"I came to check how you feel," explained Vlada.

Kan broke into a cold sweat. Did she just read his thoughts? Was he that obvious?

"Glad to see you're getting better," she continued. "Well, good night!"

"I wish you had stayed with me," whispered Kan after Vlada had left the room.

Vlada's "goodnight" didn't work. Hours had passed yet Kangassk was still wide awake, tossing and turning in his bed. He tried counting gryphons, then sheep. Gryphons were a Kuldaganian thing, he knew now that people outside the mountain ring preferred to count sheep instead, so he did. Nothing helped him calm down and fall asleep, though. He thought he had got used to being diurnal during his journey with Vlada. He was wrong. Or maybe the young warrior girl wishing him good night while wearing a thin nightgown was the reason for everything…

Kangassk got up and sat by the window. The view was nice. Hundreds of lights twinkled below. The town seemed wide awake with the echoes of the last day's celebrations. There were happily drunk people roaming the streets, signs shone, highlighted by little lamps, merchants cried out their prices… Going for a walk suddenly seemed like a good idea.

Kangassk got dressed, took his sword with him, just in case, and left the inn. The noisy, almost Kuldaganian night swallowed him as soon as he stepped out of the door. Kan didn't have much money on him, so he just kept walking through the town, looking around, enjoying the noise, and smiling back to the celebrating folk, until he left the highly populated area and entered the dark, serene heart of the soothsayers' town.

He kept walking at a slow pace to avoid disturbing his healing wounds. Unknown to him, his gait looked quite heroic because of that, as if he were an old, tired warrior on a stroll, not a hyena-bitten runaway smith thinking of a certain young lady in the nightgown.

"Hey, hero!" someone called in a thin voice. "Come, I'll tell your fortune!"

Kangassk turned his head to the speaker and smiled when he saw a little girl no more than ten years old. She wore a long frayed dress, a proper soothsayer attire, but along with her skinny figure and messy boyish haircut, it made her look like a funny little sparrow. The girl sat on a squeaky folding chair by the wall and looked very serious. An unlit sign beside her written in childishly crooked letters clearly stated her business here.

"So you are a soothsayer?" said Kan with a soft chuckle. He couldn't help feeling like a real, hardened warrior now, towering over the child.

"Of course! I'm an Illian. All women in my family have the gift." The girl sniffed at him meaningfully, her pride obviously hurt by the stranger's disbelief. "Let me tell your fortune and see for yourself!"

Kan approached the child.

“Why do you sit there alone at night?” he asked.

“No real soothsayer reads fortunes in daylight,” she explained, clearly being very proud of being the real one. “Day is for charlatans and the fools who believe them. The future can be properly seen only at night!”

“Sorry, I didn’t know.” Kan squatted down beside the kid. “So, how much?”

“Five coins,” said the little soothsayer in such a tone that clearly meant there could be no arguments about the price.

“Expensive…”

“You want your fortune told or not?”

Kangassk had never seen such a proud and confident child before. Beatings, starvation, cruelty? There was no doubt the girl had never known such treatment.

He dropped the argument and put the five coins on her little palm.

"Now you must say: I give Zanna permission to read my fortune."