"The place where you find yourself is not some other world apart from the one in which you lived the rest of your life. It only seems different, but it isn't. The two are like a single coin, its two sides revealed each time depending on which one faces up. Sometimes, though, both at once, because one of the two sides harbors forces that would destroy the other if unleashed.

  Many years ago— so many that our lives cannot remember them, nor even imagine them—the two sides were joined as one, and humanity was in constant flight from the creatures that dominated through raw power, unable to forge societies, not even the smallest villages. They fled from one place to another, endlessly pursued, regarded solely as prey.

  Then, ten men—physically strong, clever, and capable—resolved to end this nightmare at any cost, came forth and made up their minds to give an end to this tragedy. One night, they encountered the stag, the very one that visited you, and struck a bargain with it: they would build it a palace atop a mountain of its choosing, offer it as a gift, and if they succeeded in completing it, the stag would become humanity's guardian and deliver them from their tragic fate. But they would have to construct it without the stag's aid, alone against all enemies.

  So they gathered as many people as they could—those brave enough to help—settled upon the mountain, and began the work. It took a full twenty-five years to raise that palace, years brimming with torment and dread, years in which assaults from the world's monsters were relentless and unceasing. Many times, the peril to their survival grew so dire that it would have been wiser to abandon the building, retreat to the forest, and resume their hiding. Friends, acquaintances, and kin fell dead each day.

  Yet they prevailed. They built the palace, and within it, the gold and ornamentation surpassed even the wildest flights of human imagination, even by the standards of millennia later, even for the standards of today. And then the stag appeared at the palace gates; the people opened them and led it to the throne room.

  As soon as the stag seated itself upon the throne, the sun rose into the sky above the palace and hung there, refusing to set. Daylight endured for an entire year, and night vanished once more. The world's monsters dared not approach the palace; they cowered in caves and dense thickets.

  Before the stag knelt the ten men who had proposed the pact. Their bodies, now aged beyond their former vigor and scarred by wounds, bore little resemblance to their earlier selves. Limbs missing, burns and disfigurements embracing them like cruel lovers. The stag appointed these ten as its knights and guardians, as well as protectors of mankind. It bestowed upon them power and immortality. Their forms mended, and to each was granted a swath of land to establish his own tribe—tribes that would serve the palace and the stag for eternity. These ten tribes are the true humanity.

  But those who chose not to aid in the effort, along with the monsters, were punished and exiled, in order to never threaten the human race again. Thus did the stag cleave the world in twain, granting free passage only to the inhabitants of this side; the rest were barred. All that was evil, all that was terrifying and perilous, was cast to the other side—the side where you and your family dwelt until now.

  As the years wore on, the immortal knights acquired crests, the very ones you saw at the council: the lion, of which you hear so much, and the dragon, whose emissary is Eftis. Some knights chose to pass their immortality to their descendants, preferring to form families and die of old age, for they could no longer bear to watch their friends and kin grow old and perish. All the knights changed many times over, except for two: the lion and the dragon.

  These two remained the original knights, never yielding their posts. The world came to see them as the twin pillars upholding the stability of their society. No one could conceive of them ever abdicating. Myths wove around their figures until it bordered on near-religious veneration.

  At length, the stag itself—having first sundered the world—grew weary of sitting upon the throne and wandering the palace halls. It descended and roamed the world anew. So too did the sun descend from the heavens, and the moon returned. The first such occurrence sowed panic among the people, yet night brought no renewed peril, as in days of old.

  With time, folk grew accustomed to the stag's wanderings, though some lasted years and stirred unease across the realm. Once, the stag absented itself from the throne so long that generations were born and died without beholding the sun, while others never glimpsed the moon.

  Meanwhile, on your side of the world, wars and massacres and injustices ravaged human nature. The monsters assumed new forms, for they could no longer sustain their old ways. They became spirits, demons, feeding on humanity's woes and spawning them. They command your greed, all your desires, and when you escape their grasp, they dispatch other men to wreak harm upon you. They devour you from within until they claim your body entire.

  The two eternal knights, however, wondered how life fared on the other side. They crossed the barrier and beheld with their own eyes the horrors you endure, in stark contrast to our paradise. They saw their ancient foes too, and the degraded state into which they had fallen—devouring humanity once more. And then they grasped a profound truth: that humans were not merely another species, a creature dwelling in the world, but the very fount of life for all the rest. Without mankind, without feeding upon us, they could not exist.

  They returned changed. The dragon came back grateful for the stag's protection, while the lion returned swollen with ego, convinced that the stag—like all other beings—needed us, not the reverse. He deemed it fed upon us, exploiting us.

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  He broached this first with the dragon, but upon sensing his unshakeable faith and devotion to the stag, the lion betrayed nothing of his thoughts and smiled in feigned gratitude. Yet he took care to sow seeds of doubt and malice in the souls and minds of the other knights. Younger in years, they admired and heeded him. With patience and time at his disposal, he took measures, drawing each one to his side, molding them to his mindset.

  And so, when the stag once more wandered far and long, the lion rebelled, with the aid of the eight other knights, against the stag and its final guardian, the dragon. The dragon's tribe was nearly slaughtered wholesale, as were all from other tribes who dared defend them. The nine knights encircled the dragon and slew him, the knight of the wolf's tribe delivering the fatal blow. He had slain the most, for he was the first persuaded by the lion and pressed the others with fanatic zeal. He was the lion's greatest champion and admirer.

  Now the hour had come for the lion to grant what he had promised them: power, dominion, and the ability to banish evil and summon the sun, without the stag's aid. Yet nothing of it came to pass.

  The lion ascended the throne and indeed gained immense power, but he barred the other tribes—except of his own—from the palace. The gates opened for no one henceforth. The throne, however, linked directly to the moon, a fainter light in the sun's stead—for you see, the stag had bound the positions of moon and sun to its throne in the palace. It had never anticipated betrayal, or perhaps it cared not. The sun's might was too vast for the lion to command, but the moon's, though formidable, he could at least subdue.

  Moreover, walls rose around the palace, sealing it from the wider world. It is what you beheld upon your arrival here, the goal Eftis made you reach. For that reason, it is no longer a palace, but a castle.

  He excluded all who did not share his blood from touching any light whatsoever, thus consigning them to the forest's gloom. Yet he wished his own tribe to thrive. The stag had ceased nurturing all lands the light touched, leaving the lion's tribe without means of survival. So the lion forged a path—the very road you trod—and his people crossed to the other side to fetch goods. Many chose to remain, or the monsters overtook them, rendering return impossible. In time none endured and the tribe vanished.

  Save for the lion's children, the five princes. Upon claiming the throne, he took five women from his own tribe and one from the dragon's—a woman he loved, for the first time in his thousands of years. The five from his tribe bore him children willingly; the one from the dragon's tribe he raped, conceiving Eftis. She escaped the castle while pregnant, vanishing into the forest with the aid of the betrayed knights, who thwarted the lion's pursuit. To the five princes, however, he granted immortality and power—but on condition that they share the throne's burden with him, meaning their strength bore an expiration.

  Eftis became immortal because the stag bestowed upon him the dragon's knightly seat, yet he bears the lion's blood too and may tread where light falls. The other princes, as you've surmised, seek his death, but he is cunning beyond measure and eludes them ceaselessly. He betrays us all; every scheme of his devolves into bloodshed, and he never fulfills his own duty—as if he craves our punishment and torment. No one trusts him, yet none can deny our need for him, if we are to escape this degradation.

  The princes, for their part, strive to achieve their aim, but their father seems to have lost his wits. Though he requires them to distribute the power further, he fears suffering the fate he inflicted on others. Thus he imposed a condition upon his sons: to grant them the chance—or the illusion of it—to share the throne, while keeping them eternally at bay.

  They must infiltrate the castle undetected and stand beside him on the throne before he raises the royal veil—a shield that bars passage to living or lifeless alike when invoked. The moment he senses their presence within, the veil rises of its own accord. Hence they need one who is not they to open the castle gates and pave their path to absolute power and dominion.

  So they venture to your side, gather the lion's descendants, and hurl you upon the road. One prince slays the descendants fetched by another, shattering any hope of reaching the castle. For even among themselves, they cannot ally or share rule; each craves it for his own ego.

  To bring you thus far, however, a sacrifice must first be made. This sacrifice was decreed not by the lion, nor by the stag. Upon your arrival, you must have seen a blind elder. He is no man, but a being like the stag. We know not his role—no one does—but when the princes sought to ferry the first descendants, he seated himself upon that rock and barred their passage. He declared that none unrelated to the ten tribes might come—a truth they already knew.

  Yet he added that they must bring one as selfish and foul as themselves, one who desires the power they crave. The deadly game, with its toll of corpses, was their invention; once presented, he approved it, as he did the erasure of memory until you cross to the other side of the road. He delights in the spectacle. He lingers there and does nothing else.

  But on the shadowed side, in the forest, dwell all the exiles. Those who fought not and escaped followed the dragon's descendants to this island; the rest remained in the woods, forbidden any contact. The eight knights enforced this. Their shame was so profound that they never showed their faces to us again, especially in their altered forms. Only the wolf was punished as the worst of all: to interact with us ceaselessly, that we might remind him of his disgrace and savagery without end.

  Once ensconced in the forest, they changed. They became dark entities, formless and grotesque, more hideous and terrifying than the ancient monsters. The knights assumed shapes akin to their crests, but twisted and nightmarish, stripped of honor or grace. And the sole choice left to us all is flight—to remain upon the island—or to follow those who betrayed and were betrayed, to feel their pain and assume their form, their shame and guilt.

  And those who die come here, into the island's heart, and I—as descendant of the greatest culprit after the lion, the greatest fool of them all—tend their graves and pray for their souls, the souls of all who fall in this ceaseless, recurring war."

  He remained silent until she ceased speaking. She turned and smiled at the wolf as she stroked him. He made no move, only stayed at her side, mute and still. Yet he seemed no less terrifying. Kalli drew a deep breath and said to me:

  "That, then, is what I wanted you to hear—hastily, without all the details, but these are the essentials. You have no place here. All these are dead because of your tribe, and you persist as one of the worst. Even without some monster within you, you are the monster yourself."

  For once more, I could not disagree. I merely bowed my head and rose. I stood motionless for two seconds, then exited the cave. I doubt I shall ever return here. I think I shall never again crave a free day; I believe I prefer the training.