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Prologue

Silanis quietly and thoughtfully traversed the streets of her hometown, Clover Hill. The young woman was coming from her friend Kaiana’s apartment in one of the ebendsahdc buildings - large, multi-level abodes, which housed many families. These were scattered through normal houses, with a few things like two schools, a market place, and city hall. Her house was in the northeast end of town, and Kaiana’s building was just in the middle. She was in the market place, about ten minutes from her own house, which was right on the outskirts of the market place and had a storefront attached to it. The two girls had been working on a dress for Kaiana, a long gown for her to wear to her twentieth birthday dinner - an event to mark her full adulthood. She herself was only eighteen, still a few years off from such an event, though she longed for it. It was coming along nicely, but Silanis had to be home around sunset, and it was fast approaching.

Shifting her bag from one shoulder to the other, her long brown hair getting caught under it. Silanis looked behind herself as her head was jerked slightly back, some of her hair . Fixing her hair, she felt as though she were being followed, but there was no one else around that she could see. Just the same, she started to walk a little faster. The townspeople she trusted, she had known them all her life, but if there was someone from out of town around, she didn’t want to take a chance in them being trustworthy. As she rounded a corner, the toe of her boot struck a small metal object. Blinking to clear her vision just a little, she knelt down to pick up the box-like object and study it, her silver eyes catching the green of her gloves as she did so.

It was small enough she could fit it in her pocket and was covered in intricate engravings of vines and flowers, a seam running through the middle as though it could open. Her fingers became just a little sore as she tried, and eventually she gave up. There were three buttons on the top, and an inscription on the bottom, but she wasn’t about to try to figure out what for while she was still out on the street. Something fell behind her, and she turned to catch a glimpse of lavender zooming out of sight. Rather than follow it, Silanis took this opportunity to run quickly in the direction of her own home, slipping the small, ornate box into her bag as she did so.

Even in her rush, she was able to note the beauty of the town at sunset; the purples, oranges, pinks, and blues all mingling and setting a mood of intense elegance upon the façades of each and every building. Especially among the quaint booths, tables, and small tents; this made up the market place, and marked her being very close to home.

Clover Hill itself was a fair-sized town, on the Gandaran continent. It was roughly one day on horseback from the ocean in the North, and just around eight weeks from the sea in the South. The sea in the West was about two weeks away, and the ocean in the East was roughly five. This meant that Silanis was at the top of the continent, and in the months of shorter days it never got quite cold enough to snow, though sometimes Silanis wished it would; she’d heard stories that it had done so in the past, and longed to see the snow, rather than just hear stories of it. Clover Hill, it seemed, had gotten quite warm; indeed there was a sort of tropics in the ocean to the West, smaller than that of the Southeast, and everything was generally very warm on Gandara. Of course, Silanis had heard tell that it snowed in the South, but she had also heard that on the opposite side of the world the snow was heavy in the North.

Silanis had heard fantastical stories of Queen Hegunini of the Royale Mega-City, near the ByTalna cliffs of Hundr Buma to the East, who ruled a kingdom of snow. It was said that only the very bottom of her continent, near the bridge that connected Hundr Buma to Nylia below, was desert. This was the Skydragora, and it connected to the Kadragora at the top of Nylia. There were two other deserts on Nylia, the Wadragora, and Fydragora. On her own continent, Gandara, there was the Mandragora, on the other side of Lake Xodaik, of which a small river arose from under the ground about two miles East of Clover Hill, near the edge of the Sephirôt forest. In that forest, the further East you got, the safer it became. It seemed there were creatures that stuck to the Western half of the forest, and even the hunters dared not go in except in great numbers with greater weaponry.

Finally Silanis came to her own house, making her way to the side door rather than going through the storefront that made up half their house. Letting her parents know she was home, Silanis entered her room and sank quietly into her bed, kicking off her boots so she could relax.

Thanks, I fixed that typo. I'm glad to hear you like the prologue. I've got a few more chapters, I can post them up for you all at once, if you like? I've also got a drawing of the box that I can scan in for you. Its supposed to be the cover image, once I finish the book. Well, finish rewriting, anyhow.

Thank you so much! I'll find the art book I drew it in, and scan it in!

And I'll get to posting more for you to read, in just a sec!

Chapter Two

As Silanis slept, the box lying off to the side of her as though it were forgotten, what seemed like a small, lilac-haired child with large purple wings made her way into the room through the window. Looking about the room, she wondered where she could hide for the morning, where Silanis would not see her. Wings aflutter in the darkness, and her eyes fell on first the ferret in its cage, followed by the large accumulation of stuffed toys given to Silanis over the years.

The faerie sighed, seeing no place else but beneath the bed, and slid underneath it. This girl would see through any of my spells, I think, thought the faerie, because my magic is not much stronger than that of the inscription. It was only a hope she had, that she would not betray her own location in her excitement come morning.

-----

When the young woman awoke in the morning, she blearily made her way to her closet, choosing from the pile of messily folded clothing what was, for her, a normal outfit. It consisted of a knee-length white cotton skirt, a pair of blue-and-white striped stockings, and a dark green blouse with a light blue bodice over it, and a dark green jacket to top it all off. Stretching, she tried to better rouse herself, so that she could tackle the riddle that had defeated her once before.

From the darkness under the bed, the faerie lay asleep, having been unable to wait until morning to see Silanis awaken. The ferret scratched about in her cage, waiting impatiently for her breakfast, and Silanis looked over with a smile.

“Come now, little Libra.” Silanis said. “Give it a moment, and I’ll go get your food, aye?”

Libra kicked up a bit of a fuss when she left the room, making no small amount of noise in the process. The faerie awoke while Silanis was getting food for the ferret, and looked about from her shelter, forgetting for a moment where she was, and why. When she saw Silanis reenter the room, she remembered. This girl had found the little box, and she was here to see if it would be opened or not.

Silanis walked back over to the bed, after giving Libra more food, and picked the little metal contraption up off the bed, careful not to hit any buttons. Smiling to herself, she reread the riddle inscribed upon the bottom.

“For a moment there I thought I had been dreaming.” The brunette mused aloud, thinking over the sentence that presented so much trouble. “The blade is not sharp, but can grow very long… Meh… Weapons.”

The child-like creature under the bed left out a soft sigh, knowing that Silanis was thinking entirely the wrong thing for the answer; at this rate she would never get it right. Another lost cause, it seemed, who would never open the box, and eventually lose it. The little faerie-girl felt a little sad, she had thought this time someone would open the box for sure.

Silanis stood there with one hand on her hip, looking at the small box in her hand. What could the inscription be talking about this time? There were no blades that corresponded with the colors of the buttons, or any color those colors would make. Red and yellow made orange, blue and yellow made green, and red and blue made purple. As far as she knew, there were no orange or purple blades, and the only ‘blades’ that were green were…

”Of course!” Silanis exclaimed, all but kicking herself and laughing. “Grass blades get long, but they won’t cut you.”

Why she had not thought of that before was a mystery, but she had the answer now. All she could do was hope that pushing two buttons at once would not reset the box.

Carefully, she pushed the blue and yellow buttons at the same time, holding her breath while she waited to see what would happen. There was a moment of disappointment, when nothing did happen, but she also felt a little grateful; for fear, she may have had a heart attack if something had.

-----

Turning the box back over, she once more read the inscription, and it went on like this for some time before she finally came to a little bit of a stump-er. Vampire, Bat, Rat, Vermin. It wasn’t even in the form of a question, or an actual sentence; just four words that seemed to have nothing to do with each other besides a little bit of a rhyme-like quality. What on Erve could it be? In a huff, she slumped down to the floor, staring at her feet in disdain. It was then that she heard the hushed breathing of an excited child, and tensed.

“Who is there?” A stupid question, but all she could think of. “Who’s in my room?” Her head whipped in the direction of the bed and window, but she looked past the two indigo eyes beneath the low bed. So the faeries magic hid her well enough, it seemed.

“I don’t think you could comprehend my existence,” said the faerie, plainly, “for you could barely comprehend the magic of the box.” This only upset Silanis.

“What the hell are you talking about?” was the first thing to leave her lips, and it made the faerie want to laugh. “Who are you, what the hell are you doing in my room?” Then, as an afterthought, “where in the hell are you?”

“A faerie.” Said the small creature, not dancing around the answers. “Called Wolfe, by those who know me.”

“Wolfe?” Silanis asked. “Faerie?” What was going on? What was she plunged into with little warning, to be left dazed and confused by a small box and a voice that claimed to be a faerie? This insanity could not be real, there had to be some kind of joke to it all. It was here the faerie took an opportunity of Silanis’ eyes being closed to crawl from beneath the bed, her wings once more aflutter, so that she hovered above the ground seemingly effortlessly.

When the young brunette opened her eyes to dispute the existence of faeries, they were met with the most amazing sight she had ever imagined. There, in her room, not more than an arms-length away, was a real faerie, wings, and all. Everything that Silanis had known to be true as a child came back to her in a rush that nearly knocked her over, and she became momentarily dizzy as it all sorted itself out.

“Are you alright?” Wolfe asked, dropping to the floor and allowing her wings to fold; all ten small, lilac appendages folding neatly behind her. Resting a hand on her shoulder, there was a genuine look of concern on her face.

”I… You’re real?” Not even a word on her own state, just the question could be articulated. “You’re real. That can’t be.” Silanis was in a state of shock beyond anything she’d been through before, and it was hard for her to take this lightly. “I was told it was all silly stories. Was I lied to?”

“Yes, but not deliberately.” A smile graced the faeries lips as she replied. “We’re in hiding, no one is supposed to know we exist.”

”But then…” Her mind cleared a bit with each passing moment. “Elves, half-breeds, sylphs, Gods… They’re real, too?” It was stunning to think all those wonderful things from the stories of her childhood actually existed.

”Yes. Everything you heard tell of, within a certain amount of reason, is real.” There was a pause as Wolfe thought of the best way to explain this simply. “Basically, everything good you heard of is real, but so is everything bad. This is because its all a matter of opinion on what good and bad really are in the world of the preternatural, the supernatural, and the inhuman.”

“If no one is supposed to know you’re real, why are there stories?” It was more than a valid question, she felt. “And why are you here?”

The faerie must have felt it was a valid question as well, for she paused at great length to think it over. For a moment, Silanis didn’t think she would get an answer. Then; “Because you have found something of great importance to me.” Wolfe leaned over to pick the box out of her hand, and looked at it curiously. “It’s been many years since I have seen this.”

”I’m sorry.” Silanis said, not really understanding what Wolfe was getting at. “You can have it back, if it’s yours…” She felt a little bit bad, now, for taking something that hadn’t been hers to take. “Oh, but!”

Wolfe looked at her, puzzled, and shrugged her shoulders in question. “I don’t want the box, no. Its yours to keep, if you can open it.”

”Then, that means… It was you I saw darting out of sight last night, then. Wasn’t it?”

Wolfe looked at Silanis for a moment, and then shook her head. “I didn’t think you would be able to see me.” With a shrug she took a seat on the bed, and blinked. “Your own magic is stronger than I’d anticipated. You should try to train it, it may be useful.”

“I don’t have magic.” The brunette said, hastily. “I’m only human, I have no magic.”

“Silanis, Silanis.” Wolfe said, looking around the room. “Listen, everyone has magic. It’s a matter of figuring out how to use it. In the old days, all humans knew magic, and everything was good, and happy, and we could roam freely…” The faerie trailed off.

“What happened, then? What changed?”

Her tone changed then, low and dark. “Zaçic.”

The name Silanis knew and had been taught to love. Zaçic was the man everyone believed lived as the Son of the One True God, who spread love and peace through the lands over three hundred yeas before she was born. What the hell was going on?

“Surely you can’t mean the Zaçic?”

“Ah, but I do.” Motioning for Silanis to sit next to her, Wolfe got ready for an explanation. The girl deserved the truth. “He showed up, and suddenly associating with fae-folk and Elves was against their Religion, and you would end up in Hell for using magic.

“The old Gods were shunned, pushed aside, and called demons. Maenads were arrested and labeled witches and burned, Dryads were cut down for fear they were forest witches…Elves were shot on sight, simply because their ears were marked a sign of witches mating with the Devil.

“Halflings were about the only ones not completely destroyed, because they were basically smaller humans, and simply labeled vertically challenged. And only because some human women had given birth to human children who’s bodies never really grew up. Dwarves had it easy too, only forced to work in the mines they loved anyways, because they were too rowdy for the surface.

"Zaçic is a powerful wizard.” Wolfe paused and rested her head on her left hand for a moment, remembering the things that man had done over the years. “He’s been in control of politics for centuries, behind the scenes, in the shadows, just out of arms reach.

"He holds a powerful spell over the world, even to this day, weaving webs of deceit and power through the decades, sometimes more involved, other times hiding and working his glamor. He doesn’t die, but he can be killed. I’m not even sure he’s human, to be honest. I think he’s the demon.”

Silanis gaped at the faerie, everything she’d been taught from childhood smashed to pieces, and wasn’t sure if she believed it or not. In the end, she knew in her heart to be true that everything she had believed in, in her childhood, was the truth; not what her parents had told her about such things, about Zaçic.

Chapter Four

Over the course of the next couple days Silanis watched the smaller things in life that she had never paid much attention to. Things she had once seen as insignificant - little tone fluctuations, and minute attitudes that people took on when other people said or did things…

The sound of real laughter versus the fake laughter she heard in even some of her own friends; the bloom of a flower in morning light, the backstabbing that was so open, but so friendly…

It was painful for her to see how many people drank alcohol from small bottles and flasks, which they kept on their person. This wasn’t her place, she couldn’t be meant to stay here until death, or marry one of these drunken men, or run her fathers little shop and deal with all these people, all the time. Whatever was in her future, it was almost guaranteed to be more significant than being a wife and running a store in a city of drunks and fake people. But how would she convince her parents to let her go?

That was where Wolfe came in. Wolfe had magic, and knew how to use it. She would be able to find a way to get Silanis’ parents to agree to her leaving, because she refused to just leave them with no explanation. So it was decided, as she sat in a small park at the edge of the market place, that she would go with the little faerie to see the elders and learn her fate. They had already lost two days of travel time.

------

“How, then, are we to convince my parents that I am supposed to go now?” Silanis asked, after explaining her feelings to Wolfe.

The little faerie sat on her bed, thinking, for what seemed like ages. It was quite a conundrum, Silanis wanted to go, but did not want to hurt her parents at all in going. The only way they would let her go would be if she were getting married, or if royalty called her away. Or especially if she were marrying royalty, but setting up something so elaborate would take more than just her own magic.

Although she supposed Dian would be willing to play the part of a suitor, if she could get a hold of him somehow. He had been looking for an excuse to visit the human cities, and this would be a good enough reason indeed. He had been helping her follow the box, to an extent. Logic stood to reason that if he were her friend, he would help her with this.

Looking to Silanis, the faerie began to smile. “I think I have a solution.” Her voice was soft and lilting. “I know someone who could be useful in getting you out of here, without hurting your parents.”

“Who?” Silanis asked, looking suspiciously at the faerie.

“His name is Dian.” She replied. “He lives in the elvish city Athlone. He’s been looking for an excuse for nearly two-hundred years to visit a human city.”

“An Elve?” Silanis asked, feeling small and insignificant in the large world that had been opened to her a couple of day’s prior.

“He could be a suitor come to whisk you away for marriage.” Wolfe continued. “He’s handsome, smart, and well-to-do. It would be a cinch to convince your parents.”

“Whoa, whoa, wait.” Silanis said, holding up her hands. “You want me to lie?”

“Only in the name of the greater good, dear.” Wolfe explained. “That ring is special, and your fate is just as special, being tied to the ring. You may save a city, a country, or the world, with that ring. You don’t know for sure, and neither do I. So it makes sense that you would go to the elders, and if you have to lie in order to get there, I know the Gods forgive if the ends justifies the means.”

“I get that much, but why does it have to be marriage?” She didn’t much like the idea of marriage, and being lovey-dovey with someone she did not know. “Couldn’t it be something else? Couldn’t he be from the ByTalnan government, come to whisk me away to be… I don’t know, a courtier? The Reid’s may not be anything special here, but I’m sure we’ve got something our lineage we could use, instead of marriage.”

“If you want to take the time to look everything up, by all means, go right ahead.” Wolfe said. “But every day you take is a day less in the rest of your life, so use the time before you leave very carefully.”

“I will.” She would, and she would go right away to check her family lineage.

There was a book on it in her fathers study, and he was working the storefront right now. She could look through it uninterrupted for a while. She grabbed some of his paper and a small dove quill to take notes. By the end of that day, she had a list four pages long and showed it to the faerie.

“Are there any names here that look familiar to you in any way?” She asked.

“Heyail Reid.” Wolfe said. “He was in the court of the Nylian kingdom many years ago. He also had strong ties as an ambassador of Nylia to ByTalna. I had no idea there was any actual relation, though, or I would have mentioned him earlier.”

“So then my suggestion of this Dian being a courtier from ByTalna would work, right?” Silanis would try anything to avoid lying about marriage to her parents.

“Theoretically, yes.” Wolfe replied. “Its worth a try, at any rate. I’ll go get him tonight, then, and in the morning he will come to get you, yes?”

“Alright, that sounds good.” Silanis replied. “Give me a heads up before he gets here, ok?”

“Of course.” Wolfe replied, and opened her window. “I’ll return really soon, Silanis. Get a good nights rest, and I’ll be back come morning.”

Silanis nodded, and Wolfe took off out the window. She closed the window behind the faerie, and prepared herself for bed. Tomorrow would be an interesting day.

Chapter Six

When Wolfe knocked on her window, Silanis was doing her stretches, and fell out of a particularly awkward pose on one leg. It was about nine in the morning, Wolfe had left Athlone, the Elven city, around two-thirty. Opening the window, she pulled the faerie in before anyone saw her waiting out there. It was morning, after all.

“So, did he agree?” She asked, looking out the window a little to make sure no one was watching. Closing the window, she looked back to the faerie.

“He is here, yes.” Wolfe replied. “A member of the line of Heyail Reid come to whisk you away for the courts of ByTalna and the Royale Megacity of Hundr Buma.”

“And his name?” She asked the faerie, sounding pleased.

“Dian Liberati. A nephew who has been sent because you were named heir of a courtier, a duchess of the Megacity, who had no children of her own.” Wolfe shook her head. “She had been keeping tabs on the Reid side of her family, and thought you the perfect heir.”

“Sounds interesting, though fantastical.” Silanis said. “But it will probably work. I’m impressed. I’m blown away by everything, but still impressed.”

Wolfe smiled, looking into Silanis’ eyes, but something was different, and she could feel it. The faerie remained silent, and looked to the ferret momentarily.

“What, what is it, Wolfe?” Silanis asked, confused.

“Just that Dian came into possession of something relating to the very relative we selected for him to be related to.” Wolfe replied, looking back to the human. “He had a series of drawings signed by Heyail Reid that you may wish to look over when there is a better chance. But I figured we could use them as proof, so I had him bring them along.”

Silanis stared wide-eyed at the faerie, unsure of what to say or do in reaction to the news. Drawings made by her four-times great uncle? Possessed by the supposed nephew of a four-times-removed aunt? Her parents would have a lot to think about tonight, to be sure.

“Well, that’s almost frightening.” Silanis said, chewing her bottom lip absentmindedly. “But a coincidence like that is certainly useful. When is he coming over?”

“Before dinner time. But you should come out and meet him, me thinks.” Wolfe looked over to the window. Silanis lent out to see what she meant.

There was a carriage parked in the market place, and a man with blood red hair was looking over some fruits and vegetables. She knew immediately that it was Dian, and pulled herself back inside, closing the window. Was she ready for something like this? She wondered how she would handle leaving her home to go on a weird adventure with two creatures she didn’t even think existed until the little faerie showed up in her room.

“Silanis?” Wolfe asked, staring at her suddenly pale face. “Are you okay?”

Running a hand through her hair, Silanis, stared past the faerie; indeed, she stared past everything in the room for a moment, looking into her own heart to see if she could handle what was now happening. In her secret heart, should she really handle having her life torn in a different direction like this? It pained her to think she may never see her family again, and while the people of this town were not hers, she would still feel a Clover Hill-sized hole in her heart for a while, wouldn’t she?

Her pupils had taken over the whole of her eyes, turning the gray ponds into black pools of nothingness momentarily, and once more Dionysus and the feast swam into her vision.

“Sila, love.” He said to her, taking her face in his hands and smiling down at her. “You know in your secret heart what the right thing is, don’t you? You know the thing you must do, even if you don’t think you do.”

He leaned in to kiss her, and when his lips touched hers she came back to herself almost violently, her pupils shrinking to the size of pinpricks, eyes opened so wide it was almost terrifying.

“Silanis!” Wolfe exclaimed, flying over to her in an instant, just as her knees buckled. The little faerie saved her from a fall, helping her down gently. “Another vision?”

“Yes and no.” Silanis said. “I looked into my secret heart to see if I... If I were ready. But I think it is best, right now, if I don’t already know this man before he comes to the door. It would be less suspicious.”

Staring hard into the humans eyes, Wolfe nodded. She knew what she was talking about, and Wolfe hadn’t even considered that it would be a little strange if she already knew him. Besides that, if her parents saw her talking to him, they may suspect something amiss, and that risk could not be taken.

“Well and so.” Wolfe said, smiling. “Are you sure you’re okay, though? You look like you’ve seen not just one ghost, but an army of them!”

“I’ll be fine, Wolfe.” Came the reply, and it sounded true enough. “I just need to finish my stretches and eat. One question, though. Will Dian give me the ring, as a token of his fallen mistress?”

“Oh! That is a good question, indeed!” Wolfe replied, thinking for a moment. “A pretty trinket like that, and more to follow, may help convince your parents, wouldn’t you think? Yes, I’ll have him bring you the ring. Where is it?”

“Here...” Silanis had hidden the ring when she had gone to bed, and retrieved it now, from withing her dresser, below her clothing. “Take it to him, and in about an hour, maybe less, have him come to the door. I want a little bit longer with my parents.”

“I understand.” Wolfe agreed, nodding and taking the ring. “Not to worry.”

Then, with scarce more than a wave, Wolfe was out the window and back to the carriage to wait a moment for Dian to join her, and Silanis... Silanis left her room to go and break her fast with her mother and father one last time.

One spelling mistake that I could see from reading it through as I would normally read (without picking it apart)
Correct spelling - Pyjamas

I love it!! The first chapter is still keeping me wanting to read on, which is rare for a first chapter; usually the first couple of chapters of a book are quite slow.