Chapter 20: Honeyfall.

"We come from Icerock on business, we request entrance in the city." Asked father with his usual official tone.

We had now finally arrived at Honeyfall, the first city on our trip to reach Bonehorn, the furthest city from ours.

Honeyfall was a city of average size, like icerock it had around ten thousand inhabitants, maybe a little less.

The streets were clean and people were going out and about, some were looking in our direction as we made our way to the center of the city where the city hall was waiting for us.

I saw children, especially males, my age looking at me very intently, it was evident that they were bedazzled by my beauty and who could blame them?

I was the most beautiful, talented and cool person in the world, but at the time I was too naive and inexperienced to understand the effect that I had on people.

"Look, that girl has weird hair." said one child to his friend.

"Yeah, she looks scary."

I must be misremembering, there is absolutely no way that those kids could say something like that, I was a beauty after all and an unparalleled one I might add, I was not weird in any way.

"You cannot misremember in this place."

Oh, shut up you, let me go back to my story, now, where was I?

Oh, yeah, I was at the point when we had just gotten to Honeyfall's city hall, but I really had no interest at all in staying there for the umpteenth talk about the same things over and over again.

Yeah, the outsiders had said something and we were here to report that something, then we'll go back home and then to Kilbury once again to report what these people said and again and again for every city around the Wild Lands, there must be a better way to speak across long distances, I heard that there was something like that in the outside world, maybe we can ask for it next time.

"Dad, can I go explore the city?"

"Sure dear, but you need to take this." he said as he gave me a brooch, it had an image depicting a mountain with a snowy top, it was the symbol of Icerock.

A snowy mountain, kind of a flattering way of depicting an Icerock, but at least it looked better than others, Kilbury's symbol was a star and Rockkeep's was a rock colored castle, both were quite flattering too, for two cities that from the outside looked in no way different from any other in the Wild Lands.

The brooch was necessary to show the people here that I was a merchant, or at least that I came here with one, my father usually kept his one on so I didn't need to use it most of the times, but the few times we separated I had to use it.

I took the brooch and wore it on the right side of my chest.

"How do I look?" I asked him the rhetorical question, obviously I looked fabulous.

"You look great dear." he said after lightly ruffling my head.

"Thanks, see you later." I told him as I jumped off the carriage and making my way in the direction most people I saw were going to, eventually making my way to a place different from any other I had ever seen.

This was the first time I came to Honeyfall, but the spectacle in front of me made me regret not coming earlier.

It was a road filled with people, there must have been hundreds just in this road alone, and on the sides there were stalls of various shapes and colors.

I stopped a random person, a woman in her fifties, and I asked her why there were so many people here, the sight had obviously confused me.

"How could you not know?" she asked with a puzzled expression, but her eyes fell on the brooch on my chest, "Oh my, you come from Icerock, I never thought a little girl like you could make such a difficult trip."

"I am a mage, there is no need to worry." I had grown used to this kind of reaction from people, at first it was much worse, but as I grew the reactions of the people grew less exaggerated.

But this kind of reaction just meant that they were good people who care about others, I had better impression of these kind of people rather than those who just ignored it.

"Oh my, how impressive, but it seems that today is your lucky day, the winter will come in a few months and this is the best season for our honey, what you see is a festival we have in Honeyfall once a year where everyone showcases the honey they produced, in the end the winner will be nominated the Honey King or Queen."

Pfft, honey king, just the name made me chuckle.

"Don't look down on the Honey Kings and Queens little girl, they have the privilege of being called 'Your Highness' or 'Your Majesty' for the entire year, it's a great honor." She continued, chuckling lightly herself.

Before I blew up in even more laugher she continued, "Anyway, honey is not the only thing we do today, after all we can't have a city of only honey makers, there are also various kind of games and competitions."

"What type of competitions?" I asked immediately with excitement, my competitive self shining brightly.

"There eating competitions, various physical challenges, like who lifts the heaviest weight and there is even a magical competition for both the young and the adult merchants and engineers."

"Woah, where is this magical competition?"

"You just need to follow the road, there is a sign that says 'Magical competition'."

I grew so excited at the possibility of finally doing something exciting for once during our trip that I almost forgot my manners, "Thank you very much, can you tell me your name?"

"I am Stella Rowland, what about you?"

It was rare for someone to have a surname in the Wild Lands, it meant that she had some great accomplishment to her name, that or she was part of the family of one who did, in any case it was cool.

"I am Avys Winterridge, nice to meet you, goodbye now, I'll go to compete with my magic."

"Good luck!" She replied, but I had already gone way too far for me to completely hear her, "Gosh, kids are always so impatient."

Eventually I reached the place Stella told me about, it was a large stage with a big sign on top readying 'Magical Competition' just like she said.

There was a large crowd of people around it, a few children around my age were on it, but they still hadn't started to show off their magic.

That, or they had already finished, but I hoped for the former.

I looked for one of the people who seemed to be among the organizers, which was easy enough as they all had a particular uniform, if I could still participate and he was about to say that it was too late and the show was about to begin before taking a good look at me.

He obviously didn't recognize me, but what he did recognize was the insignia of Icerock on my chest.

"You came from Icerock? Aren't you a bit too young to be a merchant?" young was an understatement, but yes.

"I came with my father, is there no way I can participate?"

"We actually held the registration a couple of days ago, but seeing that you come from outside we could make an exception, how about this…"

He seemed to think for a moment before he turned to me with a wide smile on his face, "What if we present you as a representative of Icerock? Would you be up for the task? It's a friendly competition so there is no pressure, we're only doing this for entertainment."

The idea sounded fantastic, I would use this win to bring glory to Icerock and myself, in my mind there was no doubt that I would win, if there was something I had confidence in it was definitely my magic.

I hadn't trained and studied every day for eight years just to lose against someone else my age, I had given my life to magic and I would absolutely reach its highest level, whatever magic's highest level was.

"I'm in!" I exclaimed.

"Great, give me a moment, I'll propose to the other organizers, we'll give you a big entrance, what's your name by the way?" I told him my name and he left.

The man seemed to be almost as excited as I was, just a couple of minutes later he came back and told me that I had to go on top of the stage at his signal.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" exclaimed on of the organizers from the top of the stage, "We have a last minute addition to our contest for our young mages, please, give a warm welcome to a young mage from Icerock, Avys! Winterridge!"

This was a really great introduction indeed, the man had the perfect voice to introduce people, deep and loud enough to reach everyone around.

The other guy motioned me to go up, and going up I did, but not without adding something of my own.

I created a small air vortex below my feet, it was an attempt to fly that ended badly, it was meant to let me fly freely in the sky, but the most it could to was making me float a little, but had a large visual effect.

What the audience saw was a beautiful girl engulfed in a mini tornado floating up to the center of the stage.

Once i reached the ground I released the spell, generating a light breeze all around me and down the stands.

I so loved the claps of the people, "Nice to meet you, I'm Avys Winterridge, sorry for coming uninvited." I said loud enough for everyone to hear me.

I loved being in the middle of attention so much.

"A great entrance, we might have a dark horse for this competition!" shouted the organizer, "Now that everything is ready, let's begin with the first part!"

I had no idea what being a dark horse meant, but in that sentence I learned that there were multiple parts to this competition, maybe I should have had informed myself better, but I was good at improvising anyway.

"As everybody knows, the first part is dedicated to might! Please young mages of the Wild Lands," originally in the script he should have said mages of Honeyfall, but it seems that this guy was good at improvising too, "Show everybody your biggest and flashiest spell!

But still, please be careful to not injure anyone and cast them in a safe way against the dummies we prepared."

He indicated a few dummies behind himself, they were made of a sack filled with straw, their heads had a smile drawn on them.

If they wanted the flashiest, I had the spell perfect for the occasion.