When Maria wakes, a couple days have passed. She blinks into the bright light that spills into the well decorated bedroom where she has been resting. She is startled; this is not the place that she had fallen asleep. This room has dark stone walls and high ceilings, with long rectangular windows on two walls. On the wall to her left is what Maria thinks of as a walk-in bay window, like a covered balcony with no door separating it from the main room. There is no glass in any of the windows, but there are sturdy curtains drawn at each window. The room feels comfortably cool and Maria is surprised that didn’t wake up sooner under the heavy blanket on the bed; it was heavy but she didn’t sweat or feel hot underneath it.
She gets out of the bed as soon as she wakes and wanders over to one of the large windows to peer out at the medieval looking town below her that was golden underneath the light of a rising sun that Maria couldn’t locate. She figures that this is Halfyn and she must be in the stronghold fortress of the Royal Halfyns. She’d never been to Halfyn before stopping to rest there with Garoa and the Ice Prince after successfully traversing the entirety of Outer Spacetime, she’d only learned about it from the Ice Prince who spoke about it more affectionately than he meant to. Halfyn seems the opposite of the icey Juoil; Halfyn is warm and the air is sweet like honey.
Maria figures that the Halfyn Heir must have brought her to the stronghold fortress, but there is no sign of anyone, including her friends.
“Hello?” she calls as she wanders through the doorway and into a hallway of stone walls and ancient looking statues of Halfyns. She wears her standard Wazad uniform with the skirt and halter top, and her large sword at her back. Her voice echoes before her and she passes other rooms with no doors in their entryways or glass in their window. The stone of the floor is cool as she follows the seemingly never ending hallway, and she wonders how this building must look from the outside, it must be huge because she has been walking relatively straight and has not come to a staircase. She passes some windows in the hallway walls on both sides, and she gets a better sense of the structure that she inhabits. The hallway is inside of one large wall of a square shaped fort, and inside are humble buildings like the ones on the outside, but they are bigger and easier for Maria to see the details. The structures inside the fort are constructed of brick or mortared stone and there are many trees among the buildings, though not a dominating canopy. She can see the small figures of what she presumes to be Halfyns moving about the enclosed city and she wonders if she is alone in this giant wall that looks like the interior of a castle.
“Maria!” she hears and turns to the see the Ice Prince with one hand outstretched, one finger high and his thumb connecting within another finger, before him and a flurry of violet ice shoots from his hand to freeze the stone before him for long enough that he is able to skate along it in boots with a thin metal strip down the middle of the soul that allowed him to walk regularly and to punch through ice or to glide along it. The violet ice melted quickly behind him but it was always cool when he used his ice powers close to her.
“What are you wandering around the wall?” the Ice Prince asks.
“Why am I in the wall in the first place?” Maria asked.
“Because Garoa and I woke up before you and we wanted to put you somewhere safe while the Halfyn Heir took us around Halfyn. I came as soon as we were told you were awake. There isn’t really anyone else on this floor, but there is surveillance that the Royal Halfyns create with arcane energy. We were a heartbeat away. So you want to come see the hilllakes? They are teeming with altax, which tastes similar to your favorite insect in Aifyn, but more plump and delicious.”
Altax are essentially shrimp and on Aifyn, there are some pools of waters that are warm enough that they seemed to be cooked even though they were still alive when she ate them.
“Of course,” Maria says, “take me to these altax, but you’re vacationing with the Halfyn Heir? I thought he was a loser and beneath the affections of the almighty wind rider.”
“I don’t even think you’re trying to say it right anymore, and if I didn’t know that you’re such a sweet and selfless person, I would think that you were making fun of the sacred arcana of the Aifyn Line.”
“Asshole,” Maria says, “you know that my human, lower spacetime mouth can’t say it right. I swear that I hear myself saying it just like you all say it, but apparently I’m not. Stop deflecting, what is going on with you and Heir?”
“Let’s just say that I woke up before Garoa and we had plenty of time alone together before she woke up and I had an excuse not to run away.” The Ice Prince stands perpendicular to Maria and he looks at her from the corner of his eyes.
“You’re using that poor Halfyn again?” Maria crosses her arms and looks at him with disappointment.
“I don’t think that’s what this is,” the Ice Prince says and slowly turns to race Maria again. “Since meeting you and Garoa, traversing the universe with you, talking with you, it has all been illuminating for me. I see my place in the Aifyn Line better because I’ve been able to show it to you, and even though I was reluctant to stop here after our trip I know that all of this was predestined and I was meant to be here now to finally appreciate the love of the Heir. I am happy Maria.”
Maria smirks at him. “I don’t believe it. The Ice Prince don’t got time for a man that can’t ride.”
“Well, I guess the Ice Prince is maturing,” he said, then put an arm around Maria’s shoulder. they walk toward the direction she had left the room where she’d been sleeping. “But Garoa will be disappointed to see you awake. She said you all have to get back Theron right away, your interaction with the tree of existence awaits you, but she would rather continue our convalescence in this fortified paradise.”
“I want to enjoy it like you two did!” Maria says angrily. “We will to when the Transverse is ready. Now take me to these altax.”
Maria levitates using wynds that she summons as instinctively as she had used Wazad’s arcane spells and the Ice Prince is impressed as he follows her out of the large window.
“You should let me lead you to them,” the Ice Prince says and zooms past her into the formation of buildings inside the fortress wall.
Sao-Reyne is on the rings of Arada, home to the Loa. The planet known as Arada is barely that, it is smaller than most other life-sustaining planets in Outer Spacetime, but the rings of Arada Proper are the actual home of the Loa. The rings of Arada form an almost perfect disc around the small planet in the middle, and the Disc is divided into thirteen rings. Each ring has different landscapes and temperatures, but the innermost ring is home to the beating heart of the Loa, Grand Brigitte.
She was standing in her black robe when Sao-Reyne reappeared on Arada.
“Who are you?” Grand Brigitte asked. “Did you bring those things here just to take them away? Do not lie to me, it is a waste of both our time.”
“I will not lie to you, Grand Brigitte, I am humbled before you. I wield the powers of Wazad and I was sent here to relieve Arada of the nuisance of the Daemon. They are beings of lower spacetime who happened upon Outer Spacetime by chance.”
“I believe you, humble creature. I admire your honesty and the hearty nature of your spirit. I ask that you dine with me and tell me more of Wazad and of the Daemon that Tara has confiscated for her own secret purposes.”
“You are aware of the truth?” Sao-Reyne asked with wonder.
“I am Grand Brigitte. And if Tara desires those Daemon, I would know the reason. Come with me.”
PRL Serials 