That was Archmage Hamilton's final hope. With trembling hands, the white-bearded elder fastened his desperate plea to the legs of two birds—the last speckled carrier pigeon and a coal-black raven—then released them into the night. Whether they would complete their journey across Kulen Mountain to King Richard of Duviliel, he could not know. Perhaps they too would vanish over the peaks like all the others before them, launched with hope only to disappear into silence. The messengers soon disappeared into the darkness; even moonlight failed to illuminate their wings. The old man sighed deeply and closed the window.

  They soared along the same path, maintaining a measured distance between them. The speckled carrier pigeon, bred from the finest middle-distance stock, flew considerably faster than its bulkier raven companion. For years, it had faithfully carried messages to Duviliel. With Kulen Mountain forming an impassable barrier to human messengers and goblins alike, carrier pigeons remained the most reliable means of communication between the kingdoms. It knew intimately the roosts at both destinations and had committed the mountain crossing to memory. Given favorable conditions, this breed of carrier pigeon could reach Duviliel in a single flight without stopping to rest. Rigorously trained, these birds almost never failed their missions. What mystified it was why so many of its fellows had departed never to return. This puzzle troubled it, if only slightly.

  Within moments, the dark companion fell behind as the pigeon continued its ascent. It had never liked its companion. The raven was savage, too large for the coop, always forcing the bars of its cage apart with that hard beak. The pigeon felt a surge of satisfaction at outpacing it and, in a moment of exuberance, released a few soft coos.

  Those innocent sounds attracted a danger beyond its imagining.

  A chilling gaze locked onto it. A wave of panic fluttered through its small body; an overwhelming sense of peril descended upon it. It called out again in alarm.

  A shadow rose swiftly from the mountain's base. The pigeon spotted the threat and immediately veered off course. The shadow climbed relentlessly from below, merciless and determined, steadily closing the gap. The pigeon recognized a fearsome bird of prey, intent only on devouring it whole. The raven croaked twice in distress; it too had detected the unwelcome intruder.

  The pigeon drove itself to its maximum speed. Huge, sharp-eyed, the golden eagle seemed bleached by the moonlight, making it look paler, yes, but also more regal, more terrifying—a true tyrant of the night sky. Its hooked beak nearly grazed the pigeon's underbelly; in a straight race, the pigeon stood no chance. Both birds began executing complex aerial maneuvers—rolling, banking, and wheeling through the air. Yet no matter what evasive action the pigeon attempted, the eagle matched it with unerring precision. Desperate, the pigeon climbed higher, exploiting its only advantage. The raptor beat its magnificent wings once and surged upward in pursuit. The raven instinctively veered away, unwilling to draw near the eagle. It understood that its companion's fate was virtually sealed.

  Suddenly, the pigeon ceased its ascent and plummeted into a steep dive. The abrupt change in direction caught the eagle off guard for just a fraction of a second, allowing the prey—mere feathers' breadth from capture—to slip beyond its grasp. The raptor screamed in frustration and renewed its pursuit with redoubled determination. Its pride could not tolerate failure.

  Then its predatory calculus shifted. The other dark speck below flew higher but more slowly. While the pigeon might require extended effort to overtake, the somewhat plump raven could be seized in an instant.

  The eagle abandoned its original target and swooped toward the raven. The raven shrieked, beating its wings in a frenzy, trying to claw speed out of the empty air. Half a minute later, the pigeon heard that shriek rise to a final, piercing note of agony and despair, and then... silence. The pigeon maintained its frantic pace, not daring to relax. It harbored a grim hope that its unlikable companion would satiate the eagle's hunger.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  The raven's cries ceased. No sound of pursuing wings followed. The pigeon presumed the danger had passed; surely the raptor's appetite had been satisfied. But this night would grant no peaceful passage.

  A distinctive call echoed from the foothills, followed by the unmistakable sound of powerful wings ascending. Another hunter had joined the pursuit. A gyrfalcon—gray-brown in coloration, with expansive wings and eyes sharp as daggers—took up the chase. The pigeon uttered a small, plaintive cry as it once again fled for its life. Now it understood why so many pigeons never made it back to Cynthia. Anything hunted by such killers, swift and merciless, had almost no chance at all. It deployed every aerobatic maneuver in its repertoire against the lethal predator behind it. The pigeon realized, with grim certainty: its struggle had only begun.

  Elisa meticulously counted the day's earnings. She poured the copper coins onto the wooden table and tallied them repeatedly. For several days now, the money she received from selling wine had failed to match her calculations. Though a serving girl without formal education, her quick mind handled numbers with ease. Yet repeatedly, the physical count diverged from the figure she had calculated. She couldn't determine whether this discrepancy stemmed from her own carelessness—or if her arithmetic had begun to reflect her hopes rather than reality.

  "A few Glens short again?" Lucas the Great Poet, lyre slung across his back, materialized silently beside the girl.

  "Yes, it's been happening for days now," Elisa replied. She had grown accustomed to the poet's evening visits after the market closed.

  "Do you think someone's stealing?" Lucas rubbed his chin, already slightly rough from nicks.

  "If there's a thief about, it can only be you," the serving girl retorted, smiling as she swept the coins back into her pouch. "Who else skulks around my stall near closing time every single night?"

  The Great Poet straightened his posture, adopting a solemn expression. "My noble lady, I swear to you upon my—"

  "Enough, I'm only jesting," Elisa waved dismissively, suppressing a laugh. He always reacted this way. What a serious fellow, she thought. He seemed uncomfortable with oaths, stopping abruptly mid-sentence, his face tinged with a faint blush.

  "Sing something for me, Great Poet," Elisa demanded, hands planted on her hips. Though she had granted him permission to address her by name, "my lady" remained his invariable form of address. So she countered by consistently referring to him as "Great Poet."

  "Ah..." Something appeared to lodge in Lucas's throat, impeding both his breath and speech.

  "Come now, poet," she grinned mischievously. "If the sheriff passes by and discovers our stall still standing, we'll face a fine."

  The mention of the sheriff accomplished what nothing else could, forcing him to swallow whatever had caught in his throat. "W-what would you like to hear, my lady?" he asked, his blush deepening as he reached back for his lyre.

  "What pieces do you know?"

  His face reddened further. Elisa, perceiving his thoughts, decided to tease him. "You'll play whatever I request, won't you?" His pride prevented him from refusing.

  "Then perform The Feast of Dragons for me," she said with a smile. "I once heard it with my mistress—it was exquisite."

  The poet's body tensed visibly. Though he had anticipated she would present him with a challenge, he hadn't expected this magnitude of difficulty. The Feast of Dragons was ancient, impossibly old—a song born in the Fourth Era, before humans even walked the earth, when an elven poet took one chapter from the epic The Eternal War and set it to music. Its technical demands were formidable. During the Ptolemaick Dynasty, one particularly intricate passage of rapid, repeated plucking served as the definitive measure of a musician's skill: mastery of it confirmed true artistry.

  Elisa observed him closely, concealing her amusement. Lucas positioned his seven-stringed lyre against his chest, forgetting even to tune it first. The serving girl intended to intervene at the crucial moment to spare him embarrassment. Her request had been impulsive, not malicious. As the boy positioned his fingers on the strings, she prepared to speak.

  "Well, well." A man's deep voice cut through the twilight quiet. "Look what we have here." A sheriff stepped up to Elisa's stall, two spearmen flanking him like shadows. "You both know the regulations," stated the man, tall and well-groomed, with a meticulously trimmed beard and hair. "Hand over your money."