"Unless you leave a person both physically and mentally, you are still with that person and there is no real departure!" ― Mehmet Murat Ildan

Father and Faolan are waiting for us. They are also dressed in blue – father in informal blue and Faolan in the Order's colours.

"I thought you decided to stay, brother and sister. You were taking horribly long."

"We are not missing out on an adventure, Faolan," Aedan replies smilingly.

"But now I will miss out because I have to be your chaperone!"

"We are adults and capable of caring for ourselves," Aedan hisses back.

"Aedan, Faolan knows this. He is just teasing," my father intercedes diplomatically before their quarrel can continue.

"Laelia, are you ready to leave?"

"Yes, Father."

"Faolan and Elorhim will be leading the Second Order to the Mountains. They will accompany you to Raven's Peak where they will collect the supplies that our brethren are due to the Mountains. Prince Pa'drig resides there now and is receiving his military training. The King is at his palace in Ligeia. Your mother wants you to build a relationship with the prince, as she already told you. I expect you to be back in time for the celebration of your next birthday."

I frown. Seems like my father doesn't know about the library.

"Laelia, child, I am allowing you a year out of the Forest. You should smile, and not frown."

I smile, but not convincingly enough: "Thank you, dearest Father."

"Your horses are outside the city where the Second Order is assembling."

I embrace my father.

He whispers into my ear: "Find your path, dear child. Do not let the forest root you for this is not where you are growing."

My father also whispers something to Aedan as they embrace, but I cannot make out the words.

Aylissa doesn't join us and the four of us make our way out of the marble city.

Elves dressed in different traditions of blue are assembled on the outskirts of the city. The usually tranquil main road and forest bustles with activity as horses are being saddled, armour being donned and families saying their blessings to those about to leave.

"Where are all the carts?" I ask.

"Carts?" Faolan asks.

"The supply carts that you are taking to the mountains."

He shrugs: "We'll be getting them at a town close to the mountains."

"Are they already on their way? I don't remember seeing any wagons leave?"

He smiles, and whispers to me: "Apparently, the wagons will be transported by water from here when we get to the town."

"What!"

He nods: "I also did not know that it was possible."

I marvel at the thought of that: being able to transport a load of supplies all over Ligtland without covering the distance yourself. That would be revolutionary if more widely implemented! The forest is dense and every city is mostly self-sufficient, but the humans of Ardam are scattered through a vast territory. Their regions are dependent on trade, and trade has so many unpredictable variables.

My thoughts change direction when I notice how few women are in the Order. Initially, only men were allowed in the Orders. Initially, the Council decided that only men could join the Orders. I do not think that it is fair at all, but they probably had numerous justifications for their decision. Mother once mentioned that she wasn't allowed to leave the forest as she was married and that marriage was the protection of the forest. It didn't really make sense to me, but I didn't give it much thought at the time. Perhaps that could have been a contributing factor to the Council's decisions.

Our Lord did not think this limitation fair either. A few years after the Second War he convinced the Council to vote against their original ruling. It was decided that women may join the Second and Third Orders, but not the other orders. My father has told me about these meetings many times. It has served as inspiration for me: how one person could change the set convictions of an entire group with the strength of his own conviction.

Faolan leads us to two horses that are already saddled, but with no possessions strapped onto them: "These are your mares for the journey."

The mares are beautiful: white, like all our other horses. Our mares will be our companions for the journey ahead. My people have never claimed possession over any horse, just like we do not own pets.

I gently touch my mare's face and allow her to nuzzle my neck.

"Her name is Swift Wind," Faolan tells me smilingly.

"She is beautiful."

I strap my armour and sack to the saddle. I play with Swift Wind's mane until I see Faolan climbing on his and then follow his example.

Aedan steers his horse and joins me at my side.

I give him an excited smile.

"I can't believe we are on our way!"

"Neither can I!"

My father pats my horse's neck: "She is a good horse."

"Now I must do my duty," he walks a few feet away.

He stretches his hands out in the air: "My dear people!"

Everyone falls silent.

"My dear people, we have gathered to see our Order off to the Mountains where they will fulfil our duty on our behalf. We have been called upon to defend Ligtland. It is the tradition that every generation of elves go to the Mountains and learn from our friends. Our Lord will join you at times and train you in your legacies. May your journey be safe and your time away fruitful. May the sun rise brightly for you! May the wind carry you and you always find water!"

Silence. No cheering greets his words as it would have been improper to do so, but the excitement in the air is tangible and electrifying.

"You are dismissed."

Faolan gives a sign and the company starts to move with the thunder of a thousand hooves. The column of blue marches forward, like a torrential river set to shatter all resistance after a prolonged drought.

After an hour of silence, Aedan breaks it: "We are heading in Raven's Peak's direction."

"Obviously."

"Come, Laelia!" Aedan shouts before galloping off.

"Aedan!" I shout as I split off from the stream and follow him.

"Aedan, what on earth! You can't just run off," I scold as I attempt to catch up with him.

He doesn't answer but continues to gallop forth.

After a few minutes, I recognise the part of the forest that he is leading me into and I realise what he wants to do."

"Aedan, we do not have time!"

"We have to."

I sigh as I halt my horse at the familiar cluster of ceiba trees. The trees are naked until they stretch their limbs out over the canopy. Strangler figs bind the cluster of ceibas together and, contrary to the laws of nature, the species seem to coexist in harmony. This is the only place in the forest where the stranglers are tamed and civil. Creeping figs decorate the unit of trees and their stranglers.

Aedan had already dismounted by the time I arrived and awaits me at the base of the trees. He offers me his cupped hands. I gently step on them as I push myself up on his shoulder and then reach for the familiar groove. The first time Aedan and I ascended the tree it took forever, and both of us nearly fell quite a few times. With decades of practice it now only takes us a few minutes to reach the canopy.

The rustle of leaves behind me reassures me that Aedan is following on my heels.

"Why can't she just live on the ground, in a normal home, like a normal elf?" Aedan huffs as we approached the wooden platform that is now covered with moss and lichen.

"Because Aedan-child, the ground isn't safe. It has never been safe, but I am safe in my little tree," my aunt's sepulchral voice echoes over the forest roof. Her voice is like hollow caves with glowing embers creating shadow lives on the abandoned walls.

"And you cannot use a normal rope ladder and throw it down when we come to visit you?" I ask in my brother's defence.

"Child of Darkness, I do not insult you and your ways when I come to visit you, so you will not insult my home," she sissed.

Darkness, in this case, is most definitely my mother. However, I cannot be sure. Idunn rarely makes sense. When has she ever come to visit us? She has been banned from entering any elfish city.

I pull myself through the hatch. Before I can help Aedan up, Idunn throws me against the floor and holds a dagger to my throat. Her eyes are wild, and for the first time in my life, I see my aunt's menacing madness. She has never threatened my life before now, but the dark look on her face tells me that that one wrong word would end in my death.

I stare at her demented pale eyes. Her skeleton hand stretches out to my hair lazily. Her skin is so thin that I can see the underground table of veins beneath it. Thin crooked claws of a raven weave through my hair until she yanks on one of my curls.

"Little Laelia, I just need a lock of your hair," she says as she slowly removes the cold dagger from my throat and cuts a piece off.

Aedan, aghast at the shocking event, offers me his paled hand and pulls me up.

"I am glad you came, Aedan Moonshine."

"I needed to talk to Laelia in private, and I need your advice, Wise Eyes."

"My house is the safest place in all of ArBrae," she shouts over the mountain tops with outstretched arms.

"Something happened last night."

She looks at him blankly.

"It was our Millennium."

She looks even more befuddled then she grabs my palm and slices across it with her dagger. She pushes Aedan back when he lunges forward to help me. He falls into a pile of netting and clothes.

"I need Laelia's hair and her blood because even if she has changed, she remains the same," she says as she hands me a piece of cloth from the pile Aedan fell into.

"Wrap it around your hand, or have you forgotten to care?"

I have no idea what the second part of her sentence means, but I obey her command.

"You are concerned because Laelia did not change," she says nodding her head vigorously. The birds' nests in her hair bob with as her head moves.

Aedan and I once counted three nests, but we might have been mistaken, because the rest of the tangle of junk in her hair misled us, and we might have thought that some of the nests in her hair were only twigs. She also has forty-seven broken shells woven into her hair, but again, we might have counted wrong. We've seen ten different golden trinkets in the mesh. One is of a small lion, roaring on its hind legs. There is also a bear with ruby eyes and a fish spewing a blue sapphire fountain. I once thought that I saw a small bone, like the finger bone of a newborn, hidden among her ghastly decorations.

"Yes."

"Yet her ears are not as it was."

"It is only my ears that have changed."

"I am not stupid. Mad, yes, most definitely! But I have forgotten what you yet need to know!"

She turns away and takes a few things from her cupboard.

"Laelia changed. It just took longer."

"And my loss of memory? And the path Aedan sent me on? And his loss of memory?"

"Aedan does what he thinks is best."

It does not shed any light on the matter.

"Moonchild and Lover of the Sun, I would not worry about this anymore. You should go where you are going. You cannot leave the path of fate."

"Thank you, Idunn," Aedan affirms.

"Do not thank me, for I have not done anything. It is all I could have done."

We each give her a quick hug and descend.

Aedan and I gallop forwards. We catch up to the company about two hours later. Nobody spares us a glance, except, of course, Elorhim who glares at us in distaste.