Rhianon – Princess of Fire. Natalie Yacobson

and was about to turn away, when suddenly it was even darker than it had been. The candle lights were still lit, but the feeling of darkness thickening around her like a black cloud was so strong and oppressive. It seemed as if the darkness was not descending, but flying wildly and swiftly toward the hall. The candles fluttered in the oncoming wind. Soon it would be a real hurricane.

      Rhianon noticed the consternation and then the wild fear on the tiny faces of those seated at the table.

      «It’s him, it’s him,» several voices shouted at once. «Run quickly. He’s coming back.»

      She shuddered.

      «Who is he,» she wanted to ask, but didn’t, remembering that the first time she’d never heard the answer to that question.

      The tiny creatures scurried from the table, some dashing across it, others picking up fruit as they went. Everyone was in a hurry to escape, and only Athenaïs alone was still slow, keeping her piercing eyes on Rhianon.

      «What does it mean?» the girl asked her, and, like the first time, the question went unanswered, except that someone’s shadow suddenly descended on the table and the unfinished wine in the glasses changed its hue in an instant, thickened, poured over the edge of the tablecloth. How similar to blood, Rhianon’s mind flashed. The fruit was changing, too, rolling across the table like burnt heads, and if it had been worth painting a still life here before, now the girl shuddered with revulsion. It was bones and meat and entrails. She turned away from the table in horror and noticed that the ceiling was gone, too, and that the tree branches woven into the canopy ended in height, revealing a bottomless sky. She spotted there someone’s winged shadow too high above the ground and against such blackness that she became frightened. The wings flapped gently. The thing was approaching swiftly. It was hurtling this way, but already toward another frightening feast.

      Now even Athénais preferred to run away. Picking up her puffy scarlet skirts and rustling tree bark, she cast a vengeful and hostile glance at the thing that had interrupted her feast, and so quickly, as if she feared being burned by the sight of it as she had been by the sun. And then there was no sign of her. The low, luxuriously dressed figure disappeared behind a tree as if she had slipped into a burrow.

      «Go away!» Orpheus was alarmed this time as well, for he had time to gather in a handful as many tiny portly fairies as he could fit into his arms.

      Perhaps he was right, he should have fled from the unknown but tangible danger, but Rhianon could not take her eyes off the skies, split by the storm and the beating of the black wings. There was evil coming from up there, for sure, but it was beckoning. It pierced her like lightning, like a jet of fire through her body, and there, high in the sky, a dazzling golden beam shone in the darkness.

      «Let’s go, quick,» Orpheus couldn’t stand it, he grabbed her by the hand and he burned himself. His excited shriek of incredulity lifted Rhianon out of her torpor.

      «Yes, of course let’s go,» she agreed, but she really didn’t want to take her eyes off the sky and what might be there. It was what everyone feared, but it was what she longed for. Surely it must have been something startling, if its appearance was facilitated by such a commotion. But Orpheus didn’t let her think about it; he had already opened the door to another world. The mirrored surface rippled and became as if it did not exist. It was time to leave, because now it was no more of an obstacle than, say, the air. The ground in the hall was already shaking. Dried leaves were beginning to fall from the nearby trees. Something was approaching, but Rhianon had already stepped through the mirror following Orpheus and the entrance closed quickly, this one not catching the train she had picked up at the elbow. Rhianon could feel the golden needles of the fairies still working in the fabric on the dress, stitching the tear and tried not to touch the place. The train was so long that it was barely made shorter by the fact that she had wrapped it around her elbow.