A sword lighter and sharper than any other in Carendela.
Her uncle had given it to her two years ago for her 16th birthday. Joeann, the only and best blacksmith in Carendela, if not within 100 kilometers. Lydia's sword was a masterpiece like no other from her workshop. The handle longer and more delicate than that of the men, the blade sharpened so sharp that you could cut someone's leg off with one cut and if you held it up to the fire you could see that a rose had been engraved in the blade, which is what it was but not impaired, just made it more unique.
Slowly she put the blade back into the scabbard.
The stable boy stared at her in fear. He had suffered no serious or even bad wounds. But he was to blame for the long cut on his arm. Why did these morons keep asking them to practice with them? They were too young and inexperienced, even if this one had done really well.
"You are too slow and too stiff in your movements.", Lydia said calmly and took a step towards the boy, who however immediately backed away. "I won't eat you, you know that very well, Hanibal. Not to mention the fact that you are a good 4 years older than me and almost 2 heads taller."
"And if already Gauckler's child.", Hissed her opposite, "I won't let you get so close to me again. You're just like the others said. A thief. Robber's skin. A little witch!"
Lydia's eyes flared. And tiny flames shot up from the ground. "Be careful what you say. Do not forget that I am the granddaughter of the Wall Lord. And above all, never forget that my father was the robber prince. Great-grandson of the fire dancer. His blood runs in my veins, so be careful when you are at night Castle leaves. "
With her head held high and steps resounding, the black-haired woman left her grandfather's castle. The stable boy looked even more frightened than before when she had held the blade to his neck at the picture at his feet. A closed rose made of soot and ashes carried away by the wind.

"Lydia wait! Pippo said you are going back to Bastan. Why? Stay! Please!", Pleadingly looked at her cousin, who followed her, at Lydia.
"No, I can't, I promised to come," she replied to Mina, who was still looking pleadingly at her, "They want to go today and they need me, you know that the eagle wants to collect the taxes tomorrow."
"But why? Can't you just stay here? And show the children your fire games? You know that the eagle is just waiting to get its hands on you, so that it can blackmail Grandfather into letting you go free ...", more and more urgent Mina looked at her.
"Well, Grandfather would be happy if I finally dropped dead and didn't piss him off all the time. He hates me because he still thinks it's my fault for Mother's death.If it wasn't for your father, he would probably have thrown Pippo and me in front of the castle and banished from Carendela. ", Lydia replied carefree," I'll be back in a week or two. Promised. But you can't lock a robber child in a castle. Mina that in there is not my world. "She pointed to the castle." It's yours, you don't know anything else, but I don't belong there. No matter how much princess or princess my mother can be. My father is a robber, my brother is and so am I. That will never change. "
Mina stopped with a sad expression.
Lydia knew she was causing her great grief and turned to look at her. "One, maybe two weeks, then I'll be back and don't break your pretty head. Nothing will happen to me, after all, I'm not one of your brothers and I fall off my horse at the pace."
After these words she ran quickly through the alleys and the gate of Carendela out to the forest. Arrived at the edge of the forest, she ran quietly and purposefully between the trees.

Because of the detours she had taken after a while, it took Lydia until noon until she reached the robbers' camp. No one, except a guard, was to be seen, but she wanted to leave as soon as she was there.
"Ah, our soot rose!" Said the guard, as they briefly shaped the fire into a burning sword in front of her with a whisper of flames.
"How do you do that? It obeys your word!" Startled, she turned around and looked into a young man's face with brown eyes and framed by dark hair.
"It's strange what this little girl can do, Bastan. But what's even stranger is that she's supposed to be the granddaughter of the Prince of the Wall and yet comes along to steal taxes from her own kind."
Bastan turned to the guard, but before he could say anything, Lydia snapped at her, the fire suddenly flaring up: "Well, just because I'm the granddaughter of the Wall Lord, that doesn't mean that you can put me under one roof with him! "And offended she added:" And I haven't been a little girl for a long time! "
"It's okay, I got it, but stop yelling around here."
"Why?", She asked with a sideways glance at the tents, "Then these snoring noses will at least wake up. It's already noon and they're still sleeping!"
"I know, but sleeping helps against hunger. We haven't had anything real to eat for days.", Said Bastan, "Since your grandfather forbade us ..."
"You are robbers, outlaws, since when do you care whether something is forbidden or not?"
Bastan replied, "If we did, your grandfather would marry you with the fisheye. And I doubt that you could stand the fisheye as a man, not to mention the eagle. Besides, we want yes not our best man, um ... lose best woman, oh you already know what I mean."He scratched the back of his head, slightly embarrassed.
"Yes, of course, but still the eagle would not tolerate me in his castle. On the gallows, yes, but not as a daughter-in-law. As often as I've stolen his taxes." Lydia's eyes sparkled wildly. She would never volunteer to this monster ...
“Only you believe that, soot rose,” Malvin intervened, a little sleepily, “but the eagle sees an advantage in that.” He yawned heartily and ran his hand through his dark hair, “He hopes that we will benefit from his taxes let go and take your grandfather's instead. "

Getting through the forest quietly and as unnoticed as possible with fifteen men was impossible, so they split up. Lydia was walking through the swamp with Bastan, Malvin, Lason and the cuckoo. This was the shortest, but also the most dangerous route.
Strange creatures live in the swamp, like the black fairies. They are no bigger than a man's hand, their wings resemble those of a moth, they were pitch black like hair and eyes, and their skin was gray. They are harmless, just a bit stubborn and bitchy.
The dangerous thing about the swamp are the shadow elves, but they too are harmless if you don't get too close to them. The dead drop, a beautiful but equally poisonous plant, is the worst thing about the swamp. Its flowers resemble those of a rose, but they are not red, white or yellow, they are purple.
Lydia fell in it once as a small child, her mother had taken her to the Lake of the Fire Nymphs. At that time they had healed Lydia, but they have not shown themselves to anyone since that day. Only Lydia could see her sometimes. The nymphs showed her how to whisper flames to comfort her when her mother died.
"What are you thinking about, soot rose?", Bastan asked when he saw her depressed face.
"To my mother and what it would be like if she were still alive. Would I then sneak through the forest with you or if I would quarrel with Florenzo at the castle of Carendela as I did before?"
"I don't know, but isn't it good the way it is? And even if your mother were still alive, your father was a robber like me and in your heart you are too," he said, laughing, um to chase away their sad thoughts.

It was already dark when they got to the burrow.
The burrow was an entanglement of underground caves and passages. The entrances were well hidden and not all of the robbers knew all of them.
They were the last, because Lydia wanted to go to the Lake of the Fire Nymphs. Malvin had gone ahead with the two men. But Bastan didn't want to go with them. Nor did she argue when he wanted to come with me.
Because she had known him for too long, he had pulled her out of the dead drip bushes and brought her to her mother, he had comforted her when her mother died, he had protected her from the boys in Carendela when they were all too naughty and he had had come to her at the castle to fetch her when her father was so badly injured in a robbery over a year ago that he died two days later.Everyone knew he was in love with the soot rose, even if he could often hide it.
But she didn't know what she was feeling.

Lydia slept badly that night, she had nightmares that she hadn't had for a long time. They always came when something bad would happen, like when her mother died, she had seen the same pictures as now and when her father died they were there too. Images, like a death sentence, of those she loved.
At some point Bastan woke her because she was screaming for him and Pippo in her sleep, so loud that he woke up. She had cried in her sleep and the tears were still running down her face. She was glad that only Bastan was with her because she hated it when someone saw that she was crying. He took her in his arms and told her what shit his father had always said about her, that there was no blood but fire in her veins.
"What are you laughing at?" He asked, horrified, "I really mean it, he really said that when he saw you dancing with the fire in the marketplace for the first time. And mother kept her mouth shut every time if he wanted to tell us. "
"I don't believe you. And even if you did, your mother was right to shut him up, that's total crap!", She laughed and wiped the rest of her tears from her face, "But I like it. Also when I should be worried about Pippo. "
"What kind of noise are you making here? There are others here who might want to sleep!" Muttered Malvin, who stood sleepily in the entrance of the cave, which first belonged to her father and now belonged to Lydia. "Why sleep, you slept