Chapter 7 – Voices of the Ancient Leaf
The fairies glowed like live embers, swirling around the black knight with escalating hostility. The air vibrated with pure magic—light and sharp as needles. Cael kept his sword in hand, but his posture was one of appeasement.
"Wait! He doesn't want to fight!" he shouted, his voice steady despite the tension. "I know what he looks like, but... he saved me. He is not an enemy!"
Nothing. The fairies did not respond. It was as if his words slipped through the air, ignored. Only the mystical humming remained, growing louder by the second, like the grinding of stars about to collide.
The fairies' leader—the tiny warrior who had first confronted them—raised her hands once more, gathering a beam of pure light. In her eyes, there was no blind hatred... there was judgment. As if she were looking at a wound that refused to heal.
Cael took a desperate step forward.
"Are you really going to attack without listening?"
Nothing but the wind through the leaves.
"Enough."
The word cut through the air like an invisible arrow.
The fairies froze instantly. The glow of their spells flickered, hesitant. An elegant shadow emerged from between the trees, gliding with the lightness of an ancient breeze. Silver-green hair fell like a cascade over the shoulders of a figure with calm eyes and a noble bearing.
Leaf.
She appeared without haste, her bow slung across her back and her bare feet softly touching the damp grass. Her gaze landed first on Cael, then on the black knight—and finally on the fairies. Not a single one of them dared to move.
"He is under my protection," she declared. "And you know what that means."
The fairy leader hesitated, then slowly lowered her hands. The others followed suit, dispersing the magic into the air like dust in the wind.
"He carries death..." one of the tiny creatures whispered, still deeply suspicious.
"And also life," Leaf replied serenely. "The forest decides who belongs to it. Not you."
Silence. The tension snapped like a cut thread. One by one, the fairies began to drift away, vanishing into the branches and the fog, their glows fading away like satisfied fireflies.
Leaf approached Cael.
"You have arrived too early in this place. The forest has not yet dreamed of your name."
"And is that... bad?" he asked, still stunned.
She looked up at the sky, as if listening to something far away.
"It means you are either a mistake... or a choice. I do not know which yet."
Then, without another word, she turned around.
"Come. There is a sanctuary nearby. The night here is not kind to the unwary."
The black knight followed her in silence. Cael took one last look at where the fairies had disappeared, then ran to catch up with the two of any.
The Sacred Forest whispered around them, as if it were paying close attention.