THE FOURTH REALM: GREEN — The eyes of the heart

At night she built a campfire. She liked to watch the salamanders keeping the fire alive, their conversations in light, their changing shapes. Sometimes one flame leaned toward another and both rose, as though they had just come to an agreement. Then she remembered the fugaíns and recognized something of their world in that tiny gesture.

One night, as she watched without expecting anything, the fire took on a beautiful color somewhere between blue and green.

“That’s the spirit of fire,” Helio told her. “Every element has a spirit watching over it. When you look with the eyes of your heart, it sometimes lets itself be seen.”

Skyblue stayed perfectly still. She was afraid that a hasty question might dissolve the apparition.

“What you call the world is also a projection of what is within you,” her guide continued. “Your senses show you images; your mind compares them with what it knows. You can spend your whole life seeing only what you were taught to see. To see through that illusion, learn to look without judging and to love what you see. Your inner senses need to awaken, too.”

“And then?”

“Keep watching. Let it surprise you, too.”

The dragon smiled. That was a task she thought herself fairly well prepared for, although the journey had shown her how much she still took for granted.

She waited until the fire burned out. The last salamander curled into an ember and disappeared, but Skyblue could still feel its warmth in her chest. She thanked the presences that sustained that life.

“This journey will continue after you’ve traveled through all the realms,” Helio told her. “It will continue even when you leave this world. We’re all travelers. As I accompany you, I’m also making my own way.”

Skyblue didn’t try to imagine how far that road might lead. She ate when she was hungry, rested when her body asked her to, and stopped for whatever caught her interest. She remembered the dwarves. There was a rhythm of her own within her; she was beginning to hear it.