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Prologue: Huld’s tree

  It was getting dark. The winter day was inexorably coming to an end, signaling the end of the hunt. And it had been a very unsuccessful day for Ulv – wandering through the mountains all day, he hadn't managed to shoot anything and was thoroughly frozen.

  The hapless hunter was about to head back to the village when, suddenly, he stopped and listened intently. From somewhere nearby, unless it was just his mind playing tricks with echoes, came muffled sounds of rattling.

  Ulv looked around – the sun had already disappeared behind the neighboring peak, but the thin blanket of white snow still preserved fragments of reflected light. Ulv decided he could still take a look at the source of the mysterious sounds and then make his way down the mountain in the daylight, unburdened.

  Navigating between jagged boulders and leaning pines, he ascended higher, following the increasing sound of numerous dull claps. Until against the backdrop of the purple sky, the massive crown of a gigantic tree began to outline itself. Its bare branches were adorned with numerous wooden planks resembling foliage in the twilight. It was these planks that produced the sounds of hundreds of rattles in the wind.

  Finding himself under the shade of the eccentric tree, Ulv couldn't help but marvel once again, fully grasping its size. Curiosity got the better of him, and he reached for the nearest wooden plaque, spotting a crudely written inscription on it.

  - Don't touch that! - a worried maiden's voice carried over.

  The hunter quickly turned around and saw a lovely maiden in beautiful festive attire, adorned with colorful amber beads and a wreath of white mistletoe in her platinum hair, sitting on a rock.

  - Why not? - Ulv asked, overcoming his initial unease at the sudden encounter.

  - You shouldn't remove them; they are someone else's wishes, - the maiden explained kindly, realizing that the young man was listening to her.

  - Wishes? - Ulv didn't quite understand.

  - Yes, the Forest God can grant any wish, - the maiden nodded and smiled, - but only one!

  Do you want to make a wish? - she inquired, studying the guest with warm green eyes.

  - But her warmth only multiplied the feeling of unease in the young man's heart. He stepped back a few paces and asked:

  - And who are you?

  - Huld, - the maiden introduced herself eagerly, - I'm the priestess of the sacred tree.

  - If you want to make a wish, take a clean plank from the roots and carve it... - she suggested.

  - What if I hang several plaques on the tree? - Ulv jokingly asked, mistaking the maiden for an oracle.

  - Only the one that the deity reads first will come true, - she replied.

  - Look, - she pointed to the distant treetop, - many believe that the higher they tie the wish, the sooner it will come true.

  - Is that so? - the hunter smirked.

  - Only if the god starts reading from top to bottom, - Huld replied with seriousness but still smiling.

  Ulv chuckled, but a dull needle pricked his heart – an unattainable dream that had been carefully kept deep inside, but now suddenly awakened with greed. He fell silent for a while, gathering his thoughts, and then asked:

  - Has your wish been granted?

  Huld was surprised – her beautiful eyes squinted for a moment, but the smile remained on her lips:

  - No, not yet...

  - Has at least one wish come true? - the young man shouted mockingly into the air, filled with other people's trembling aspirations.

  - Of course, countless wishes have been fulfilled, - the girl confirmed.

  - Look - if the plank cracks, it means the wish has been granted.

  Ulv followed her advice and glanced once again at the nearby plaques – they were all darkened with age and barely legible, but none of them were intact.

  The young man said nothing but looked at the handful of clean planks. A cautious hope stirred inside him, giving him resolve – Ulv took out a dagger from his boot and began to carve messy letters.

  - I want to marry Inga, the daughter of the village elder, - he shouted as if for reassurance, hanging up the finished plaque.

  He thought Hulda would laugh at him and his absurd wish, but that didn't happen. Instead, when Ulv turned his gaze to the girl, he found only emptiness – between the tall rocks echoed ominous rattles, and the winter gloom thickened.

  Ulv looked around, searching for his newfound acquaintance, but standing there in complete solitude, he felt truly scared. Panic quickly set in – he turned around and ran away. He didn't know exactly why – perhaps it was his own fear.

  Night caught up with him on the outskirts of the forest, but ahead, the lights of humble houses beckoned. Entering the village, Ulv was firmly convinced that everything that had happened was just a dream... And if not, he would never admit it to himself.

  However, no matter what Ulv thought, his life soon took a sharp turn. He became a much luckier hunter, and as a result, gained respect among the villagers. Even the village elder started trusting him with small tasks.

  Once or twice, crossing paths near her house with Inga, Ulv secretly remembered his cherished plaque. But the wish carved on it had no chance of coming true – after all, the girl had long had another betrothed.

  But at some point, the young man stopped caring about all of that. For the first time, venturing out of the village and accompanying a cart of furs to the city, Ulv suddenly realized how vast the world around him was. He saw that it was full of things he had never even heard of before.

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  Arriving in a tiny provincial town, completely unlike his distant village, he firmly decided that he must leave, break free from his corner, and explore the wider world. The dream of someday becoming the village elder seemed suddenly foolish and mundane to him. And Inga, compared to the city girls, seemed just ordinary.

  On the way back, the young man dreamt of becoming an assistant to a wandering merchant and venturing into uncharted lands. But as soon as he returned home, reality quickly sobered him up with news – while he was away, Inga's betrothed died during a hunt.

  Upon hearing this, something stirred in Ulv's chest, but it was far from joyful. A slippery feeling twisted his insides into a knot of anxiety and fear, pushing right up to his throat.

  - Ulv... Ulv! - his father's voice interrupted him.

  - It's too early to announce it, but I talked to the village elder, - the man proudly declared, patting his son's shoulder warmly.

  - About what? - Ulv, confused and worried, didn't understand.

  - The village elder agreed to marry Inga to you, - the father announced with pleasure in his voice.

  - Yes, - he corrected himself, - we'll have to wait a bit for appearances' sake, but...

  - But I don't want to... - Ulv replied colorlessly, as if against his own will, still bewildered.

  - What do you mean, you don't want to? - the man's voice rose in anger.

  - For whom do you think I did all this? - he asked.

  - You wanted this - I fulfilled your wish! - the father replied with reproach.

  These words were like a knife cutting through the young man's heart - he vividly pictured the dark branches adorned with countless plaques. He could almost hear their trembling in the wind. His heart broke and sank somewhere cold and tight.

  For the next few weeks, Ulv poorly grasped what was happening - on one hand, everything was unfolding as he had wished, but on the other hand, he no longer felt the desire he had made. This ambivalence tore his soul apart, causing doubts.

  But in reality, the young man had no choice. To refuse the marriage proposed by themselves would mean disgrace for the family in all neighboring villages. And his father would not allow that...

  The day before the wedding ceremony, relatives from neighboring villages started to gather. Men warmly greeted each other, gathering in a large, bustling company where the celebration was already beginning.

  Ulv listened to them, surrounded by the haze of alcohol, hearing their exaggerated stories of distant cities and unseen adventures, and he felt sick at heart.

  - I'll run away! Yes, I'll definitely run away! - he impulsively decided after the second jug of ale.

  But in his suddenly cleared mind, the unfortunate plaque with the wish emerged once again.

  - But it hasn't come true yet! - the young man marveled at the simplicity of this truth, recalling Huld's words that the plaques crack when wishes are fulfilled.

  - I just need to remove it from the tree while it's still intact! - he rejoiced.

  And then he slumped, realizing that all of this: running away, returning the plaque – should have happened much earlier. It was already getting dark outside, and tomorrow's ceremony seemed closer and more inevitable than ever.

  He sat in a corner, looking lost for a few more minutes, and then something changed in his expression. Blind determination took hold of him, and he willingly succumbed to flawed logic.

  A few hours later, armed with a smoky torch, Ulv climbed the mountain. Without fully discerning the path, he stubbornly marched upward as if his feet knew the right way on their own. Soon enough, he was convinced of this when he heard the characteristic sound of rattles from afar, a sound that had pursued him in his dreams more than once.

  However, upon reaching his destination, he froze, struck by an unprecedented sight. The snow at the base of the sacred tree had melted away, revealing not earth and stones but actual amber boulders. They shimmered with dancing reflections of the flame under the torchlight. Tiny sparkling droplets of resin, falling from the dense branches, created the effect of a golden rain.

  - Hulda! - the young man shouted, reluctantly tearing his gaze away from the unprecedented beauty and searching for the priestess.

  - No. Of course, she's not here at this time! - Ulv scolded himself.

  He began to search for his plaque among the others, but they all looked exactly the same in the uneven torchlight. Impatience and haste quickly turned into anger in Ulv, and grabbing his dagger, he began to cut the cords on all the plaques within his reach.

  After some time, the amber was strewn with shredded yellowish leaves and detestable plaques. Without the reflected shimmer, it became noticeably darker, or so it seemed to Ulv. He stood there, panting, amidst the chaos he had created, trying to make out his own wish at his feet, but he couldn't.

  The wind calmed down, and silence settled in the narrow space between the rocks. Only the drops of resin, as they fell into the fire, disappeared with a characteristic bubbling sound, drowning out Ulv's heavy breathing.

  The young man looked into the fire, and a new plan was born in his mind and immediately put into action. He brought the torch closer to the resin-covered branches, and they burst into crimson flames, quickly spreading throughout the canopy.

  - No more wishes, nothing left to fulfill! - Ulv exclaimed triumphantly, stepping back from the hot, fragrant tongues of flame.

  Overjoyed, he hurried back to the village, now feeling completely free - he could leave everything behind and embark on an exciting new future. All that was left was to take his father's horse and disappear before dawn.

  He was already halfway to his intended escape when he stumbled on the mossy slope and tumbled down head over heels. The naive childish joy had barely mixed with fear within him when Ulv landed on a sharp protrusion, ending his life.

  In the morning, they searched for the groom-to-be for a long time, but in vain. Quietly, his father checked the family treasure, suspecting his careless son of running away, but fortunately found nothing missing. He was so relieved that he was ready to endure all the shameful reproaches from the village elder.

  Inga blushed with shame behind her father's back, unable to hide from the mocking gazes of the numerous guests. This was already her second failed wedding.

  - He just got drunk and passed out somewhere! - yesterday's companions of Ulv laughed heartily.

  - That's right, - the unfortunate father echoed them, cursing his son inwardly.

  - What should we do next? - the village elder exclaimed indignantly.

  - Just hold the ceremony without the groom, - suggested an elderly relative of Inga.

  - That's only done for those who have gone off to war, - the village elder protested, - not for someone who got drunk somewhere.

  - Well, how long should we wait then? - voices chimed in from all sides.

  The matchmakers began to doubt - the ceremony was supposed to be held at dawn under the young moon, and gathering the guests again would be an unnecessary expense.

  So, at the wedding, the place of the groom was marked by his festive coat, as was customary in the old days for young men going off to war. And Inga's eyes, wet with tears from bitter mockery, remained fixed on the floor…

  ***

  At the top of the golden-leaved tree sat a light-haired deity with green eyes, fiddling with a well-known wish on a wooden tablet. It was difficult to say for sure which gender the deity belonged to, as everyone saw it differently. But the absence of lavish amber beads gave it a decidedly boyish appearance.

  As tying the cracked tablet to a branch, Huld's beautiful eyes were filled with sadness. Their depth was so profound that it seemed tears would spill forth any moment.

  A gust of wind stirred the unyielding crown of the sacred tree, causing it to sway like Huld's soul. The centuries-old hopes, awakened from their slumber, quivered in the leaves. Among them, at the very top, appeared an amber tablet, almost indistinguishable from the golden foliage. It caught Huld's gaze, making the owner even more melancholic. On the sparkling smooth surface, untouched by time, the words were clearly visible:

  - May the wishes I grant make people happy.

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