Scholn accepted the gratitude with pain in his heart. He didn't say from which land he came. Why destroy their bright faith? Let someone keep innocent illusions.
In Kriver, the masquerade ended. Not even a couple of miles from the border, he was driven from the first village with shouts and threats. Sidelong glances, clenched fists, curses. In one settlement, a stone was thrown.
What evil people, Scholn thought, but immediately corrected himself: Evil? Or just tired, deprived of hope?
Fifteen years ago, another kingdom ruled here, almost erased from chronicles. Its name—Dagla—was pronounced only in whispers, like an unfulfilled dream. Only they, the residents of Dagla, scattered shards around the world, remembered. And this memory was their curse and bitter pride.
We didn't want their death, he repeated like a spell.
Scholn rode over black grass and pondered the thin line between hero and enemy. In one kingdom, they're ready to carry him on their hands, in another—to kill. It wasn't about him—it was about the context.
Maybe that's real magic—the ability to see one reality completely differently. To turn paradise into hell with one change of angle.
Even understanding the relativity of what was happening, he felt: between the lands lies something greater than a political border. As if the very fabric of reality here was different. And that frightened more than threats.
Flowers from all fields, he recalled the saying. What to do if flowers from different fields are poisonous to each other?
He rode forward through the gloom because somewhere beyond the horizon she waited—or at least hope for her. The choice was made at the age when it seems love can change the universe. Now it remained to go to the end of the road, paved with others' pain and his own illusions.
Childhood ended when he understood: even sincere love won't turn poison into honey, nor cursed land into blessed. But adulthood began with accepting this knowledge and deciding to go further.
Some truths are known only by walking the whole path. Even if the end is an abyss.