The mare’s hooves hit the cobblestones with a resounding clatter as the sun began to slant through the pillowed sky. A buzz could be heard coming from the town square, where the Thetans were sure to be garnering their share of attention. “Brace yourself,” whispered Mina. Nightingale nodded curtly, and they breezed through the deserted streets to the gathering throng.
The crowds parted as the horse and rider cantered through to the fountain. It was almost dreamlike. The morning mists were slowly burning off, revealing a brilliantly beautiful day. But, the ugly murmuring and suspicious, unhappy looks of the throng made it seem like a pall of stormclouds was hanging low over Canter Hollow. Mina could almost feel the tension buzzing in the air. Just like before a lightning storm, she thought. Nightingale shivered, feeling it too. Then, both started; the acidic glare of Adaira cut through the crowd to jolt them back to the task at hand.
Adaira had been in the middle of her diatribe. The book and the silk bag were lying at her feet, already having been used as visual proof. “And so,” she had been shouting, “the noble Valkyries of North of North were indeed nothing more than a clever ruse, designed to deprive the true heirs to the power of this ancient land: the Thet-”
“Lies!” roared Mina, as Nightingale slid to a stop directly in front of the Thetans and their elevated post. Garwood growled, and his fur ruff seemed to be standing on end, but Mina felt assured that he would do nothing to harm them with so many witnesses.
The crowd ceased their apprehensive muttering and gazed right at Mina and Nightingale. Mina took a deep breath, and continued.
“Adaira and Garwood are trying to mislead you,” she said, attempting to add some semblance of authority to her voice. “They want to take the throne of North of North for themselves, in a coup backed by the people. They are trying to make you believe their lies and follow them. Really, they have been planning this overthrow since the fall of the Valkyrie sisterhood. They have the power of the shadow path!”
Adaira forced out a bark of laughter at this, though it took no genius to understand that she was nervous.
“This young lady must be simply delusional,” Adaira purred, though her expression spoke more of murder than of sympathy. “Poor dear, doesn’t want to believe that her childhood heroes were hardly worthy of her deference…” she trailed off, with a sickly sweet smile. It showed her fangs, though the audience seemed to be too entranced to notice. In fact, they seemed to be registering little: could Adaira and Garwood somehow be enchanting them to follow their cause? Mina shuddered at the thought. She seemed to be losing ground so fast!
A voice entered her head. “How does one combat falsehoods?” it whispered, distantly.
“Reason! Truth!” she exclaimed, aloud. She would save the pearl for a last resort. In the meantime, Mina drew her map out of her bag.
“If you’re so sure that you’re telling the truth,” she said, approaching Adaira from Nightingale’s back, “You won’t mind lending me that book, there.”
If there hadn’t been a throng, hundreds strong, mere feet away, Adaira might have devoured both horse and rider whole. Instead, she merely shot them daggers with her eyes as she wordlessly handed them the book. Its honey-brown cover caught the sunlight, and Mina thought back to how, only days ago, it had been hers, blank, ready to record an adventure.
This adventure isn’t over yet.
There was that voice, again, and it gave Mina hope. She flipped to the final page of the book. At the far lower corner of its illustration, a small but clear mark could be seen. Mina unfolded her map next to it. An identical mark was stamped into the vellum of the map. The mark was a stylized ML: her initials. Every Lind map was marked as such.
“My family are cartographers in Midhaven,” Mina announced. “We always sign our work, and I have proof that I myself wrote and illustrated this very book. It is not centuries old; rather, I, Mina Lind, a twelve-year-old girl, created it only yesterday.”
“You have no proof,” spat Adaira.
“Is there a mapmaker in the audience?” an elderly man with ink-stained hands shuffled forward to answer Mina’s request. “I own the mapmaking shop here in town,” he said. Mina invited him to scrutinize the map and the book. The audience held its breath as he deliberated over the fine lines.
“I recognize the mark,” he finally replied. “It is a variation of the Lind family’s seal, a well-known signature that is applied to every map they make. Besides that, the ink on the pages is as fresh as this morning; it has not been sitting there for thousands of years, as these people claim.”
Adaira chuckled once more. “Meager proof,” she said. “Provide us with more.”
“Very well,” Mina countered. “The Thetans claim that this mare, Nightingale, is their own steed, when in fact they captured her by force.” Nightingale shared with the crowd a quick recount of the events of the past few days, emphatically showing that she had experienced just what Mina described. “Were she their horse, she would agree with their tale, and not mine.”
“Hah! A scribble of ink and a lying nag are hardly pejorative evidence,” Adaira hissed. Garwood was already dancing from foot to foot, anxious. But the battle wasn’t over yet- Mina dismounted Nightingale, to be at the level of the crowd, and drew the pearl from her bag.
The pearl began to glow with the light of the night stars. It slowly swelled and grew, floating upward from her palm, until it was hovering, the size of a paper lantern, high above the heads of the crowd. A scene began to flicker across it: the blue creatures, harassing the Liona, chasing their prey, and then morphing into the humans the crowd saw before them.
Gasps rose up one after another. The crowd started to back away. One woman, tall with graying auburn hair, stepped forward to examine the pearl. “A freshwater gem of the rarest quality,” she said. “Bestowed only by pool divers, who are known to be truthful. This shows a vision of the truth.” Mina turned to the Thetans, triumphant.
“Retract your claims,” Mina said, confronting them. The crowd was now whispering, angry. Adaria and Garwood exchanged nervous glances, but deadly flashes still lit their eyes whenever they looked towards Mina.
“Never,” Adaira barked, under her breath. Then, with a sudden leap, she was standing at the base of the magnificent horse statue crowning the fountain. From far above the throng, she called out:
“In a few generations, your kind will have forgotten us, and we will be back! Garwood! Catch the horse! I will summon the path!”
And with that, chaos broke loose.
Garwood turned into the hulking beast that Mina had first seen him as, and pounced at Nightingale. But she wasn’t there; the mare was tearing off towards the west, wings beating madly as she skimmed the ground. Mina wished she could race after her horse, make sure she was all right. But Adaira was already sprinting off to the south, to summon the Shadow Path! She couldn’t get away with that! Mina turned and pelted after her, legs pumping as fast as her boots could take her. She didn’t know how she could possibly atop the juggernaut of the evil magic Adaira would call forth, but someone had to try!
Adaira skidded onto the polished stones of the Coral Causeway. Mina was losing ground, breathing hard as the long-legged villain raced further and further ahead.
And then, she stopped.
At the brink of the land, Adaira stopped. Mina kept right on sprinting, until she stopped too, a hundred feet away from where Adaira was standing, still as stone. Then, a most peculiar thing happened. Mina took a step back in horror.
The Path was forming.
Particles of darkness- as if such a thing were possible- seemed to materialize from nowhere. Cold and despair crept into Mina’s heart, and she could almost hear the faint whisperings of evil spirits as the path formed. Soon it was a wavering line in the sky, leading up into the atmosphere. Then it solidified, little by little; a road into darkness.
Adaira turned, glowing with malfeasance. “Here we are, little girl,” she spat. “Once my brother arrives with your precious horse, we will leave you. Of course, we’ll need the beast, for our glorious return centuries from now.” At the shocked look on the girl’s face, Adaira laughed and said, “You didn’t know she was immortal, did you? Well, I suppose you won’t ever get the chance to appreciate just what that entails. Were I you, I would run.” To Mina’s terror, she drew her long, glowing sword with a scrape of metal.
Wait.
She was monologue-ing.
Mina could buy time, as long as she kept the Thetan talking. Meanwhile, she frantically thought: Nightingale! I’m here!
“We can’t have you running around, keeping us from the plan, can we?” she asked, advancing a step. Mina’s reflexes were screaming for flight, but she couldn’t leave! What about Nightingale? She had to stop them from taking her horse! “I’m afraid I’ll just have to do away with you,” Adaira sighed. “You’d be surprised at just how close you came to unhinging our little plan. All because of this-” she took out the red bag- “and by way of this.” She withdrew Mina’s slingshot, broken in two.
“After that little altercation on the Grass Sea, I couldn’t have you interfering with us again,” Adaira continued. “When my brother and I were shot with your insignificant little pebbles, it disrupted the flow of the Shadow Path’s power to us. Without it, we would be long dead. Without it, we freeze.” She stopped to let it sink in. “When you hit us, we were momentarily powerless. And you weren’t there to see what was in this bag, and I don’t think you’ll ever be the wiser.” Another step forward.
Then, Adaira lunged.
Mina dodged the blade, and made a grab for the red bag. She knocked it from Adaira’s hand, and the Thetan turned to strike again, murder in her eyes.
Then, a blast of frigid air came tumbling from above the Goddesswall.
Adaira paused and looked up, distracted. But only for an instant; she hacked at Mina with greater force. Mina leapt to the side, but fell to her knees.
A gust of rain-scented air from the East suddenly whipped Adaira’s long, white hair to the side. The Thetan turned, again distracted, and Mina scrambled to her feet.
Whoosh. Now it came from the West, stronger than ever. Both combatants were knocked to the ground, in the opposite direction.
Adaira surged up, only to be flattened against the stone wall behind her by a blistering gust from the South. She forced herself up, and leveled her blade at mina’s throat.
Stay low, the familiar voice cried in Mina’s head.
Mina threw herself against the causeway, but looked up in time to see four huge storm systems meeting directly above them. Cloud roiled and bubbled, foaming together like waves on the sea. Lightning crackled between them, and thunder rolled in one earsplitting continuum. Ice chunks the size of apples-giant hailstones- battered the ground.
The Shadow Path wavered, lost focus, and slowly began to dissolve. In between the thunderheads, Mina could make out the shapes of four winged horses, plunging and rearing in the atmosphere.
The four winds! Boreas, Euros, Zephyros, and Notos had come to their rescue.
Help has come, the familiar voice said again. Presently, Mina made out the form of Nightingale, winding her way through the storm on what seemed like a beam of light. The hail and lightning seemed to bend around her, and Mina once again felt peace wash over her.
