“Inebriated? Well, not me. I only drink a little when someone sets out on their Pilgrimage. Out of courtesy. I don’t feel any need to get drunk in the evenings, even if I can heal my body from it relatively quickly…”

  She took another sip and felt the liquid slowly slide down her throat, burning slightly as it went.

  “What, and then everyone drinks? Even the Abbot?” Rad laughed.

  “Yes, especially him. He enjoys the farewells. I think he mostly does it to distract himself from someone leaving, but who knows? He doesn’t talk to me about things like that, of course. But he is bound to this place, so it probably does affect him?”

  “Yeah, that’s what people say, at least in the village. But it’s really true? Is he merged with these hills and buildings?” Rad asked, his face incredulous.

  “It is. His Lucidity is around us, even now. He’s connected to everything here. I mean, he didn’t observe what just happened between us. He’s not everywhere at once, and I wrapped us in my own Lucidity. If that is what you worry about. For him, it was just one of my usual dances…”

  She tilted her head awkwardly, and Rad blushed. He quickly tried to change the subject. “That’s crazy! But, well, this whole Lucidity thing is crazy. And yours is so exceptional! Don’t you think?”

  “In a way, yes…,” Demoa said, now feeling heat rise to her cheeks as well.

  “You really are something special. Thank you for letting me share this moment with you…,” Rad whispered, pulling her close.

  There was still nothing she could truly feel within herself, but… wasn’t there warmth now, just a little? Somewhere deep inside?

  “To us!” Rad called, raising his cup to her again.

  “Yes, thank you!” Demoa said, taking another delicious sip.

  Once again she felt a distant warmth inside herself. She couldn’t clearly identify Rad within it yet, it was still too indistinct, but she smiled involuntarily. Her gaze fell into the liquid shimmering silver in the cup. She saw her reflection and, for the first time, noticed how pretty she was. She had never thought about it before.

  It had only always been clear to her that the others around her were beautiful. Ray with her golden hair and her perfect face, which now looked a little more mature since she had begun engaging more deeply with her Light. Stirleo’s youthful appearance, and even Eri, who seemed older but was by no means unattractive, instead radiating an appealing wisdom of age. They were all so attractive...

  Just as attractive as she was.

  Demoa suddenly felt drawn not only to Rad, but to all the others as well, all her friends and acquaintances. It was as if she were becoming more complete, and the warmth in her thoughts now grew stronger. She had to grasp it, had to find Rad within that heat.

  Almost there!

  She dug through her thoughts, searched the warmth for a glimmer that showed his presence, his love, especially now that they had shared a bed. He was so perfect, so handsome, and so…

  Then she sensed him faintly within the warmth, and she noticed tears running down her cheeks.

  Demoa couldn’t suppress a sob and began to laugh uncontrollably.

  There he was, warm, growing warmer.

  Amid the meadow of flowers in her Inner World that had already brought so many moments of happiness in her thoughts, there she felt him. She stepped closer, searching. People were dancing there, dancing in a circle around a fire. Usually it was purple or red, radiant crimson, inspiring, but now there was something else.

  Rad.

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  She moved nearer in her mind.

  When immeasurable pain sliced into her soul, Demoa didn’t even have time to realize what was happening before she felt herself slam onto the floor of the blossom house.

  Dimly, she noticed the color draining from the walls as everything around her began to wither. Beside Rad, who had already dressed again and now stood not far from her, looking down at her with emotionless eyes, her inner meadow kept forcing itself back into her awareness. There, at the center of the circle formed by the joyfully dancing people, a black flame shot upward.

  It was harsh and restless, biting, and smelled of sulfurous filth. The melody that had brought an almost otherworldly calm for so long in her soul began to be interrupted by shrill, horrific sounds, and her head threatened to burst from the noise. The flame flared brighter and brighter, beginning to devour the meadow and the land around it. The people fled, and the thoughts that had given Demoa comfort and happiness for so long transformed into a nightmarish scene of unrestrained horror.

  She tore herself free, trying to escape from within herself. The ground she lay on was now hard and covered with brown, withered blossoms that slowly scattered in ashen winds.

  And beside her Rad still stood, looking down at her.

  He still looked good, attractive, young, but the tenderness he had shown her for so many days had burned away just like the meadow in her thoughts.

  “It really works… I was truly afraid I wouldn’t be strong enough, or that you would be stronger, but when you allowed me to unite with you, I knew it would work. I knew I had you. When you came to the village, well, at first I planned to get close to that other bitch, but she must have sensed it somehow. Luckily you were still there. It was much easier. And I really got to you…”

  He began to laugh cheerfully, wrong, and Demoa tried to form words somehow while her thoughts were repeatedly dragged back into her Inner World to suffer in the pain of the burning meadows.

  “We…,” was all she managed before the searing hurt tore the fire out of her thoughts and spread beyond her Inner World and into her body as well.

  The agony nearly blinded her, everything blurring until she could only lie there screaming and convulsing on the hill beneath the tree, unable to produce even a single coherent sentence.

  “We?” Rad laughed even harder now.

  Demoa had the horrific feeling that she saw him for the first time since she met. How he truly was.

  “You thought I would feel you? That it was your shortcoming that we did not form a connection? Stupid bitch, do you really think I would have allowed that? I don’t want to be chained forever to someone like you, someone who blindly worships that corrosive Light…,” he hissed then, a grin on his lips.

  He turned away, and through a veil of raging pain Demoa saw Rad pick up the amphora lying on the ground close by and begin walking toward the pond nearby.

  She wanted to follow him, wanted to stop him. There was something in the wine, something Stirleo hadn’t noticed, but how? How had Rad smuggled it in? And who was he, really?

  If he pours the amphora into the lake, will Stirleo suffer the same fate as me? Will the Monastery…, the thought flashed through Demoa’s mind before fresh, searing agony flared through her thoughts.

  The pain now burned through her stomach and soon reached her heart and her throat. She wanted to scream, wanted to ask just one question…

  WHY?

  Rad looked back at her as he poured the liquid into the pond. She dimly perceived that his face was cold and unmoving. He didn’t even blink as she tried to claw at her burning throat. The Light inside her, the blooming field that had brought her calm and happiness… the place where there had been dance and music and home… it fell into pitch-black darkness, faded, and dissolved into rotting ash, burned away by the flowing flames that consumed everything.

  Pain shot through her limbs again, shaking her in uncontrollable convulsions. Once more she tried to speak, to make a sound, to call for help, to tell them about the water… But when she opened her mouth, only black, sticky liquid sprayed out, boiling hot and burning, driven from her lungs by a fit of coughing.

  Her happiness, her dream of love, shattered and tore her mind apart.

  As Demoa’s head sank to the ground and her last strength left her, all she could see was the grass before her and the little plainhoppers that had leapt away and hidden in the undergrowth beneath the nearby oak, panicked by the raging black flames now flaring around her. Those little creatures… they had been so gentle… so sweet… It had been such a joy to care for them, to look after them.

  As Demoa felt her consciousness slipping away, a bud of comfort appeared amid the blazing fires that flooded her mind. Some solace at last.

  I… I thought I wanted to love him. And I did. But I also wanted… I wanted to be loved myself… But caring for you, little ones, that was already such a wonderful thing. I loved it more than cultivating or studying, more than losing myself in the intrigues and troubles of this world… So even if I didn’t find my love, maybe I’ll find it in the next life. Maybe there will be someone for me who doesn’t abuse me and doesn’t exploit my trust. Some one true. And maybe I can nurture something with that person, something small and truly wonderful… Yes, wouldn’t that be beautiful… to go into a life where I’m with someone, caring for something precious…

  As the Dream dissolved into shapes and swirling patterns, wavering and soothing, she was glad that hope still remained. The hope for love, and the hope of caring for something again… And maybe… one day she would return. Maybe she would see the plainhoppers again…

  Then her memories faded, and the void came as she woke from the Dream.