Shortly after Mikael and Fia reached the campsite, over forty people poured in, all new arrivals accompanied by their trainers. Only half of them belonged to this training area. The others had unexpectedly joined from nearby places, and Gayle was visibly vexed about it. 

Pekka and Dara quickly excused themselves and wandered off down the road to who knows where. Raija seemed to know everybody, and on the off chance that she didn’t, she was quick to remedy the situation. 

Rekik, the other girl from Grey Peak, arrived with the party from Sun Peak. She was a tall, broad girl with tight brown curls in a bob and bright brown eyes. She was excited to see Fia and Mikael, and as much as Fia wished the feeling was mutual, it was not. 

When the two friends first met Rekik at Markus’s inn, they loved her. However, their opinion only went south from there to the extent that when Rekik told them she was leaving, Fia and Mikael offered prayers of gratitude. The day she finally left, they made an exceptionally large dinner and even invited Markus, telling him they were celebrating Fia’s mother’s birthday. They were not.  

Rekik was from the early twenty-third century and what Mikael and Fia called an era-ist, time-ist and century-ist—the name was a work in progress. They felt people like her were the reason no one disclosed their Earth timelines.

Unfortunately, Mikael, Fia, and Rekik had already exchanged their century of birth before they learned this unspoken rule. Once Rekik knew of their humble twenty-first-century origins, every conversation with her ended with how easy it must be for them to adjust. Any attempts at explaining that the technology they enjoyed was far ahead of the Garden’s were in vain. Apart from this, Rekik had a lovely disposition, and this drove Fia mad with rage and made Mikael want to cry. For what they found worse than an obnoxious person was one who was also nauseatingly sweet. However, now, since the three knew each other already, everyone expected them to be the best of friends, including Rekik.  

“You should’ve come with me, Fia,” Rekik said. “Sun Peak is much higher than Grey Peak, and the views are breathtaking! It would have been fun if we were all together.” She spoke with no malice, and Fia felt she may have misjudged. “We had to go by these bull carts for part of the way since it was so far.” She frowned. “I got a bit upset by that. It felt cruel to the animals. But you would’ve been okay with that.” She smiled. “You totally should’ve come.” 

There it was.

Fia forced a laugh that was too loud and then suddenly too quiet. She looked at Mikael standing in another group of new arrivals. He caught her eye, saw her company and stifled a smile.

Ten minutes later, he finally rescued her by calling her over.

“Fia, meet Noah,” said Mikael “He’s an arrival from Dry Lands.”

The boy, about their age, had a solid, muscular build and was only a few inches taller than Fia. His black hair was untied at the back going down to his hips; a braid hung on each side of his head with a green bead at the end. He wore a white robe with hand painted outlines of beasts, humans, constellations, and symbols that Fia didn’t recognize. He looked absolutely fascinating. 

“Noah from Dry Lands,” Fia said, beaming. “How ironic!”.

He weakly smiled.

She went on, “I read about the Dry Lands. Isn’t it quite a tough terrain? Did you have a lot of trouble when you arrived?”

“Yes, it’s mostly desert,” Noah said. “But, I was found on the second day, so it wasn’t too much trouble.” 

Second day?! Fia’s brow pulled together. Noah smiled weakly.

She schooled her face. “So, how come you all decided to have your initiation here? Dry Lands is quite far, isn’t it?” 

“Yeah… we came here because of you, I suppose.”

Mikael’s eyebrow shot up. “Is it because the Pillars have a better Initiator’s Guild?” 

“No, the Initiator’s Guild is the same everywhere. They have a central management with trainers from all regions. You get assigned the nearest one to you.”

Noah continued explaining the inner workings of the Initiator’s Guild for the next five or ten minutes and Fia was captivated.

Once he was finished, Mikael cut in, “Then, why because of us?”

“Oh,” Noah said simply, “because you migrated jointly. It’s very rare. The trainers heard about it at a Guild briefing and wanted to meet you, so they gathered here.”

Fia and Mikael knew about their unique situation but nobody in Grey Peak ever showed more than a few minutes of interest in them.      

“How rare is it?” asked Fia. 

“Very,” said Noah. “I read a book at the Carnation library that said the last one was five centuries ago. A woman and a man much younger than her. They died while hunting in the Five Sisters. The man fell in the river, and the woman jumped in after him but got caught in the current. Their bodies were never found. All the others before them have perished as well, so as of now, you two are the only ones alive.” 

“Is it always a man and a woman?” said Mikael. 

“No, there have been two women and two men. Not much is known about any of them though, just that they arrived at the same time and place, knew each other from their past lives and remained close in the Garden. The arrivals are pulled from billions of people, there are hardly ever two people alive who know each other from Earth. You’re—very remarkable.”

Fia wasn’t sure if it was a good or a bad thing to be so unique. She let out a nervous chuckle. “I wonder if we should match notes in case the trainers want to know our story.”

“Oh no,” said Noah assuredly. “Garden customs don’t allow them to be so straightforward. They’re intrigued by you, and this was an excellent opportunity to meet you, but they wouldn’t go as far as to pry into your Earth life.” 

Fia felt that he probably also read this in a book and it wasn’t just to ease her mind, but she was thankful for it just the same. She looked at Mikael and instantly knew they both loved Noah. 

They mingled for the rest of the evening, and as Noah predicted, the trainers treated them the same as others. After dinner, Gayle announced that they would fit the extra people into the existing tents for now but would move to a nearby village in the morning.

Mikael was assigned with Noah and two others. Fia shared a tent with Rekik and a girl from Wolf’s Ridge who had no one else to pair with.

As the noise faded and people drifted towards their tents, Fia walked with Mikael to the edge of camp. The lake below reflected a rust-coloured half moon and a smaller crescent.

She sighed. “At least there’s hope we’ll stay close in the Garden.” 

“Well, I don’t know,“ said Mikael. “Given my royal status, we may need to rethink our friendship. It’s unseemly to associate with commoners.”

Fia rolled her eyes. “See you tomorrow, swamp prince.”

He laughed. “See you tomorrow, fake princess.”

She smiled as she returned to her tent and made a mental note to ask Noah the next day if any of the joint arrivals had Gifts—but by morning, Gayle’s training left her no room to remember.