42. The Silver Saints
A hush seized The Cut as Lyre uttered the last words of the ritual. There was no breeze, no birdsong. Even the distant clashing and shouting ceased, as though the battle had halted altogether. The atmosphere, once heavy with the presence of the Low One, took on a different sort of feel: electric, pulsating, like pins and needles pressed against cold skin.
A downdraft dropped into the clearing then, harsh and violent enough that it sent several large branches crashing to the ground. Aisling was the only one to remain on her feet, so numb to her surroundings that she was barely swayed. Lyre reeled backwards into the altar, destroying it on his way down. Rodney narrowly avoided being pinned beneath a falling limb .
Bright enough to blind, a bolt of white light followed the downdraft. It shot straight into the center of the circle, almost as wide as the trunks of the trees surrounding them. Instead of striking and retracting as lightning, it remained a steady, unbroken stream like a lifeline tethering the vast night sky to the earth below. All around the bright shard, swirling waves of energy surged, rushing upward. A reverse waterfall. The heaviness that magic imbued in the air around them built and built and built, at once both searing hot and ice cold, until finally it exploded in a glaring blast of unharnessed power. The entire clearing was washed with that brilliant white. Aisling had to shield her eyes behind her forearm.
When she looked up, the light had faded to a soft glow. Where the bolt had struck, three figures now stood still as statues. They were nearly identical, save for their stature: the figure in the center stood slightly taller than the other two. The one on the left had arms that seemed almost disproportionately long, and the one on the right was a touch too thin. Their faces were featureless, blank masks without eyes or nostrils or mouths. Like mannequins, Aisling thought dully, but they were no less radiant for it. Their luminous, silver-toned skin seemed to glow from within, the embodiment of starlight.
“Child of prophecy, you have given much to bring peace to a world that is not yours.” The words emanated from all three figures, echoing ethereally through the clearing. They spoke in a strange sort of harmony, three voices merged as one, projecting the sounds somehow without mouths to move. When the taller of the three stepped forward, their movement was fluid and deliberate. Delicate white gems and incandescent robes blended almost seamlessly with their shimmering complexion.
“You’re the Silver Saints,” Aisling breathed. She wondered whether she should bow, or curtsy, or avert her gaze. Still in the grip of shock, she did none of those things. Instead, she stood still before the figures, looking into what might have been the eyes of the one closest to her.
“We are Merak,” they said, again together.
“You can end this war?” she asked. They nodded serenely, movements in sync.
“The Unseelie King shall be the final victim of this needless conflict. The bloodshed ends with him.” All three began to move then, gliding across The Cut in the direction of the battle. The plants on the forest floor parted as they passed, the long trains of their gowns sweeping over the snow and dirt but leaving no trace of their passage. Aisling followed behind numbly on leaden legs. Rodney and Lyre joined her wordlessly, but she was oblivious to anything except the light guiding her out of the forest.
The battlefield was littered with bodies, the snow muddied and stained all shades of crimson. On the frontline, where the two armies had met in fierce and violent combat, the fighting had ceased. Those that were pledged to either court stood entranced, eyes clouded over as the magic of the Silver Saints invaded their minds. Some fell to their knees, others merely halted mid-motion. Most had dropped their weapons. Interspersed amongst them, a handful of Solitary Fae looked around, confused, until they saw the approaching light. Then they, too, lowered themselves down on bended knee. Though their minds remained their own, their reverence was no less profound. Whether or not they believed the Silver Saints to be legend, or lost to bygone history, the entities were here now, walking amidst the dead and wounded.
“Your royals have given their lives for peace,” Merak proclaimed. “Their blood was traded in exchange for our awakening.”
The warriors stared blankly, slack-jawed, hearing the words in their minds. Aisling and the Solitary Fae only heard them out loud; Merak’s voices swirled in the night air such that it sounded like the Silver Saints were speaking from all directions.
“Our awakening marks a turning point in your stories. The cycle of strife will end not with the fall of the courts, but with the rise of unity. Your differences birth strength, but your harmony shall craft your future.”
Tears streamed down the faces of many of the soldiers, Seelie and Unseelie and Solitary alike, as the Silver Saints spoke. Aisling felt her own face growing wet with them, cutting rivulets through the blood drying on her cheeks.
“Let our light guide you in this choice: to lay down arms or continue the futile cycle,” Merak continued. “The power to shape your destiny lies not in the clash of swords but in the embrace of diplomacy. But choose wisely, for the fabric of your realm hangs on the decisions made from this moment on.”
As suddenly as their magic’s hold had gripped the fray, the faeries were released. Still, none moved to pick up their discarded weapons. A few staggered to their feet, but many remained in a daze that kept them on their knees .
Aisling’s gaze slid to Raif, near the center of the field where the bodies lay thickest. He rose lithely and left his sword where it had pierced through Niamh’s stomach and pinned her to the ground. Rodney stepped in front of Aisling, a protective barrier, but there was no malice in Raif’s approach. He only stared at her, at the blood that covered her, resigned.
“So it is true, then,” he said. “The king is dead.” Aisling looked away and nodded, feeling that pain beginning to edge back into her consciousness. She’d have preferred to remain numb; it was a far more tolerable state.
“He gave himself willingly,” Rodney hedged.
“I have no doubt.” Raif looked towards the Silver Saints then. A distant, haunted expression had settled over his normally impassive face. “Did you not see it?”
“See what?” Rodney asked.
“They showed us our future—Wyldraíocht’s future. Just a glimpse, just for a moment, of what it would look like should the war continue.” Raif stared at Merak’s retreating figures. All three moved in unison away from the carnage back towards the tree line. There, they stopped and returned to their motionless stance.
“And?” Rodney pressed.
“The outcome is not favorable for either side.” Lyre had seen it, too, and he wore a similar expression to Raif.
“What happens now?” Aisling croaked. Her throat burned with an unreleased scream of anguish stuck there since Kael had knelt before her. She wasn’t sure whether she cared to learn the answer—her part in this was over. She’d done what she was meant to and had paid dearly. There was little left for her in the Wild now.
“Assemblies will be formed, I suppose. Peacemakers from each court who will work alongside the Silver Saints to mend the rift,” Raif said. The rest of the battle-weary warriors were beginning to rise all around them. Aisling watched as a spriggan, clad in gold Seelie armor, offered his branchlike arm to an Unseelie Fae struggling to regain her balance on an injured leg.
“You think it will work?” Rodney was watching the pair, too, but still sounded skeptical.
“It has to,” Aisling insisted. This couldn’t all have been for nothing. Kael’s death couldn’t be for nothing. She repeated again, more for herself than anyone else, “It has to.”
Both armies worked well into the early morning hours clearing their dead and injured from the battlefield. The losses were steep on both sides, and felt deeply. The Silver Saints watched it all from the tree line, statuesque keepers of a more hopeful future. Aisling thought she could feel their magic lingering over the armies, propagating a sense of peace and calm as she had done for Kael. The pain of the injured was soothed, and the anger of the survivors was curbed.
It did little for Aisling, though, as she sat on the frozen ground amidst the effort. Raif and several company commanders had gone to The Cut to retrieve Kael’s body, but she couldn’t bring herself to go with them. She couldn’t bring herself to do anything, really, beyond mindlessly watching the first rays of sunrise. Rodney sat beside her, one arm around her shoulders. He’d pulled off her bloodstained cloak and replaced it with his own.
“I’m proud of you,” he said softly. “Your mother would be, too.”
“When did he tell you?” Aisling asked. She was sure he’d known.
“Before we came back. It was something the Diviner said to him. I’m sorry.” He tightened his hold around her, but she only nodded. She wanted to be angry—she would be—but for now, Aisling could only feel a hollowness in her chest.
“What happens now?” she asked again, this time about her own uncertain future. Without a prophecy guiding her path, she felt like a ship at sea without a rudder. Without a port. She couldn’t remain in the Wild, nor could she imagine returning to her life on the mainland. Even Brook Isle felt distant and foreign.
“Your path is yours again, Ash. What happens now is your decision.”
“Is it?” Aisling’s question was monotone, without inflection. “It doesn’t feel like mine.”
Rodney nudged her gently. “Whatever you decide, you’ve still got me. And you’ve still got Briar; I think he’s probably had enough adventure to last him awhile. I know I have.”
Aisling sighed. “Me, too.”