The young woman shuddered. Crawled through the thicket of the dark conifers of the dark forest, which in the gloomy twilight of the dying day, like shadowy giants, whose only reason for existence seemed to lie in the expulsion of intruders in order to ensure the well-being of their homeland, took over the time-honored position of thousand-year-old guardians an impenetrable cloud of fog from the shadows of the branches and past the meter-wide trunks, which made the narrow path seem insurmountable in some places, towards them. Reluctantly, she took a small step up the white wall, following the winding snake path, the traces of which were almost invisible in the frozen earth, and maneuvered her unhealthily malnourished body through the narrow gap between two trunks of a huge tree that blocked her way.

The low-hanging branches struck at her dirty white dress like wild harpies, held it captive with iron fingers and tore it apart until the young woman, whose silky-white skin was covered with innumerable cuts and scratches, came out of her clutches, but she did so had been able to hold back for a long time that she had completely enclosed the oppressive wall of smoke and was able to hide the path to her anxious searching eyes, which she had already barely made out because of the little light that had only faintly penetrated through the high treetops, was able to free them.

Her hazel-brown eyes closed for a tiny moment while her thin, ruby-red lips opened for a short prayer to give strength to herself, her heart beating hard against her chest, which despite the heavy burden that lay on him, Moving faster than ever, and playing reassurance to her irregularly rapid breathing; but neither one nor the other she was able to effect, since her fear had already eaten too far into her heart, which determined her breathing, and now determined its beat, the fear of what she knew would have to happen.

While she opened her eyes again, the fog intensified his white face and transformed the surrounding trees into dark shapes, which, wearing sardonic grimaces, stared down at her and grabbed her with iron fingers so that she shrank back fearfully, with the bare, cold ones Feet in the broad roots that had broken through the frozen ground everywhere, to what it seemed to tie up her sore joints, got stuck and finally fell rudely to the ground, she heard the ominous call of the diurnal messenger of the night, who was at the same time in transformed a high-pitched scream of deafening frequency and suddenly resembled a human voice of unnatural beauty that seemed to sound from the distant nothingness of the mist.

"What do you want here?"

When she heard the sounds, time seemed to stand still for the young woman, for the voice penetrated her trembling heart gently, enlightening her being with new confidence, driving away the fear and driving away the shadowy shapes of the trees, their hateful grimaces no longer threatening looked, the fog, which no longer seemed impenetrable, the gloomy forest, which now resembled a friend of the past; but while the last echo of the words faded away in the vastness of the forest, the confidence she had gained also withdrew from her heart and multiplied the burden on her soul, since the courage in which she was in for a few glorious, carefree moments soaked in sunshine whom she had found consolation, immersed, with her voice a swelling fire had gone out and now the lonely embers were kept alive, which indeed could kindle a new inferno, but which had no stumbling block.The fading of this trusting voice had done what neither the white wall of fog nor the gloomy forest had been able to achieve: the young woman, crushed by her hopelessness, stood in the middle of the trees and did not move a step. The forest had finally worked its black spell.

Like a small, clear, yet raging and unstoppable mountain stream from the rock of its source, the fear of what was to come, the impossibility of her task and the burden of her heart irrevocably and inexorably welled out, bursting out of her hazel-brown eyes as liquid diamonds, those of Her eyelashes pearled, her cheeks, blood-red from the bitter cold, ran down and dripped from the tip of her nose, moistening her ruby-red lips and finally, leaving a salty trail, struck out of the frozen ground, where they burst into hundreds of smaller diamonds that merged into a single one The rays of the setting sun, which had made their lonely path through the highest branches of the forest to illuminate the gloomy path, were reflected in a bluish tinge.

"Don't worry," she tried to calm the male voice, sounding almost human in its gentleness, so that the young woman gained new confidence. "I will not harm you. I am just curious who dares to penetrate so deep into my forest. Say what you have lost here and I will either let you pass or accompany you back safely to your village. "

The heart of the young woman, which was pounding in her throat during the absence of the voice, which seemed strangely familiar and which took away her fear of the dark forest, slowly returned to its right place and her tears dried up, as if the spring of the rock the fear would have been closed by the apparent presence of a second person. She tried to answer the man, yes, she even felt the urge to answer him, only to hear his voice one more time, but when she opened her mouth, which was only a tool of her heart fluttering with incomprehensible excitement, only a silent whisper escaped her mouth, which conjured a small cloud of her breath into the air. The young woman hesitated for a moment as she looked at the little cloud, which, illuminated by the sunbeam, rose high into the air, there united with the mist and finally floated away into its invisible existence.

"I, I come to, to settle my, our debt with the wizard," muttered the young woman into the white nothing, while astonished and frightened at the same time she opened her eyes as a second, third and fourth Sunbeam, like an invisible, inconspicuous coincidence, as if by magic broke through the wall of fog, joined the first and most beautiful ray and with it illuminated the winding path again. Carefully, but driven by curiosity, she walked along the path, breaking through the fog like the sun's rays before and was magically drawn to the sight that was waiting for her on the other side of the wall of fog.Like a little brook that died a beautiful thousandfold death, enchantingly reddish shimmering in the dying rays of the setting sun, when it flowed into the lake that fed from it, the path, lined with protective, leafless oaks on both sides, ended on the shore of a lake shining red in the light of the evening sun, the surface of which, on which small waves were beating, had not yet frozen over despite the wintry cold; only a few meters from the little-used path, but directly on the shores of the lake, a small, albeit mighty stone house was enthroned with a stone chimney of the same size, from which white smoke oozed, and small windows that shone in the very last rays of the canopy the distant shore of the disappearing sun shone brightly.

As the young woman approached the heavy wooden door of the charmingly situated house, she forgot her fear in astonishment and astonishment and finally, without hesitation, gently knocked on the oak wood, which, as if it had been waiting for the touch of her slender fingers, came inside for her opened up and offered her a view into the interior of the house: both sides of the stone walls, which led to a simple, but more than sufficient warmth against the winter cold, stone fireplace in which crackling logs burned almost smokeless in a blazing fire, were adorned with numerous wooden shelves on which obscure objects, from tangled root knots to inscribed containers full of liquids, which she could not identify because she could not read, were adorned. Two further open wooden doors led from this main room into a kitchen, as she suspected from the stone fireplace, and a bedroom, whose large window, from which the residents of the house could see the entire lake, flooded the cozy straw bed with light.

"If you want to speak to a wizard, I can't help you," said the same rough, deep voice that had already taken the young woman's fear of what was ahead in the depths of the gloomy forest, and pulled her from her contemplation of the comfortable house . "However, if you want to speak to me, come in and close the door behind you; it's getting cold."

Only now did the young woman notice the simple, wooden table in the middle of the living room, at which a young man with raven-black hair was sitting on an equally simple wooden chair, his guest, without even once looking at the scroll, its similar one the rough surface concealed, to take, to beckoned to. Since the young woman neither answered him nor accepted his invitation, but merely remained silent on the doorstep, the black-haired man looked up from his occupation and looked at the woman in astonishment.

Neither the apparent neglect by her family, which she must have suffered due to the poverty of the village she lived in or the winter, and the resulting malnutrition, nor her torn, dirty white, strapless, strapless dress, the Her silky-white skin was inadequate in many places and her knees only barely covered, her forearms disfigured by cuts, her dirty face and her dirty, chin-length, blue-black hair were able to diminish the incomparable elegance and hidden beauty of the young woman, her hazel eyes restless on his azure eyes and given them an unnatural glow.His heart, hidden under a warming red shirt, beat faster as she lowered her eyes shyly.

The young woman, too, stared at the wizard with interest for a few moments before lowering her gaze to the wooden floor. His medium-length, black hair, his distinctive face covered by short stubble, his hard, but enchanting blue eyes, his muscles emerging from under his thick shirt, his rough,