My thoughts spiraled as I stared at the iron cage containing the pulsing emerald cocoon. The memory of the dragonfire's peculiar properties flashed through my mind—how it had selectively attacked organic matter, how it had lingered in the melted, warped structure of one of the village houses, how getting close to the melted wood peeled away the skin of my fingertips with just a brief touch.

  Perhaps one extreme magical energy could counter another?

  "I might have just the containment method," I muttered to Stormy, who was keeping a wary distance from the cage.

  I gathered several lengths of sturdy rope, coiling them neatly before securing them to either end of the iron cage. The Sirin's cocoon pulsed inside, its rhythm unchanged—patient, alien, waiting.

  "You might be immune to normal fire," I told the cocoon, "but let's see how you handle dragonfire residue."

  With considerable effort, I dragged the cage across the snow toward the house I'd discovered earlier—the one with the warped, melted walls that still radiated that strange, destructive energy. The cage left a deep furrow in the snow as I pulled, the iron runners I'd attached to its base making the task marginally easier.

  The house stood as I remembered it—half collapsed, with that eerie, distorted section where wood and stone had flowed like wax before re-solidifying into freaky shapes.

  I approached cautiously, stopping well short of the affected area. The memory of my peeling skin served as an effective deterrent against carelessness. I snipped of a bit of witch-blessed grass now blooming from small holes in my backpack and threw it towards the warped wall. The leaf rapidly turned black and died.

  "Definitely still active," I noted. "This calls for a careful setup."

  Venturing to the village's decrepit barn, I scavenged several large pulleys from what remained of the hay-lifting system. The metal wheels were rusted but functional, and the thick wooden frames would provide the necessary distance between me and the dragonfire residue.

  I worked methodically, setting up a pulley system that would allow me to move the cage in and out of the affected area without having to enter it myself. First, I secured a pulley to a sturdy beam on the undamaged side of the house. Then, using the branch to keep my distance, I maneuvered another pulley into position near the center of the warped section, securing it to what had once been a support column.

  Threading the ropes through the pulleys, I created a simple but effective mechanism. By pulling on one rope, I could move the cage into the dragonfire-affected area; by pulling the other, I could retrieve it. A series of smaller pulleys guided the ropes back to a safe distance, where I could operate the system without exposure to the deadly energy.

  "Hotel Svalbard is upgrading your room free of charge," I informed the cocoon with a grin as I finished the preparations. "Special spa dragon-ionic-infused treatment included."

  With a deep breath, I pulled on the first rope. The cage slid smoothly into the warped section of the house, coming to rest at the elephant's foot of the dragonfire warped wall. The effect was immediate and dramatic.

  The emerald cocoon writhed inside the cage, its smooth surface suddenly rippling with distress. A high-pitched keening sound emanated from within, like a tea kettle at boil but infinitely more alien. The pulsing accelerated, becoming erratic and desperate.

  "Not so indestructible after all," I observed with grim satisfaction.

  After about thirty seconds, I pulled the second rope, drawing the cage back out to examine the effects. The cocoon had changed—its surface now marred with dull patches where the lustrous emerald had faded to a sickly olive. The pulsing had slowed significantly, becoming weaker and more irregular.

  "Hrm," I murmured. "Direct confrontation between opposing magical energies."

  I pushed the cage back into the dragonfire zone, this time leaving it for a full minute before retrieving it. The cocoon's deterioration continued, more of its surface dulling and its movements growing increasingly feeble.

  For the next several hours, I experimented methodically, noting the precise effects of different exposure duration. The pattern was clear—the dragonfire residue was actively harmful to the Sirin within the emerald shell, weakening the jade shell without completely destroying it.

  "This might work as a containment method," I decided. "Periodic exposures to keep you weakened without killing you entirely. Guess I found the local Sirin's Kryptonite."

  I established a routine using a sandglass I found in the ruins: fifteen minutes of exposure followed by an hour of recovery, allowing the cocoon to rebuild just enough strength to survive the next session without ever regaining its full potency. It was a delicate balance, requiring careful observation, but it seemed effective.

  Between exposure sessions, I continued my scientific investigations. Using my crude microscope, I examined samples of the cocoon's surface after dragonfire exposure, comparing them to untreated samples.

  The results were quite interesting. The dragonfire-affected crystals showed distinct structural changes, their perfect hexagonal patterns disrupted and fragmented. There appeared to be a fundamental incompatibility between the two magical energies—like matter meeting antimatter, albeit at a much slower rate of annihilation.

  "Life versus death," I theorized aloud, sketching my observations on parchment. "Transformation versus destruction. But neither can completely overcome the other."

  I consulted my witch status, wondering if I had gained any Cultivated Essence from these experiments.

  | Cultivated Essence: 0

  Whatever I was doing with the Sirin, it wasn't registering as advancement in the magical system that governed witches.

  "Maybe this isn't how witches typically grow stronger," I mused, tapping my chin thoughtfully.

  Turning my attention back to the cocoon, I wondered what exactly was happening inside. Was the Sirin conscious during this regenerative process? Was she experiencing pain from the dragonfire exposures? The ethical implications of my experiments nagged at me, but I squashed them ruthlessly.

  "You tried to eat me," I reminded the pulsing mass. "Twice. And who knows how many others you've succeeded in consuming. I'd say this is fair turnabout."

  The cocoon remained silent.

  "You know," I told the pulsing mass, "in another life, I might have been studying single-celled organisms and protein folding. Now I'm irradiating a magical bird monster in a cage with dragonfire like some deranged wizard."

  Stormy climbed onto my shoulder, purring loudly as if to remind me she existed. I stroked her soft fur absently.

  "At least I've got good company," I added, scratching behind the kitten's ears. "And who knows? Maybe having a Sirin in my collection will scare off the next monster that comes knocking."

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  The cocoon pulsed on, undisturbed by my musings, while the sun began to set. I was about to drag the cage with me into the pub when cracks began rushing along its edges.

  I paused and wound my arbalest just in case, waiting for Sirin to be reborn. As the last ray of sun vanished and the clouds above turned dark violet and gray, the shell cracked completely, shattering.

  In the center of the cage, curled in a fetal position and drenched in the clear fluid, lay a creature that both was and wasn't the Sirin I'd burned, beheaded, burned again and thrown from a cliff.

  Her form was even slimmer now, the once-imposing frame reduced to something more wiry and lean. The magnificent wings that had spread like midnight shadow were now thinner, more compact, the feathers shorter but still bearing that distinctive emerald shimmer at their tips. Her face was smaller too. Gone was the predatory maturity, replaced by softer contours that mirrored my own teenage form.

  Her golden eyes fluttered open, focusing with disorienting clarity despite the trauma of her rebirth. Those eyes locked onto mine—the same burning intensity, the same alien intelligence, but now housed in a face that could have potentially belonged to a girl from this village.

  "Aurrghh!" She rasped, gold eyes flashing left and right. “Where am I…? Oh. A cage. Outside… Why does the air taste so vile?”

  Her head snapped to the melted house wall behind her.

  “What?!”

  “Dragonfire residue,” I said. “Don’t try anything funny or I’ll do this.” I grabbed on the rope and began to slide the cage towards the dragonfire irradiated wood.

  The Sirin hissed and backed away from the side of the cage nearest the warped wall, her new slender form pressing against the iron bars on the opposite side.

  "You..." she growled, her voice a pitch higher now. "You've trapped me near dragonglass! Do you have any idea what that does to living things?"

  "Dragonglass, huh?" I noted down the name. "Yes, I have a pretty good idea," I replied evenly, keeping my hand on the rope. "It warps them, breaks them down at a molecular level. Quite effective against magical pests."

  Her golden eyes narrowed, her gaze darting between my face and the dragonfire-warped wood. "What do you want, abomination?

  I pulled the cage away from the dragonfire wall and she relaxed ever so slightly.

  "First, stop calling me 'abomination.' My name is Ioan. Second, you're far too scientifically interesting to simply dispose of. And third—" I tugged slightly on the rope, causing the cage to inch closer to the warped wall. She flinched visibly. "—you're going to answer some questions for me."

  She laughed—a bitter, broken sound. "Questions? From a thing like you?”

  “Not a thing,” I said. “Ioan. Go on—learn to say it or…”

  I pulled on the rope, making the cage slide a few inches.

  “Ioan,” she repeated with a hiss.

  “Good,” I pulled over a somewhat intact wooden stool and sat facing the cage. "Let's start with what you are. Also, what is that crystalline substance inside you?"

  She struggled to rise, slick limbs sliding on the remnants of her shattered cocoon. Her movements were uncoordinated at first, as if she was relearning how to use this new body. Then her eyes focused on me, no, looked past me.

  “I am a Sirin, a soul aligned to goddess Nox. My blood is inside me, it hardens when spilled. Release me, stillwalker!” she hissed.

  “Why, so you can summon other Sirins or curse me with your song-magic? Yeah, I don’t think so.”

  Her hissing intensified. Stormy hissed back from my shoulder. The Sirin’s eyes snapped to the kitten, finally focusing on something. Stormy growled at the bird girl. She growled back.

  “Try anything magical and I will immerse you in dragonfire radiance,” I said. “Even if you’re immortal, I’m pretty sure you won’t like that.”

  Her golden eyes narrowed, assessing me with calculated fury. She stretched her new limbs experimentally, wincing as joints and muscles realigned themselves.

  "What are you?" she demanded. "No mortal or hero has ever reached my sanctuary."

  I leaned forward. "I could ask you the same question. What kind of creature survives beheading, burning, and being thrown off a cliff?"

  She laughed—a harsh, bitter sound. "Any Sirin that is old enough can survive such things." Her talons scraped against the iron bars, testing their strength. "This form is but a shadow of what I was. You've cost me centuries of growth, reduced me to this... juvenile state."

  "Cry me a river," I scoffed. "You tried to eat me. Twice."

  "Eat you?! I wasn’t planning to eat you!" She tilted her head, the movement disconcertingly bird-like despite her human face. "Transform. Elevate! To bless the weak Earth-bound witch with the stars. To gift you the sky, to align you to Nox!”

  "By 'gift' you mean that weird crystal stuff growing in your victims? Pass."

  Her wings rustled with irritation. "You understand nothing. The emerald flame is rebirth, ascension from the mud, release from your chains to your Earth-bound domain!”

  “Do I look chained to you?” I asked.

  That shut her up.

  “Pretty sure those dead people and animals in your tree weren't ascending anywhere,” I said. “They were being hollowed out, crystallized, consumed from within."

  "Vessels," she corrected. "Preparation for the great metamorphosis. Not all are worthy—most serve merely as sustenance, foundation for those who are. Just like the foundation of your magics was a sacrifice of her kin."

  “And you thought me worthy of being a Sirin?” I asked.

  “You…” she choked. “I don’t know what in the Abyss you are! You were supposed to be a girl bound to Zemliya, confined to a single spot!”

  “How did you know what I was supposed to be?”

  “I felt it in the Astral—a new witch born from dragonfire, courtesy of Yaga Grandhilda’s meddling with this dying town.”

  “What do you see when you look at me?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” was her answer.

  “What about the kitten?” I pointed at Stormy on my shoulder. "Do you see her on me?"

  “I see a kitten sitting somewhere nearby.”

  “Somewhere? Where and on what?”

  “The exact location of the kitten is unclear to me… unplottable. Goddess Zemlya's blessing protects her maidens, concealing their bodies from spirit-sight. A witch is unplottable within her domain, hidden from Astral gaze.”

  “Astral sight? What about mundane sight?”

  “I am a predator aligned with the night,” she replied. “I am stronger in the dark and I can only see the Astral. I do not have mortal-beast eyes.”

  “Well, aren't you an honest one.” I commented.

  “The truth within words is easy enough to discern in the Astral for those with Foresight. I simply don’t wish to be burned again for deception.”

  I thought of what else to ask her. “What does my voice sound like to you?”

  “Like stone gradually grinding against stone. Like rushing grains of sand in the wind, barely discernible. It takes a great deal of effort and focus for me to perceive your speech and even then it sounds… wrong. So very, very wrong.”

  “Like a witch?”

  “No. The voice of a witch while muted by her domain is soft like the whispers of roots and leaves. Your voice is cold and hard like rocks, dry like dead dust.”

  “Are there others like me?”

  “There are all sorts of cursed abominations born of our dying world’s final breath,” she shrugged. “You’re the first one to have killed and captured me.”

  “What’s the name of this world?”

  “Thornwild.”

  “Why is it dying?”

  “I do not know, but I feel it in the wind, sense it in the Astral. Our world’s life-flame is going out as it falls closer to Endalaus. Glaciers advance from the north. White Blight devastates the forests. A new kind of mage-flesh breeds in the south, the Children of the Wormwood Star who think that they’re destined to inherit the earth. We, Sirin, have been forced to become scavengers… our numbers dwindling over the passing centuries. My tree was one of the last ones in this forest.”

  “What’s Endalaus?”

  “Look for it in the night sky when the clouds clear.”

  “Are there other Sirins in this forest?”

  “There were. The Blight weakened them and then the Jotuns captured and dragged them away into Chernobog. Many fled South. My song is too weak, cannot reach them now that my domain-tree is gone.”

  “Chernobog?”

  “A cursed swamp north of here. The Jotuns, beasts of inverted flesh serve it.”

  “What were you doing to that girl in your tree, the one who was growing wings?”

  “She was a little witch I captured decades ago,” the Sirin replied. “I was uplifting her into a Sirin.”

  “Decades ago? The process is that slow?”

  “No. She fell into a near-death state a long time ago,” the Sirin sighed. “A troll found her first, struck her blindly within her domain with a tree-sized club. I was trying to bring her back to life, was feeding her mortal souls.”

  “A troll?”

  “A very large, very stupid, very dangerous beast.” The Sirin’s gold eyes glared at me. “Barely cognizant and always hungry. Many starving, desperate things prowl these dying woods seeking sustenance. They will come this way if you keep me in this cage outside. The smell of dragonfire will not deter them forever from this village.”

  A distant eerie howl sounded from the woods.

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