Walking unnoticed among the people, Voran and the Pilgrim reached the gates of Vasyllia. As they did, Voran’s heart skipped a beat. He had forgotten that they would have to pass through the first reach.

“Pilgrim, shall we go up another way?” He pointed at one of the smaller gates at a higher elevation. It avoided the first reach entirely.

The Pilgrim looked at Voran, and it seemed that he looked through him.

Voran was ashamed of himself and of Vasyllia, ashamed that this splendorous city still hid the poor of the first reach in dim alleyways where dogs and children lay side by side in filth.

“Lead as you will, Voran,” said the Pilgrim. His eyes seemed to chide Voran, and he felt his face burning. Voran’s heart gently inclined away from his desire. To his own surprise, he found himself leading the Pilgrim into the first reach, not away from it.

The gates of Vasyllia yawned to accept them. They passed under the arch—two massive beech-trees carved out of marble, leaning toward each other, locked in an embrace of branches and leaves. The refined perfection of the carvings seemed worse than a mockery compared to the squalor of the first reach.

Voran’s senses were overcome, as though he were experiencing the first reach truly anew. Smells of horse-dung and freshly baked bread mixed together. The chatter of playing children and the barking of old mongrels joined in a strange cacophony. Most of the houses were hardly more than sticks leaning against each other, with a board for a door. They were not built along any ordered streets like the second reach. Instead, they seemed to be thrown about randomly. Foul-smelling dirt roads meandered between the houses and towering dung heaps, some of which smoldered with fire that never went out.

And yet, behind all that Voran sensed something he never felt in the third reach. Some native vitality belied the filth and poverty. Yes, the suffering around him was obvious. Every street corner was littered with beggars. Some of them fought for territory out in the open, pummeling each other with no care for the glances of others. A few children had a glint in their eyes as they assessed the contents of his pocket. But most of the people here seemed more real than in the other reaches. There was something natural and unconstrained in their interactions with each other. It contrasted sharply to the careful conventionality of the merchants, the sour disdain of the nobles, and the constipated piety of some of the priests.

Voran approached the opulence of the third reach with conflicted emotions. From his newfound perspective, he saw his father’s house as a sprawling monstrosity, inundated by peach and cherry trees like weeds.

Among them, Lebía danced, arms outspread. The setting sun lit up three singing firebirds on her shoulder and arms.

“Lebía?”

She turned, startled, and the birds flew up at once, giving her a red-gold halo. She smiled, and her smile’s warmth was even more astonishing than the firebirds.

Lebía ran up to him and embraced him, her golden curls pouring all over his shoulders.

He picked her up and twirled her as she loved. She laughed, as though she had not a care in the world. Years of tension sloughed off his shoulders like old skin.

“I’m sorry I took so long, swanling.”

“Oh, Voran,” she said, ignoring his words completely. “I’ve been trying for months to get the firebirds to come down to me. And today, they all came at once, singing. Can you imagine?”

Voran was astounded. What had happened to his sad Lebía?

“Lebía, dear, run and tell cook to prepare something to eat, quickly. We are honored with a Pilgrim’s stay tonight.”

Lebía was suitably impressed as she assessed the Pilgrim towering behind them in the shadows of the cherries.

“You grace our house, Pilgrim,” she said formally, with a touch of uncertainty.

“The honor is mine, little swan,” he said with disarming tenderness. “May the blessing of the Heights be forever yours.”

Lebía smiled a little, stealing a quick glance at Voran that said, “I am not quite sure what to make of him.” Voran inclined his head toward the house. She bowed to the Pilgrim in the formal Vasyllian manner before running into the house, hair streaming behind her like a banner catching the wind.

Voran sat the Pilgrim at the place of honor, in Otchigen’s own high-backed oak chair, then bowed to one knee before him, a supplicant in the traditional ceremony of welcome.

“Pilgrim, I greet you for Vasyllia. I greet you in the name of my father Otchigen (may his honor be restored). I greet you on behalf of my sister and myself, the Dar and his family. I beg you to bestow upon us Adonais’s grace, given to all who choose to wander the wilds in search of the beautiful and the terrible.”

The Pilgrim looked briefly uncomfortable at the mention of Adonais, but he laid two hands on Voran’s head and said, “Sometimes the Heights are moved by our fervent supplication, sometimes they are silent for our hidden good. I wish that Voran will find the strength to choose the right way among all ways, though it be the most painful.”

A wave of heaviness lifted from Voran’s shoulders. He felt younger than he had in years, worn down as he had been by his family’s situation. His head was clear and bright as after a full night’s sleep. Still, a shadow lurked behind the final words of the Pilgrim’s blessing.

Voran and Lebía served the Pilgrim with their own hands while the servant girls stood in the doorway, gawking at the sight. The Pilgrim hardly ate anything, though he constantly thanked them for the morsels he did eat. He enjoyed the drink in greater quantities. Only after he put his horn down for the final time did Voran and Lebía sit down on either side to begin their own meal.

As they ate, the Pilgrim grew more and more somber. By the time Voran and Lebía had finished, he stared at Voran intently with a pained expression. It unnerved Voran, making the space between his shoulder blades itch wildly. He wanted to pelt the Pilgrim with his questions as soon as possible, but convention would not allow it. At table, a Pilgrim spoke first.

“Voran, tell me about Vasyllia’s Great Tree.”

Voran’s ears pricked up at his tone. There was no doubt—the Pilgrim was testing him. Something told him that much would depend on his answer. He tried to feign calmness.

“Well, it’s a bit of a misnomer, isn’t it? It’s hardly even a tree. It’s an aspen sapling. But…well, it’s on fire. Every year, the priests officiate a ceremony that summons fire from the Heights. It keeps the tree’s fire fresh, and the sapling eternally young.”

The Pilgrim looked annoyed.

“No, tell me what it is.”

Something stirred in Voran’s memory, an old story his nanny used to tell him.

“It used to be called the Covenant Tree.” The details escaped him, no matter how hard he tried. “A seal of Adonais’s promise to Vasyllia.”

“What promise?” whispered the Pilgrim, his tone urgent.

“A promise of…protection. Yes, a girdle of protection against…oh, Heights, I don’t remember.”

The Pilgrim sagged into his chair, a look of open despair in his face.

“The stag was right. How forgetful Vasyllia is. I had not realized how forgetful.”

Voran slept badly and lay awake before the sun rose. The morning fog promised to dissipate, though the clouds in his mind threatened to remain the whole day. Something must be done about it.

Not bothering to dress, Voran slipped on his boots and wrapped his bare chest with his old travel cloak. Lebía didn’t stir, even when he climbed out the window and slid down the carved lintel to the gardens below, to the brook that Otchigen, with the Dar’s blessing, had redirected from one of the city’s canals. Their own private river.

At least I can thank you for this one good thing, Father, Voran thought.

Throwing off his boots and cloak, he flung himself into the water, bracing for the icy shock. It was immediate and glorious, the sun inside his head bursting apart his huddled thoughts. As he rose again into the cold, he laughed with pure exhilaration.

Afterward, he sat by the river, wrapped in his cloak, which did little to stave off the late autumn chill. The momentary euphoria of the swim had faded, leaving behind nagging unease. The song of the Sirin, which would often tease him after his morning wash, had stopped entirely since his encounter with the stag.

“Early riser, Voran?” The Pilgrim materialized out of nowhere, making Voran’s heart attempt a desperate leap out of his chest. Voran laughed, shaking with more than the cold.

“Good morning, Pilgrim.” He gestured for the Pilgrim to sit. “I could not sleep. Too many questions.”

“Have you considered that you may not understand the answers yet, even if I told you everything? In any case, I am eager this morning to take part in the feasting before the walls. Will you come with me?”

Inwardly, Voran groaned, but he nodded. “It would be my honor.”