Chapter 37 #2
She crossed to the copper tub behind the folding screen and began to fill it, steam curling in soft ribbons as the water warmed. She peeled off her travel-stained clothes and sank into the hot water with a low exhale. The grime lifted easily. The unease did not.
She scrubbed her skin with a bar of soap made from tallow and briar rose oil distilled from her garden, flecked with crushed pink petals.
The water turned as murky as her thoughts.
She could run. Caelum and Theia would follow her into whatever exile she chose.
She had wanted that freedom once. But she wasn’t sure what she wanted now.
When the water cooled, she stepped out, toweling herself dry before slipping into an old dress from her wardrobe and a soft leather bodice worn smooth with age. Her fingers were threading the last of the laces, when her pack gave a sudden rustle.
Nexus slid out with a disgruntled grunt, wings fluttering as he stretched and meowed like he hadn’t been smuggled halfway across the realm in a sack.
“You menace,” she laughed, scooping him up. “When did you stowaway in there?”
Nexus licked her thumb and purred smugly.
After lighting a single candle, she opened the window above her headboard and plopped onto her bed with the purring kitten, the wind gently tousling the curtains. She had missed the sky. Missed the sun. But her gaze returned to the shadows flickering on her ceiling.
“I thought I would feel free,” Alora whispered.
Nexus curled beside her head on the pillow, purring.
She lifted her hands toward the ceiling, observing the divine markings faintly glowing like paths of moonlight on her skin. Her finger looked naked without her ring.
“So why do I feel… hollow?”
Alora turned her gaze to the evening sky, listening to the trees in the wind. She could still feel him. Rune. Distant, furious, wounded. She had left him behind. She had chosen to leave.
And yet…
“I hate him,” she whispered.
The wind stirred the candlelight.
“I hate that he lied. I hate that he kept secrets. I hate that he thinks he can own me.”
A shadow flickered across the ceiling.
She closed her eyes. “I hate that I miss him…”
The shadows didn’t answer. But she imagined they were listening.
Somewhere, she thought he might be too.
In the slipping fog of half-sleep, warm, gentle hands tucked the blanket around Alora. Her mother’s face leaned over her, eyes soft and tender. She pressed a kiss to her temple, light fingers brushing her hair as she sang the same song that put Alora to sleep every night as a child.
But the words were no longer soothing as they once were.
She whispered to the velvet night
A wish born of longing and light
Beneath the moon’s crimson glow
A seed of shadows took to grow
Born of the bloom
The dark runs deep
A daughter cradled
Yet none may keep
Oh, she will sleep
And the storm will rise
A beauty bound to sacrifice
Alora gasped awake.
The lullaby still resonated like the after-ring of a bell.
A soft knock sounded at the door. She jumped up out of bed to answer it, startling her cat.
Zinnia stood in the doorway like something the moon had sculpted for the twilight hour. Her hair fell in soft rose-petal waves, a gradient of blush to deep pink at the tips. Her pink skin shimmered beneath the low light, lashes like wisps of white silk.
She wore a gown that shimmered like a living stream and petals intertwined, each shift of her skirts blooming and folding like a garden breathing.
Silver thorn-filigree curled at her wrists and collar, delicate as lace but sharp enough to warn.
Alora had forgotten how fae the Thornbearer truly was…
elegant, graceful, and impossibly beautiful.
On the path waited a gilded carriage drawn by two great white elk draped in moss, flickering lanterns hanging from their antlers. Caelum petted one, glancing her way.
“Godmother,” Alora greeted.
Lady Zinnia’s pink eyes gazed at Alora, not with warmth, but with weight as she took in the faintly glowing markings on her arms. “You’ve bloomed,” she murmured.
That alone confirmed enough.
Alora stepped back from the doorway, silently inviting her in. Lady Zinnia entered the cottage with a curious frown, pink eyes flitting around the space with disapproval, narrowing when she saw the mirror.
Her elegant presence made the cottage feel pitiable in comparison.
“I suppose you feel I did you a disservice to house you here,” Zinnia mused, eyeing the cobwebs and dust with a sigh. “I was never much of a godmother. What would I know about raising a child? Yet somehow, she thought I was best for the task.”
“Who?” Alora asked, sitting at the small table set in the middle of the room.
“My sister.” Lady Zinnia sat across from her, pink gaze meeting hers. “Your mother.”
Alora was shocked silent, her heart beginning to pound. “You’re my aunt? Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“Salvia didn’t wish you to know, or rather, she wanted you to live a normal life for as long as possible. When you left here, I had hoped it meant you would live as a human…”
“I’m not part human?”
Lady Zinnia took a breath but gave no answer.
“I came for answers,” Alora snapped. “I need to know what I am.”
The wind bowled outside, making the windows rattle.
Her godmother, no, aunt, shifted in her seat, folding her hands on the table. “That is a difficult thing to explain.”
“Then begin with my mother. What power I have must come from her, and it’s clearly more than simply making flowers grow. Tell me the truth.”
Nexus leaped onto the table and sat primly, licking his fur. Lady Zinnia’s eyes widened at the sight of him, her throat tightening. She breathed once, steadying herself, then spoke.
“The Queen of the Spring Court in Arthal had many loves,” she murmured. “One of them was the God of the Mortal Realm…”
Alora’s breath stuttered, her hands trembling on her knees.
“His seed planted three daughters in the queen’s womb,” Zinnia continued softly. “My sisters and I.”
She stared at her, hearing what she didn’t say aloud.
They were more than fae.
Demigoddesses.
“Each of us arrived with a different gift.” Zinnia lifted her hand, and thorns unfurled across the tabletop like blooming steel.
“I was the most powerful of my sisters, wielder of thorn and earth. A coarse strength whereas Salvia’s magic was gentle.
She wove spells through song, source of spring and vitality.
Our youngest sister had the gift of earthcraft, coaxing toxin or tonic from root and leaf.
Such gifts earned us the attention of those who would use us.
So we fled here a century ago, hoping for peace far from the wars of Arthal and its hungry courts.
But peace is a fragile thing among mortals. ”
Her lips tightened with quiet disgust, gaze drifting toward the window and the distant hills.
“When Argyle discovered what we were, it threatened everything. I prepared for war. But Salvia”—her voice wavered—“Salvia chose negotiation. She offered her hand to Laurent when he came of age. Their marriage forged a pact and stilled the threat of conflict. But their union… was not blessed.”
Lady Zinnia met her gaze, weariness settling on her delicate features. “But Salvia could not bear children. We had no answers as to why and it broke her heart. She loved Laurent deeply, Alora. The kind of love that makes fools of queens.”
Alora stared at her, sensing something awful. “But… my father—”
“Had no part in your making.”
The air left her lungs.
Zinnia’s tone was gentle but firm. “On the night of the Blood Moon, Salvia traveled to the ruins … and made a wish.”
Alora’s eyes widened. The Midlands had few laws, but the main one was to never go to the ancient structures that lay in the west by the sea.
“It is called Khar Avalen,” Zinnia said quietly, in the ancient language of the first people before the coming of the First Age.
“A ruin old enough that even the courts of Arthal fear it. That place was built long before the fae ever crossed into these lands. There, mortals once worshiped the old gods, made sacrifices for their biddings and prayers. Some claim it was a cradle… a place of old magic when light and shadow still walked the world. Where wishes could be made. Your mother should not have gone there, Alora. No one should.”
“What happened?” she whispered, her hands clenching.
The air thinned, the atmosphere becoming hazy.
Zinnia’s fingers tightened around her teacup, the porcelain trembling as she whispered, “It is a difficult tale to share, one that I sometimes find hard to believe.”
“I will hear it,” Alora tightly and the cottage trembled with her power.
Sighing, Lady Zinnia stood and wandered to the window. She wrapped her arms around herself against the sudden coldness in the air, watching the full moon outside among the wispy clouds. When Zinnia spoke, she told her a story as if reading from a book.
“Once upon a time, a barren queen cried out for a child…
and the dark itself answered. He was but a voice in a mirror, a crimson eye in faceless shadow who heard her wish and agreed to grant what she desired, but only if she swore to do the same when the time came.
Deny him, and she would pay with her life.
Blinded by longing, the queen agreed.
Then a crimson spider lily pushed through the stone at her feet, blooming where no life should grow.
In its heart lay a single seed, as dark as blood.
The faceless shadow instructed her to swallow the seed and plant it within her womb.
Months later, the queen bore a daughter as radiant as dawn, as beautiful as a rose.
But the babe lay silent in her arms without breath.
The shadow appeared in the queen’s mirror and offered a spindle, claiming it would give her life. Desperate, the queen obeyed. She pierced her daughter’s finger, and at once, the princess gasped for air, her cry like a tolling bell. The kingdom celebrated the princess’s birth for several days.