The next morning arrived faster than I would have liked, as I spent most of the night tossing and turning. “Hey, Amber, rise and shine. Uncle should have breakfast ready for us by now.” I lightly nudged Amber and got a few grumbles in response. “Come on, Amber, get up.” Only more grumbling, and she turned over. “Do I have to do THAT?” Amber flinched, then opened her eyes. “I’m awake, I’m awake, no need for THAT.” She sat up and rubbed her eyes, looking about as tired as I felt.

Uncle was indeed putting the final touches on our breakfast. “Ah, you're awake, good. The rain has subsided somewhat, for now, so we should get moving as quickly as possible.” Amber and I nodded silently. Neither of us was awake enough to make a coherent response.

After breakfast, we packed up and began moving. Uncle was right, the torrential rains had eased up and was now what I would consider a normal rain shower, one that didn’t seem to ever end. “The plains themselves just seem to go on forever. How large are they?” Uncle turned and looked at me.

“I can’t tell you the exact size, but I know they are far larger than what we will be traveling, since were taking the relatively short route across.” I nodded as I looked around some more. It felt strange to see a place so open, after living all my life in the mountains. The only things that blocked sight here were the odd tree or moss-covered boulder.

“Man, if we didn’t have the mountains behind us to work as a reference, I’d lose my way out here pretty fast.” Amber sounded as uncomfortable as I felt. “You’re not the only one.” I gave her a pat on the shoulder, earning me a happy smile in return. Uncle gave us both a sideways glance and a reassuring smile as well. “Fret not, for I know the way, wouldn’t be much of an adventurer if I couldn’t navigate across an open expanse like this.”

The trip carried on with little happening for the reminder of the day. The most exciting thing that happened was a Steppe Hare poking its head out of its den halfway up a gentle slope in the terrain. It was a nice, pleasant walk, despite the constant rain and soggy ground and the experience from yesterday.

“How much further to the Festival location, Uncle?” He closed his eyes for a moment, as if thinking for a minute. “If we keep the current pace, we should get there around tomorrow afternoon, if it’s the same place as last year, barring any unforeseen circumstances.” He opened his eyes just in time to realize he was almost stepping into the entrance of an abandoned den. His resulting unbalanced stumbling gave Amber and me a good laugh.

The lightened mood didn’t last as the day stretched into evening. The rain gained strength again and lightning became practically ever present as the wind picked up strength. “Uncle, should we continue like this? We’re already soaked to the bone and by the looks of things is a full-blown storm incoming.” Uncle nodded, and with clear reluctance, he pulled out the cabin again. “You’re right, it’s best not to push our luck, not out here.” As he tossed the cabin down, a lightning strike hit a nearby boulder, shattering it and raining dust and stone shards all over.

“Rubolgs accursed axe, you two alright?” Uncle turned towards us, even as the cabin grew to full size behind him. “I’m fine” Amber looked up from where she had been standing. She had been rummaging through her backpack for something and as luck would have it had placed it between herself and the boulder. A shard that had given me a shallow cut on my cheek as it grazed me, but I was otherwise fine. “I’ll live, let’s get inside before anything else happens.”

Amber scampered over to the kitchen table and kept rummaging through her pack. “Wow, Tyrros must be in a bad mood tonight, I mean, never seen a storm pick up this fast before.” I looked through the window and out into the ever-intensifying storm. “Or, he’s having so much fun you wouldn’t believe.” I pulled the curtains in front of the window and dropped onto a chair of my own.

The storms up in the mountains could be bad, but the lightning strikes outside were now so frequent it was bathing the world in a near constant white light. Lord Tyrros was as a rather calm and collected god, despite being the god of storms, so what caused this?

Uncle pulled the curtains in front of the windows to dampen the flashes. “Even if Lord Tyrros is out there raging or having a blast doesn’t matter. All we can do is to wait it out and hope the cabin can withstand it all.” As if to answer uncle, the cabin groaned, and the wind began howling around the corners.

Uncle walked over to the shelves next to the fireplace and began pulling out different bags and a bottle of milk. “If this keeps up, it might strand us here for a while.” What he was saying next drowned in a huge boom as another bolt of lightning struck the cabin. The entire thing shook violently, but held firm. “Good thing I enchanted it specifically to withstand bad weather.” By now, Uncle had poured the milk into a small cauldron and was busy adding some sugar and a brown powder to it.

It didn’t take long before a nice scent filled the small cabin as the storm really let loose outside. Uncle returned and placed a cup in front of amber and another in front of me. “Enjoy girls, it’s a drink I haven’t made in a long time.” I took an experimental sip. “Wow, uncle, this tastes wonderful. What is it?” Amber took a careful sip of hers as well. “Sweet, yet bitter, an interesting combination!”

Uncle chuckled as he took a swing of his own cup. “It’s called cocoa, Labyrinthia taught the recipe to me a long time ago, said to brew it on stormy or cold nights. Well, this evening certainly fits that criteria, so I figured, why not?” I looked at Amber, then back at uncle. “The way you talk makes it seem like you and Lady Labyrinthia were friends.”

Uncle’s smile faded, and he got a distant look on his face. “We are friends, old friends. At least, I still think of us as friends. We didn’t separate on the best terms when I left the dungeon, but she said she understood why.” Uncle’s expression shifted between regret, indignation and anger. Amber took another sip of her drink. “So what happened anyhow?” I shot her a glare. “Amber!” but uncle shook his head. “It’s fine, Keari, it’s time I tell you about this anyhow.”

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“Are you alright, Mordred?” I looked up from the grave and at Rael. “It feels weird, you know. I always figured Sango would outlive me, not the other way around. She was always so careful.” As I looked at Rael, he patted me on the back. “That's our lot now, to watch them age and die, while we remain behind. His voice was forcibly calm. He was putting up a front. I knew it, he knew it, but it was a front we both needed.

I looked over at Pavol, his wrinkled old face looking down at the tomb with a tired expression as he turned his wheelchair around. His legs had given out on him, and not even magical healing could fix that. “Care to join me for a drink to her memory, fellas?” We took him up on the offer immediately.

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“Time continued its inexorable walk and Sango was the first, but far from the last I buried. Pavol joined her a few months later, and Lahman joined them the next winter. Erem had passed on almost a decade prior by this point. Obviously, he was old even when the war broke out.” There was so much pain in uncle’s voice as he spoke, a lot of bitterness and loathing.

“It wasn’t long before my sadness turned to bitterness and anger, and as the fool I was, I blamed everyone but myself. It was how I was coping. Everyone knew it, but myself.” He shook his head. “In the end, I snapped at Labyrinthia and left after laying all the blame for my mistakes on her. It took almost a decade before we spoke again, at which point she directed me towards Gran and Yun-Yun with a gentle but firm request to support them.” Uncle drained the rest of his cup.

“I say request, but it was as close to an outright demand as she has ever given me. She also gave me instructions on how to lead the two to you.” I blinked. That was a surprise. Mom had always said it was Uncle who helped them find me, sure, but I hadn’t expected Labyrinthia herself to tell uncle directly. “Mom and dad don’t know, do they?”

Uncle didn’t answer, he didn’t need to. “She planted a compulsion preventing me from giving them the full details. I could be vague about it, but that was the extent of my ability. The reason eludes me to this day.” That just raised more questions. Why all the secrecy? What was all this about? Just as I finished musing about all of this, there was another tremendous boom from outside as another bolt hit the cabin, followed by the unmistakable sound of knocking. Someone was at the door.