide and seemingly abandoned road. Sedge was growing along its edge, and patches of weed could be seen popping between the cobblestones. There were almost no people, and the air was filled with an oppressive sense of unease. The sky was different, too, even though they were barely a week of riding away from the border with Bistrita. It seemed low and heavy, and it brought a chill that made Alice wrap her emerald cloak tighter around herself despite it being summer on the Continent.

“Are you okay?” Tul asked, turning to her.

She just nodded and gripped her wand tight until her knuckles turned white.

“You’re a bad liar.” Ash chuckled and ruffled Guido’s mane. “Want a pie? They say that food’s the best cure for depression!”

“You’re the only one who says that,” Alice muttered but gave him a faint smile.

“No pie then,” Ash replied with a wide, ear-to-ear grin.

Mary shot them a glare that said that she’d kill them if they so much as thought about taking the supplies without her permission.

Turning around, Lari took the map from Blackbeard and turned it upside down, earning himself a grateful nod from his companion who hadn’t noticed that he had been looking at the map the wrong way.

Swallows soared between the clouds, disappearing and reappearing between the fluffy balls of cotton that hovered above the endless plains of Arabist. Sometimes, they’d fly above the hills covered with flowers, occasionally perching on rocks sticking out from the green.

What the birds didn’t know was that these weren’t rocks and boulders, but parts of walls, towers, and temples that had burnt down during the war. They didn’t understand that what they were flying over wasn’t a meadow, but a graveyard.

Ash never liked swallows as they reminded him too much of Arabist, the country, that he didn’t want to return to. He had vowed to never step foot there again.

“Maaaaaryyyyy,” he whined. “I’m hungry.”

“Be patient,” she hissed. Ash was always hungry. You could give him enough food to feed a small village, and he’d be whining after an hour that he’s starving again. At such moments not even the pipe that he’d occasionally take out of his bag would be enough to fend off the hunger.

“Tuuuuuuul!” he whispered a bit too loudly. “Give me a pie, she won’t know.”

The archer glanced over at Mary whose left eye twitched in annoyance. Her face seemed to be saying “just touch it and see what happens.”

“Sorry, mate, you’ve already eaten all the pies.”

“He did what?!” Lari and Blackbeard shouted in unison and turned to look at Ash with a mix of anger and grief on their faces. They had been looking forward to eating mother Zelda’s famous meat pies!

“Guido,” Ash whispered nervously. “I think we should run...”

A strong gust of wind brought with it not only dust and sand but also a leaflet that stuck itself to Ash’s face. He tore off the piece of parchment and read it, and then howled with joy as if he had just won a game of thimbles.

“Mary! Mary!” he yelled.

Guido approached her horse in a heartbeat; it snorted warily but didn’t run away. The mounts had gotten sort of used to their fanged relative.

“Mary, Mary, look!” Ash waved the leaflet like a flag on the dome of the palace of a defeated enemy. “We’ve been invited to a wedding!”

“What?” she asked in surprise.

“Well, they didn’t invite us by name, but still! Listen!” Ash cleared his throat and started reading. “Old or young, beautiful or horrendous, lady or sir, we hereby invite you to the wedding of Baroness D’Lamena and Marquis of Soya! Feast and a good time guaranteed!”

“We don’t have time for that.”

Ash slapped his face with the flyer. “What do you mean we don’t have time for fun?! There’s always time for relaxation!”

“Mary,” Tul said, examining the supplies. “He’s right. We do need some rest. We’ll go to the wedding and be on our way. The Forest of Shadows is our last stop. There’s no civilization past that point.”

“He’s right,” Lari agreed.

Mary snorted. Ash was being a bad influence on the squad, filling their heads with food, jokes, and love for entertainment. Soon enough they’d be known as the Wandering Jesters and end up joining the circus, performing all sorts of tricks for a couple of copper coins.

“Ah, a wedding,” Alice said dreamily, closing her eyes.

“Blackbeard.” Mary turned to the, in her opinion, the most reasonable member of their group. “What do you think?”

“The boy has a point,” he replied after a couple of silent moments and put up the folded map away with the others. “The plan was to stop at Zadastra and get some food... But if we go to the wedding perhaps we’ll manage to get more. Moreover, it’s on our way.”

“Are you suggesting that we steal?” Mary asked, raising her brow. She had never broken a law in her entire life.

“No, no...” Blackbeard smiled slyly and began to comb his beard. “Food’s free, we’ll just borrow as much as we need...”

“That’s...” Mary whispered but fell silent, not knowing what to say.

“That’s brilliant!” Ash exclaimed instead and moved closer to Blackbeard to hug him. “I knew that in the depths of your beard hides a lover of fun!”

Mary looked skeptically at her squad and then waved her hand. If they wanted to miss the opportunity to get a reward from the king, that was their problem.

“To hell with you all,” she grumbled. “Don’t come back running to me later...”

“Yay! We’re going to a wedding!!” Ash cried merrily.

That evening

By the time Mystral started shining on the north side of the night sky, the Stumps had reached the marquis’s castle. It was located on the outskirts, almost five days of riding from the capital. Ash wondered why the castle was here of all places. Had the marquis been exiled by some chance or a poor man, he wouldn’t have owned such a luxury, to begin with.

The drawbridge was lined with even wood tiles, the gate was a wrought-iron lattice guarding a pair of heavy oak doors ten feet in size. When they passed between the doors, Ash noticed that they were glittering with gold details. An obvious show of marquis’s luxury.

The courtyard looked like a town square, with high walls and all sorts of outbuildings, ranging from guest houses and servant quarters, as well as outhouses. By a modest estimate, the courtyard could easily accommodate six hundred people.

To their surprise, there was no one else at the castle, save for the gargoyles and nymphs that observed them from the spires and parapets. Angels stared at them from stained glass windows, as if accusing the marquis from stealing them from their temples. The group admired the garden full of lush trees, shaped into various animals by skilled gardeners. A dragon and hare sat together, silently watching a griffin chase a roe.

“We seem to be late,” Ash muttered.

As a former baronet, he knew that if no servant came to greet you, that was a clear sign that the guests and the hosts were already inside.

“Can we leave now?” Mary asked naively. The rest of the group looked at her as if she had suggested they kill a kitten.

Mary sighed in frustration, knowing that her vote couldn’t go against that of the majority. They dismounted their horses, took them by the bridles, and led them to the stalls. It took Ash quite some time to talk Guido into stay still, as he refused to be tied and cooped up. He eventually managed to persuade him into listening by bribing him with a cube of sugar soaked in rum. Truth be told, it took Ash a lot of self-control not to eat the treat himself.

They then left their weapons on a special rack, where the blades of other guests glittered under the moon’s rays and hurried to the main entrance. Ash didn’t see any guards or servants at the gates, which he found a bit disconcerting. His rumbling stomach, however, successfully drowned out the voice of reason.

“It’s locked,” Blackbeard grunted as he tried to open the heavy doors. There was a loud, prolonged creak, followed by a confused “eh?” as Blackbeard stared at the doorknob that ended up in his hand. Scratching his beard, he threw it behind him, pretending that he had seen nothing.

“Did you j—” Mary began but was shushed.

Ash smirked, raised his staff, and slammed it against the doors with such force that it made his hands shake. A moment later, the doors squeaked open, their hinges creaking with the sound of rusty iron. The group tumbled inside and stared in awe at the rich décor.

Magic torches lined the walls, omitting no smoke as they dyed the hallways a pale golden light. Old tapestries hung from the ceiling and railings. The threads had faded over time, but this only added to their charm and beauty. Stretched across the stone floor was a carpet of deep red, made of material so soft that their feet sunk into it up to their ankles. In the corners, on tables made of red and white wood, glittered silver goblets. In the niches hidden in the shadows, were paintings in golden frames and statues made of milky-white marble.

“Wait!” a desperate cry rang out.

The group stopped in their tracks and reflexively reached for their weapons but groped only air. According to the law, only mages and wizards had the right to carry their staffs and wands wherever they went, as they served to let people know that there was magic coursing through their veins.

A group of three people peered from behind the corner: two girls and a young man. They looked exhausted. Their eyes had no joyful gleam in them, expected to be seen at such a merry occasion as a wedding.

“No! Oh,” gasped the lady with white hair.

The hinges creaked again and the door, as if triggered by the lady’s voice, slammed themselves shut. The lady descended the staircase, scratching the railing with her fingernails, and fell to her knees, crying softly.

“What’s going on here?” Mary asked, pale with fright. Unarmed, she felt as vulnerable as a newborn.

“I think we might have a problem,” Ash suggested.

He went to the doors, cocked his head, and tried to push them open, but nothing happened. He then tried to hit them with his staff like before, but to no avail. No creaking of wood, no groaning of rusty hinges — just silence.

“What a strange spell,” he mused, running his hands over the wood. A faint turquoise shimmer could be seen under his fingertips as if hundreds of tiny lightning bolts were following the movements of his fingers. “Interesting... Not even I can open them...”

“Oh, that’s just great!” Lari grunted, pulling out his scabbard to use it as a weapon if need be. “Some mage you are when you can’t even force a door open.”

“No need for that tone...” Tul raised his hands. “You’re scaring Alice,” he said, looking at the fragile girl who was peering from behind Blackbeard. “Good folk,” he continued, turning to the trio, “can you tell us what’s going on here and why you look like you’ve been to hell and back?”

The young man who was soothing the white-haired lady turned to the adventurers. He was trying to utter something, but words seemed to be getting stuck somewhere in his throat. Flushed, he was straining and puffing his cheeks, but his lips wouldn’t move, merging into a thin, white line.

“I can’t,” he finally breathed out and shook his head.

“Very interesting,” Ash commented, hovering over the trio that was sitting on the carpet, embracing one another. “A silencing spell... They won’t be able to tell us anything until we become a part of whatever the spell’s referring to.”

“What do you mean?” Mary asked with a note of fear in her voice.

Ash straightened up, smiled, and tapped the floor with the staff.

“Friends, we’re in a cursed castle,” he said, grinning from ear to ear.