The distance between the Dvor and the Capital was not short.

Valeri and his Sire set off soon after the fate of the Dvor's Lords was revealed. Iavor did not appear at all moved by the demise of his peers. It was Valeri who felt the need to question their new companion about the Dvor's final moments, unable to come to terms with the idea of a world without the Dvor's towering presence.

"Some ran, some stayed. In the end, it was all for naught – I said so already, did I not?" Kai drawled.

"That is hardly a convincing account," Valeri huffed.

The phoenix chirped a laugh. "My, my. One would think you cared for the old fogeys. Did you not swear eternal hatred in the wake of Iavor's oh-so-tragic death? Such fickle creatures you mortals are."

Valeri scowled. He had lived as a vampire far longer than he had as a mortal man – a fact that never mattered to the Dvor. "Not all of the Dvor's Lords were intolerable bigots," he spat.

Kai laughed again. He soared lazily, then swooped in to hover above Zenith, keeping pace with the beast's mad run. His wings were burning flames. They lit the night sky, casting red shadows over the land.

"You are thinking of Old Tibor, I suppose?" Kai said.

Valeri nodded with some reluctance. Old Tibor was a tortoise spirit, his body larger than a village house and as sturdy as a mountain. He was the only kind face Valeri recalled among the Dvor's Lords. When Iavor had passed, Old Tibor alone had reached out to Valeri in any sort of consolation.

"That stubborn old man, of course he remained," Kai said. "His shell was probably picked clean by those maggots, if you want a memento."

Valeri stiffened in shock. He had suspected the man to be dead, but to hear his demise spoken of so flippantly was still painful.

"Kai," Iavor said, warning clear in his voice.

The phoenix chirped in amusement. "Come now, Iavor – what is so tragic about death? All that is born in this world must die. You coddle the boy without reason."

"You seem well enough," Valeri spat, insulted by the man's flippant attitude enough to momentarily forget his manners.

"Naturally," Kai sniffed. "I am not of this world, dear boy. Life and death have no claim on my kind."

Valeri turned to Iavor, surprise clear in his eyes.

"The phoenix is a heavenly creature, unbound by the laws of our realm," Iavor agreed.

Valeri's expression darkened further. "Did you attempt to aid those besieged in the lake?" he asked.

"Why would I do such a thing?" Kai wondered, voice pitched high and innocent.

Valeri ground his teeth. He felt Iavor's hand on his forearm, the weight of it consoling.

"Enough," Iavor said. "Kai, if you have joined this quest with the sole purpose of seeking amusement, I would advise you to remain behind."

"Oh, it is a quest now, is it?" Kai said. "And here I thought I was accompanying you to the gallows. Front row seats are not easy to secure, you must know."

"I rather assumed you wished to see the Queen," Iavor replied calmly.

Kai fell silent. Valeri tried to make out the man's expression, but found his sight affected by a sweep of fiery feathers.

"As if she deserves my farewell," the man said, then soared upward amid a flurry of burning embers.

"He did not leave Tiber behind by choice," Iavor said once the annoying bird was out of sight.

Valeri cast the man a doubtful glance. Iavor bore no outward expression, but his eyes were shadowed. It was not that he did not care for what had befallen the world in his absence, Valeri realized; rather, he had set his sight to the future, likely in a bid to withstand the pain of the past.

"The Dvor is not a ruling body, Valeri. Not as you were led to believe," Iavor said. "The Dvor's Lords are tasked with keeping Samodevia's history. At least one must survive to carry the knowledge forward."

Valeri straightened. Questions budded on his tongue but he bit them back, wishing to hear what Iavor would tell him – and, more tellingly, what the man would choose to leave unsaid.

"The book you carried with you from Elsendorf – where did you find it?" Iavor asked.

It took Valeri a moment to remember the history tome Ira had smuggled from the Manor's ruins. The book was hidden in one of the saddlebags Zenith still totted around even now. "It was part of my own library – a gift from Beatrice."

Valeri had spoken of Beatrice to Iavor. His Sire had asked a few questions about the witch, mostly concerning her departure from Elsendorf. Valeri had put the matter entirely out of mind.

"The author – Ceri – was a Lord of the Dvor. His account is accurate, but incomplete," Iavor said.

"What history did Ceri obscure?" Valeri asked.

Iavor did not speak. The night drew close around them, the skies stretching starless and lonely above barren ground. The fields Zenith swallowed in powerful spurts of motion shifted around them like the sea. They grew green one moment, then turned golden and dried into dust the next. The road they followed twisted to accommodate the changing terrain. There was no path further out yet one would come into existence as soon as they passed through, leading every forward.

There was only one road left to follow.

"Once upon a time," Iavor said, voice as soft as the wind, "a flower grew atop a mountain peak.

"This was no ordinary flower. The seedling fell from the Kingdoms Above – how far, no one knew. Once it set root in the mortal realm and fed on the light of the sun and the moon, it bloomed into a blossom of unknown beauty.

A samodiva chanced upon the flower. A woodland spirit herself, she knew the flower was no ordinary existence. Her dances pleased it so much that it shone; her stories of the mortal world had it leaning towards her, like a small child enraptured by a fairy tale.

The samodiva brought her friends in her visits to the flower. Their magic wove with that of the flower, feeding the earth and trees and skies. Before they knew it, a lush forest lay over the barren mountain top. Rivers and springs ran down a valley covered with flowers. All was bright and warm, steeped into the purest magic.

It was then that the samodiva realized that they had forged a fairyland of their own. So they brought their loved ones – some mortal, some not – and remained in this world within a world longer and longer. Their magic stretched ever outward. Soon, their land ran without measure, a kingdom of immeasurable wonder."

Valeri listened quietly. The story was not unlike the tales he had heard as a child. It brought him no joy, hearing it told as truth.

"All we see, all we are – is anything real?" he asked, and feared the answer.

"Samodevia and all within it truly exist, albeit in a more transient state than lands in the mortal realm," Valeri told him.

"Are we not part of the mortal realm?" Valeri wondered. He was not at all convinced by Iavor's words, only growing more anxious instead.

Iavor considered the question before he spoke. "Samodevia's roots are in the mortal realm. All within Samodevia, however, exists only as far as the kingdom's borders."

They passed over a river. Valeri looked down and saw his own pale face reflected in the rushing water. He recalled the lake where the Dvor had once held court, the pale eyes staring back from beneath the surface.

"Samodevia is disappearing," he said softly. And so are we, he thought and shivered, cold to the bone.

"Samodevia blooms and withers," Iavor said. "It has done so for a thousand years."

"Withers?" Valeri repeated numbly.

"The kingdom was born from a flower," Iavor reminded.

"How often – how long does each cycle last?" Valeri asked.

"A hundred years, sometimes less," Iavor answered.

Valeri looked at him in confusion. A hundred years was not long at all, especially to their kind.

Iavor shook his head in response. "The transition was not as obvious, or destructive. The landscape changed very little. The kingdom disappeared from the mortal realm for years at a time, so no one could cross its borders. Those who lived within Samodevia remained safe."

"What happened?" Valeri asked.

"An accident occurred. During one withering early in Samodevia's history, a large valley was flooded, becoming a great lake in the manner of hours. Thousands drowned. The Dvor was formed that very year in order to address the devastation and prevent its kind of occurring in the future." Iavor smiled thinly, "Fitting, for one tragedy to beget another."

He continued. "It took decades to find a viable method. The Dvor established children of the samodiva as Guardians, tasked to maintain the balance of magic within the kingdom. The kingdom was to further close its borders, becoming completely removed from the mortal realm."

"The samodiva were not reconciled to becoming prisoners in their own lands. They decided to withdraw, leaving behind the generations of mortals and many other beings that had followed them into Samodevia."

"What of Samodevia's Queen?" Valeri asked. "Is she a samodiva herself?"

Iavor shook his head. "No samodiva remains in the kingdom. Who the Queen is – think carefully, and you will understand."

Valeri did not have to consider long. The story Iavor narrated featured very few heroes. Only one among them remained unaccounted.

"The flower," he said.

Iavor hummed in agreement. "She was never simply that. Samodevia was founded in her roots; when the kingdom fell into despair, the Queen took mortal shape and joined our ranks to save her people."

"Then, is it not all resolved? Why has the withering come again, and so viciously?" Valeri asked. The more he knew, the greater the weight in his heart.

"The kingdom has grown too large," Iavor said. "Without the samodiva, the Queen's magic is simply not enough to maintain the fabric of this realm. The result is what you have observed along the borders – an unraveling, of a kind. Attempts to mitigate the decline were always only temporary measures. The end of the kingdom has been long anticipated."

"Then, the war..." Valeri trailed off, a sick feeling rising in his stomach.

Iavor closed his eyes. "The Dvor and the Queen's Court cooperated. If death was inevitable, then exchanging lives for more time would not matter – or so the reasoning went."

"Did it help?" Valeri asked dryly.

Iavor smiled. "I believe it made things worse."

Valeri fell silent. He was afraid of asking anything else. The rocking of his body in the saddle, the dirt flying under Zenith's hooves, the cold sky above his head – it was all so viscerally real. Yet, none of it existed for those beyond Samodevia's borders.

Soon, nothing of the kingdom would exist at all.

"Is there truly no way through?" Valeri wondered, mostly to himself.

"I never said there was not," Iavor told him. "Only that we have been looking in the wrong places."

A burst of heat announced Kai's descent. "Done reminiscing?"

"We will have to stop soon," Iavor said, ignoring the man's jeering voice.

"Whatever for? The sun won't rise," Kai told them. "It's half a day to the Capital at most. We're well in Her Shadow now."

"That makes it simpler, then," Iavor responded.

Valeri did not understand and as such, did not agree. He was however very much tired of thinking about the world and his own existence within it. So he laid back against Iavor's chest and closed his eyes, meaning to pretend that all still made sense as long as he could.

"Do let me know before we are due to arrive," he told the man. Gabriel would never let him live down acting so shamelessly, with how often he scolded the demon for his own lack of good manners.

"Rest assured," Iavor told him, a thread of true amusement in his voice.

Kai chirped something mocking that Valeri chose not to hear. Distantly, he wondered how the fat bird would get along with Gabriel. As well as a house on fire, he would wager – rather literally, at that.