Chapter 48
VALANCE
My boots crunched charred bone, releasing silver dust into the air. Another corpse breaking underfoot to remind me of everything lost. I poured life into it, the final piece of Winter revived.
Dark fae and humans came to life, fell into genuflection. Thanked me, blessed me, praised me. They wanted to walk with me, follow the king who saved their continent again. But I told them no, as I had everyone else who wanted to form a caravan with me.
The last thing I wanted was worshippers. I only wanted to walk in peace.
It had been six long weeks since I’d buried Kormac in a beautiful woodland not far from the beach where he’d died. I restored it back to snowy health, deer clambering to their hooves once again, fleeing when they saw me.
I wove him a blanket of dark blue cotton adorned with silver stars. I thought he would like that, wanted to ask him to be sure.
He remained dead.
I’d cleaned him, kissed his forehead, his cheek, then covered his lovely face for the last time.
“Goodbye, Kormac,” I’d said. “I will make you proud.”
I now found myself in the west of Winter, not far from the jinn groves, indicated by bushes of pretty purple berries and the strange smell of smokeless fire. So close to wishing, so close to change.
Wish him back…
The temptation thrummed wildly in my soul, yet the word consequences rang true in my head. Look at the mess my grandmother made from her wish. If I wished for Kormac’s life back, what horror would follow?
No. I would heal the rest of Faerie, then disappear. I wanted no part in the politics, of dangers in seeking the throne’s power. Where I would vanish too, I’d have to decide when my job was done.
“Autumn next,” I told myself.
Once Winter was healed, Autumn it was.
I spent two years walking and healing Faerie. A day to break it, two years to mend it. Creation might be wonderful, but destruction held all the power.
I considered returning my dragons, deciding to leave them in the past where they belonged. As much as I missed them, they were tied to so much pain I didn’t want to face.
On my journey, I met many fae, many humans, not staying long enough to form any relationships with them. I gave them their second chance at life, took away the ashes and the damage done to their lands. If they tried to follow, I hid myself in magic or enchanted them to forget me.
By the time I reached the south of Autumn, I liked the idea of forgetting so much, I used it on everyone. I infected everything, including animals, so it would spread back the way I’d come.
I wanted to be forgotten.
When I reached Spring, I contemplated leaving the keep and the forges as ruins. Progress on the scale the Autumn lords had made was terrifying, damaging to the fabric of Faerie. Progress was to be both celebrated and feared.
I restored the forges and the keep in the end but added a layer of forgetting to the enchantment there.
The Gentry fae could continue to use metals to forge swords and spears, similar weapons.
But not iron fire, and not guns. They were to forget those developments, to never remember the plans of crafting them again.
How long before that came apart, I didn’t know. For now, it was nice to think of at least a temporary solution to that problem.
By the end of my walk, I came full circle to Summer Palace. Under the brilliant sun, I collapsed on Rosestar Hill, my former home of golden turrets and spires restored to splendid glory.
I basked in the heat of the day, remembering time spent on this hill with Maeve and Boyd. Remembering the first time I’d seen Kormac in the forest just beyond this hill. A horrible time with the seeds of love buried deep, it turned out.
It hurt so much to think about him. But I did, every single hour of the day. No matter how much I tried not to.
My magic closed itself off for a while, resting as a flower at night. I lay still, waiting for it to return, happy to be in this spot as my world blurred.
Movement. Words. Darkness.
What was happening?
I was… I was being moved away from the hill. Who did the voices belong to?
Sounds of wood on wood, bellows, the soft crackle of fire outside of this shell I found myself in. Upside down, stinking of dust and damp, dirty white cloth cocooning me. My limbs were bound tightly with rope, my magic waking from its rest.
“Shouldn’t we do something else?” a man asked. “I’m worried.”
“Don’t be such a child,” a woman replied. “We’re good here.”
“He’s a Sidhe, though. We’ll hang for this or worse.”
“Don’t worry.”
“And a strange looking Sidhe.”
They didn’t remember me, but they knew what I was. To a fashion.
“He’ll taste really good, no matter his looks,” the woman answered. “That’s some special meat on those pretty bones.”
Were humans fond of eating fae? Had they taken a leaf from goblin books?
“Ugh… I don’t know.”
“You heard what the goblins said about the power of fae meat. It’ll make us strong, give us magic.”
Ah, so there were goblins involved.
“But we have to save them some,” the man said.
“Yes.”
Dealing with goblins would only lead to suffering—namely boiling to death in their cauldrons and filling their bellies.
“We really need some power,” the man added with a shaky voice.
“What better than a Sidhe fae?” the woman responded.
Would this world ever move on from murder and death? Was I healing something that would only spiral into war again, find a route back to guns and iron fire?
Then undo your work…
Ah, there it was, my darkest of voices.
As quietly as I could, I broke the bindings at my wrists first, then my ankles. I enchanted the fabric to open just enough to give me sight of the two siblings.
Dirty and pale, sharing messy brown hair, his hair long and tangled, hers short and greasy, they stood by a growing fire in the middle of a clearing. Dressed in battered brown leather armor, stinking to the heavens of shit and sweat, they were clearly siblings.
A fire during a Summer day was absurd, though they wanted it for cooking.
They had brought me somewhere deeper into the forest. Halfway between Summer Palace and the White Wastes, I deduced from feeling the air, taking in the forest’s essence around me.
The foolish humans talked beside the fire, their backs to me, the woman poking at the fire with a stick.
“Everything is going to be amazing,” she said.
Silently forcing my prison to unfurl, my feet landed on the soft forest floor. I stalked forward, nostrils overwhelmed with their stench.
Forever violence. Forever death.
I give, and I take away.
I killed him first, snapping his neck within a heartbeat. His body fell forward into the fire, quickly catching alight.
The sister screamed, swinging her stick at me. It burned on the end. I dodged her easily, grabbing her by the head.
“You have no respect for life,” I said, my voice a soft whisper.
Her eyes were wide with delicious fear, and she reached desperately for her left pocket.
I broke her neck before she could draw a blade from that pocket, tossing her body into the fire to join her wretched brother.
After they were charred, I ended the fire.
A bluebird flew past me, landing on a branch close by. It chirped, a second bird joining it to chirp back.
“I can’t be the master of this world,” I told the little feathered creatures. “This isn’t what I want. I cannot stand more death and decay.”
What I wanted was oblivion.