I walked into the Green Mother’s belly

  looking for forgiveness, cleaning my sins,

  but found only poison on pretty skins.

  Where could I go, where could I flee,

  to wash my bads, my worngs, my evils,

  my bleed?

  —Berdorf, E. Poems of a Wingless Princess. Unpublished manuscript, Summer.

  The Green Mother’s temple rose on the western side of Balma-Saat Lake, where the path breath always carried a hint of jasmine and rot. The Priestesses drifted half-clothed through Pollux Palace like wandering spirits. Still, their true rites rooted themselves here, behind walls that remembered every whispered sacrifice.

  The temple itself looked torn between lifetimes, strips of moss-eaten marble stitched together with slabs of fresh white stone. Shadows pooled in the fractures, light clung to the new carvings, and the whole structure stood like something caught mid-rebirth: neither ruined nor restored, but forever becoming.

  Eura had never managed to understand what the Green Mother truly was. Believers, like her Father, talked about a Mother who washed sins from the wicked with nothing more than a kiss, an embrace. Merciful gestures carry the weight of absolution. But none of it ever settled into sense.

  She wandered through the temple gardens, past vines breathing their sweet decay, until the entrance opened before her. There, women posed like living statues, bodies draped in nothing but drifting veils. They moved with the slow grace of sleepwalkers, coaxing worshippers to their knees with a tilt of the head, a lifted hand.

  Devotees pressed forward, trembling, murmuring broken pleas Eura couldn’t decipher. Words choked by tears and the need to be forgiven.

  Eura caught her reflection in the polished veins of the marble. Her messy hair clung to her cheeks, and the shadows beneath her eyes looked hollow, grown from tiredness. She drifted forward until a priestess stepped into her path.

  “Child,” the woman murmured, tilting her head like someone listening to a distant breeze. “Why have you come?”

  The priestess was an elf of impossible beauty: white-gold hair cascading like poured light, skin gleaming beneath a sheen of waxy, translucent balm. Her tunic left little mystery, and around her throat lay a silver necklace spun in the pattern of a spider’s web.

  Eura’s voice cracked before the words even formed. “I… have sinned.”

  “Oh, child… why would you say such a thing?”

  The priestess bent toward her, the dip of her cleavage catching the lantern-light as she slid a finger beneath Eura’s chin. Her touch was warm, slick with the same waxy balm that glazed her skin. “How could innocence like yours ever sin?”

  “I… I almost—”

  But the words never finished. A hand yanked her backwards. The priestess stumbled aside with a hiss just as Hex dragged Eura to her feet.

  “Come.” His voice was low, urgent.

  He forced her to turn—to look—before pulling her away. And the sight rooted itself in her bones.

  An elf knelt at a priestess’s bare feet, tongue trailing reverently across her skin. Another worshipper lay rigid on the ground, back arching in violent spasms as white foam bubbled along his jaw. Around them, four bodies lay still with foam drying at the corners of their mouths like frost.

  Eura’s breath caught. “What… what are they doing?”

  “The gloss on their skin—it's venom,” Hex snapped. “Touch it, and you’re begging to die.”

  He yanked her forward again. “Are you trying to die?”

  Eura didn’t answer. The shadows cut across Hex’s round face in a way that made him look foreign—harder, almost dangerous. And the way he held her wrist seemed way stronger and older than the boy she knew.

  But she felt too hollow to flinch. Her feet barely followed; it was more that he dragged her, pulling her through the temple grounds and toward Balma-Saat as if momentum alone kept her upright.

  “Hex… stop,” she breathed. “What are you doing?”

  “You’re going inside the Ormsaat. Maybe that will teach you who you are.”

  His voice had lost its usual warmth, stripped down to something vile.

  “I don’t want to talk to Koimar.”

  Hex swung a glare at her. “You’re not going to talk to a fish! You are going to do what you were born to do!”

  They stopped at last on the stony edge of the lake. The sky hung low and bruised, and a cold breath rolled off the water, licking at Eura’s cheeks.

  “Let me go,” she whispered.

  “You need to act like a Dame.” Hex’s grip tightened. “Look at you.”

  “Look at—what?”

  Heat crawled beneath her skin, rising in a wave that made her vision prickle at the edges. Was it happening again?

  “You look like…”

  But he didn’t finish. Something in his face shifted. Some shadow that had clung to him all along was gone, leaving him suddenly, frighteningly empty.

  Eura barely had time to blink.

  Hex shoved her.

  Hard.

  The world dropped out beneath her feet. The lake swallowed her in one cold gulp. She expected to touch the bottom quickly, but she kept sinking—deeper, deeper—water pressing her ribs tight until her lungs burned and begged for air she couldn’t reach.

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  Something seized her, an arm, a force, she couldn’t tell, and lifted her out of the dark. Her back met cool stone and damp grass with surprising gentleness. Air tore its way into her chest as she coughed, water spilling from her lips in harsh, shuddering bursts until her lungs finally remembered how to breathe.

  Her vision swam. Shapes bled into each other. The sky and green leaves wavered like a bruise above her.

  Then a silhouette settled into focus.

  A man leaned over her. He was tall, a bit slender, water beading along golden dreadlocks threaded with pale diamond strands. He had diamond hair like hers on his roots.

  His eyes met hers. They carried the same undefinable colour, shifting, catching light in impossible ways as if they were two reflections of the same impossible thing.

  He smiled.

  Warmth spilt through her chest, quiet, as though she had known that smile long before she ever saw his face.

  “Easy now,” he murmured. “Think you might’ve swallowed a fish.”

  His voice was soft, like the way warm light is soft, the kind that settles into a person’s bones and convinces them they’re safe. The air tasted strongly of warm honey. It brightened around him, brightened her, in a way she hadn’t felt in… she couldn’t remember how long.

  Eura pushed herself upright, sitting at the lake’s edge. Warm water slid down her arms. The world around her felt wrong. It was too vivid, too quiet. But it felt like this place should be called home. She surveyed the treeline.

  “This isn’t Pollux,” she whispered.

  “No,” he said, rising smoothly from the water and settling beside her. Drops clung to him like tiny stars. “This is Faewood.”

  Eura’s fingers curled into the grass. “I thought I was dying.”

  He gave a soft huff of amusement. “We don’t want that, do we?”

  She brushed wet strands of hair from her face, studying the lake’s surface. It was dark, shimmering, too still. “This… isn’t just a lake, is it?”

  “Well,” he said, tilting his head, “it is a lake… but it’s more than that.”

  “An Ormsaat?” she breathed.

  His smile deepened. “An Ormsaat.”

  She let her gaze travel over him, head to toe, then back again. Something about him tugged at a memory, a warmth she shouldn’t have recognised, yet she did. And still, she knew she had never met him.

  Her eyes caught on the wings folded along his back like an ephemeral mantle, half light, half dream. He was a Menschen like her.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “Don’t you remember? I’m Yeso,” he said with a grin that felt impossibly easy. “And a little bird told me you’re Eura.”

  The playful lilt in his voice brushed lightly against her nerves, soft and teasing, and for reasons she couldn’t explain, she liked him immediately.

  “Who told you?”

  He tilted his head. “If I told you it was yourself, would you believe me?”

  Before she could answer, he rose to his feet. Water slid off him in glittering trails as he pointed north.

  “That way lies Moonbay’s Ormsaat,” he said. Then he shifted his arm westward. “Over there—Antares.”

  Another turn. “And that direction you already know: Balma-Saat.”

  He kept pointing—more and more places — as Yeso traced the map around them; something strange stirred in her body.

  The knowledge didn’t prick just in her thoughts, it rippled over her skin, humming down her legs and gathering in her toes, as if the Ormsaats themselves were teaching through her bones.

  She didn’t just understand them; she saw them. Felt them.

  Voices rose around her in overlapping echoes—stories, triumphs, tragedies. Faces flickered at the edges of her vision: lives lived, choices made, paths taken. In a breath, the world unfolded before her as if she were seeing it for the first time: all the secrets and the screams of the Map.

  “And in that direction,” Yeso said, lifting his arm, “you should be able to feel Whitestone.”

  “I don’t,” Eura replied quietly. “I felt so many places… but not Whitestone. I can't see it.”

  She stood, water dripping from her clothes, and pointed toward a different stretch of horizon. “But I do feel something from there. Just barely.”

  Yeso followed her finger, expression tightening. “There’s nothing that way,” he murmured. “Just open sea. Ormgrund is not that far away, a few days from the Meerio River”

  “I’m following the flow you showed me,” she said, suddenly unsure, as if she’d answered a question wrong. “But there is no Meerio River, only the Meerio shore.”

  He studied her for a moment, something like acceptance settling over him, resignation.

  “I believe you,” he said. “It just… suggests my end may be far worse for the world than I hoped.”

  He tried a smile. “But if you’re here, the world will manage. And you seem like a very kind young lady fit to be the next Sun who burns over land, sea and sky. The Commander of the people.”

  “Are you the Yeso who knows Jaja? His best friend?” Eura asked.

  Yeso’s brows lifted. “Jaer will be with you?” He nodded, almost to himself. “I asked him to watch over you. He’s one of the finest Magi I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. I know he will take care of you as he did for me.”

  “He’s like a father to me,” she said softly.

  “I can see why.”

  For a moment, his gaze drifted upward, caught somewhere in the bruised sky, lost in a memory she couldn’t see, a story she didn’t dare disturb. But there was one thing she needed answered.

  “Jaja told me,” she said, “that you were the Sun’s Master.”

  Yeso turned toward her. The smile he’d worn until now thinned, fading as though he knew exactly where her question would lead.

  “A curse dressed up as a blessing,” he said. “You can coax life from the soil, change the weather, warm anyone frozen by cold…”

  His eyes darkened, shadows pooling in their shifting colour. “Or you can burn everything to ash in a heartbeat.”

  “How do you control it?” she asked. “I don’t want to destroy the world. I almost did.”

  Yeso let out a slow breath. “I’m still figuring it out,” he admitted. “I try to look at the world and its creatures… that everyone, no exception, was born innocent. Even Xendrix.”

  His expression tightened for a moment, as if battling a memory. “It’s not easy, and it will never be. There are days it would be much simpler to just… let it out.”

  “I’m on my period,” she blurted.

  “Oh. That is a hassle,” he said, turning his full attention to her. “How are you feeling right now?”

  “Like everything hurts,” Eura said. “Like my skin doesn’t fit me anymore. I want to cry, and I’m angry at everything for no reason.”

  Yeso’s mouth twitched, almost a smirk, warm but worn. “I feel like that plenty of times,” he said. “And I don’t even have an excuse.”

  “How do I keep from destroying the world?”

  “You have to accept,” Yeso said.

  “Accept what?”

  “Yourself.” His voice softened, but it carried weight. “Love yourself. Be proud of who you are, and prouder of who you’ll become. Those who truly know themselves… they see the truth of the whole world and maybe even the universe.”

  Eura frowned. “That doesn’t help much.”

  Yeso’s focus slid past her, his expression changing, “Eura,” he murmured. “Where are your wings?”

  “What?”

  

  I cannot recall whether I have previously addressed the Cult of the Green Mother to you. I refer to it as a cult, though approximately three-fifths of the Map’s population categorise it as a religion, funny, I know. In the Summer of 532, it had spread well beyond the borders of Sorgenstein, and its current form bears little resemblance to its original intent. Central to its modern practice is the custom by which priestesses coat their skin with a glycerine-based venom. Through progressive exposure during their training, they develop full immunity. This is not the case for the general population. According to doctrine, “sin” is not defined by past actions, but by the potential for future misconduct. The mere inclination toward wrongdoing constitutes the transgression. Conceptually, this doctrine is not without merit—evaluating the moral trajectory of an individual rather than their history has philosophical coherence. The issue lies in its implementation. A sin that hasn't happened yet. Priestesses wear translucent ceremonial robes and, as is plainly evident from available records, there exists a selective preference for aesthetically appealing candidates. Never saw an ugly one. Among devoted followers, even the thought of physical contact with a priestess is sufficient to trigger the very “sinful” impulse the cult warns against—an impulse that, when acted upon, results in near-instantaneous poisoning and death. Most fatalities attributed to Green Mother Venom involve men, though the pattern spans multiple species. Daily news, on TV, radio, worldwide web, documents these deaths; their visibility renders concealment impossible. Despite this, the faith continues to expand. Interestingly, faerie interpretations of the Green Mother differ significantly from the mainstream religion. Among faerie, the Green Mother is understood as an entity who removed her own skin to create plants, flowers, and the faerie race itself—a violent yet sacrificial act rooted in creation rather than punishment. This contrasts with the modern creature of the Map portrayal, which has drifted toward spectacle and moral control. It is difficult to imagine that our Princess was raised at the epicentre of such idiocy.

  —The Hexe – Book Three by Professor Edgar O. Duvencrune, First Edition, 555th Summer.