“Believer? Wanderer?”
Those fatigued eyes try to seek in the air for an answer: “I was a believer of my lord. Is this a place to worship him?”
I reach out my hands to support her and carry her weight on my shoulder.
“This is the Néméton of Aenosîlidh, where the lord of the secret arts be worshipped, but I could see that she may not be your lord, for those who know her and follow her path speak her divine name. What is the divine name of your lord?”
“Won’t that be profane to speak it out?”
“In the name of Aenosîlidh, at least it’s not profane here in this néméton.”
“Well, my lord… they call him Elthyris.”
I am stunned.
“Elthyris? The shield-master who protected Eaglefort in Rethîlion?”
“Eaglefort? You know where I am from?”
“Well… it seems there is a long story to tell. Let me have you rested at the néméton and let’s talk tomorrow.”
I carry her into the room beside the inner hall where there are beds and warmth for a traveler to rest. It’s cold here for a human to sleep outside with such simple clothes, although it would be far colder in winter. Her eyelids are shut the moment she touches the plain spruce-wood bed: she must have gone a ridiculously long distance to be worn out like this.
It’s at least five dozen miles from Eaglefort to this néméton - if you can fly - if not, you must take a rugged route which no one treads for double distance.
There is the |CONCEPT| of wings in the Art of Mirkflames. It is lucky that I used to ignore them.

The girl in rags wakes up the next day at noon. At first she didn’t believe it was daytime - she looked out and saw a pale blue-white shade on everything around - but I managed to convince her by taking her out of the néméton where everything looks normal.
“Amazing! How can you do this?”
“It is not quite accurate to say I did this. This is the power Aenosîlidh possesses, the power of nightly illusions, but more precisely speaking…”
“Can I meet that Ae…no… lady?”
“AE-NOS-ÎLIDH, divine-night-mist in the words of the heavens. You may see her if she wills. I am her agent, so it’s she who decides… Ah, she is there, in the front hall.”
The girl in white rushes forward, me following.
“Are you that… mist lady she talks about? I am Leorria Thyrisicca. Nice meeting you!”
“Indeed I am Aenosîlidh, the Celestial who dwells here. I heard you are from Eaglefort. Could I suppose that you know about Elthyris?”
The Night-mist in black stands in the middle of the front hall, a room with a dome supported by four delicate marble pillars.
“That’s my lord! Are you also a god?”
“…God?”
“Some city-dwellers call their Celestials gods, Moreânna. And indeed, Elthyris and I are both Celestials.”
“What is ‘Celestial’?”
“A god, if you are familiar with this idea. But I am curious about the reason why you appear here. Elthyris had been here for a while, so I know something about the revolution, but I wish to hear more.”
“You know Elthyris? Where is he? …Well, I am from House Thyrisicca, the house around the familia of Elthyris - but before I could be able to join the familia, I, as well as my family, were put into prison for eating cheesecake. I had been there for four years until being thrown into the Wilds two days ago. Then I am here.”
Eating cheesecake. Who doesn’t like cheesecakes?
“As far as I know, Elthyris isn’t famous for composing cheesecakes. In his hands great weapons and tools can take form, but not feasts nor garments.”
It must be the jealous ones who wanted cheesecake but failed to get them. To those foolish minds, if you kill someone who possesses something you don’t have, you would have it.
But killing a Celestial Agent doesn’t grant you the access to the |ALVA AEDHA|. And killing someone who ate a cheesecake won’t give you a cheesecake.
I show the shortsword to Leorria. “This was crafted by Elthyris when he visited here.”
“Really? Wow! A glowing sword! Have you seen him?”
“No, but it seems he travelled to the city of Gleinyl.”
To this young girl, the idea of “other cities” is so vague that she hasn’t even imagined the existence of cities other than Eaglefort, and I have to explain everything about the Wilds from scratch. But even the idea of cities, ruins and monsters seems too complicated for this little princess made of cheesecakes.
“I am going to Gleinyl. You said there resides a god who can produce bread and wine.”
Technically speaking how the |CONCEPT| and the divine power be utilized to create things is far more complicated than a fairytale spell which a Celestial casts so that cheesecakes appear. But after an hour of a failed attempt to give this little princess an idea of the world, I now have absolutely zero confidence in the extent to which Leorria could understand Alva Terrimátta.
Maybe it IS better for her to learn everything through her own eyes.
“Yes, you are going to Gleinyl, and I shall go too, to prevent you from getting lost or being killed in the wilds. But first, you have to take a serious rest and have yourself properly dressed…”

For two days Leorria has stayed in the néméton with impatience written in her face. When the day to set off finally comes, she rushes out with a word,
“Farewell, Ae…nos…îlidh!”
“You don’t need to bid her farewell, Leorria. My lord is a stateless Celestial, so she could appear everywhere she wants to. Besides, I am her agent, the embodiment of Aenosîlidh, the one who carries her will.”
“Al-right!”
As we leave through the archway, the sky turns from the enchanted azure to cloudy white. The reappearing sunlight is a bit itchy. With the flow of the stream the glen widens into a vale. Woods thickens, whose canopies shadow the sky and sunlight. The stream twists and turns, till it joins a small river whose water should reach my waist at its deepest. Ringings of tits and larks echo in the vale, day and night, just like the days before those things came, the days when I was not born. But why do I know?