Chapter 12
Elle
The room they gave me in the Autumn Court was impossible.
Not impossible like “hard to believe,” but literally impossible. The walls were made of falling leaves that never landed. The bed was carved from platinum driftwood. Outside my window, autumn held its eternal moment—leaves frozen mid-fall, suspended in time.
“This is giving me a headache,” I told Peeble, who was investigating a vase that kept flickering in and out of focus.
“The Autumn Court likes its paradoxes,” they replied. “Makes them feel sophisticated.”
A knock at the door interrupted my attempt to figure out if the bathroom was physically accessible or just a very convincing illusion. Thessaly entered without waiting for permission, carrying a tray of something that smelled amazing and probably shouldn’t be trusted.
“Thought you might want something to help you sleep,” she said, setting a crystal decanter on the table that materialized just for that purpose. “Dream wine. It’s safe—guest-right protected.”
“Thanks.” I eyed the wine suspiciously. It seemed to contain actual dreams, swirling like smoke in liquid. “I’m not really in a drinking mood.”
Thessaly sat uninvited on the edge of the impossible bed. “Kaelren seems very protective of you.”
There it was. The real reason for the visit.
“He’s protective of the mission,” I corrected.
“Is that what you think?” She laughed, musical and somehow sad. “Oh, you really don’t know him at all.”
“And you do?”
“I knew him before. When he was still trying to be what everyone expected. Still believing he could earn the Bloom’s acceptance through sheer will.” She picked at the moonlit bedding. “Did he tell you why it rejected him?”
“No.”
“He fell in love.”
I tried to hide my reaction, but she saw it anyway.
“Not with me,” she clarified quickly. “With the idea of power. Of being more than what he was born to be. The Bloom saw that hunger and recognized it as corruption. Root-touched, they called it. Too much destruction in his heart.”
“But his marks are carved, not natural.”
“Yes. He tried to force what wouldn’t come naturally. And now they’re killing him slowly.” She looked at me directly. “Your marks, though—they’re nothing like I’ve ever seen. Natural but not. Root but not. You’re rewriting the rules.”
“So everyone keeps telling me.”
“It frightens them. Kaelren especially.”
“Why?”
“Because he can’t protect you from yourself. And that’s all he knows how to do—protect things. Even when they don’t want protection.”
Before I could respond, another knock interrupted. This time it was Vashael.
“The Duchess requests your presence,” she said to me, then noticed Thessaly. “Both of you.”
I exchanged a glance with Thessaly. A summons this late couldn’t be good news.
We followed Vashael through corridors that seemed to breathe, the walls contracting and expanding with the Court’s slow pulse. Peeble had gone very still on my shoulder—their version of high alert. The air grew colder as we descended, tasting of frost and copper.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“The memory garden,” Thessaly answered. “My mother does her best thinking there.”
We emerged into a courtyard that made my impossible bedroom look normal by comparison. Plants grew here, but not from soil—they grew from moments, from emotions given physical form.
“This is deeply unsettling,” Peeble observed in my mind. “I don’t like gardens that remember things.”
A rose bloomed from what felt like first love, its petals the exact color of longing. A gnarled tree twisted upward from what could only be last words, its bark carved with names. Vines climbed the walls from broken promises, thorned and reaching.
“Tell me,” the Duchess said without preamble, “what do you know about the nature of time?”
“Um. It’s linear? Usually?”
“Usually. But not always. Not here.” She gestured to the garden. “The convergence bends time. Makes it flexible. Past, present, future—they bleed together at the edges. You will start feeling like you’ve done things before. Moments will feel familiar even when they shouldn’t.”
“That makes my head hurt.”
“It should. Mortal minds aren’t meant to perceive time as it truly is—a garden where everything grows simultaneously.” She plucked a flower whose petals were translucent as morning frost. “But you’re becoming less mortal with each passing day.”
“What does this have to do with the convergence?”
“Everything. The convergence isn’t just a meeting of Root and Bloom. It’s a temporal nexus. A point where all possibilities exist at once. Where you could make any choice, including ones that haven’t been thought of yet.”
“But you said the choices have all been made before.”
“The obvious ones, yes. Root or Bloom. Both or neither. But what if there’s a fifth option? A sixth? What if the choice itself is the wrong question?”
My marks pulsed with warmth, responding to something in her words.
“You know something,” I said. “Something specific.”
“I know that when the convergence comes—still weeks away, if the signs are right—you’ll stand before the Bloom in the Heartspire. I know you’ll be asked to choose. And I know that everyone who matters to you will suffer the consequences of that choice.”
“But why now?” I asked. “Why is the convergence happening at all?”
Merithra’s expression grew grave. “The realm has been tilting toward imbalance for decades. Root growing stronger while Bloom weakens—or perhaps the reverse, depending on who you ask. The scholars have been tracking it, sensing the convergence approach like a storm on the horizon.” Her eyes found mine.
“But your arrival accelerated it. You’re not just a symptom of the imbalance—you’re a catalyst. Your transformation is forcing the realm toward a reckoning it might have avoided for another century. ”
“So it’s my fault?”
“Fault implies choice. You didn’t choose to fall through. You didn’t choose these marks.” She gestured at my collarbones where the gold light pulsed. “But your presence here, your impossible nature—it’s like dropping a stone into already turbulent water. The ripples become waves.”
“So when the convergence happens, I have to choose something. And that choice affects…?”
“Everyone who matters to you,” Merithra finished. Her eyes held ancient knowledge and something that might have been pity. “Especially him. The failed prince who carved his own destruction into his skin for power. Your choice will either save him or damn him completely.”
“Everyone?” I whispered.
Her eyes found mine, ancient and knowing. “Especially him. The failed prince who carved his own destruction into his skin for power. Your choice will either save him or damn him completely.”
“No pressure then.”
“Pressure is what creates diamonds. Or crushes coal to dust.” She handed me the flower. “Keep this. When the moment comes—and you’ll know the moment—crush it. It might give you just enough time to think of something impossible.”
“Why are you helping me?”
“Because I’m curious. In all the iterations I half-remember, no one has ever been quite like you.
Marked but not chosen. Human but transforming.
Connected to the failed prince by a bond that shouldn’t exist.” She smiled.
“You’re an anomaly. And anomalies are the only things that can break patterns. ”
We were interrupted by commotion from inside—shouting, running feet, the sound of weapons being drawn.
“What—” I started.
“The Wild Hunt,” Merithra said calmly. “They’re testing my boundaries. They can’t enter, but they can make their presence known.”
My blood went cold. The flower in my hand suddenly felt very fragile.
“We should get inside,” Thessaly said, her usual composure cracking. “Now.”
We didn’t run—running would show fear—but we moved quickly through the memory garden, past the emotional plants that seemed to shrink away from whatever was coming. Peeble pressed tight against my neck, their small body trembling.
“This is bad,” they whispered. “This is very, very bad.”
Inside the great hall was in controlled chaos.
Through the massive windows, we could see them—riders on horses made of shadow and pale light, circling the Court’s borders.
Their hounds were worse—massive things with too many teeth and eyes that glowed like dying stars, bodies that seemed to phase in and out of existence with each stride.
“Well, this is going great,” Peeble muttered from my shoulder. “Really stellar evening. Five stars, would not recommend.”
And at their head, the Hunter himself. I couldn’t look at him directly—my eyes kept sliding off like he existed in a dimension slightly to the left of reality.
But I got impressions: antlers that were also crown that were also thorns, a face that was beautiful and terrible and ancient beyond measure.
“Elle Hawthorne of Earth,” his voice echoed through the hall without him speaking. “You are called to answer for crimes against the realm’s nature.”
“Oh good, a formal accusation,” Peeble whispered. “That’s always a positive sign.”
“She’s under my protection,” Merithra called back, authority ringing in every word.
“Until sunrise. Then the Hunt claims its right.”
“What crimes?” I shouted, surprising everyone including myself. “What am I supposed to have done?”
The Hunter turned toward me, and looking at him felt like falling into the space between stars. “You exist outside the pattern. You break what should be whole. You are becoming something that should not be.”
“According to who?”
“According to the laws written before the first seed was planted.”
“Well, maybe those laws need updating!”
“Oh brilliant,” Peeble hissed. “Yes, definitely sass the ancient death god. What could possibly go wrong?”
Silence. Complete, total silence.
Then the Hunter laughed, a sound like wind through graveyards. “Perhaps they do. We shall see at sunrise.”
They vanished—not gradually but all at once, leaving only the echo of howling and the scent of endings.
“That was either very brave or very stupid,” Thessaly said.