The countryside sang the green of springtime to life.Birds chirped, grass shone, and the air glistened as the sky poured its azure sea over me while I wandered through Redback Ridge.The day was warm enough, but the coolness of the morning still lingered in the breeze as I followed the worn footpath towards the village I could just make out, nestled in the valley below.

  I thought about what had brought me here, the years of wandering since I had left home after that fight with my parents.I thought about them every day, longed for them even as I knew I might never see them again.I wondered what had become of them and whether they ever thought of me as often as I thought of them.

  The little scenic village shone up at me with its thatched roofs and timber beams stitched into the walls, keeping the structures firm against time.But my eyes caught something else, a scattering of tombs and gravestones on the hill above, silent markers of the dead.

  I sighed, wiping a sleeve across my freckled forehead as the warm air cooled against my skin.Home was a long way behind me now, if it even waited for me at all.Ahead, between tufts of grass and proud chestnut trees, the first stone markers caught my eye.I slowed, my pace faltering as the weight of silence replaced the song of birds.

  I stopped at the first tombstone and read aloud:

  “Here lies Gweneviere, wife of Tomert, mother of nine beautiful children. She was taken too early by God’s plague.”

  The stone was freshly carved, the lettering still sharp.Plague had torn through this village not long ago.

  I moved to the next, crouching low to see better:

  “Here lies Tomert, widower of Gweneviere, father to nine beautiful children. He left them during their darkest hour.”

  Deep words, I thought.The tombstones were plain and poor, a family that had little left to leave behind but grief.

  But it was the next one that truly caught my eye.A four-walled, above-ground tomb, grander than the rest.I brushed at the stone and squinted at the inscription:

  “Here lies the sky, the wind, the four seasons, and the key to eternal joy.”

  Strange.It looked as if the tombstone had been edited, a name scrubbed out and chiseled crudely away.

  I turned to leave, but my foot caught on a loose stone hidden in the grass.I stumbled, knelt, and brushed the earth aside, revealing a battered marker beneath the moss.

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  The words were barely legible, but I made them out:

  “Here lies… Mari Hollow... beloved daughter…”

  I frowned.The carving was shallow and rushed, and the stone itself did not match the others.It was newer, cheaper, and hurried.

  I glanced up and froze.The grave itself yawned open, the earth sagging inward as if something below had shifted or escaped.

  I wobbled and almost fell in. It was like a mirage, an illusion.The hole seemed to open up and the ground rise to meet me all at once.I swayed, frantic, then lifted a foot and planted it firmly on solid ground.Thankfully, it held, and I stood panting beside the grave.It was not empty at all, but mounded, as if recently disturbed.I realised it must have just been an optical illusion after all.

  I approached the town and saw two guard towers and the iron-reinforced wooden gates spring into view.A guard called down to me:

  "Ahoy, who goes there, weary traveller?"

  "It is nobody, just a wandering wastrel named Lucian, here to see God's country."

  "You don't look like you have the coin of a travelling merchant."

  "I have poem and song, know right from wrong, fire from water, Earth from sky," I quipped.

  "Ahh, you’re a bard, did you study at the bard’s college then?"

  "A little," I said, not revealing I was only a servant there for two summers, unable to afford the tuition, scabbing techniques I overheard at the mess and recreation halls.

  "I’ll let you pass for a poem about my Lilibet," he said.

  "Oh dearest Lilibet, you are sweet like sherbet,I think of you all day, smiling inside my helmet.You are the sun in my sky, the apple of my eye,For you I would gladly die."

  "You are talented," he said as I scribbled it down for him.

  "Could you give me some blank paper or parchment for this?"

  "Why certainly, young man."

  He gathered some for me, and the other guard, a straw-blond lad, lingered shyly nearby.

  "Are you all right?" I asked him.

  "Yeah, it’s just… my Mother."

  "What’s her name?"

  "Patricia."

  I smiled, already feeling the words come:

  "Patricia, you are stronger than the ox who toils,The cow whose milk never spoils.You are the one who toils.You set me up in life, now I guard the town through night.You worked hard night and day, to raise me on your hard-earned pay.My love for you is as the fawn for the doe,It bubbles outwards, and I shall let it grow."

  "You are wonderful," he said, handing me blank parchment.

  I dipped my quill and wrote it out carefully, using the fine lettering I had picked up at the bard's college.

  "In you go, lad. Any trouble, you ask for Simmone, he’s our captain."

  "Right you are, lads. Perhaps I'll catch you in the tavern later. What’s the best one?"

  "The Crow’s Nest," they both said together.

  "Just by the ley train station off Yew Tree Lane. You can’t miss the big yew trees there," the blond one added.

  They shook my hand warmly, and just as I turned to go, the blond guard caught my arm.

  "And my boy?"

  I looked back, seeing a shimmer in his eyes.

  "Yes?"

  "Thank you, and God bless you."