Despite the man's friendly demeanor, Nelrue's flaring violet glow hadn't stopped, if not it had grown brighter.

Nefaaya wondered what cause Nelrue to be agitated. Ettran was standing beside her, and Renaeril in front of them two, hand raised as if he was about to Merge.

"What makes you like that?" The man said. "I'm just here to visit you."

Nelrue sneered, light oozing out of his eyes like smoke, "you never do something that doesn't benefit you Denedril."

The man called Denedril, pulled off his mask. Revealing a long black hair tied in a ponytail. His eyes emerald just like what Nelrue has, but it has depth to it, as if a mysterious ocean, who hides something sinister. His lips were thin and were made for smiling. "The same goes to you... who are this kids, answer me."

Nelrue shoot them a look, silencing the three of them.

"They're orphans," Nelrue said, the glow in him slowly fading, revealing his emerald eyes made deep by the dancing flames before him. "I'm a musicteller, I find them at a village on the Broken Pass. I was supposed to play on a neighboring village this time of the year for their Harvest Festival."

The glow subsided, Nelrue sighed. "But what welcomed me there were ruins."

Denedril looked at him, crossing his arms on his chest, "what killed the villagers?"

"The houses are singed," Nelrue responded. "The kids say they saw men in flapping white cloaks, they Pulled a fire in the village."

He shook his head, half-closing his eyes. As if he too was sad of what caused the village folk's death.

"Didn't know that the war would reach this far," Denedril said.

The man sat on the log across Nelrue. The other two men in masks stood behind him. Nefaaya shivered as she felt their eyes behind the mask. Even Ettran too stiffened under the gaze.

"Hard times," he said. "We in the Venedralis weren't expecting it at all from them... after all they're the closest allies when they fight the Prophet… two thousand years ago."

"Venedralis?" Renaeril's voice cut Nelrue from what he was about to say.

The musicteller shot him a hard gaze, as if a parent saying that he would receive a good beating after the visitor left their house.

Renaeril cowered under Nelrue's eye.

"Now, Nelrue don't be hard on the kid," he looked at the three. "Kids are all curious to learn. The wise men said, ``Let go of the kid's curiosity so that when they grow up they will learn more than their age."

Nelrue sneered. Nefaaya was taken aback, that reaction was not something she usually saw from the giddy musician. "Letting go of a kid's curiosity was like giving them a knife and telling them to stab themselves."

That was a very cruel analogy, she thought.

Beside her, Ettran was looking down at Renaeril. She refused to acknowledge it at first but now Nefaaya was certain, Ettran and Renaeril don't like one another.

Denedril laughed at Nelrue's face. "You so hate my presence." He flickered his eyes to Renaeril and pursed his lips, observing him.

"Me and these two behind my back are Venedralis," he said, nodding. "Means Enlighten. We are Deprives who wanted to recreate the image of other Deprives. That among us there's also good one's to be found."

The three were taken aback and were rooted to where they stood when they had learned that Denedril was a Deprive. The shock was replaced by fear, Nefaaya who wasn't familiar with the fear of Deprives was shaking for a different reason. She noticed and smelled something faint that was similar to what she had felt about the eyes and the dream of the Black Sun.

"We know that most Deprives were what caused the War Of Ascension, but we Enlightens condoned what they did," he said. "We condoned them, the evil Deprives, the Corrupts, the Rotseekers and the Prophet and his Wickeds."

As he said it solemnly, his eyes remained on the three, face emotionless and straight. Then his eye caught something behind Nefaaya, something peeking under the blanket that she was using to cover her head from the heat.

"What was that?" The man said.

Nefaaya turned behind her, eyes flickering to her mother's grimoire, with its front leather cover burned by the heat, brown and almost black.

"That's my grimoire," she said consciously.

"You wanted to be Flowmage like us?" He asked.

Nefaaya nodded.

The man smiled, "can I see yours?" He said and showed the one he has, a much smaller one with a smooth white cover.

Nefaaya stood uneasy before he nodded ever so slowly under the dead gaze of Denadril. As she leaned down, Nefaaya felt something, something so small to be noticed, but she knew that it was there under his emotionless gaze. She was a teacher before she was a child, and she had learned most of the time to trust what she had been sensing.

In that moment as she walked towards the grimoire, Nefaaya was certain that whatever this man's claim about the Venedralis wasn't entirely the truth, at least he was leaving something important to what he had said. She bent, hand reaching to the book.

The air quivered around her. Nelrue burst in violet glow as he Merged with the Creation. Violet Pieces hung around him, swirling around him like a dust devil. The ground before them shook as a wall rose from it. Nelrue jumped back and pushed the wall against the three Venedralis, putting the fire out. The wall surged on the trees that blocked its path. It was like a tsunami.

Behind the walls, Nefaaya heard a glottal angry scream that reminded her of her chalk as it slashed the board.

"Nelruuuue!" Denedril screamed with evident hatred behind the walls that was slowly pushing him.

"The Black Grace is with you Deprive!" He spat. "You cannot fool the eyes blessed by the Eye Of The Most Holy."

Nefaaya Merge with the Creation. The night had turned glowing around her, she saw trees losing their shape and dancing like flames. Behind the surging wall of rock. He saw Denadril and his two men, trying to push the wall. They're surrounded in darkness instead of Pieces.

"I'll pluck the Eye of your god and serve it on my plate," he said laughingly. "The world would be free!"

Nelrue rose his arms, his fingers slowly closing into fist as the wall kept pushing the Venedralis

"Climb at me!" He said at Ettran. The boy climbed on his back and held onto him as tightly as he could.

He turned backwards and grabbed Renaeril and Nefaaya. Beside Nelrue, Renaeril burst into Blue Pieces, this time he managed to keep up with Nelrue's pace. They thought that they would be running but what happened next shook them.

Nelrue jumped, skipping from branches to branches as he went higher and higher. Nefaaya wanted to scream as she saw the ground below her. She wasn't especially good with heights. And the distance that they had taken from the ground was growing so fast. She felt her vertigo eating her.

"Dont looked down," Nelrue growled.

The strangeness of his voice had made Nefaaya looked up. Her eyes widened as she saw the roof of the forest before her, she raised her hand, shielding herself from the branches.

The leaves hissed as it scratched on their skin, Nelrue soared above the sky then started descending. She thought they would fly, but Nelrue stepped on the leaf and was immediately pushed upward once again.

Nefaaya looked back, from where they had come, he saw a growing mass of torches.

"What are they?" She said with a hidden question, why are they after you?

Just as she thought he wouldn't give her a proper answer, he spoke, "something of my past. A mistake."