Kirin leaned against an old oak growing above the sacred cave and sighed. His witch elders had played him for a fool. They had told him this was a place of power where one could catch glimpses of the Otherworld. All he’d glimpsed so far were damp stone and the faintest trace of magic, buried deep and far beyond his reach.

He idly plucked the strings of his lyre. How was he supposed to compose a masterpiece when he had never experienced anything truly extraordinary in his nineteen years? Where were the gods coming down to earth to test the mortals, the great heroes fighting noble battles, the beauty and love that burned men’s souls? Was the world all those songs spoke of just a lie?

He put the lyre aside and shouted at the heavens, “Just give me one sign!”

The ground under him shifted abruptly.

Kirin shot to his feet in panic, then stumbled forward as the earth shook again. The air around him filled with intense, unfamiliar magic that overpowered his senses. Was this a punishment? The High Warlock had so often told him that prayers to the gods should be phrased as requests, not shouted like demands of a spoiled child. Maybe he should have listened.

Despite the ringing in his ears, he could hear hoofbeats on stone. Too dizzy to get up, he crawled forward to glance over the edge.

A rider burst from the cave.

Kirin gasped. The man looked exactly like a hero of legend! A mighty golden-haired figure, dressed in shiny armour, with a longsword strapped to his back. A throwing axe hung from the saddle of a most noble horse. The bard wished the man would turn and look up so he could see his face and immortalise it in verse.

The mighty one raised his hand. Furry beasts shot out of the cave and disappeared between the trees so quickly that Kirin wasn’t even sure he hadn’t imagined their many tails. Was this the wild hunt the songs sometimes spoke of?

Even more silver-clad riders spilled into the clearing. Hooded figures in grey cloaks followed behind them in such an eerie silence that the bard wasn’t even sure their feet were touching the ground. They spread in a protective circle around the men and women on horses and raised their bows.

Kirin rolled behind the shrubbery. It didn’t seem wise to be caught spying on those beings, whoever they were. His whole body felt sluggish and drained by the energies soaring from the cave’s mouth.

A woman’s voice rang from below. “Stand down, archers! Where to now, Lioren?”

A cold wind shook the trees, and Kirin heard something about waterfalls before the hoofbeats started again. He watched them disappear between the trees, wondering whether he should send his Seeker energies after them to find out where they were going.

No, that was a bad idea. If other witches could see the glow of his magic, surely those beings could too. Also, he felt slightly nauseous from all that power that hit him when they arrived.

But how had they arrived? What entrance was there between the stones? And where did it lead to?

Still dizzy, he managed to scramble to his feet and ran to the path that led down to the cave. The magic inside was so overwhelming that it made him recoil, overpowering his Seeker senses. Maybe it was better to wait until he regained his strength.

He spent the night at the miners’ camp at the edge of the forest. The men there were always welcoming when he passed through. They told him stories about wonders seen around the cave, too.

Tales of a beautiful golden-haired songstress who would lure men into ruin, and stately riders chasing through the woods with howling wolves at their side. Yet, none of them had seen such things themselves, only heard them in stories passed down in their families.

So Kirin said nothing either. Still, he returned to the cave the next morning and examined every inch. The magic had subsided, but he could still feel it in the stone, faint and steady beneath the surface. Sometimes, he even thought he could hear faraway screams echoing from the walls.

Yet there was nothing. No secret passage, no crack in the rock, no trace of how they had come through at all. Just a cold, hard wall.

If he went back home, all the way to Ynys Môn, would the High Warlock believe what he had witnessed? Or would he just give him that usual indulgent smile and call him a young fool with too much imagination again?

He sighed and fetched his lyre. That was how he made sense of things. If he could just find the right words to describe it in verse, perhaps he could understand what he had seen. He tried out half-formed lines, yet nothing sounded right. The imagery was too trite to capture the moment of awe, and he could not find anything that rhymed with silver.

As if in protest at his bad verses, a thread of golden magic emerged from the wall and struck toward him. The stone beneath him cracked, but he didn’t care. The barrier was opening again.

He let his Seeker senses reach freely as he ran to the back of the cave. It had to be somewhere here. The cold surface under his palm grew warm. Kirin reached for the center of the heat.

The wall blurred and dissolved into light. Raw, undiluted power surged against his skin. It filled all his senses, went through his flesh and burrowed into his bones, splitting his very core.

Then all of it vanished as another hand met his. He looked up and found himself staring into a pair of sharp green eyes. They were slightly slanted like a wildcat’s and seemed very displeased to see him.