Date: April 19, 542 years since the Fall of Zanra the Dishonorable.
The shadow stepped forward, and the world around them changed. The air, already dense, became heavy as water, and each step was an effort. The column's light, previously steady and calm, began to flicker, and in its flickering, its uneven, anxious rhythm, Ulvia felt — this trial would be harder than anything before.
She stepped back, and the vine on her left arm, previously a blade, began to change. The thorns retracted, the blade grew thicker, denser, and in a moment her arm transformed into a wide, curved shield, covered with bark hard as old oak. She raised it, taking the shadow's strike.
The mist sword crashed into the shield, and Ulvia felt the force of the blow pass through the vine, through her arm, into her shoulder, into her spine. Her legs buckled, but she held. The ground beneath her cracked, but she did not retreat.
"You are strong," said the shadow. Its voice was cold, distant, and there was neither respect nor mockery in it. Only statement. "But not strong enough."
The shadow struck again, and this time Ulvia did not take the blow on her shield. She stepped aside, letting the sword pass, and at that moment, her right hand, in its glove, clenched into a fist and struck the shadow in the side. Short, sharp, as Klii had taught. The shadow gasped, retreated, and its form became less dense, less stable for a moment.
But it did not disappear.
---
Ulvia felt her strength leaving her. Blood from the wound on her side still seeped, soaking her shirt, and every movement echoed with a dull, throbbing pain. She knew she could not last in a long fight. She had to end it.
She lowered her left arm, and the shield she had used for defense began to change. The bark vanished, the thorns retracted, and the vine, flexible, alive, reached toward the ground. Ulvia closed her eyes, listening to what was inside her. To her spirit, to her power, to the life that had flowed through her since the day she first summoned her hand.
She felt the earth. The stones beneath her feet, the roots reaching deep, the water flowing somewhere far away, and life — millions of tiny lives sleeping in the soil, waiting for their time, waiting to be called.
"Wake," Ulvia whispered.
The ground beneath the shadow exploded.
Dozens, hundreds of thin, flexible stems burst from the soil. They grew instantly, intertwined, closed, and in a second, a wall stood before the shadow — high, dense, made of living vines covered with thorns. The shadow retreated, and its sword, raised to strike, met that wall but could not pierce it. The thorns bit into the mist, tore it, prevented it from gathering.
"What..." the shadow began, but did not finish.
Ulvia did not wait. She stepped forward, and the vine on her left arm changed again. This time, it became not a blade, not a shield, but something else. From her fingers, from her palm, from the stump itself, thin, almost invisible threads emerged — white as milk, and in their light, in their cool, pure radiance, was something that made the shadow freeze.
It was a plant Bagurai called "white thorn." It grew only in one place, in his greenhouse, and he said it repelled everything that should not be here. Not kill — repel. Send back where it came from.
Ulvia didn't know if it would work. But she knew she had to try.
---
She thrust her hand forward, and the white threads, released from her fingers, struck the shadow's chest.
The effect was instantaneous. The shadow did not scream — it exploded. Its body, its mist, its sword — all scattered like a cloud of dust struck by wind. The light inside it flared bright, blinding, and for a moment Ulvia was blind. She heard only her own voice, her own breath, her own heart pounding in her throat.
Then the light died.
Ulvia opened her eyes. The shadow was gone. The wall of vines she had raised crumbled to dust, and the white threads, thinning, retracted into her hand. The vine on her left forearm, exhausted, curled up, hid beneath her sleeve, and only a faint, barely perceptible warmth reminded her it was there.
She stood, breathing heavily, feeling blood from the wound on her side drip down her leg, fall to the ground. The pain returned — sharp, burning — and she pressed her hand to her side, trying to stop the blood. She had won.
She raised her head to step toward the gate, and froze.
---
Where the shadow had been, a man stood.
He was old. Very old. His face, lined with wrinkles, was pale, almost transparent, and his eyes — light, faded — looked at Ulvia with such longing that her heart ached. He wore a long, worn cloak, and his hands, thin, bony, were folded on his chest like a sleeper's.
He was not alive. Ulvia knew that at once. He was a shadow, a reflection, a memory that did not want to leave. But now that her vine had dispersed the mist in which he had hidden, she saw him as he truly was. Who he had been. Who had come here many years ago.
"You..." Ulvia began, her voice trembling.
"I am the one who was here before you," said the old man. His voice was quiet, weak, and there was none of the coldness she had heard before. Only weariness. And relief. "I led my people. I found the tree. I touched it."
He raised his hand, and Ulvia saw — on his palm, in the same place where she had her stump, was a scar. Old, ancient, but still visible.
"It called to me," he continued. "And then... then I could not leave. I became part of this place. A guardian. A test for those who come after. I waited. So long."
He looked at her, and in his eyes, in that light, faded gaze, was something that made Ulvia step forward.
"You passed," he said. "You did not become one of us. You did not stay. Go. Further. The tree waits."
He began to fade. His body, his cloak, his face — all grew transparent, dissolved in the air, and Ulvia, watching him, felt tears come to her eyes.
"What was your name?" she asked. "I want to know."
The old man smiled. In his smile, weak, barely noticeable, was something that reminded her of home, of warmth, of something long forgotten.
"Erlan," he said. "My name was Erlan."
He vanished. Quietly, soundlessly, as morning mist melts under the sun's rays. And only the column's light, golden, warm, fell on the place where he had stood, and that light was a farewell.
---
Ulvia stood, looking at the emptiness. In the bundle on her back lay the diary, and the last words she had read in the cave surfaced in her memory: *"We found it. But it did not want to be found."*
She wiped her tears, adjusted her bundle, pressed her hand to her wounded side. The blood had almost stopped, and the pain, sharp, burning, gradually subsided, turning into a dull, throbbing warmth.
Ulvia stepped toward the gate. Two trees, old, enormous, stood before her, their trunks fused at the top to form an arch, beyond which glowed a golden radiance. She did not know what was there. Did not know what awaited her. But she knew she had to go.
She crossed the threshold, and the light received her.