By Jade Morgan Mandolin

Chapter 1

I first saw the grey girl three months after Jael died….

was killed…

… killed himself.

The world around me was in a state of transformation – ice into water. There was the thought that, for the first time in years we might witness a part of summer. Oren, the sun, is shining more often, glinting through the dusty sky and off the crisp, matte snow. I am homesick for the mountains, but there is no reason for me to go back except for comfort. And there’s more of a reason for me to stay here. I still have the Moonpearl.

Caspar Djulares has slipped into his role as king as easily as one settles into an overstuffed chair. He is busier than ever with the now everyday, mundane rulings of his healing kingdom. I think it is harder and more tedious than running the kingdom in times of peril. It is easier to lead in chaos. Those who doubted his right to rein who were not about to pick up the scepter and run in his place are now forming rebellions and planning coups. I still live in the castle, though I have thoughts of moving out. I never see him anymore like I use to. It’s strange that we took time to walk in the garden as the world was crumbling, but now that the stranglehold of safety has caught us, things are more complicated than ever.

People ask me, in the town I have now strayed far away from to reflect, away from the noise and the people who think they know and love me; they ask what the Moonpearl is. How it can give me answers without telling me the most basic of facts? How it controls me and speaks to me without ever whispering a word or inspiring a single step? I look to my past on the mountainside, to a time we were all lost. A time when we have dreams of the future, but nothing save intuition to guide us towards our wants. Our journeys stifled before they begin by lack of knowledge of the outside world. The Moonpearl gave me the path of fate, unclear as it was. The Moonpearl may be nothing more than an icon, a symbol, but the way my heart pounds when I clutch it close to my chest tell me this is not true. The times I made decisions I know now were correct, I do not hand over to intuition, especially the choices I made that I still hate myself for. But the ice is thawing, the branches are dripping, and as much as I personally have lost, I feel I must have done what was right.

What I have lost… my friend and my enemy. With them I had purpose, I had support, I had a goal, I had the dichotomy that makes life worthwhile and clear. Now I have neither. I have an airy greyness that is not divided into good and evil, but instead into choices with no clear outcome. Not that this lack of direction is anything strange to most struggling creatures trying to make sense of a strange and magical world. But there is one difference in my situation.

The Moonpearl will not let me go.

So I have strayed from the town, as I said, off into the country fields that do not so much resemble my far off home; for home I still do consider it. But the peace that permeates, the lack of crowds and noise, save the crows above and the rustling of branches, takes me back to the time when I knew nothing of the deadly poison that was seeping from the blackest area of the known world. And now the poison is gone, and I look around and think about what has changed. And I wonder what really has.

I went out to the countryside instead of taking my daily walk to the Visionary Forest, that strange and ancient grove where bare trees wind their spindly branches together into a fabric so dense you cannot see the sky. You cannot see through the forest, for the forest is not really there. What you are seeing is the power source of the land; the reason Ambrosia is the most feared, hated, respected and misunderstood of the countries and kingdoms of the world. Vivian is a close second, with its unexplored interior, thick with magical beasts, and its surrounding seas thick with pirates and sea monsters. But Vivian does not have the Forest, and it does not have the Forest’s concave, it’s reflection in a dark mirror, it’s negative - The Unknown.

I realize that my pilgrimage to the Forest is not something to be proud of. I walked to the Forest the day after Jael killed himself and the land began to heal. I went their looking for a thread, listening for a single harpstring. I went their looking for God. I went there for answers. All I found was what I had been working for so long to achieve. The thread was gone. The forest was alive again. The flow of magic had been restored. Everything that, up until that point I had worked towards. Everything that I knew was right. Everything that I hoped deep in my selfish heart I would never have to face.

I returned day after day, hoping to clear my head. Hoping for something that would soothe my soul and assure me that everything was as it should be. I got no answer, from God or anyone else. The world rolled ever onwards, without him in it.

The other reason I walked to the Forest, I realized one particularly familiar cold and blustery day, for as things healed, we still had the occasional snowfall or dark day, was to keep me from journeying to the Unknown, or rather, the chasm that protected the rest of the world from that area of darkness and hate known as the Impasse. The day reminded me of a time not so long ago, when I journeyed to the meeting place on the bridge, because, strangely enough there was a bridge over the Impasse, and met Jael for the last time. The draw was so strong, and my damaged spirit so wanted to return to that place of hurt, that I had to catch myself several times, hysterical and manic, and force myself to return to the castle. I swore to myself that I would never journey to that horrid place for fear that the temptation to mimic Jael’s decent would be too great.

When I first descended the mountain and abandoned the life I had known as a goat herder and daughter of a farmer, I had been escorted by a guardian. Iandrew had delivered me from harm more often than I cared to remember. But now that I had fulfilled my duties as the savior of his land, he had apparently abandoned me. My relationship with Ian was a strange one. There was something I knew about him that made me hate him from the moment I met him. Something that I had to hold inside because I had promised I would. Ian had a complex life I could not understand, just as he could never truly understand how it was to me the Possessor of the Moonpearl. He was a Dreamkin, a being born with a direct connection to the Goddess, Lady Aith. Kins were born few and far between, until the time of Ian’s birth where there was a huge surge in the number of Kin’s born, the prophecy of the Guild of Kins, created during the ancient times of cataclysmic change, foretold the coming of a time of great harm when the number in the guild of kins reached 88, as it did with Ian’s birth. Kins are shapechangeres who can enter the Visionary Forest to help control the flow of magic. That is their main duty. They are also soldiers for the crown, spies, heralds and bodyguards. Ian was more or less my bodyguard. But that is as far as his concern went. As for my mental well-being, the only people who truly were able to help me guard that were Nicabar and Jael.

I often wondered where Nicabar was now, if indeed he were even still alive, which was a hope that I foolishly fostered every chance I got. I had looked for him in vein after that dark day passed three months ago, but all his caravan and his family could tell me was that he was gone and that they never wanted to see me again. They alone understood me, and the burden I carried. I was therefore not offended when they banned me from ever attending their shows or visiting their caravan again. I had been deadly to their son, and that was unforgivable. Still, I missed the scamp, his humor, his childishness and innocence in the face of uncontrollable events. Watching him struggle, and learning from him was true courage means. I dreamed that he had rode off in the night on the back of his rhythm pony Lis’tesso, off to seek his fortune with the thief’s guild, the harpstring tethering him to servitude finally snapped.

And finally, there was Jael Merripen. The man of life and death. A man I felt I understood as no one else could, but what minimal understanding I had was still not enough to save his life and the life of the country. He was a horrible tyrant, but his eyes were so kind. He had committed atrocities against the royal family of Ambrosia, which he claims to have prevented from becoming much worse. He was the leader of horrors and villains and black magic which he admits was his only choice if he were to survive in the awfulness of the Unknown and his self-imposed exile which too, he says was for the protection of all Ambrosians. And as for the theft of magic that threatened to suck the land dry of life, he says it was to save him from destruction.

As no one else did, I believed Jael, and believed in him, until the very end. When he let me down and made a decision that was a twisted and warped version of sacrifice. And left me alone with the warm breeze flowing up from the uncertain depths of the Impasse, to watch the world reborn from his death.

Which brings me to this point, on a stump, near a field which has not been plowed since the snows fell years ago, looking across the lumpy, muddy grey melting puddles of a world ready to be reborn. Or so the cloud demons tell us; the mighty Cathis flying with swoops and stripes across Oren’s golden orb. I am alone, save the crescent shaped pendant around my neck, a teardrop pearl suspended delicately from the topmost point of the moon. The Tear of the Lady, the cold and silent oracle that has not yet given me up. She was walking across the field at a determined pace. I assumed at the time that she was from the farm and was out checking the fence line. She wore a quilted grey jacket and breeches, but it was her footwear that first struck me as odd. The boots were fat and puffy, like stuffed fabric, but the material had a sheen like polished blue leather. She was capless as I was, but with streight hair the color of an overcast sky just brushing her shoulders. I felt tightness in my chest, just for an instant, but shoved it aside like a dream too painful to remember. One other person had hair that soft, downy color, that ethereal fineness. I shook myself angrily out of the momentary pause. Was I about to cry every time I saw someone with his hair color?

The girl trudged on, and I decided that I had meditated, or brooded as the case may be, enough. One last thing I did notice which I would later regret not caring enough to think about, was that as I headed back west towards Palace City, the girl came to the edge of the fence line, and kept walking east, away from the field and towards the forest of Bethany.

Chapter 2

Selenight’s day now consist of more cloud reading and more interpretation and more ambassadors, negotiations, delegations, meetings, and the like than she cared to or even could handle. She was appalled to hear herself muttering “I’m too old for this,” on numerous occasions, as she tried to answer questions as varied as when the fields would thaw to if the centaur riders of the north should have a representative in the palace and if so, how would his horse be accommodated in the congress?

“If only we could ask him to dismount,” a representative from the seaside town of Parique said under his breath to his page.

“Like asking you to leave your legs at the door,” Selenight thought, but let it go as if she hadn’t heard. At her side stood two bodyguards, a wolven Kin and a centaur Kin (not to be confused with the centaur riders.) These beings appeared human but were in fact animals, their true form a wolf and a horse. In their human form they did not speak, for they were simpler in character and cared little for all the arguments around the table regarding representation and justice, political correctness and vote. They were trained in their duty to protect their leader from physical harm. And, with little threat of that from the bevy of somewhat cantankerous complainers from around the kingdom, she could see the eyes of the centaur kin, who’s name was Johanna, lazily following the blabbing conversation from one side of the table to the other. If Edvard, the wolven, had paws, which he didn’t at the moment, assuming the form of a strong, dark, intence-eyed young man clad as all kins in fur trimmed leather, he would have rested his head on them.

A page entered with the early morning Cathis readings. She momentarily glanced at them, seeing nothing of immediate alarm and sent the page away.

“Alright,” she said finally, her commanding voice rising above the din that had slowly begun to fill the room. An interrupted delegate quickly finished his thought that money would not necessarily be well spent installing a watering trough for the centaur’s horse if we weren’t even sure the centaurs would send a representative. “Thank you for that, Naytan of West Bend. We have not heard back from the Kin assigned to that sector, but if they do decide to send a delegate, we will accommodate him or her in the best way possible. Now I would just like to draw your attention back to the reason we are all here. You all have the report on the land status and I have have asked you each to prepare a presentation as to what your town or port or what have you can contribute to the good of the kingdom. Where do your farmers stand? What is your water supply like? What are you hearing from the people around you? The kins have reported what they have witnesses, but their days are filled with problems and missions not always directly connected with the everyday tasks of keeping a city’s larders full or people content.”

The meeting dragged on and finally, after all the presentations, half the day had dissaperaed and it was thankfully time to break for lunch. Selenight adjourned the meeting until after the palace kitchen closed, stood and stretched. As her fingertips reached for the ceiling she had a momentary wish to frivolously transform into a dark owl and fly off to sleep in a tree deep in Gypsum forest. That thought was so singularly against everything she stood for and taught that she stifled an exhausted giggle. Johanna and Edvard exchanged a worried glance.

“Oh Goddess save me from the mundane life of a politician,” She said. Then she turned to her guards. “If you will escort me to Prince…” she caught herself, “King Caspar’s general assembly room, you will be excused for lunch.”

King Caspar, she thought as she walked through the open arched stone hallway of the palace, it still didn’t sound right. The glass windows shone down multicolored patterns onto the rough, black stone. They were in the old section of the palace, near the outdoor commons and the kin’s dormitories. They passed through a tapestried wall and into the newer white stone section, all smooth and cool.

Whereas Selenight was meeting with the mayors and governors and burgers of the different villages and towns of the gradually growing Kingdom, Caspar was meeting with rebels and insurgents and lieutenant commanders of mercenary groups. There had not been any serious uprisings yet, and Caspar was determined to spend every waking moment to prevent one from ever happening. Still, the boy had to eat.

Sure enough, Caspar had not yet adjorned his meeting. As Selenight breezed in and dismissed her guards to their own species-specific dining halls, Caspar looked up, his face red and worn with lack of sleep, constant concentration and harried attempts at diplomacy. The room was eerily quiet, unlike the bantering back and forth of the mayors on water taxes and potato bugs. These men and women were deadly serious, and their complaints went deeper than how many chickens could humanely be kept in one’s backyard.

“Is it that time already?” He asked. She nodded and the room stood at Caspar’s answering nod. They had been through this for about a week already, and allowed themselves a short break to rethink, recount and reorder their list of demands. After all but Caspar’s guards had filed out, Cas let his head sink to his hands, his fingers running through his boyish curls. Selenight would always think of him as a boy, she realized, walking to the window and giving him a second to recover his own thoughts, just as she would always think of him as a prince.

“I tell you,” he said finally,