OKSA DROPPED LIKE A STONE.

“Vertifly!” shouted Tugdual.

“I can’t!” she yelled, frantically flapping her arms to no avail.

Immediately Tugdual flew over and grabbed her tightly from behind, halting the fall that would have killed her.

“Don’t be silly!” he whispered. “Of course you can!”

Anxiously, his eyes scanned the area like a radar. He gradually relaxed his grip, giving Oksa time to shake off the paralysing panic. Just below, a troop of guards in leather armour was walking through the forest between the trees. Oksa needed no further prompting: her face tense with concentration, she took off and followed Tugdual for two miles to the borders of Leafhold, heading in the opposite direction to the patrol. The belt of dead vegetation, which was a stone’s throw away, formed a hideous contrast with the lush abundance of the forest city. Tugdual guided Oksa to a dilapidated platform with four seemingly abandoned houses where they landed, out of breath.

“Whatever happens, don’t take out your Granok-Shooter, okay?” warned Tugdual. “Only five of us here have one, so it wouldn’t be hard for them to work out who we are.”

He suddenly shoved her under the withered arbour of one of the houses and pressed himself against her, standing perfectly still behind the tattered dry stems and leaves. A few seconds later about twenty guards sped past. Tugdual put his hand over Oksa’s mouth.

“They’re searching for you.”

Oksa’s eyes widened with fear.

“What are we going to do?” she whispered.

Tugdual carefully looked around.

“We’ll head back to the Monumental Tree. If you see one of Ocious’s guards, try to act naturally, as though you live here. Don’t go too quickly or you’ll attract attention.”

“But Sylvabuls can’t Vertifly!” objected Oksa. “They’ll notice us immediately.”

“Although the Sylvabuls are in the majority here, a few Long-Gulches and Firmhands live here, and some of them have done for several generations. Vertifliers are a common sight, so there’s nothing to be afraid of. In that respect, anyway.”

He looked right and left, then up and down, and took Oksa’s hand.

“The coast is clear. I’ll go first and you can follow me.”

“What if we’re separated?” asked Oksa, her voice shaking.

“The Monumental Tree is straight ahead. At the worst, Vertifly high up. It’s taller than all the other trees, so you can’t miss it.”

He took her face in his hands, gazed intently at her and dropped a kiss on her forehead.

“It’ll be okay, Lil’ Gracious.”

They took off cautiously and disappeared into the forest.

Everything went smoothly until they came face to face with a patrol that appeared without warning. The two Vertifliers stopped dead, like Oksa’s heart when the guards surrounded them. Tugdual glanced steadily at her, urging her to stay calm and strong.

“State your identity!” ordered one of the men.

To Oksa’s great surprise, Tugdual replied:

“Henning, son of Gunnar, Firmhand.”

The guard consulted the crystal tablet in his hands. He looked perfectly happy with Tugdual’s answer. Then he turned to Oksa:

“What about you?”

Acrid sweat trickled down the Young Gracious’s temple.

“This is my cousin, Ingrid,” said Tugdual.

The guard again examined his tablet, then eyed Oksa suspiciously. Few of them had been privileged enough to see the New Gracious in person and, despite Ocious’s description, the girl before him looked just like any other girl of her age. Unless she had that famous distinguishing mark…

“Show us your belly button!” he demanded authoritatively.

Tugdual looked at Oksa and unwittingly his forehead furrowed. The alert guard reacted immediately.

“Is that a problem?”

The guards instinctively positioned themselves to take immediate action.

“No problem!” answered Oksa.

As Tugdual struggled to hide his concern, she raised the bottom of her tunic.

“Okay!” declared the guard, after staring at it for a few seconds.

Oksa’s belly button looked completely ordinary. There was no trace of any star like the one Ocious had mentioned.

“Who’s your father?”

Oksa stared at him, appearing much calmer than she actually felt. Around her wrist the Curbita-Flatulo was undulating with all its might to keep her from showing any weakness. However, the grey sky was becoming more overcast. If the situation worsened, the storm would break. There was no doubt about it.

“My father?” she asked.

The guards closed in.

“Don’t mind her. It’s not her fault,” said Tugdual.

He pressed closer to Oksa, holding her arm firmly. It wouldn’t take much for her to shoot into the air.

“She’s a bit… you know…”

“A bit what?” pressed the guard.

“A bit simple,” continued Tugdual confidingly. “Her father’s Lars. We came looking for provisions in Leafhold.”

The guard studied them long and hard with an unpleasant expression on his face. After a few moments, which felt like light years to Oksa, he moved back.

“Okay, you can go.” he said. “Try not to wander around on your own.”

Oksa almost asked him if he was worried they might meet the wrong kind of people, but Tugdual was already pulling her away.

“Let’s get out of here,” he murmured.

She obeyed.

“That was a narrow escape!” said Tugdual.

He glanced at her enquiringly.

“I didn’t know about your star.”

“The star marked me out as the future Gracious,” explained Oksa. “When I was enthroned, it floated away. I knew it was safe to lift up my tunic. You had me fooled, though.”

Tugdual had given her a masterclass in keeping cool and she was impressed.

“Well done!” she said softly, Vertiflying level with him. “How did you know all that?”

“It wasn’t hard to know what they were bound to ask. I just made sure I had the answers off pat.”

“Is there really an Ingrid? And a Henning?”

“Of course!” replied Tugdual. “In these circumstances, it’s always a good idea to have an alias up your sleeve.”

“Okay,” nodded Oksa. “I’ll try to remember that.”

“Anyway, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It’s possible I didn’t convince them. I may only have delayed them by sowing the seeds of doubt.”

They continued Vertiflying carefully side by side.

“I was afraid of that,” exclaimed Tugdual suddenly, without even bothering to look back. “Don’t turn round, they’re following us.”

“Oh, no,” wailed Oksa, “why won’t they leave us alone?”

They flew faster, zigzagging between trees and terraces, trying to act as naturally as possible, but the guards didn’t seem to be deceived. They’d been joined by another patrol, so they were being pursued by a good fifty of them. Oksa and Tugdual began dodging in and out of the trees in earnest, rising and falling, turning suddenly to the right, forking sharply to the left. Despite their skill, though, they couldn’t outdistance Ocious’s men, who had the advantage of numbers.

“Stop!” cried a voice.

Far from obeying this order, Oksa tried even harder to stay beside Tugdual. During this time, scores of Leafhold’s inhabitants had leapt to their defence and were doing their bit by blocking the Vertiflying guards’ route using the most ingenious methods: casting nets, releasing helpful birds, catapulting wooden balls… Oksa was over the moon to see a guard hit head-on by a basket fired from a zip-line. One down! However, guards were flocking from all directions and the danger facing Oksa and Tugdual was growing greater with every second. So, when Tugdual pointed to a platform below, they swooped down without a moment’s thought and, covered by a defensive Sylvabul front, they slipped beneath the terrace and clung to the wooden beams like spiders, hidden by a curtain of hanging vines.

“I’m going to fall,” muttered Oksa, concentrating all her energy on her hands and feet.

Around the tree where the two friends were hiding, the battle raged. Sylvabuls riding on Aeropellers raised hell in the ranks of Ocious’s guards, rocketing past like screaming hurricanes.

Suddenly a trapdoor opened above Oksa. An arm appeared and grabbed her tunic, pulling her out of her temporary shelter. Thinking her last hour had come, she shut her eyes, feeling heartbroken. Ocious had won.

“Come on, Young Gracious!” whispered someone, roughly manhandling her.

She opened her eyes and her face lit up: she was inside one of the houses on the platform and Edgar, the venerable Sylvabul, was facing her. She was so glad to see him that she could have flung her arms around his neck! The trapdoor banged open, then immediately shut again: Tugdual had just joined them.

“This way, quickly!” whispered Edgar.

He turned to face one of the walls covered in brown brick and, using his fingertip, traced the invisible contours of a square whose sides measured about three feet. In just a few seconds, this shape became a convenient opening. Edgar pushed down on Oksa’s head, urging her to slip inside the hole. Mechanically Oksa climbed into what proved to be the trunk of a hollow tree. After Tugdual and Edgar had also entered, the old man closed the exit just as magically as he’d opened it.

Beyond the wall, the three of them clearly heard terrifying shouts, threats and the sound of the front door of the house being smashed down. Then, while Oksa, flanked by Edgar and Tugdual, hid inside the tree trunk, Ocious’s grim-faced guards burst into the empty house.