The high-pitched cry of gulls, the chirping of smaller birds, and Liryl's scream of terror greeted the first sunrays of the morning. Stunned and dripping with sweat, she looked around in panic. Almost as if she was not yet sure that she had awoken. Not far from her came an amused laugh.
"Good morning," Sanya greeted her. "Have you slept well?"
"... Very funny ..." mumbled Liryl as she slipped out of her bed. Her tired eyes peered beyond the curtains and squinted, as the light coming from outside was still too bright for them.
"Is it time already?"
"More or less," her friend replied, as she put all her things in a bag. "By the way, this is for you," she added, tossing into Liryl's hands a satchel with the cocoa beans they usually had for breakfast.
"Thanks," she murmured to her friend, but her voice died on her lips out of astonishment. Instead of the light clothes she used to wear every day, Sanya donned a cuirass of cured leather, complete with shoulder pads and leg guards. Plus, she had buckled to her belt a scabbard, from which was sticking out the polished wooden hilt of a short sword.
"W-what are you wearing?" Liryl babbled, unable to hide her surprise.
"What? Ah," her friend exclaimed, almost nonchalantly. "This is my sentinel's outfit."
"You're not a sentinel yet," noted Liryl.
While she prepared to become a priestess of water, Sanya had been training for years, together with the other sisters, in order to join the sentinels. Just like priestesses were in charge of leading and supporting their communities, sentinels lived to protect them from any danger. But, as Sanya told Liryl herself, her investiture was still several months away.
"And, to be fair," Liryl added, "that is not a sentinel's outfit – it's just your training gear!"
"True, but the sword is the real deal. Check this out!" Sanya said, drawing it before her shocked friend.
"Fine, fine!" replied Liryl, who did not share her friend's enthusiasm for slashing weapons. "But why have you dressed up like this?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Sanya asked in return. "Since we're to leave, I want to be ready to protect you to the best of my ability. After all, isn't it also the duty of a sentinel to protect her priestess?"
Liryl was left speechless for a moment. She, too, knew that sentinels must protect priestesses of water, especially when the latter's obligations exposed them to risks. And yet, the idea of her friend as her devoted sentinel struck her as extremely awkward.
"I'm not yet a priestess, though," she then noted with an embarrassed smile.
Sanya pouted, clearly frustrated by her remarks.
"And I don't care. Neither that you aren't a priestess, nor that I'm not a sentinel. I will always protect you ... with or without somebody's permission."
The girl pronounced those last words more in annoyance than anything else, but when she turned, Liryl suddenly hugged her from behind.
"What do you ...?" she protested in surprise, but her friend shut her up with a whisper.
"I love you, Sanya."
The stiffened arms of the future sentinel fell loose against her hips.
"I don't care about who you are, or who I am," Liryl continued. "All I need to know is that you're here with me."
"Silly," she said, turning around and hugging her friend back. "I wouldn't want to be anywhere else."
***
When the two girls arrived at the meeting place, the head priestess was already there, waiting for them.
"Welcome," Eris greeted them. "Have you slept well?"
"Quite," Liryl simply commented, glancing fiercely at her friend giggling behind her.
"Great. Come with me, then," replied Eris, inviting them to follow her.
"Yesterday, you told us you had something to show us, priestess, didn't you?" asked Liryl, looking around as they headed to the lake.
Eris nodded. "It's not like you can go to Fys Espyr on foot."
"How're we getting there, then?" asked Sanya, puzzled.
"With that," the priestess replied, pointing to the other side of the lake.
The two girls looked in that direction, but only once they came in the vicinity of the shore did Sanya utter, "It's a boat!"
Even if it was not particularly large, such a vessel was not a common sight around there. Nymphs rarely moved farther than a few miles from their villages, and on those rare occasions when they did, they commonly used small canoes. Ships of that kind, on the other hand, were intended for longer journeys, and they were reserved for priestesses when they visited other communities.
"A friend of mine left it to me years ago, when she came here to Fys Dhara for the last time," explained Eris. "But it's not like I had much use for it, so far. It will be much more helpful for the two of you."
"Thank you ..." the two girls murmured almost in unison, approaching the boat. Measuring roughly thirty feet, it had two pairs of rowing oars and, at its center, a dark wooden mast with a white canvas sail. Some bags were piled at the stern.
"What's in them?" Sanya asked, intrigued.
"Food and water for the journey," the priestess answered, glancing over the pile of supplies. "As for the smaller one, it holds a casing of nacre with a map of Espyria inside it. At least, you won't get lost too soon," she added with a smile.
Liryl smiled as well, but she was surprised by the awestruck face of her friend. "What's wrong, Sanya?"
"These maps are very rare," the other girl explained. "A sentinel who came from Fys Espyr last year, to talk with our commander, showed one to us. And told us that they are mostly employed by the priestesses and sentinels of Fys Espyr. Priestess Eris, do you really want to leave it to us?" she asked, then, looking at the head priestess. "We might even be away a long time ..."
However, Eris interrupted the girl.
"Don't worry. A map, no matter how prized it is, is just an item. What I care for is that you come back safe and sound. And as long as you have that map with you, I know you'll always be able to find your way back home."
The two girls were left speechless, moved by the priestess's words. "Thanks for everything, priestess," Liryl murmured, followed by Sanya right after.
Eris smiled affectionately. "Take care of yourselves, little ones."
***
"Ah, it was about time we got some wind coming," Sanya exclaimed, standing on the bow and breathing deeply. "I couldn't bear rowing with this heat, it's been all morning since ... Liryl, are you listening?"
She looked up with a blank face. "Sorry, I wasn't following."
Sanya shrugged with a sigh. "As usual ... What's so interesting that you're reading, anyway?"
"The map Eris gave us," Liryl replied, showing her friend the parchment scroll. "Where do you think we are now?"
"We should be here, more or less" said Sanya, pointing at a thin blue stripe on the map.
Liryl found her friend's answer puzzling. The river they were navigating apparently followed the line of the coast all the way to the south. Whereas the dot representing Fys Espyr lied in the middle of Espyria, to the east.
"Haven't we stretched the journey, taking this path instead of the most direct route?" she pointed out.
"In the heart of the forest, winds are weaker than close to the coast," Sanya explained. "We would've had to spend the whole journey rowing, and it would've taken us double the time. This way, instead, we'll be there in roughly five days, if all goes well."
"Actually, I don't think I'd have survived if I had spent the last days rowing," noted Liryl, smiling. "By the way, how do you know so much about this navigation stuff?"
"It's part of a sentinel's training." An almost embarrassed smile appeared on the other girl's face. "Even if a real boat is a whole other thing."
"I didn't expect anything less from my personal guard," Liryl teased her playfully.
"To say nothing of night watch duty," Sanya noted, letting out a yawn.
"Hey, I do those, too!" Liryl protested.
"Want to talk about when you woke me up in fear, and then it was just a deer?" Faced with the memory of that incident, Liryl turned silent out of shame and said no more.
Sanya flopped down, letting the small waves of the river cradle her. "More importantly, why don't we eat something?" she proposed. "We haven't eaten anything since this morning."
"Good idea," Liryl happily approved. "What do we have left?"
"There's some dried fruit, berries ... and I think some more cocoa," her friend reported as she rummaged through the bags.
"Will it be enough for the rest of the journey?"
"I think so. And just in case, we have a rod and a line to fish," Sanya reassured her. "Now let's eat without worrying about it." She gladly welcomed her friend's suggestion and lay next to her, tasting a morsel after another.
Flaps of sky showed up through the canopy every now and then. But Liryl's mind kept going back to that map and all those places, marked accurately on the parchment, which she had been unaware of until a few days ago. Tall mountains alongside the northern coast, from which were born the hundreds of rivers that crossed the land of Espyria. Dozens of villages, smaller and larger than her own, inhabited by novices who, perhaps, were going through her same anxieties and dreams. And another mountain range to the east – the Great Barrier – where even the map itself stopped.
While she was drifting in her fantasies, Liryl saw a colorful parrot flying over their ship, just above their heads. The girl almost smiled as she noticed how narrowly the bird dodged the large sail, inflated by the wind. However, other birds were hurtling through the sky, following the same direction. Liryl witnessed the scene with curiosity. And concern.
"Sanya, there's something wrong."
"I know, it's barely past midday and I'm already half asleep," the other girl replied, yawning.
Liryl jumped up, annoyed by her friend's ironic tone. "I'm serious! Don't you feel the wind?"
Sanya stretched before standing up as well. "Yes ... but isn't it better this way? If the wind is in our sails all day, we could even reach Fys Espyr a day early."
Liryl looked up to the sky, or at least that little bit of sky she could glimpse through the canopy. "Wouldn't it be better to check it out?"
Guessing what her friend had in mind, Sanya sighed. "I wonder why I always get the most thankless jobs ... come on, help me moor the ship."
After they let the sail down, the two girls picked up the oars and moved the boat close to the shore, tying a sturdy jute rope to the nearest log. Then, Sanya jumped ashore and, once she spotted a tall enough tree, she started climbing it nimbly. Liryl watched from below until her friend's shape vanished amid the green of the thick foliage.
Seconds passed, as she waited silently. Then, Sanya finally reappeared, hastily jumping down from the last branch and nearly breaking her neck in the process. Liryl rushed towards her.
"Are you alright? Did you ..." but her friend cut her off abruptly.
"We have no time to waste, let's hurry," said Sanya, visibly alarmed. "Help me bring the ship ashore."
"Can you tell me what you've seen?" Liryl asked impatiently, as she helped her friend pull the ship to the shore.
"There's a storm heading our way," the other girl just said, nipping her protests in the bud.
Unfortunately, the ship was too heavy for the two girls alone, so they decided to hide it under one of the larger mangroves after having dismantled the mast.
"What do we do, then?" asked Liryl.
"We look for a shelter and wait it out," replied Sanya, looking around. "There has to be a fitting place nearby"
The best they could find was a cavity amid the roots of one of the oldest trees – barely enough to accommodate the two of them. The girls holed up inside and huddled together, both praying they still could find what was left of the supplies along with the ship, once the storm had passed. Then, they drifted off to sleep together, to the sound of the first raindrops.
***
The sudden roar of thunder startled Liryl awake. She looked around in fear, still on the edge between dream and reality, but it was so dark that even her sensitive eyes could barely make out the outlines of the nearest things. Next to her, Sanya was still fast asleep, while strong winds were howling menacingly from the depths of the forest.
Liryl tried falling asleep again, but her hunger pangs soon began to kick in. The girl tried to ignore them for a while, in vain. Slipping away from her friend's embrace, she got out of the cavity in the tree and looked around, trying to figure out which way the ship was. At first, her senses were still clouded by her sudden awakening, but they revitalized under the pouring rain.
The damp and muddy soil slowed down Liryl's pace, but thankfully the boat was not far. Even if the river had swollen, the ship was still where she had left it, stuck in the roots of the mangrove. The girl worked her way through the tangled branches until she reached the bag of supplies, drawing out of it a pouch full of cocoa beans. Tired and hungry, Liryl immediately swallowed a handful, reveling silently in the feeling of her interiors twisting and gurgling as the food filled her stomach.
Now that her hunger had been momentarily satiated, the girl decided she would better go back to her friend – the darkness of that starless night was starting to make her anxious. However, all of a sudden, her foot tripped on the root of a tree which was sticking out of the ground, causing the girl to fall on the muddy soil. Liryl swore in silence and, shrugging off the mud as best as she could, she tried to get back on her feet.
A lightning bolt abruptly shone in the sky, exposing everything in a livid and blinding flash. The ground, the leaves, the trees, the nymph.
And a strange, bipedal, reptilian creature, which was towering over her as his curved blade, shining in the sudden white blur, was swinging down on her.
The deafening roar of a thunder and Liryl's terrified scream broke the silence of the night.