The Kingdom of Sissenis. Evenfall.

SHE couldn't believe the dirt. So much of it, everywhere. The land below her was an endless swatch of dull red brown, the sky above dark like bitter chocolate. The sea at her back, if such a term applied, not much more than a bubbling cauldron of mud, murk, and rotten things.

The air was humid and thick and each inhale of it brought grit that scratched her nostrils and throat. Dirt piles popped up like pustules, some so high, clouds encircled them like starving vultures.

In Aelurus or Exul, such mounds would have been called mountains, but not here. They weren't sharp, or rigid, or made of stone. It was all dirt.

Ordinary, boring dirt. The kind that lodged itself under her nails and stained her skin the color of bitter tea. The kind that irritated her eyes and made homes in her lungs. That stuck in her teeth and bogged down her whiskers.

Dirt, unlike anywhere else, that all the magick in the realms couldn't banish away.

"This had better be worth it," Margo muttered, trudging up the beaten path. A menacing serpent moon cast her surroundings in a venomous green haze.

She blew out, peeling a few mud-caked curls off her forehead, and frowned. "I'll need a weeklong stint in the bath to get clean." With a hiss, she dragged her slippers further up the mound, dirt crusting her skin with each step.

At the beginning of her journey, her shoes had been a lovely turquoise. Laced with gold thread and of high quality mughound leather. They had been brand new, a lady's shoes, perfect for long and short journeys alike, Abby had assured when she'd gifted them to Margo after enduring six months in the new Aelurian king's employ.

"He's a terror," Abby had said of Lucy, her, the foremost authority on his peculiar nature. "And you surely deserve something for tolerating such unrelenting idiocy."

After the gift had been given, both women had laughed, much to Lucy's confusion, who had happened upon them just as their laughter evolved into riotous cackling, all at his expense.

Margo had left Darkmoore Castle not long after, never revealing the subject of her and Abby's humor, no matter Lucy's constant pestering. But she hadn't wanted to leave, not really. Abandon her life at the castle, the other Cloudians in need of her help acclimating to Aelurus's still somewhat hostile environment. She even wished to stay at Lucy's side a little longer. But she'd left, not even knowing what she'd find, or if she'd find anything.

But someone had to try. Magick was dying. Aelurus's Black Sea had grown toxic, blowing noxious gas bubbles into the air and making coastal villages inhospitable. Aelurians were fleeing, taking to the trees and mountains to get away.

Then there was the Evernight, and the return of light. A sun, not much bigger than a lantern fruit had appeared in its eastern skies, much to the horror of its inhabitants. Shadow King Axion had been holding balls and feasts nightly to calm his subjects, but their relief was temporary, and fled the moment the sun rose.

After much researching, Margo was certain - the disappearance of the Dawn Stag directly related to the realms' failing magick. That's why she had come here, to the humid, dirt-filled land of Sissenis, in hope of uncovering the truth about the Dawn Stag and its connection to magick.

She resumed her climb, only pausing to catch her breath and exchange heated clicks with Sissenis's native inhabitants. The yellow and red eyes of the Artelopers peered at her through the dead underbrush along either side of the path, hissing and clicking their jaws, stomping their hooves into the ground, and kicking up dirt clouds.

"Yeah, yeah," she said, putting two fingers around her whiskers and sliding off the mud that had caked there. "I get it. You don't like intruders." A ball of mud broke underfoot. "Well, it's not like I want to be here, either." She sighed and glanced up.

Half-way. She sighed again. "If I had my way, I'd be in a bath, a servant hand-feeding me Gargek's goat cheese by the wheel."

The Arteloper's continued to lament her arrival with angered snorts, and guttural howls. Occasionally, one would dart out into the path and snarl at her, both rows of its teeth exposed. But the moment she gestured toward the beast, it would click its jaws again and flee back into the underbrush.

She ignored them, continuing her miserable ascent. Under the moonlight, sweat gathered on her neck and flowed down her back like rivers. Her hair, limp and lifeless knots, stuck to her shoulders, the sour green of her radiance reflecting her mood. By the time she caught sight of a fern frond, a deep verdant green, hiding in the underbrush, she was ready to collapse.

Finally, though, she had reached her destination, and the sight of it, would have stolen her breath, had the mound not wrenched it from her lungs already.

The ground was flat, not rounded, and the soil, once hard and crunchy, gave beneath her shoes. It was a rich black, like obsidian, and not the rusty hue of the rest of the dirt. Fresh rain lingered in the air and dampened Margo's skin.

A lush jungle stretched out as far as she could see. Twisting trees rose like ornate pillars, wrapped in green ivy. Swooping white-barked vines hung off branches. And there were flowers everywhere. Deep burgundy and gold littering the ground, covering up branches and tree trunks. They floated down a trickling stream, made faces on mossy boulders.

Margo contemplated sitting on one of those boulders but decided against it. She didn't know how hungry Sissenis's vegetation could be. In truth, she didn't even know the realm had vegetation like this.

Instead, she cautiously stepped forward. The ground bristled away from her, and a few of the flowers shrieked. Clouds of pollen rose into the air. Margo coughed and recoiled, her hand going to her pendant, the realm's magick gathering at her fingertips. She took another step forward. Another.

Low-swooping vines retracted into tree's canopies, and the trees themselves, raised their branches as she passed, as though she was a walking disease. While her pride was bruised at the jungle's apparent shunning, she managed to be thankful. Some forests, like those in the Evernight had teeth; this one proved more docile, but also more hurtful.

Releasing her hold on magick, as she no longer assumed she would need it, she plodded forward. The jungle continued to avoid her at all costs. Flowers and shrubs uprooting themselves and scurrying deeper into the forest. Some hid behind other, larger plants, to camouflage themselves from her prying eyes.

Had she not been so exhausted, she would have found their behavior amusing.

At long last, after having the jungle thoroughly repulsed by her presence, it opened into a clearing. The moon glowered from its position in the brownish night sky, its green light splashing onto the field of wild grass. Here, the grass and ground didn't shrink away from her.

"Well," said Margo, gaze darting from one end of the field to the other, scanning the perimeter for any sign of danger, "if what I read is correct, this ought to be it." This unremarkable place at the heart of a remarkably terrified jungle; not exactly as described in the book, but she figured such details had been left out for brevity's sake. Her fingers prodded the stone at the center of her pendant necklace; the sea glass almost completely absent its greenish hue. She bit her lip and mashed her teeth together. Just enough left for a handful of spells.

Giving her whiskers a reassuring tug, she breathed out and called forth the realm's magick.

It responded instantly, her hair standing on end. The wind stilled, and warmth like that of a fire in the heart of winter licked at her back. Tendrils of magick wrapped themselves around her wrists and trailed up her arms, until every inch of her was covered.

A flame burst into being before her eyes. Small at first, but as she poured more magick into it, it grew. The tiny fire raged, cycling through all the colors of the rainbow before settling on a deep orange. Its crackling filled her ears, and the sweat that had gathered along Margo's hairline immediately evaporated.

Margo's muscles twitched with the toll magick exacted. Her arms trembled and the flame flickered. She felt her brain might melt, or at the very least, she would fall over, an unconscious heap for a predator's next meal. But just as her vision wavered and blurred, a building popped into the empty clearing.

Gasping, Margo lurched forward, the fire extinguished as she returned the magick to the realm. Her knees gave way and she slumped to the ground. It took a while for her breathing to calm, for the blood to stop thrumming in her ears, but when it had, she wiped her hands along her trousers, stood, and ambled toward the temple, a self-satisfied smile on her sweat-drenched face. "So, the book was partially right." Only with light could one root out what's hidden in darkness. Margo hoped it would prove right about other things as well.

The temple was unlike anything she'd seen. Made of white stone, four pillars guarded an entrance of rounded, stone doors. Moss grew delicately up each column, but the doors remained untouched. A symbol of a sun with nine-points was carved into both. But there weren't any door handles. Or key holes.

Rolling up her sleeves, Margo forced her shoulders back, and outstretched her hands. "Magick it is then." She drew magick to her once again and transformed the energy into a powerful gust of wind. It lashed the doors, once, twice, until finally, with a creak, they split open.

Inside, water trickled down the stone walls, dripping into decorative basins dug into the floor on either side of a narrow path. With each step, the stones tilted with Margo's weight, as if the additional had knocked them off-kilter.

Every inch of the walls was covered. Odd shapes and symbols - triangle, squares. Circles that spiraled inward. Margo surmised it a language, one so old, the knowledge to read it, lost to time.

At the end of the passage, stood another set of doors, each made of white stone and decorated with a nine-pointed sun. Margo conjured a small fire with a flick of her wrist, giving it strict orders to remain close. It obeyed, haloing her head, as she pushed this second set of doors open.

The room before her was massive. Ten times as big as the outer chambers and corridors combined. Pillars lined each wall. Margo followed them with her eyes, until, she gasped. Above her, the ceiling had been made of clear, thin stone. It acted like a window, letting the outside in. Moonlight flooded the room, laying in puddles along the floor, dripping down the walls.

Everything was a staggering, acidic green. She headed in further, the flame crackling in her ears as it circled her head. A smaller platform sat in the middle of this room. Wide enough for maybe a pack of six full-grown mughounds to stand tail to snout.

Four pillars stood at each of its corner, and it seemed to be positioned purposefully, as when she got to it, she had the clearest view of the moon. While she'd been looking up, her foot caught on something. She glanced at the floor. There, mixed in with the rubble, a chain loop. One as thick as her forearm and rusted. She commanded the flame closer and got on her knees.

Flakes of rust rubbed off the metal as she ran her thumb over it. It hummed with the presence of concentrated magick.

"Interesting."

She felt along the ground, dragging her fingers over the stone, shadows and moonlight slipping over her skin. There appeared to be more chains - all thick, sturdy, and imbued with magick. She tried to pick them up, but the weight had her stumbling back onto the platform. She caught herself on a pillar just as a click echoed in the room.

One of the platform squares slid back, revealing a compartment. From inside it, a green orb floated upward. She'd seen it's like before. At the Order. With Lain.

"What's a memory orb doing here?" She said, breathlessly, moving forward, fingers outstretched. "A memory here would be thousands of years old, if not older." Her fingers grazed the orb, a cold shiver traveling along her spine. Wisps of smoke reach out, grabbed her fingers, the sensation cool and dry.

Their grip tightened. Pulled her forward. Margo's eyes bulged as she tried to pull away, but the smoke wouldn't budge.

The memory orb screeched, smoke dripping from it like blood. Margo shook, and the room ignited.

Standing. Laying. Shuffling. Hooves echoing off hard stone. Pleading snorts. Kept.

A glimpse of the sky. Sun. Moon. Stars. Brethren. Yearning. Kept.

Sun. Moon. Stars. Cycle after cycle. Agony. Watchful eyes. Chains. Kept.

Explosions. Smoke. Suddenly outside. Green, so much green. Running. Always running.

The orb relented and pushed Margo away. She fell, panting. An emptiness echoed inside her. Whatever's memories those had been had been ones of loneliness. Confusion. Sorrow. She'd seen the room, the temple, through its eyes.

It hadn't been a place for reverence, but torture. A prison hidden in the dirt.

And if it had been the Dawn Stag, well--

"It didn't fall," she said, glancing at the sky through the stone ceiling. She couldn't imagine seeing something without ever experiencing it. "It ran. To escape--"

The room shimmered. And then, a crack fanned out in front of her, and the world was rent in half. Left in the gash, appeared a room, all darkness save for a flicker of torchlight in the corner. Margo's whiskers stood on edge at the rush of magick.

She tried to put distance between herself and the portal, but a bandaged claw shot out and closed around her collar before she could move. The creature's hold tightened, and lifted Margo off the ground. She hung helplessly in the stranger's grasp.

"You shouldn't have come." Yellowed fangs revealed themselves as the creature spoke. Margo realized, with horror, she was in the clutches of an Aelurian. Margo twisted, digging her nails into the creatures skin. It's grin widened. "Pain is all that survives here."

"What do you want?" Margo squeaked.

A hoarse chuckle rose from the Aelurian's throat. "What do I want..." It's eyes flickered green.

"Do you--" The room grew hazy. "Do you plan to kill me?"

The Aelurian shrugged. "Maybe." Margo braced. "Or," a purple tongue swept languidly across one of the Aelurian's fangs, "maybe I'll help you."

Margo blinked. The Aelurian expressed a desire to help, yet their claws cut into her throat. "Is that true?"

Playfulness flashed in the Aelurian's gaze. "Maybe."

It was a joke then. Part of the hunt. The Aelurian was lying and Margo would die here. But, the Aelurian had made it a point to appear before her, to talk with her, instead of snapping her neck, which they could easily do. Maybe they were telling the truth, or maybe they were too lazy to deliver the finishing blow.

The Aelurian cackled. "To tell you the truth, ratta scum, I don't know what I want." It's eyes narrowed. "But I know what you want. So, indulge me. Try to persuade me to your side. Maybe I'll decide to aid your cause. You'll need me, certainly." It snorted, and its whiskers shook. "Or maybe it'll be too much trouble and I'll make myself an enemy, determined to watch the Eridan burn."

The Aelurian's maniacal cackle filled Margo's ears as, with a thrust, she was forced backwards and through the portal.