“Yes.” Tarin looked annoyed. “Is that a question?”

“The sign on the sword. What does it mean?” asked Voran, strangely afraid of speaking it aloud.

“Have you heard of transfiguration, Raven Son?”

Voran must have had a remarkably stupid expression, because Tarin winced. “Perhaps that is not a good place to start. We should start with the least important, and work our way inward, like a cockle shell.”

Voran had not the faintest idea of what a cockle was, but he knew it would be counterproductive to ask.

“Let me start by asking you a question, Raven Son. Why do you think that you were attacked in the marshes after we crossed from the Lows, while nothing happened to me?”

“You obviously have power, Tarin. I do not.”

Tarin nodded and chuckled. “Well, that is part of it, yes. But my kind of power never frightened the Raven and his beasts very much. No, you were attacked because you are still stained. What you did with the hag bound you to her. Yes, some of the chains loosened when you killed her, but you are not free of her curse.”

“But it felt like every link of that chain burst apart when I spoke that word you gave me.” A sudden insight flashed on him, and he felt foolish. “Is that the word that your kind is named for?”

“Well, not quite, but if we don’t get into the details, yes. When you were attacked in the marshlands, you called a great power to your aid by the invocation of the name. A power even greater than…well, perhaps now’s not the time to talk about that.”

“Greater than what? The Sirin?”

Tarin had a pained expression, the kind a parent has when their child no longer believes in childish fancies.

“Yes, certainly greater than the Sirin. It was a taste of the power with which the Warriors of the Word are invested. But if you were to neglect yourself, if another ruse of the darkness—like the red-head in the village—were to ensnare you, you would be in great danger. They know your weak point, and now you should expect to see buxom young women throwing themselves at you in every village. I doubt you’ll be able to keep chaste for long.”

Voran felt disappointed, for he had hoped that his deliverance from the hag had been immediate and complete. Now it seemed it would take a deal of labor to wean himself from her continued influence. He should have known.

“Never mind,” said Tarin, eyes closed as he smelled the tea. “I will help you with that. If you are willing to suffer through my training, anything is possible. The power to which we submit is an old power, a wild power, one that makes and harmonizes out of nothing in perpetuity. Not the soft, gentle divinity you Vasylli are used to worshipping in the Temple.”

“You speak as the Sirin do—” Voran stopped in mid-thought. “Of course! The Sirin. They also thrive in a similar power, one equally destructive and loving. Do we even know Adonais, whom we claim to worship? Have we become so comfortable with a loving, endearing father figure that we stopped considering his unbridled power?” With chagrin, he realized by Tarin’s rapt expression that he had spoken these thoughts aloud. “But what am I saying? What do I know about all this?”

To Voran’s increased embarrassment, Tarin laughed out loud, making no effort to conceal his enjoyment.

“Oh, Raven Son. How close you come to wisdom, without even realizing what you are saying. If only you could see the whole truth!”

“Why not tell me?”

“Because you wouldn’t believe me. You may even want to do something drastic. You may even want to kill me.”

The conversation was not going as Voran had hoped. For the first time since the hag’s village, Voran feared Tarin.

“If that is true,” countered Voran, “then how can I know whether to trust you?

“Indeed, my falcon,” Tarin said, chuckling. “You have hit on it exactly. How indeed?”

What a terrible lack of an answer, thought Voran.

The silence surrounding them deepened, until even the crackling of the bonfire faded. Gently, with no jarring effect, Voran’s heart inclined to the calm surrounding Tarin like his own breath. Unbidden came the word to his lips—Saddaí—and he whispered it, feeling the stillness reach out to him and envelop him, until the very act of questioning seemed spurious. How long they sat thus, minutes or hours, Voran never could recall. It was one of the most wondrous moments of his life.

“You begin to understand, Raven Son. Good. I hoped you would.”

“Lord Tarin, it has no words, what I experienced,” said Voran, breathless with wonder. “It was as if the most thunderous harmony and piercing silence mingled into one. Time raced and stopped altogether, all at a still point. It was as if I actually experienced truth personally, and yet I know nothing at all. How can I explain it? If the power of the sea could be contained in a drop of water, if the limitless potential of words could be expressed in a single thought. An infinite multiplicity in a single entity. Is it I who even speak? I don’t recognize my own voice.”

“What you experienced is but a splinter in the Great Tree, so to speak.”

Like a sunset, the nameless experience faded, but it left behind a twilight magic.

“What else was it like, Raven Son?” Tarin’s eagerness was child-like.

“It was like being on fire.”

Tarin slapped his knee loudly, his smile creasing every possible inch of his face.

“Yes! You asked about the sign on the sword? It is the wing of a Sirin that has undergone the baptism of flame. It is said that, to scale the Heights of Aer, one must be baptized in fire seven times…”

Tarin grew thoughtful, and his recent inspiration seemed to run out. There was much Voran did not understand, but it seemed he would have to content himself with waiting for now. Nevertheless, he decided to try one more question.

“Why do you call me Raven Son?”

Tarin, torn from his train of thought, looked irritated. “The question of your name is not mine to answer. You will know soon enough.” He stood up and began to pack. “Time we were off. Not so far now.”

“Are we so close to the weeping tree?” asked Voran.

Tarin stopped, sighed heavily, and stretched himself to his full height.

“Raven Son. You must give up all thoughts of finding Living Water. You are not ready. You need to be trained. When you are ready, we will both seek it.”

An avalanche of fury burst from Voran’s chest. “Vasyllia is on the brink. You said it yourself. Why do we dawdle? We do not have the time!”

“You do not direct the flow of events in the world, Voran. There is a greater power than you at work here. If you go now, you will be eaten alive in minutes. Have you heard nothing of what I have said? The hag’s curse still stinks on you. Do I need to remind you of the five reasons for your slavery, especially the fifth one?”

The morning sun revealed a change in the landscape. In the distance towered a line of cedars—incongruous amid the bare trees and low shrubs—standing as if sentinels over an ancient borderline.

“That is the extreme end of ancient Vasyllia,” said Tarin. He hoisted his single pack and turned toward the cedars.

They reached the treeline by midday. The cedars were even more impressive in proximity, standing so near each other that the other side was barely visible, even through the trunks. There was something shimmery on the other side, as though they looked into a pool of water, not a landscape.

“That is a doorway, yes? We are entering the Lows again?”

Tarin winked at Voran and chattered like a chickadee.

As they passed through the trees, they were plunged into complete darkness. Voran could only see Tarin’s outline in the shadows the trees cast. On the other side, to his disappointment, Voran saw nothing but a fallow, brown field. Drab elms, shorn of leaf, surrounded the field. Nestled under a particularly large elm, still within the shadow of the sentinel trees, three greyish wooden shacks slouched.

They appeared hardly standing, almost ready to fall over at a whisper of wind. Sloping thatch roofs, brown and ancient, bleary windows framed in dirty, cracked carvings—these were the only adornments, if they could be called that. They seemed to have been thrown together on a whim, not built according to plan. Voran’s heart sank at the thought of living in such a place. Tarin, on the contrary, seemed genuinely excited, and even broke into verse again.

“I know you marvel at this land,