Chapter 27 #2
A rush of wind blasted through the trees, a trilling song on its back which knocked our mother onto her haunches as it ripped her hair away from her face and she gasped in startled alarm.
I stumbled forward as that same wind knocked me from the vision, Rissa’s hold on my shoulder the only thing which prevented me from falling to my knees.
“You were born of her womb, sister,” Rissa said. “But you arrived there by magic. Just as you did so many times before to so many other mothers who came to beg the gift of a child from the Great Elm.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, shaking my head while she cocked hers at mine.
“Don’t you?”
I shook my head, my brain torn between putting all of the pieces of this puzzle together and the danger which surrounded us. I needed to get her out of here, I needed to get Hendrix free too.
“Come on, Rissa,” I begged, taking hold of her hand and tugging, emotion thickening my throat because I’d come so far to find her and now she was really here before me, staring back at me with those eyes I’d dreamed of night after night, alive and whole despite the odds.
“Come with me. I’ll get us out of here. Just help me with Hendrix and-”
The Lost Children broke into a chorus of wild laughter, the sound so loud it was like a thunderclap, and I flinched away from it, trying to tug Rissa with me, but she didn’t move.
“You know we can’t leave this place,” Rissa said sadly.
“The forest closed its walls and the only chance at freedom is to break the curse. My fate is tied to it, Ferris. Even if I ran with you, there isn’t anywhere to go.
And if by some miracle we found a way out of the trees, my life is tied to the curse now.
It has to be broken if I am to have any hope of being free of it. ”
I shook my head, pointless tears blurring my vision, a frustrated growl escaping my throat as the injustice of it all overwhelmed me.
It wasn’t fair. I’d defied all the odds in getting this far, and despite everything, I somehow stood before the girl I’d sacrificed so much to find.
She was right here. But she wasn’t free of this place and neither was I.
Neither was anyone in the whole of Rathian while the forest’s curse endured.
So now the fate of all of us had become the burden placed upon me.
“I have the Dragon,” I told her. “And Hendrix has the Bear and the Fox, plus I know another Fae has two more. Maybe we stand a chance of uniting them all and then you can leave with me-”
“I still won’t be free,” Rissa said sadly, her fingers brushing my cheek and sadness swimming in her silver gaze. “The Offerings were made in full, each of the Lost Children were given to the forest. That includes me, Ferris. I can’t ever leave the Great Elm.”
“Then what about the boon?” I asked, because that had been my plan all along. “Would the boon free you if I used it to ask for such a thing? Could it free all of you?” I glanced up into the trees where the Lost Children clambered and leapt between the branches with haunting grace.
The leaves around us rustled and shivered, words seeming to pass between them in a whisper I couldn’t understand. But Rissa tilted her head to listen, and her eyes brightened at what they said.
“The others aren’t all like me,” she said slowly.
“You could free them, but some have been here for hundreds of years and they wouldn’t have anywhere else to go.
But… those of us who still had homes and families to return to might be able to reclaim what we lost. The Great Elm says that the boon could be used to give us that choice.
She would let us decide to stay or go. To live on eternally here or reclaim the mortality we traded when the trees took us into their domain. ”
“Truly?” I gasped, gripping her fingers so tightly it had to hurt, and her smile stole the breath from my lungs as she nodded.
A choked sob escaped me and I hurled my arms around her neck, crushing her in my embrace and finally succumbing to the surge of emotions which were threatening to overwhelm me. I’d been forcing myself to hold off on hope but she’d finally handed it back to me.
“Then I’ll earn the boon,” I said fiercely as if it wasn’t a practically unattainable task.
Yes, I had claimed one amulet, but I would have to seize more than any other Champion.
With Hendrix already ahead of me and that other, murderous brute on a mission to murder his way to find the rest, it would be near impossible to achieve. But I’d do it. Somehow.
The Dragon made a sound like a low purr in the back of my mind, and I took strength in its encouragement as I straightened.
“The Serpent,” I said, my eyes moving to the trees as I hunted for the spirit which my sister had been keeping the company of.
A low and sinister hiss came from directly above me and I flinched in alarm, whirling around and knocking into Rissa who steadied me with a laugh that was bright and clear and utterly at odds with the threat coming from above us.
“Not now,” she warned, and the way the Serpent’s eyes gleamed made it clear that it agreed with her. “But I’ll bring it when the time calls and you will have its amulet.”
“Truly?” I beathed, my heart lightening at the thought. If she could deliver me the Serpent, then I was so much closer to achieving my goal of freeing her from this place.
Hendrix cried out from the clearing beyond us and I turned to see the Lost Children hauling him into the mouth of that darkened hole.
“What are they doing to him?” I hissed, taking a step towards him, but Rissa caught my arm and jerked me to a halt.
“You care for the fate of a Fae?” she breathed in my ear, anger coating her words. “After what they did to me?”
“It’s… complicated,” I breathed. “But he helped me to get this far despite everything-”
“Despite the fact that they took me, hauled me from my bed and threw me to this fate without a care?” The trees groaned and rustled in reply to her rage, the Serpent hissing spitefully as it descended from the trees and started towards the Fae who I had begun to see as so much more than my enemy.
“I know, I do. But Rissa, he’s… different.
” I wasn’t even sure that was true and as she looked to me, I knew we both heard the uncertainty in my claim.
But as the Lost Children hauled Hendrix closer and closer to the oblivion of that dark pit, I found panic rising in my chest, my pulse racing with fear and the desperate need to save him warring in my limbs.
“Fine,” she hissed darkly, releasing me so suddenly that I stumbled a few steps. The Serpent coiled around us, its scales grinding together like rocks sliding over one another as it circled me, the threat in its posture clear. “But if you’re wrong about him, then don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
I tried to back up, Hendrix’s groans pulling at my attention, but Rissa caught my chin and urged my gaze back to hers.
“This isn’t our moment, sister,” she told me, a sadness to her tone. “But know that this is not the first time you have walked this forest. However, it will be the last. You can’t fail again.”
“Again?” I repeated hollowly, trying not to think of the Cursed One with my face, trying not to remember how familiar the words in that diary had seemed to me.
“This time will be different,” Rissa promised. “Because this time, the Great Elm created me to help you. When the moment comes, we can break the curse together. The forest wants you to succeed, don’t you see?”
“I don’t see,” I protested. “I don’t know what you-”
Hendrix cried out in pain and I whipped around.
“He matters in this too,” Rissa said from behind me, her eyes gleaming with urgency as she forced my focus back to her, a bitterness to her tone as she admitted the fact – though I didn’t understand what she meant by it. “You should really get him out of the dark.”
The ground trembled beneath my feet, a low rumbling making me jerk around again to find Rissa rising up on the back of the Serpent, her face stoic as she looked down at me.
“The clock can’t wait for you any longer, Ferris. When it strikes the hour this time, the curse will prevail. You’re out of chances to change that fate. So make it count.”
“Wait!” I cried as the Serpent turned and dove into the trees with Rissa riding upon its back, the forest swallowing them whole before I could even try to chase them.
I took a step in their direction,
then turned again as Hendrix cried out in the heart of the glade. I needed more answers. But first, I needed to save him.