The unknown woman approached the dying goldrigs and knelt beside them. Her face reflected deep pain; she looked like a mother watching her sick child. She placed her hands on the beasts’ backs and whispered a few words. A brilliant flash of intense scarlet red erupted from her fingertips. Moments later, the animals stood up and walked again. At first, their gait was clumsy and unsteady, like that of newborn deer. But once their strength was fully restored, they trotted away. The woman then returned melancholically to the shadows.

  Isgalis and the others woke up from the hypnotic dream. The first thing they heard was the sound of the same running water they’d heard just before being bewitched by the goldrigs’ laughter.

  “What happened?!” Jayden exclaimed, completely bewildered.

  “That’s what I was about to ask!” Tiziano seconded her. “I remember we were surrounded! Their hideous laughter was everywhere! Was it just our imagination?”

  “No, it wasn’t,” Isgalis snapped categorically. “We were bewitched.”

  “That’s impossible!” Jayden objected. “If we’d been bewitched, we’d remember it, right?”

  “Goldrigs use their laughter to hypnotize their victims and devour them,” Isgalis said dryly. “They make them lose awareness of their actions so they offer themselves up for slaughter without resistance. Nobody wants to remember something like that. Though no one survives to know they were hypnotized, either.”

  Baruch had remained silent until now. He stood off to the side, staring into space.

  “It was my fault!” he said, breaking down in tears. “They almost killed us because of me! I echoed their laughter! The memory of my mother’s agony kept replaying in my head! I couldn’t help it! It’s my fault! All my fault!”

  “Baruch, don’t cry,” Jayden tried to console him. “You don’t have to feel guilty... We’re all fine!”

  “That’s true,” Tiziano said thoughtfully. “We’re all fine... But why?”

  “Teo!” Jayden exclaimed, seeing the boy suspended in the air.

  It’s amazing how people can forget the most important things when their attention is completely consumed by unfortunate, life-threatening circumstances. This is how the group, until that moment, hadn’t noticed the absence of the child who, minutes before, had saved their lives.

  The Guardian hurried toward where Teo was, but she was stopped.

  “Not so fast, Isgalis,” Roderic said, appearing from the darkness.

  “You traitor!” Tiziano shouted furiously. “You did this to Teo!”

  “Roderic, please,” Isgalis said, “listen to me.”

  “No! You listen to me!” the boy replied. “Teo has offended her, and you must apologize to her.”

  “I swear, if you did something to Milena...!” Tiziano cried.

  “It’s not about Milena!” Roderic shouted, exasperated. “You don’t understand! Teo wronged her with the brutality of his actions, and you all need to apologize for his offense!”

  Jayden was the first to see her. At first, it was just a radiant nimbus emerging from the waters of the spring behind Roderic. She walked slowly toward them, revealing her graceful feminine silhouette. Her golden hair reached her waist. Her violet eyes were as fresh as grapes, and her red lips as voluptuous as cherries. She was undeniably a beautiful young woman who would turn heads anywhere... especially considering she was naked.

  Everyone was shocked and speechless. They couldn’t believe their eyes.

  “Is she a naked girl?!” Tiziano shouted.

  “Either that, or we’ve developed amazing x-ray vision!” Baruch joked, wiping away his tears.

  “She’s a naiad from Ixis Spring,” Isgalis said.

  “No way!” Tiziano protested. “All the freshwater nymphs merged with the waters of the Spring!”

  “Quick! Everyone kneel and bow!” the Guardian ordered, ignoring the boy’s words.

  The four of them immediately knelt and bowed their heads.

  “Everyone repeat after me,” Isgalis instructed, “‘I offer you my loyalty and my heart, maiden of the forests and music of nature. May your will be for me the sweet call of my destiny; your eyes, my guiding light, and your body, my refuge.’”

  The three apprentices imitated her and recited her words.

  “‘I belong to you entirely, body and soul,’” the Guardian continued. “‘You are one with me, and I am one with you. May the fire of your love give me rest in my desperate hours, and in it consume me, hoping to find peace and redemption.’”

  A soft breeze slid through the foliage, and the silver moon of Ardoras created a chrome effect on the spring’s waters.

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  “You may rise, my brothers,” the forest maiden pronounced. “Your laudatory litany is welcomed by my heart.”

  The three apprentices stood up, but Isgalis remained on the ground.

  “Lady!” she pronounced in a clear and powerful voice. “I don’t know what this little one has done to offend you,” she said, pointing to Teo, “but I humbly implore your forgiveness in his name! He’s just a child full of pain who came to The Continent searching for his father and who looks out for the well-being of his friends! His heart is pure, and his spirit is noble!”

  “I don’t doubt your words, sister!” the naiad replied. “But we both know the reputation of his kind! An overflowing power flows within him! A power he doesn’t know how to control... I sense evil in his blood!”

  “That’s an insult!” Tiziano said. “Teo couldn’t hurt anyone!”

  “Watch your words when you speak to her, brat!” Roderic exclaimed angrily. “When you were hypnotized, Teo tortured the goldrigs with a powerful curse until they were in agony.”

  “They were trying to kill us!” Tiziano objected.

  “Goldrigs are just animals! They were just following their instincts!” the young man replied. “Nerea is the guardian of the Fabras Forest and, therefore, the protector of all the creatures that inhabit it. Teo’s hex was an act of cruelty and a humiliation of everything she defends!”

  “Tiziano, please, keep your composure!” Isgalis reprimanded him. “Don’t be insolent!”

  “Don’t be so hard on him!” the nymph exclaimed. “He’s just a boy defending his friend’s reputation and honor.”

  “That’s right!” Tiziano said. “Teo’s my friend, and I believe in him! We’re here because he saved our lives, and I won’t stay silent in the face of the injustice being done to him!”

  “Very well, little one!” the naiad declared. “If you can believe in him with that fervor in your heart, then so will I! Because only true friendship triumphs over adversity and rescues us from the path of shadows! Dovra Ithema!” the nymph said in a powerful voice, and Teo began to descend to the ground softly.

  When the boy fully regained consciousness, a turbulent flurry of thoughts and memories flooded his head. He felt tired and nauseous.

  “Are you okay, Teo?” Tiziano helped him.

  “Yeah, friend, don’t worry,” he said. “And by the way: thanks for believing in me.”

  Tiziano smiled gently.

  “How is this possible?” Teo asked, looking at the naiad. “You didn’t cast any spell or utter any incantation... How could you have done that to me?”

  Nerea looked at him with pity.

  “When I sense evil in someone’s intentions or actions, I simply present myself to them,” she explained. “The vision of my naked body produces Suspension in corrupt spirits. But now I see I was wrong about you.”

  “Why do you say that?” Teo asked, intrigued.

  “He knows you’re in Ardoras,” Nerea answered, distressed.

  “He?” Teo said with a trembling voice.

  “Raen! He’s looking for you, and he won’t stop until he finds you!” the nymph said. “I was afraid you were one of them... The kanach that flows inside you knows no limits. But your eyes are sincere, and your spirit is virtuous. Now I see it! The love of your friends proves it!”

  “Is the Usurper in the South?” Baruch asked, dismayed, echoing the nymph’s voice.

  “No. He sent emissaries from Galath to find him: the Falk Agents.”

  “That’s impossible!” shouted Isgalis, who had been listening. “The gates of Mantra are closed to Falk Agents.”

  “Nothing is impossible for Raen!” Nerea replied. “You should know better, sister. He knows Teo’s true nature!”

  Isgalis felt like she’d been slapped. The only advantage they had over Raen was gone (if it ever existed).

  “How did the Agents get into Mantra?” the Guardian asked.

  “They must have had inside help. A traitor who opened the doors for them and let them pass.”

  “What are Falk Agents?!” Baruch asked, exasperated. “And why are they after Teo?”

  Isgalis looked at her apprentices with resignation, knowing she could no longer hide the truth.

  “Falk is a Dark Mage,” she explained. “Since Raen claimed the throne of Galath, he’s been one of his most loyal subjects. The Usurper took him under his wing after he committed one of the greatest atrocities on this land: to create monsters loyal to their master, he began experimenting on The Revived, using them as guinea pigs. Falk Agents are the result of that depravity. Abominable and exceptional creatures, they absorb the kanach of other beings to obtain their abilities and consume them until they’re annihilated. This versatility has earned them the position of Raen’s emissaries, and they function as infiltrators throughout The Continent.”

  “One of those abominations almost destroyed me months ago,” Nerea said sadly, “but Roderic helped me. I owe him everything!”

  “That’s why you’re a regenerator,” Tiziano stammered, looking at the young man. “You saved a naiad’s life!”

  “I wasn’t sure... I was afraid you guys would think I was crazy…” Jayden sputtered timidly. “But now I know: it was one of those things that suspended me! A huge, dense cloud of black smoke with hundreds of suffering faces on the surface!”

  “They usually look like that when they’re not camouflaged,” confirmed the nymph.

  “That makes sense,” Baruch agreed. “When it attacked her, the Falk Agent absorbed Nerea’s abilities, including the Suspension spell.”

  “By the time I reached the Sun Stone, the creature had already subdued Jayden,” Roderic said sadly. “I couldn’t do anything to save Milena. That thing took her!”

  “That’s why you told Marc you should take her... That you were running out of time…” Baruch reflected, mimicking the young man’s voice. “You knew about the Agent’s threat.”

  “As Nerea said, this aberration has been among us for months,” Roderic said. “Long before Teo arrived on The Continent. This was all planned to find him; they just waited for the right moment.”

  “Why would they want to take Teo?” Tiziano wondered. “Teo hasn’t developed any special skills yet. Milena, on the other hand, is a revitalizer! They could feed on her!”

  “Only Necropters feed on revitalizers!” Roderic replied. “It’s useless to Falk Agents. They only took her because they were sure Teo would go after her and wouldn’t stop until he found her.”

  “That’s nonsense!” Baruch objected. “If they’re after him, why not capture him directly?”

  “Because they wouldn’t have been able to break him,” Roderic said tersely.

  “Why not?” asked the phonoreplicator.

  Teo had remained on the ground, recovering, dizzy and sick. His grim expression was streaked by the shadows of the night and distorted by the gravity of the situation. When he spoke, his voice had an unusual somberness, unlike his usual sweetness.

  “Because I’m a Vendalion,” he said.

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