"I told you something was weird about her didn't I?" Whispered Olum to her husband.

"Weird is not the right word to describe this." Commented Harvick who overheard her. "Unnatural. Even wizards use stones. She didn't use any. I bet the warlock is shitting his pants by now."

The three were walking behind Rudolph and Manyar, who were just as rattled as them but kept silent.

Krog walked next to Haruth in upsetting slow steps.

"Aren't you going to say anything?" Asked Krog who grew curious with every step. "You're not going to tell me not to worry? That you have things in control?... Please?"

"Now Krog you are a smart man. You can tell I have no fucking clue of how to handle this." Answered him the wizard. He huffed and cursed.

"Are we safe? Can we trust her?" Insisted Krog.

"Trust has nothing to do with her current state. She did change but she's also herself. If she was kind, she still is. If she was a liar, she would still lie. She gained powers not a new personality." Haruth sighed. "To tell you the truth... I don't know what to expect."

Poli was far enough to not hear her companions' concerned and frightened whining. The greencub walked slowly, swaying gently, while its cub ran playfully. Tripping from time to time and adjusting to his better eyesight.

"If I am not mistaken, you might be the one from our prophecy." Said the Greencub.

"What prophecy?" Inquired Poli in a soft and friendly voice.

"An old one. Older than myself, and I have lived many years. Some of us have died before seeing it fulfilled, and oh do I pity them." The greencub spoke slowly with a voice deeper than caves and older than mountains. Its steps were heavy and certain. Poli walked next to it, with the burning sensations in her hands still. "If you are the long awaited bearer, we shall be relieved of our duty. We shall roam the earth and the seas as we wish, with nothing to hold us in these narrow lands. And I believe Lord Ankros will be happier than all of us." Added the greencub. "What is your name she-man?" asked her the dragon.

"Poline, but everyone calls me Poli. Do you have a name?" She politely asked.

"Poline... a sweet name. Quyenth Warmheart they call me. My child is Barvien. Does your name have a meaning?"

"Poline is the name of a wildflower that grows almost everywhere. Poli on the other hand means different. Which I believe is quite funny." Answered Poli.

"But you are different." Asserted Quyenth.

"I've always seen myself as simple and plain as a poline flower, that was until today." Poli lifted her hands in front of her and looked at them. She was shaking and fear grew inside her. "I am not sure what I am anymore..."

"Do not worry child. You have time to figure that out. Although you ought to remember, who you are is not who you should be. There will be times where you will have to make choices that might change who you are. Massin will guide you." Said the greencub.

"The sun is setting. We should make camp." Shouted Harvick.

"These parts of the woods will be swarming with moonwits. You will find no rest here, unless you want to wake up missing a limb." Quyenth advised Poli, who did the same with her party.

They looked at each other when Haruth nodded at Krog to follow.

"We can't walk in the dark! There will be no moon tonight! And my mar is tired and frightened!" Whispered Harvick to Helain.

"Vick my friend, I know both of us have our doubts concerning the wizard, but what happened with Poli and that dragon is more intriguing. If we must follow them to get answers, we will." Silverfang whispered back to him. "Loosen up, this might be our greatest adventure. Walking in the dark isn't that hard!" He smiled and playfully nudged Harvick.

"What's a moonwit?" Asked Poli.

"Annoying nocturnal little creatures. One is the size of a mouse, a pack consumes whatever living flesh lays or crosses their path like hurricanes. They are to blame for the rumors on our back. Never have a dragon killed a Valkai nor a Brymhelian for sport, only when pushed to it." The dragon answered.

The skies darkened as they walked, the stars unveiled above them and the land breeze was cool and it rocked the trees gently. The forest thickened the further they went, and walking became harder with no lights. Every ten steps one of them tripped on a rock or a root. Haruth brought up one of his stones and chanted softly. He then, using the light from his stone, looked for a stick to attach the stone to it like a lantern.

"Sometimes I wish I was a wizard." Told him Rudolph.

"Sometimes I wish I wasn't." Replied the warlock smiling with grieving eyes.

"What type of wizard are you?" The man asked him.

"What do you mean?" Haruth was intrigued, the light from his stone shone like a star above his head. Rudolph's piercings and rings reflected the light and flickered.

"I've read books, you know. About your kin. I know you have different schools and fields of mastery. I already know you hold the infinite oath fire, which, according to what I read so far, means you're a highly perceived scholar. Only, you're not just a scholar. So what kind of wizards are you? A hunter? A healer? You did help Poli, you might be a healer huh?" Explained Rudolph.

The wizard chuckled. He was surprised to meet someone who knows this much about wizards and isn't one. "You're right. Concerning the scholar part. I am one of the only three living wizards who mastered the teachings of Mahavhar... well at least what remained of them and what we got ahold of so far..." He sighed. "But I wouldn't say I'm a hunter, nor a healer, because I am both. And many more, including being a fugitive. Although my healing skills aren't the greatest, and I didn't heal Poli. I only brought her back from... yeah you could say I healed her." Haruth said when he realized he almost said too much.

"Wow! So you're some sort of a master? Or a noble prince?"

"I was... once..." He muttered.

"WE'RE HERE!" Cried Poli who was far ahead with the dragon and her cub.

"Here? What does she mean?" Asked Olum. Her husband and Harvick both clueless, shrugged their shoulders at her.

Poli came trotting back to explain to her companions. "Quyenth is leaving us in Massin's cave. We made it to Massin's cave."

"Is that where we're supposed to spend the night?" Inquired Manyar while scratching his bald head.

"Oh no, Massin is a friend of Quyenth." She said.

"Are you out of your fucking mind?!" Exclaimed Silverfang angrily. "You fucking dragged us into a dragon's lair?!" He pushed her.

"Wowowow there's no need for that!" Krog jumped between the two.

"I told you not to fucking trust her! I told you she was a weird bitch!" Raged Olum.

"HEY! ENOUGH!" screamed Haruth who also joined Krog to stand between Silverfang and Poli."You don't really think that if that Greencub wanted us dead, she would have just let us sleep in the woods? Or called her kin on us when we first crossed path?"

"Oh now you can talk!?" Mocked him Silverfang. "Give me one good reason for me to not cut your dumb head off!"

"Because you'll be dead before you could even draw that excuse of a sword." Threatened him Haruth who was already holding a stone in each hand.

"MASSIN IS NOT A DRAGON!" Poli yelled at them.

"What?" Krog and Haruth asked at the same time.

"She is not a dragon!" She repeated.

"Well what the fuck is she??" Doubted Silverfang, who was still mad.

"She is one of you." Poli replied, pointing at Haruth. "Quyenth said Massin is a witch."

Olum look at her husband, they were both thinking of the same thing. The witch in the woods.

"I have never heard of her." Confessed Haruth to his party.

"I did. I have heard of you, Haruth wielder of the infinite oath fire." A voice said in the dark.

Haruth pointed the stick where his stone glowed towards the voice. "I was waiting for you."

From the shadows walked a witch, clinging to her staff, she limped towards them. She was dressed in leathery garments, with a patched and long drape cape on top. Her hair, was long and braided and seemed ginger under the artificial light induced from Haruth's stone. Her skin was of a dark umber, and although she was over a hundred years old, she didn't look over thirty.

"Let me look at you." She went on. Grabbing Haruth's face, she turned it left and then right. "You look like him. Hmm." She smiled at him and caressed his left cheek, but her smile instantly faded when her eyes met Olum's.

"You!" Massin's voice was shaking. "You have come at last to meet your fate."

Silverfang covered his wife's belly instinctively and gently pulled her by her arm closer to him. Olum was frightened.

Massin didn't say a word of their old encounter, she only stared at the pregnant woman for a while and silently. She then turned around, looking at all their faces. She limped towards Poli and grabbed her hand gently.

"Come, you can rest in my cave." The witch declared. "I have many things to discuss with you."

She walked back from where she came, with her limp slowing her down and Poli in her left. The cave's entrance showed no light, and smelled musty. But as soon as the tunnel turned right, the odors changed drastically. The air was light and filled with soft and variant fragrances, yet each one of the party only smelled one. Poli smelled a floral scent that reminded her of her village. Manyar smelled a honeyed scent that reminded him of his lover, which made him smile. Haruth, who was immune to the enchantment, was overwhelmed by the perfumes, yet he still felt relieved, as if all his worries suddenly were lifted off his back. The tunnel continued deeper in the cave before opening on a wide and high room, lit by lanterns hung on the cave ceiling. The cavern was adapted and decorated by the witch to resemble the coziest of houses. And it was. The colors and the patterns of the furniture and tapestries, the dim lights and the soothing scents, the finger-like rocks, that rose up from the ground to meet those that hung down from the ceiling, all combined in a harmonious atmosphere, with a little witchcraft to make it warm enough. Going a little deeper in the cavern from the left, a small hole opened there, big enough for one person to pass, leading to a smaller cavern, which also has three more holes. Two of them lead to even smaller caverns, whilst the third is longer and sneaked on and on to meet with the river Arrbal.

"You can follow the tunnel here, and take the second one on your right, if you want to wash off your weariness. There's a spring there." Offered them Massin. "There are beds in the second room, with covers. You can rest."

Harvick who was already exploring the cave, returned from the second room, shocked and intrigued.

"There are exactly eight beds..." He said.

"She's a witch. She probably just made them out of thin air..." asserted Silverfang.

"That's impossible. Magic doesn't work that way. We can't just create things 'out of thin air'. Objects can only be conserved and preserved with magic, not made. So, unless she was sealing eight bed in stones, she couldn't have possibly made them 'out of thin air'." Objected Haruth, his ironic tone galled Silverfang greatly, their earlier quarrel left a bad taste in his mouth.

"This means she knew we were coming... she also knew there will be eight of us... not even us knew that!!" Speculated Manyar.

"You have more important questions to be answered, yet you waste your time on how did I knew of your coming... Fine. I will answer all of your questions tomorrow." She said. "The food is in the first tunnel on your right in the second cavern, feel free to eat as much as you need. Now if you'll excuse me, the night is for the soul not the mind." She declared before leaving through the narrow tunnel.

Haruth followed her, leaving behind him his companions in the first room, chatting and unpacking.

"Who are you?" He asked her.

"I am the wielder of the Obsidian Heart of oracles." She replied kindly.

"Don't give me that horseshit. That I already know. From which guild are you?" Haruth insisted.

She hesitated at first, then chuckled. "For a moment I feared my own destiny. I am after all getting old." She smiled. "Will you still trust my help if I tell you?"

"I don't think we have a choice. Tell me." Haruth frowned.

"My guild is that of the many colors. The banished, the forgotten and the abolished. For all I know I might be the last one of them... I am a Summoner" She declared.

Haruth stepped back from her in surprise.