The instant the earl's youngest daughter saw the monster killer, she pricked her finger on a rose thorn. Licking the snow-white skin, the heiress of Theanotus gave a quiet yelp, but when she looked for the mysterious hunter again, she no longer saw his silhouette in the shadow of one of the columns. I am sure she will long remember the massive figure propped up on the marble pillar with his shoulders, and the strange gleaming, even in the gloom, glasses. She looked for him, standing upright and lifting her flower basket. But he disappeared as suddenly as he had appeared. The hunter left no trace.

I was back in time. One of the hunters was fixing a saddle by the stalls. And the stableman was unconscious in the mud for some reason. The castle quartermaster had just finished distributing weapons. When he saw me, he handed me a bundle of forty black arrows.

"Here, just as you ordered. Here, this one too." The officer went to the wooden side of the weapon stand near the stalls and took a spear with an iron point from it.

I accepted the weapon and unwound it in my hand. Perfect balance, a little tilted toward the tip so I could comfortably grip it and throw it if I needed to.

"I need a horse," I reminded the supply officer of my needs.

"Come into the stalls and choose for yourself. The stableman has already had enough advice for today," the man assigned to us told me, checking the pulse of the young man lying in the mud.

"And who did he advise?" I grinned.

"This mare," the hunter pointed to the horse, who had hesitated with the saddle and was now watching me with interest.

I walked around the wooden stalls near the stone wall of the courtyard. There were still a couple of stunted horses here. It looked like someone had taken offense at being advised against a stallion. This horse looked much better against the others. I'm not proud.

"I'll take this mare," I pointed to the horse.

"Take the horse," sighed the anxious quartermaster, lifting the young man carefully out of the mud. With his other hand he called several servants, who, however, keeping order, surrounded the boy on all sides.

The hunter who had pointed her out laughed and rode out of the courtyard. Out of the shadows came a girl, unnoticed by me, the one who had been sitting in the meeting opposite. She winked at me approvingly and jumped on her horse, following the hunter. I decided that it was all foolishness and that the boy had been hurt for nothing, and then I sped up to keep up.

The long and piercing gaze of Count Mirtel from a small elevated terrace did not escape me. Now Pheanoth might even have regretted hiring us. He hardly cared about the fate of the stable boy; rather, he wanted to see who had snuck into the enclosed garden to see his youngest daughter. And this young man's story is just another stone in our garden.

As I walked away, the hag put a bag of food in my bag. The water in the flask was splashing again, "Take it, my dear – you need it more," she said kindly. We broke through the forest predators, and I wielded with dexterity the new carga's spear. My companion led me to the edge of the forest.

"We can't go any farther, there's the castle," she pointed ahead. Her bluish-black cat walked along the edge of the forest from side to side. The cat hissed and lost all patience when she saw the gray earth. Covering her nose with her paws and getting angry.

"Good." I stepped forward, and the ash-gray dust that had engulfed the plants near the forest crumbled to ashes under my boots, as did the grass itself, devoid of life. The girl looked at me again, probably wanting to say something. But she changed her mind, then ducked down and, beckoning the panther, disappeared into the forest.