Date: March 24, 541 years after the Fall of Zanra the Treacherous.
A week had passed. A week in which Ulviya did everything that was asked of her. She came to Klii's training when the sun only began to gild the treetops and left when the shadows grew long and cold. She fell on the hard ground of the lower training ground, scraped her palms bloody, got up, and fell again. She learned to strike—not like Disaak, whose blows shattered stone, and not like Ilnos, whose arrows found their target before she could blink. She learned to strike in her own way. Heavily, clumsily, but with each passing day more confidently.
She went to Bagurai when the sun had risen high enough to fill the greenhouse with light. She sat on the tall stool, listened to his quiet, rustling voice, and learned to distinguish the root of life from the root of death. She breathed in the scents of hundreds of plants, memorized them, felt her spirit—her small, weak power—reach for them, ask, seek, find.
She sat by the fountain when the day waned, watching children play in the square. The llamas, the ones who had given her the wreath, now recognized her, nodded, smiled. Other children—some with long ears, some with tails, some with scales—ran around, laughed, fell, got up, and their laughter held something that made Ulviya feel almost alive.
But the fear did not go away. It was there, in her chest, in her throat, in the place where her arm had once been. It came at night, when the town grew quiet, and then Ulviya lay on her bed, clenching her fist, staring at the ceiling. It came by day, when she looked at her stump, at the empty sleeve, at the scar that would never disappear. It was always with her.
She thought time would help. That a month would pass, then two, then three, and the fear would leave on its own, dissolve like morning mist. But time passed, and the fear remained. It waited. And today she understood that she could wait no longer.
She rose before dawn. The town was still asleep, and the first, tentative stars peered through the window‑hollow. Hope, her little sprout, stood on the windowsill, its leaves tightly closed, as if it too were waiting for something. Ulviya touched them with her fingers, feeling the familiar warmth.
"Today," she said softly. "Today I will do it."
She put on her tunic, the one she wore for training, and adjusted the belt. Then she took the glove—the leather one with metal plates on the knuckles. It lay on the table, its steel glinting faintly in the starlight. Ulviya pulled it onto her right hand, fastened the straps. The glove felt familiar, almost natural. She made a fist, and the metal plates creaked softly.
She left the room. The stairs carved into the trunk creaked under her feet, the sound seeming deafening in the silence. She went down, stepped outside. The town was empty. Only the wind rustled the leaves, and somewhere in the distance the night watch called to one another. Ulviya headed for the southern gate.
She walked slowly, each step an effort. Not because her body hurt—it had grown accustomed to pain. Because fear, the fear she had tried to stifle, rose in her chest, filled her throat, tightened her temples. She heard it in every rustle, saw it in every shadow, felt it on her skin like a cold breath. "Go back," it whispered. "You are not ready. You will never be ready. You are weak. You are a cripple. You are alone."
She clenched her fist, and the glove creaked. "No," she answered. "Not alone. Not today."
The guards at the southern gate were asleep. Two massive creatures, with bodies like wild boars and long, curved tusks, sat by a dying fire, dozing. One opened an eye when Ulviya approached, looked at her, at the glove, at the empty sleeve. There was no pity in his gaze. Only a question.
"You want to go out?" he asked, his voice low, sleepy.
"Yes," Ulviya answered.
He was silent for a moment, then nodded and opened the gate. Ulviya stepped past the threshold, and the forest swallowed her.
Here, on the outskirts, the air was different. Not like in the town, where it smelled of flowers and moss. Here it smelled of dampness, fallen leaves, and something elusive that made her spirit inside flutter anxiously. She walked along the path she remembered from her previous foray and felt the fear she had tried to stifle rise again.
She stopped. The ground beneath her feet was dry, cracked, each step raising dust. She clenched her fist, feeling the metal plates press against her knuckles. "I will not go back until I do this," she told herself. "Until I prove to myself that I can."
She remembered that day. The clearing, the bezuki, her arm flying somewhere to the side, the blood so bright on the green grass. She remembered lying there, staring at the sky, thinking she was about to die. That no one would come. That she could not even scream. And then Chelaya came. Light. Warmth. And words she remembered forever: "You survived. That is what matters."
She had survived. But the fear remained. And today she had come to kill it.
She walked on. The path wound between trees, the forest growing denser, darker. Branches caught at her clothes, roots tried to trip her, but she walked. She did not know where she was going, what she was looking for. She simply walked, feeling her spirit inside—where her small, weak power lived—begin to stir. Not from fear—from something else.
The path led to a clearing. It was empty. Only gray, withered grass and an old fallen log in the center. Ulviya stopped at the edge, looked around. No one. Nothing. Only the wind and her own breath, heavy, ragged.
She stood, clenching her fist, and felt the fear she had tried to conquer begin to recede. Not disappear, no. Just move to the background, making room for something else. She did not know what it was. Resolve? Desperation? Perhaps both.
"I did not come here to wait," she told herself. "I came to win."
She stepped onto the clearing. Then another step. The ground was dry, each step raising dust. She walked toward the center, toward the fallen log, and felt her spirit inside begin to pulse—not evenly, as usual, but fast, alarmed, as if warning her of something.
The forest closed behind her, the shadows growing thicker, darker. She walked, and each step came easier. Not because the fear had left—it was still there, in her chest, in her throat, in the place where her arm had been. But now she did not fight it. She simply walked, and it walked beside her, and that was right.
The path led deeper, into the forest's heart, where trees stood so close that light could not pierce their branches. Ulviya stopped at the edge of that darkness, clenching her fist, and looked ahead. She did not know what awaited her there. But she knew she had to go.
"I will not go back," she told herself. "Not today. Not now. I will enter this darkness, and I will come out of it. Or I will not. But I will not stand still."
She took a deep breath, feeling the cold, heavy air fill her lungs, and stepped into the darkness.
The forest closed over her, and the world shrank to the narrow path, to her own breathing, to the weight of the glove on her hand. She walked, and somewhere ahead, in the depths, her fear waited. Not the fear she carried within her, but the fear she had to defeat. She did not know if she could. But she knew she would try.