95 The Hedgeway
Lilith and her party followed the map to the zone tinted purple, a dusk-colored band across their route.
White Dragon pulled out her travel-worn parchment; as an Astrologer, paper was a second skin.
The Little White Dragon whipped out quill and ink and copied the wall map in quick strokes, like rain sketching reeds.
Those beside her watched as Lilith finished the lines.
She rose from the stump that held the map like an island, hugged the parchment, and took the lead.
The small girl trotted down the path, map held high like a lantern, eager to guide.
The factory sprawled like a steel forest, yet its planners had traced a handy shortcut.
She followed the purple thread on the map, a plum ribbon through leaves.
Her blue‑violet ink had been kissed by a flicker of fire, baked to a richer purple.
Little White Dragon then picked out a path veiled between trunks, like a stream under ferns.
Lilith climbed the workers’ ladder to the canopy, reached out, and lowered the fence at the crown like a drawbridge.
She stepped onto the rail and turned broad leaves into walkable books, pages laid flat underfoot.
Then she turned and called the others up, her voice a bell through branches.
Nidhogg was closest to Little White Dragon.
The Black Dragon caught Lilith’s outstretched hand, but Lilith’s strength was slight and her weight light as down.
Even without invoking full resonance with the Void Command Seat, some effect lingered, like moonlight thinning a shadow.
Nidhogg worried that one tug might pluck the feather‑light girl off the hedge.
Thankfully, Lilith stood steady.
She coiled her tail around a branch behind her, a silk ribbon around a pole, and hauled someone up with a full‑body pull.
Once Nidhogg reached the hedge top, she looped her tail around Lilith’s slender waist, a safety belt of midnight, to keep her from falling forward.
Lilith, reading the cue, stepped half a pace back to make room.
The Black Dragon took White Dragon’s spot and hauled the two elves up, like fish lifted from a stream.
“This is my first time walking on trees,” Lilith said, excitement bright as dew, once everyone was up.
“Seems the Lamter road planners weren’t all for nothing; at least they thought to walk above the trees.”
“True, but a hedge isn’t as easy as it looks,” Nidhogg said, a cool splash on warm sparks.
She remembered Little White Dragon’s grimace on the muddy plain; this hedge path isn’t much kinder than that flat sprawl.
“It’s fine. As long as it’s not filthy, I can deal,” Lilith said, brushing away worry like dust.
She hated Lamter’s mud because it was so dirty.
Hard to walk? She’d walked worse, thorn and scree.
If a hedge bites a bit, it bites; at least no sticky muck to stain her shoes.
She already regretted wearing white shoes, snow begging for footprints.
“Then you might be disappointed,” Mio said from behind, her voice a cool thread through leaves.
Lilith had no time to parse it before a clinging smear gathered underfoot.
She froze, eyes widening, chin tucked, staring at the pitch‑black mass under her sole like tar.
Mio, awkward, finished her thought: “There’s some black mist on the hedge.
We haven’t figured out what it is; step on it and it turns sticky as mud and clings to your feet.
Use unknown, for now.”
“Uu…” Lilith looked at Nidhogg with wet eyes, like a lake about to spill.
She wrapped both hands around Nidhogg’s arm and, soft with a spoiled lilt, said, “Carry me. I don’t want to walk.”
Nidhogg sighed; she never had any defense against Little White Dragon’s spoiled charge, a tide against a sand wall.
The Black Dragon bent and scooped the girl up in one motion, clean as a gust.
The feather‑light Little White Dragon perched on Nidhogg’s shoulders, clutching the map, her small hand pointing the way like a compass needle.
“Go, go, let’s move!” Little White Dragon shouted, wind in her voice.
The little blue flower caught on the tail during her pleading perked up.
It lifted its left leaf and bobbed its head, charging ahead like her, a tiny banner in bloom.
Nidhogg sighed again, yet her arms were gentle.
She cradled the girl and jogged along the hedge, quick steps drumming like rain toward their goal.
A Black Dragon’s jog was a pace Lilith couldn’t match in daily life, wind under wings even on foot.
And the hedge was a clean shortcut, a line cut through brush.
It shaved off a long stretch; before long, they reached a place that had seemed far.
After checking the landmarks again, Lilith could say for sure they’d stepped into the purple‑lined zone.
It was the R&D area for new magical plant breeds, buds of ideas under glass.
The little blue flower in her arms had been produced here, and it was sold on the market.
That made her sure they could find the workshop that studied this special product.
“Finally in the right area,” Little White Dragon said.
She hopped from Nidhogg’s arms, bounced once on the hedge, grabbed a vine, and swung down from the crown like a swift.
On the ground, she looked up at the others and called, “We’re in, but this place is huge. How do we find anything?”
“Manual search,” Nidhogg said.
The tall Black Dragon couldn’t be as light as Lilith; she came down the hedge at an unhurried pace, like dusk sinking.
“We’ve got enough people, so it’ll be easy enough.
And you’ve been lucky lately; maybe we stumble on it in one go.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Lilith said, neither hot nor cold.
“Plan for a long hunt.”
