Fymryn knelt in front of the statue of Mene sculpted in her archetypal pose: right hand to her chest, left hand holding back her dress, and left leg forward. It was exactly like the little wooden figure she'd left behind in her home in Coedwig only larger and grander. Mene: a familiar face in this unfamiliar tower; but like the tower, she was looming and cold.

She'd come here to pray, but as she knelt, she could not find the words to give form to the feelings that haunted her. This tower was so empty and yet full—full of loss and sadness: her own and the Invoker's. The loss of a daughter. A lump rose in her throat just thinking about the girl whose tragic death touched her just like her own family. To Mene's light the child had prayed night after night, just like her, but she had perished because she refused to worship her mother. Either way, she would have been forsaken. Selemene had refused, but Mene had been silent. Mene had not returned as prophesized despite the collective belief and worship of generations. She felt like that little girl now: forsaken, alone. No, that girl was brave, hopeful, unafraid. She would give anything to feel as she did. What was left of her own hope had curdled into desperation. That desperation strangled her words, making her voice shaky as she addressed her goddess at last.

"In the stories you would appear to the faithful. And I always wished—no—knew you would appear to me." A light from the sun, the fire from the wall sconces, or an unidentified source glowed off the statue, illuminating the face which was carved in an expression that made her appear remote. Beneath the stone was nothing. She was praying to nothing, no one. She was just talking to herself. She needed someone she could unburden herself to. Hot tears stung her eyes. "I risked it all, and the stories, they aren't even true." She clenched her hands in her lap. "Everything, everyone I love, gone for nothing, for no one." Memories flared: her family slaughtered, that pitiless white-haired woman, and the dark-haired princess of Selemene hunting her down with her bow and giant cat. Her voice rose in anger. "All I want now is to kill her. That woman, that human." Her own voice scared her, and she flinched, her voice shrinking. "I know it isn't what you want. I'm so alone." Tears spilled out with the last of her rage and her sorrow. "Mene, please give me a sign. Please." She crumbled forward, gripping herself tightly.

"Give me a sign."

Footsteps broke the spell of prayer. She looked up, but the sound came not from the stone colossus, but from the hall. The way sound echoed in the tower it could be hard to tell where it came from. She edged around the statue so she could observe without being seen. The man, the dragon knight, walked by slowly, but as he passed the room with its ribbed columns and curved, vaulted ceiling, he slowed and his gaze rose to the statue. Fymryn clasped her hands together in a flash of hope. It was nothing really, but it was something. He hadn't stopped, they hadn't spoke, and she only saw him for a moment, but she knew what this was. It was a sign—he was a sign. Praise Mene. She had answered and he was the answer somehow.

Cloaking herself with her magic, she followed him as he explored the rest of the castle. He didn't seem remarkable. What was it about him? Why did Mene send him to her? What was she supposed to do with him? From what she could see, he looked like an ordinary human man. He was tall and tan, very different from her people. In place of angular ears and features, he had round ears and a square jaw. But appearances aside, who was he? She didn't know anything about him, except that he showed up almost naked with a giant cat and two women, one of which was the woman who had pursued her for the lotuses. The Invoker had sent her away the minute she began to ask questions about his visitors. He said it wasn't simple. It never was with him.

The man stopped to admire something, walking like he was neither lost nor knew where he was going. Her chest tightened. Adara, Dyfed, Idwal. Not too long ago they had explored this seemingly abandoned mansion together. Walked these empty halls and roamed these passages. They had been mesmerized by the size and strangeness. In a short time, she had numbed to its wonders, even the huge library. The size was no longer spellbinding and mesmerizing, but lonely and empty. Nothing lived or breathed here but her and the Invoker, and now this man.

Davion stopped and listened, and she froze. Cochi, he couldn't see her, but he could still hear her.

"Hello?" He turned in a full circle, eyes searching slowly. After a moment he shrugged and continued. She followed him until he wandered into a room. Walking backwards, he almost collided with that woman. She froze. It was her. The woman from Selemene's temple. Even though she no longer wore the blue garb of a worshipper, she recognized her: her stern face, dark hair, the large cat. She gritted her teeth, seething. The dragon knight did not share her loathing. Upon seeing her, his face lit up and he hugged her briefly but firmly. Fymryn's hands balled into fists. She had almost forgotten he'd arrived with her. He knew her somehow. Mene's light, how could he help her if he was on the side of the Night Silver Woods? It didn't make sense. Nothing did anymore. Not since she'd come to this gods-forsaken tower. The stories had been wrong, she had been wrong, and now she had been wrong again. Invisible tears sprang to her eyes. Maybe he wasn't an answer. She'd been ready for him to be the answer.

"You look better," he said, relieved.

"You're wearing pants," the woman said in response to his greeting. Apparently, this was not an unnatural occurrence for him.

Despite her attempt at a joke, he looked serious, but before he could say more, the Invoker arrived. She made sure to keep out of his sight. She'd mastered shadow cloaking, but staying out of his intuitive awareness was trickier.

The woman thanked him and introduced herself, but in his curt and all-knowing way, he cut her off.

"I know who you are. I know why you've come, but do you?" Fymryn leaned forward. He was speaking cryptically, which seemed to be his nature. "You think you want to return the lotuses to Selemene."

"You know about the lotuses?"

"I told him everything." Davion explained.

He wouldn't have to. The Invoker knew everything. It was impossible to keep secrets from him.

You serve Selemene." The Invoker turned, hiding something. Perhaps it was his expression: a fleeting crack in the visage. A look of loathing. Fymryn understood his hatred for her. She'd let his daughter die. He hated her as she hated the woman who killed her family.

"She is my goddess."

He smirked ruefully and his already low voice dropped nearly to a whisper. "You haven't the faintest idea whom you serve, princess of the moon."

Then they all transported, except for Fymryn. Cochi. Where had they gone? Her mind spun with all he had said. He'd want to prove his statement. He sounded like he wanted to show her something. It was the same look and tone he'd had before giving her the book. There was only one place: the pools. She transported from room to room until she found them.

It was as she expected. Everyone looked on in shock as the pools revealed horrors: horrors committed by the army of the Night Silver Woods … by the woman who slaughtered her family. She had to look away.

"She helps people. This is madness," Mirana said, unbelieving.

"The brightest lights cast the darkest shadows," he said in way of an explanation.

She turned the anger that she should feel toward her goddess on the Invoker. "You, you're no sage. You're the devil of the moon. The Invoker."

Foolish woman, Fymryn clenched her teeth to keep from crying out.

The Invoker was unshaken by her comment, which was neither a denial nor a confession of her statement. "You know the story. The stories are fiction."

Fymryn gasped. He'd said the same thing to her when she'd found his tower, that stories were only stories. The meaning in his words was like the truth: cryptic and illusive. How did anyone know what was true here? Maybe this woman was like her, confused and lost in a narrative of lies. She shook her head. No, Mirana was a worshipper of an evil goddess. She'd tried to kill her for those lotuses. The pools didn't lie. Her army was destroying her people. She could not be trusted.

She watched the stoic way the Invoker responded with envy. A questionably long lifespan had given him patience and complete control over his emotions to deal with this—with her—without being a slave to them. She would not be able to stand there and tolerate the defense of that wicked usurper without cutting out her lying tongue with her chakrams. Not only was he unprovoked, he calmly explained that he wanted peace.

"Prove it." The dragon knight stepped forward. He'd been quiet, but it was his turn to challenge the Invoker.

Without hesitation. "I wlil return the lotuses to you on one condition. Take them to Selemene. Convince her to withdraw from the enclaves. Restore things to the way they used to be."

Fymryn gasped and her hands reached for her weapons. How could he do this? He'd tricked her again. Peace with Selemene. Returning the lotuses. Was he mad? Anyone who could possibly be on her side was helping this woman and her false goddess. Mene, save her. She could, no would kill her now. It was the only way to stop her, but as she took the first step toward her, he transported them away.

She searched every room for her. There were many rooms in the tower, far too many, but he was keeping them in guests' rooms. She stalked down the hall quietly with her weapons in hand. She heard voices, a man and a woman. The dragon knight was with her. Cochi.

"We don't always know who we really are. Maybe this guy isn't the devil your stories make him out to be."

His words stopped her. The first part resonated deeply. She had no idea who she was anymore. Who was Fymryn? A goddess? Just a freak?

"Maybe he really does just want to make everything how it was. Afraid of what happens if he can't."

She was surprised to hear him defend the Invoker. Hopefully, he was right. She needed to know she could trust him. She peaked into the room. They stood on the moon-lit balcony kissing. Her chest constricted like she was witnessing an unfaithful lover. He wasn't anything to her, so she knew it wasn't jealousy but a similar species. It hurt somehow seeing him with her, the woman who stood for everything that opposed her. Her hope fled her. She'd felt that he was something more than a dragon knight, more than a man. Something divine or at least god-sent. But he was here for that woman, not for her. He loved her, he was helping her, which meant he was in the way. They would both have to die. Maybe it wasn't a sign but a warning. She clenched her teeth, inhaled and leaped forward into a bright light and then darkness. She'd been transported.

"Not even a girl can violate the shopkeeper rules."

The Invoker. Her eyes stung with angry tears. She didn't know whether to believe him as he defended himself.

"All she wants is what you want. What I have wanted for a thousand years. What's been lost."

More lies.

"What about the lotuses?"

"You'll just have to trust me."

"Trust you. You're giving them back after everything!"

With a simple lift of his hand, a flower floated toward her. He called them Filomenas after his daughter. He blew it softly like a gentle kiss and it dissolved into the air floating away like fading memories.

"Doubt anything you like," his voice strangely sad and unguarded. "But do not doubt my love for her. Do not think I will ever forget."

Desperation and doubt warred in her chest. She needed someone to trust, a hand to pull her from the shadows before she drowned. His hand had lifted her from the forest floor to his tower, saving her from that woman. If she could not trust him then she could trust no one.

Fymryn watched from the shadows at the top of the stairs as they shook on their bargain.

"The coedwig will accompany you as your guide. Fymryn." He introduced her as she came down the steps.

"Fymryn," Mirana replied flatly.

Fymryn's tone matched hers as she replied. "Coedwig is dangerous for outsiders. I'll make sure you get there."

"A peaceful resolution." The Invoker grinned.

"So you say." Mirana quipped.

"So I hope."

They vanished with an effortless wave of his hand. Before she could speak or protest, he took Fymryn's hand and placed something in her palm, folding her fingers around it. A coin. The one he'd given her when he first sent her from the tower. The one with the face of her goddess.

"When you've finished return the dragon knight to me." He instructed, "I'm never far."

That last part felt both reassuring and like a warning. He offered no further explanation. What did he want with the dragon knight? And why was he helping Mirana? Or was he tricking Mirana to get back at Selemene? But how did returning the lotuses benefit his cause? And what if he was tricking her. She thought of the flower and his daughter. "Don't doubt my love for her." She narrowed her eyes at the coin. It didn't matter what the Invoker wanted, she decided with resolve. All that mattered was what Mene wanted. What did Mene want with the Dragon Knight? She swallowed against her rising hope. Maybe he was still the sign she'd asked for: the answer to a prayer.

He was suddenly standing in front of her, grinning. In a blink without her realizing it, the invoker had transported her. She was now outside the tower with the rest of her party. She glanced at the coin one more time at the face of her goddess before clenching it in her fist, holding on to it with all her might as though it were sand and it would slip between her fingers. As if it held all her hope and if it fell out of her hand it took everything with it. So far everything all her plans had failed. She could not fail again. All her hope rested with the invoker and with this man, this Davion Dragon Knight.