Her heart beat faster and her breathing became shallow.

The jute bag with red rope looked exactly like the one the eagle dropped on her lap that day. The jute bag that was filled with ripe berries.

Could it be? The eagle has snatched the berries from this gardener and dropped it on my lap?

Charlotte took a deep breath. It was possible indeed. But how? Why?

She tilted her head in confusion and curiosity as her hand touched the jute bag. She had to ask who the gardener was to Sylve. That sure was not a confidential information that should be withheld from her now, was it?

The least she could do was to apologize to the gardener that she had eaten all the berries, and to compliment the gardener on the delicious berries which must have taken a lot of work to grow and take care.

She let her eyes roam the room again, and when she saw the row of sword and arrows and bow on one side of the wall, she shook her head in disbelief.

The bow and arrows. The bow was made of wood, dark brown-blackish wood, and the arrows had dark red feather on their nock. She had seen them before.

She remembered them from that day when Sylve, her followers, and Arran came to help them against Nerra, the day when immora melted into her and Arran held her.

Arran's bow and arrows.

She stood for some time, her breath got faster as it dawned upon her. It was Arran. This cottage was Arran's place, and could very well be he was the gardener too. Otherwise why would he put his precious possession, his weapons, in some random gardener's cottage?

Arran. But where are you? Her fingers pressed the sun pendant of the necklace, felt its gentle warmth transferred into her body. Do you need this necklace? I believe this necklace has some magical qualities. It floated! It glowed! No regular necklace can do those. Are you in trouble because you married me, you let me have what was yours, what you yourself actually need? Her mind was busy with guesses and questions.

A wave of worry engulfed her. She had to find out what had happened to Arran after he married her.

She turned around, back to the door, and out she was in the garden again, rushed to go see Sylve. She would be more assertive. She would not take no answer as an answer.

She was halfway back to the castle when she heard something from above her. A whooshing sound just like ...

She looked up and startled.

An eagle swooped down and landed gracefully in front of her. It was a golden eagle, and strange thing was, it had a tuft of reddish feather right on top of its head.

It stood in front of Charlotte, and Charlotte found her words again. "You ... are you the same eagle that dropped the bag with berries in it for me?"

The eagle was calm and its eyes focused straight on her. Charlotte realized it was most likely the same eagle that had dropped the berries for her.

"If you are indeed the one who dropped the berries for me, thank you. I still have questions about that, but now I need to go see Sylve. Can you please move aside a bit? Please. I need to find out where Arran is. Arran, my husband," she spoke as polite as she could to the eagle. It did feel strange to her to hear Arran, my husband just stumbled out of her mouth. Just like that.

The eagle understood and took flight, a low flight above her head, and Charlotte kept watching the regal animal.

Charlotte shrieked when the eagle flew low enough to grab the tip of her sleeve with its strong beak, and began to pull her to follow its flight.

It was surprising to her, but Charlotte also saw how gentle the bird was toward her, and it dawned upon her.

"You know where Arran is, don't you?" she asked.

The eagle pulled her sleeve as it flew low and Charlotte let it. "Let me go, my friend. I will follow you," she said.

The eagle let go of her sleeve.

Charlotte walked behind the eagle which flew low a few meters ahead of her. This was an amazing experience for her, an animal so perceptive, so helpful, and most likely it knew where Arran was.

The eagle led her through a pathway across the vegetables and fruit sections of the garden, to the forested area of the garden where massive trees grew—oak, mahogany, beech, birch. They kept going across the forest, but right before they got to the scarlet fence at the end of the forest, the eagle made a sharp turn left to a small, almost invisible pathway. The pathway was in between two rows of ancient, massive beech trees, so ancient that the branches of the trees from the left and right had grown into one another's space, like they were hugging one another in a messy, haphazard embrace, forming a kind of a natural arched ceiling on top of the pathway.

The sunlight had more difficulty penetrating the forested area here so it was dim in the archway, so Charlotte slowed her steps while making sure she followed the eagle which still flew low.

Then she saw sunlight again at the end of the pathway, not a lot but more than what she had here below the arched trees.

The eagle flew higher and Charlotte kept walking.

There, at the end of the pathway, was an elevated stone pavement, on the pavement was two stone pillars about ten meters high each.

Arran was chained in between the pillars. A metal chain chained his right wrist to the right pillar, his left to the left pillar.

He was shirtless, he wore simple black pants, his dark hair fell all over his face, and his eyes were closed. There were tattoos, black tattoos of some strange characters on his chest, and the jagged line tattoo on his left temple to his left jaw continued to his neck and shoulder.

"Arran!" Charlotte screamed in shock.

Arran opened his eyes and shook his head when he saw Charlotte. "Do not come closer! What are you doing here? How do you know?"

"An eagle flew in front of me, showing me the way. Wh-what is going on ... Arran!" she ran closer.

"Charlotte! No! Do not come closer!"

Too late. There was an invisible wall that surrounded the stone pavement where Arran was. Charlotte felt like her body hit a wall of thick air, and she got thrown back.

"Charlotte!" Arran called to her.

Charlotte fell backwards, landed on her back, and groaned in surprise. Arran's voice brought her back and she stood up fast.

"What-what is that? What is going on? Arran?" Charlotte walked closer in more careful steps, and stopped right at the border of the stone pavement. Arran was chained maybe about 3-4 meters from her, and she could see he looked pale and sick."Arran, tell me. Why did they chain you? What is going on? I need to know."

"Charlotte, I-I ..." Arran's gaze suddenly was focused on something behind her, and Charlotte turned around to look behind her.

Sylve appeared like she just materialized out of a wisp of mist. The old sorceress looked intense, her stare was icy cold at Charlotte, then Sylve spoke without taking her gaze off Charlotte.

"Arran is the son of Rogh."

That one sentence came out of Sylve's mouth with such clarity, such certainty that sent Charlotte into complete blankness in her mind. She clawed back her memories, and she remembered what Arran told her about Rogh. The demon that lived in the abyss below the enchanted castle.

"Rogh ..." she trembled.

"Yes. The demon. I am sure you have heard about it from Arran, haven't you?" Sylve took a deep breath."What you have not heard is that the demon is the father of Arran. Now you know why I have to chain him."

Charlotte turned to see Arran, and he hung his head low in a clear shame.

Then Charlotte turned to Sylve again. She shook her head in front of the sorceress. "He is not evil. Rogh is, but not Arran."

"The necklace protected him. But now the necklace is no more on him."

"Tell me all, Sylve. How come his father is the demon?" she asked, and as she dug deeper into her memory, she remembered the conversation she heard that night when Arran married her. The necklace that she wore now was made by Arran's mother, and Arran's mother was the daughter of Sylve, her name was Evinia. That meant Sylve was Arran's grandmother, and they were all related to Rogh.

Her head hurt so much now.

"I will tell you all, Charlotte. Who your husband truly is. There are forces that help you find him here even when he is chained and hidden. It must mean that you are strong enough to handle the truth about Arran."

Charlotte gritted her teeth. "Tell me. I need to know." She turned around, and saw Arran stare at her with such sorrow and resignation. For reason she was not sure why, she nodded at Arran. Not a gentle, fleeting, unsure nod, but a solid nod. A nod of I can handle the truth. Trust me.

Sylve looked up to the beautiful spring sky, and started to tell the happenings hundreds of years ago ...

<<<>>>

Sylve came from a lineage of powerful wizards and sorceress family, generations upon generations of a family that only had one task to which they had sworn a blood oath long ago to do: The protection of human beings from the demon Rogh who ruled in the abyss underneath the earth.

The enchanted, invisible castle was built on top of a chasm, a chasm which served as an entrance to the abyss. The powerful family and their followers lived in the castle, they were the Order of the Guardians of the Abyss.

The bitter feud between the Order and Rogh had gone on for millennias. It was told from words of mouth from generation to generation that this feud began when a handsome and powerful wizard, long ago, befriended a young human woman, which turned out to be the love interest of Rogh. At that time, Rogh was just a young demon, alone in the darkness of his hell, questioning if there were other ways for him to live his eternity other than be a demon in such a dark abyss. Rogh fell head over heels with the young woman, and promised himself that he wanted to try to be good for her.

But the beautiful young woman rejected Rogh because she had fallen in love with the wizard. The young woman and the wizard got married and had a happy life with many children. Rogh was furious and he raged for years and years. The rage, the jealousy, the bitterness turned him evil for good. He grew to hate human beings so much he wanted to destroy them all. So he lived on, drowning in his hatred and pure rage. The wizard, realizing the danger that his marriage to the woman had unleashed on human beings, founded the Order of the Guardians of the Abyss. Thus the feud began.

Once in a while Rogh became powerful enough to push himself away from the abyss and went up to the surface of the earth to challenge the members of the Order. He wanted to take charge of the castle so he could destroy it and open up the chasm completely so his demonic followers could all crawl up to earth and feast on human flesh—establishing his dominion on the beautiful earth, and not just in the hellish abyss below it.

The Order always fought him hard and he always lost.

Until one day, hundreds of years ago, when Sylve was the leader of the Order accompanied by Gearan her husband, Rogh came up with such a brilliant plan to conquer the Order. A plan so brilliant he wondered how stupid he was that he had never thought of that earlier. A plan so brutal, so callous, yet so quiet that Sylve did not see that coming.

So his plan went like this ...