Aphelia studied the girl before her, and a hunch blew in like a chill draft: the one leading a stallion wore a heart that didn’t match her face.

With a light push, the girl swung up into the saddle, smooth as a swallow taking wing. Unlike the green-haired woman, she seemed a chance encounter, a hand offered on an empty road, not someone waiting here on purpose.

“Wait… what do you mean I’m late?”

“Exactly that. Whatever brought you here, Asgard has already fallen. The Twilight of the Gods has come. Yesterday’s splendor lies in ash.”

The girl glanced back, and in that blink, Aphelia felt heat rise like a spark; in those strange two-toned eyes, embers seemed to burn.

“Sorry… I don’t really get what you’re saying.” Her voice trembled like a plucked string before she steadied it. “When I woke, I remembered only my name and what I know. As for Asgard, or this ‘Twilight’…”

It wasn’t a lie; the words she used were mist without landmarks. New to this land, she needed a lighthouse more than a lecture, someone to map the world before her.

And the girl before her looked like a lantern in fog, steady as a firefly at dusk.

“I see. Then how about traveling with a down-on-her-luck stray like me?”

She smiled and held out a hand, a simple bridge over a dry ravine, unbothered by Aphelia’s past in this barren stretch where even wind felt alone.

“Of course. Thank you. I’ll pull my weight and won’t slow you down.”

Aphelia took the offered hand and vaulted up, a touch clumsy to fit the mask she wore. A veteran who’d ridden through battle-smoke knew saddles by muscle memory, yet she hid her ease like a blade in its sheath.

The girl simply drew Aphelia’s hands forward and set them at her narrow waist, firm as placing a bowstring. Warmth leapt through skin to skin, and color flared on Aphelia’s cheeks like dawn on frost.

Her clothing was little more than thin strips, and her waist lay bare like polished ivory. That faint scent, light as new blossoms, stung Aphelia with an old sorrow: once upon a time, she’d been a virgin boy.

“What’s wrong, not used to riding? Hold tight anyway. Once we run, it’ll get bumpy.”

Sensing the fluster behind her like heat off stone, the girl only pulled Aphelia closer, bodies fitting like pieces of joined wood. She tightened the reins, and the horse surged out over the vast plain like a ship on a golden sea.

Aphelia’s face burned like a fever. She shoved the warmth aside like a curtain and reached for a cooler thread of talk.

“So, um… I don’t know your name yet. I’m Aphelia. Miss, you are…?”

Arms around that slim waist, Aphelia’s mind fuzzed like a stalled engine, but the question hooked the girl’s interest, bright as a lure.

After a breath of thought, the girl laughed softly, a bell in wind. “Me? Call me Wende.”

“Wende? It’s lovely, like you.”

Aphelia smiled into the wind as if tasting sweet spring water.

“Thanks for the compliment.”

Wende seemed caught off-guard, blinking like a cat in sun. She cinched the reins and leaned forward into speed, a streak of wind over wheat.

To Aphelia’s surprise, even at full gallop the saddle rode smooth as gliding on glass. She let herself rest against Wende’s back and drifted to sleep like a leaf on a quiet stream.

She didn’t know how long they rode. When they left the Golden Plain behind, Wende felt the sleeping weight against her and eased the reins, letting the horse settle like dusk settling on fields.

Before them rose a forest welded to the plain, a dark ocean of trunks and leaves.

As if welcoming Wende home, the forest stirred like a beast rolling in its den. The giants of wood ahead slid apart like slow doors, opening a narrow but level path.

Watching that, Wende looked both relieved and sad, two tides in one gaze. She murmured in a language like rain on bark, and the leaves answered with a hush, as if returning thanks.

The horse stepped beneath the green roof, and the parted giants closed behind with a whisper, the way water closes over an oar. Roots braided over the hoofprints and erased the road like a tide smoothing sand.

Not long after they vanished beneath the boughs, several black figures wobbled out of the Golden Plain, shadows walking like broken puppets.

They weren’t quite human. Too tall by a head and more, they swayed left and right like drunk towers, and yet they somehow kept their feet, which felt wrong like music off-key.

They had a purpose all the same, blunt as a spear. They tracked the hoofprints across the plain and halted at the forest’s edge, where the dark trunks loomed like a wall.

Strange syllables spilled from their mouths, kin to Wende’s tongue yet warped like a mirror in heat.

The forest did not yield to monsters. The trees stood like ranks of spears, their crowns locked, barring the way.

If those shadow giants tried to force their way in, the crossed roots would skewer them like stakes in a pit. They seemed to know it. After a grating exchange, the others lumbered off along the edge, leaving one to keep watch where Wende had entered.

When Aphelia woke, night had already deepened; the sky was a cool blue bowl pricked with stars, and a thread of water whispered nearby.

She looked around. Aside from the horse standing close and a blanket on her shoulders smelling faintly of herbs and sun, nothing proved the golden-haired Wende had been here at all, like a dream washed clean by dawn.

Seeing her wake, the horse stepped near and nudged her arm, gentle as a child.

“Do you know where Wende is?”

The stallion seemed to understand. It turned with a flick of tail and walked past her, guiding into the deeper dark like a lamp that moved.

Aphelia folded the blanket, slipped to her feet, and followed. Rest had sharpened her like a whetstone. Even with only star-pricks for light, the path read clear as ink on paper.

“This place… why does it feel too normal?” Her doubt rose first, then the habit of checking followed. “Even a barren land should show Arcane Power or Aether. With a forest this lush, there ought to be a spirit guarding it…”

She reached out as she walked, senses spreading like a cast net through trees. Since regaining her body, old instincts had been returning step by step.

But the wider her mind fanned, the emptier it felt, like scooping water and catching only air. No Arcane Power. No Aether. Her gut tightened like a fist.

Lost in that thought, she came to a clear pool without noticing. Wende had her pale feet in the water and her eyes on the blue-black night, her mind somewhere far, like a kite on a long string.

Deep in the forest, by the glassy pool, the girl watched the sky. Her golden hair fell like a spill of wheat, and starlight sifted into the water like silver grains. Aphelia forgot speech and simply stared, caught like a moth by a flame.

“Ah… Aphelia. Sorry I slipped away. How was your nap?”

Sensing her, Wende turned with a smile that warmed like a hearth.

Aphelia’s cheeks flushed again, a pink bloom in the dark. She scratched her head, embarrassed, and sat beside Wende, knee to knee on the cool earth.

“Sorry. I was worn out and dozed off. Where are we? I remember the plain…”

For some reason, she didn’t dare meet Wende’s eyes. She lifted her gaze to where Wende had been looking—and froze, words snagging in her throat like a fish on a line.

As if she’d expected this, Wende laughed softly and patted Aphelia’s shoulder, light as a falling leaf. “Well? Isn’t it stunning?”

“Ah…”

Across the blue night, a river of stars cut the sky, bright dust braided into a shining band, the brightest “star” in the whole vault. With crickets knitting silence at the edges, Aphelia’s rippling heart stilled like a lake at dawn.

She stood there, held fast. She had rarely looked up at stars before, head always bent to iron and fire. To lift her eyes in a new age and meet this—she was struck dumb.

Wende didn’t disturb her. She let her fingertips ripple the pool, and starlight shattered into scales of light, a school of silver fish. Her eyes held tangled tides.

“It really is stunning. In my memory, I’ve hardly seen anything like this…”

At last, Aphelia let out a long breath, fog on a winter morning. This view alone felt like a gift.

“In the old Asgard, scenes like this weren’t common either,” Wende said, nostalgia soft as moss in her voice. “So I’d sneak out now and then, come here, and watch the Milky Way pour across the sky.”

“Speaking of Asgard… Wende, I truly don’t remember what it is. Could you explain it to me?”

The mood had tugged loose her memories like wind tugging threads, so Aphelia asked after a heartbeat’s thought.

“Asgard… sure,” Wende said, a hint of iron under the silk. “Let me tell you what Asgard was.”