One day, as the Tyrant King of Illdar looked out over his city, admiring the flowers his decree had brought to him, his eye caught Sylvanis on the castle grounds.

Hair kissed by sunlight, green eyes glimmering beneath gold, she held in her gait the beauty of the rural hills. A white dress folding gently over bronze olive skin, she blossomed like a wildflower in the garden of lilies.

The King became stricken with a vicious lust. He ordered the girl be brought to him immediately.

Yet Sylvanis, no fool, hid quickly from the guard’s sight. She disappeared into the crowds of white dresses and flowers. Though the King’s attendants searched for her, and searched for her well, the lily garden proved too vast to find a single wildflower. Though the King sent out soldiers and servants to find the girl, all returned with one who was not her.

In the garden of lilies, though a dozen men searched, Sylvanis hid like a snake coiled still amidst the grass. She was never found.

Thus the Tyrant King grew angry, and his anger bred impatience.

One evening, as the King rose from his bed and brushed aside the naked and sleeping women there, he stood on his balcony and looked out over his city. By chance he glanced down at a stream running through the gardens. This waterway flowed from the castle down the hill, through the garden, beneath the wall, and out into the city.

There, on the grass, two lovers sat merrily. Deyus and Sylvanis laughed by the cool stream.

The King filled with a sudden, powerful rage. He tore through his chambers, shouted for his guards, and ordered the two be captured with unrelenting haste.

But by the time the guards arrived, with the uproar the castle had caused, Sylvanis and Deyus disappeared into the night.

In anger, the King ordered his wall be built with thrice speed. New orders bid soldiers keep close watch of the maidens. No longer could the lilies venture off the palace grounds, not into the hills or the city below. Their home was now the garden, and there they would be caged.

So it was. So they were. The wall soon stood finished, and the white lilies were closed inside.

Young lovers, however, are not easily halted.

The stream that trickled through the palace garden made its way from the castle down the hillside to the King’s great wall. From there it flowed down, in cascades, into the city below. To cross through the King’s great wall, however, the river required a grate—a hole with six iron bars through which the water could pass.

Sylvanis and Deyus snuck often to the grate, this gap in the wall where their hands could meet. They sat on either side of the iron bars, and they would talk, and dream, and laugh. In their small way the lovers would be happy.

A year passed this way.

This year, the Blacksmith’s son turned the age of a man. He had honed his skills greatly through practice and toil. One night he met Sylvanis by the iron bars. He took her hands through the grate and spoke.

“Sylvanis,” said he, “For too long I have been kept from you. For too long I have loved you and have not had the words to say it. So though it may be late, I say it now: I love you. All the days we’ve spent together have made me love you deeper still. Your smile, to my skin, is as daybreak after freezing night. Your laughter, to my ears, is more calming than the wind over gentle fields. Yet how bittersweet such love has been, as I, too weak, have left you in this prison. How small a man am I to have left the one he loves inside a cage? No longer. I have learned well my father’s teachings. His craft is now my own, and his talent doubly so. With it I would make a better life for you and I. With it I would give you all the things that you deserve. And though ‘till now I have been craven, too small and weak to act, that past has died today: I love you, Sylvanis. Won’t you run away with me and leave this place behind?”

At this Sylvanis welled up with joy. Her heart began to soar. She too dreamed, as the lilies often did, of running fast and far away. But her joy was short lived, for still the two still were separated by a wall too high to climb, and too deep to tunnel.

“Worry not,” Deyus said, “For I have the tools of my father, and his blessing as well. One week from today I will return. I will take my tools, and my talent, and pry the grate from this wall, and we will run from this city together, you and I. One week from today, I will free you. One week from today, I will hold you close to me.”

And Sylvanis leapt up overjoyed. Tears sailed down her cheeks, and she jumped into the water and pressed her lips through the grate. For the first time since meeting, the two kissed.

What a simple, thoughtless action, the conversation of lovers.

Sylvanis thought little of it. As she and Deyus parted ways the two felt much too happy to consider what evil might be watching.

In the shadows, unknown to the couple, a soldier of the King’s army stood. He had heard their voices and come to investigate, and hid when he saw them together. And he’d listened.

The soldier rushed fast to the Tyrant King. He threw open the palace doors and knelt before his liege. He told all he had overheard: of the plot to pluck the wildflower and take it far from the garden grounds.

The Tyrant King stood from his throne. He ordered, a week from the day, an ambush on the thief and his flower. There he would capture Sylvanis, the woman for which he longed, and make her his own. There he would make an example of Deyus, the thief whom he despised.

Thus was his plan, and the King waited, pleased and cynical.

And Sylvanis waited, filled with joy.

And Deyus waited, filled with courage.

And in this way did the week pass.