Chapter 28 Flesh & Stone
Chapter twenty-eight
Flesh & Stone
When I looked up again, we were in a part of the forest where the trees seemed shorter and more densely packed.
I could hardly see the sky at all, never mind any direct sunlight.
But beneath the low canopies bobbed magyk lanterns of golden-yellow light.
They illuminated the sharp, serious planes of Hippolyta’s face, and I swallowed.
She was incredibly intimidating—every inch a battle-hardened warrior—but like Oberon, an invisible mantle of sadness hung over her.
“Oh, little one,” she whispered harshly, before pulling me into a bone-crushing embrace. “I am so sorry…” I did not put my arms around her in return, uncertain exactly what was happening, but let her hold me until she stepped back, moving her calloused hands to my shoulders.
“I-I am not sure…”
“Of course, he wouldn’t have told you anything,” she snorted. “And of course, he’s been keeping you all to himself. Bitter old man.”
“I don’t understand,” I murmured.
Hippolyta sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, turning away from me slightly. “Lyric was…well, she might as well have been my daughter too.”
I kept silent, but recalled what Devil had told me about Hippolyta at the revelry—that she and Titania had a relationship beyond just Queen and Commander.
“I’m afraid you might have to…spell it out for me,” I said. Hippolyta began weaving slowly between the trees and I followed at her elbow.
“Did Oberon tell you that he and I were both born in the Pallasian Court?” she asked.
“I knew he was, but…not you.”
“Well, we were. I was just a lowly soldier though, not connected to the royal family the way he is, and I have lived in the Arden longer. When Titania first came to power, after our previous queen returned to the Huntress, she was quite young and, of course, inexperienced. She was not of royal blood either, but the Arden chose her nonetheless.”
I tripped over a tree root in my eagerness to keep up with her long strides. “Is that how it works? The Arden chooses?”
“Sometimes,” Hippolyta said with a smile. “When Titania came to the throne, the Pallasian Court sent an ambassador and delegation.”
“Oberon?”
“No, it was his cousin, Mariaat, who is now their king. Antenor’s father.”
“Antenor is a prince?” I wrinkled my nose.
“The spare, not the heir,” said Hippolyta, a wicked twinkle in her dark eyes.
“Anyway, I was fortunate enough to accompany Mariaat as part of his guard. It is tradition for the Pallasian Court to…‘loan’ a military advisor to the Arden, since the folk here are much less inclined toward war and violence. Mariaat brought several loyal, experienced generals and captains with him, hoping to gain influence over the Arden’s naive new queen—”
“But she was hardly naive, was she?” I asked, grinning in spite of myself.
Hippolyta smirked. “Hardly. She tricked Mariaat into a bargain that allowed her to choose any warrior from his delegation as her advisor. She chose me because I was the smallest, the most pathetic-looking, and she wanted to get a rise out of Mariaat. But we quickly discovered how much we had in common…” Hippolyta trailed off wistfully and I fought down my burning curiosity, not wanting to be rude.
“Oberon mentioned some tension between the Pallasian Court and the Arden…” I said after a moment of silence. “Is that why?”
“Yes,” Hippolyta laughed. “Mariaat never got over the fact that she was able to outsmart him, even after he took the throne. And you can imagine how much worse it got when Oberon abandoned him for Titania too.” Her smile was soft and pleasant, without a trace of bitterness, so I swallowed hard and tried to ask the question I had balanced on the tip of my tongue.
“But…you and Titania…”
Hippolyta gave me a knowing look. “Oberon and I certainly had our differences,” she said, “especially at first, but Titania chose us both, and then the Arden chose him to sit on a throne beside her.”
“Why not you?” I asked quietly, no longer caring if my questions were too direct.
“I never wanted a throne,” Hippolyta said with a shrug. “All I ever wanted was her, and Oberon understood. For a long time, the three of us had our own little version of a family, and the day your mother was born was…the happiest…”
“He told me the story,” I muttered, “but…he left you out of it.”
“Oh, I don’t blame him. We haven’t exactly been on good terms all these years, and you were probably overwhelmed enough as it was.
I am just glad that—” She stopped walking and turned to face me, her hand drifting up to my arm.
“I am just glad to know that you lived, and grew up somewhere safe and peaceful. None of this was ever your fault, Marina, and I would ask you to remember that…when you speak with Titania.” She turned, and I looked past her into the trees.
Barely visible through the gloom and the close-set trunks were a pair of delicate yellow wings.
Fear and apprehension gripped me by the throat as Hippolyta moved forward again.
When I could finally make out Titania’s figure, sitting on the low-slung branch of live oak, we stopped, and Hippolyta motioned for me to stay while she continued.
Shadows twisted and tightened around my hands while I waited, running through all the things I could say.
None of them were right. None of them were enough.
Titania turned as the commander put a hand on the small of her back.
They spoke together in hushed tones for a moment, using the fay language, then Titania’s amber eyes shifted onto me for only a split second before looking away.
Finally, she said something that made Hippolyta smile and touch her cheek tenderly.
By the time Hippolyta beckoned me forward, I felt as though I might fall to pieces there on the forest floor.
My knees weakened as I walked, and nearly gave out when Titania did not turn to face me.
Her beautiful, yellow wings drooped behind her, brushing the ground, and she wore a simple, white chiton, belted around the waist with thin, green vines.
“Thank you for…agreeing to speak with me, my lady,” I said, automatically dropping into a low curtsey.
“What is it you want?” Titania asked sharply.
“I…I am here to…” The words failed, dissolving into an oozing pit of hot anger in my belly. “I want you to look at me.”
A breathy laugh left Titania and she shook her head. “I looked at you not three weeks ago.”
“And did you suppose that would be the last time?”
“I hoped it would be, yes,” Titania hissed, and Hippolyta put a hand on her knee. I clenched my fists and planted my feet, unwilling to tuck my tail between my legs and crawl away defeated.
“I am not leaving here until you speak to me civilly,” I told her.
“And what exactly do you consider to be civil, Marina of Locksley?” Titania asked as she pushed herself off the branch and dropped to the forest floor, still facing Hippolyta, who now watched me closely from the corner of her eye.
“Treat me like a gods-damned human being!” I cried without thinking.
In a split second, Titania had somehow moved around the branch and was only inches from my face, her amber eyes now engulfed in burning orange, flames shooting from her hands.
I stumbled backwards, blinded, and slammed into a tree trunk.
“Have you not heard how I treat human beings?” she snarled, showing a pair of deadly fangs. “Have you not been told how I pull them apart at the seams and use their limbs to decorate my forest? How I delight in their screams and paint my body with their blood?”
I turned away and squeezed my eyes shut, trembling from head to toe. But Hippolyta was there quickly, moving between us, arms wrapping around Titania to pull her away. Terrified as I was, the fury inside me exploded in a burst of jagged shadows.
“Then treat me as your flesh and blood, for that is what I am!” I screamed. “Whether or not you accept it, I am your daughter’s daughter, and I would have you look at me! You owe me that much!”
The flames in Titania’s hands flickered, then went out as she took in the sight of my power. “Shadowspinner,” she whispered. “You have inherited his power, then.”
“Yes,” I said through gritted teeth, allowing more of my magyk to spill out. “But I think I have inherited your anger, my lady, and the only way to quell it is for you to speak to me.”
She still would not look at me, but finally rasped, “If I do as you ask, will you go?”
“Yes, I will go,” I said, battling the lump in my throat.
With Hippolyta’s hand on her back, Titania walked toward me slowly, eyes pinned to the ground.
I tried to steady my breathing, but the closer she got, the easier it was for me to see how alike we were.
Her hair, her nose, the shape of her lips—they were all mine.
By the time she stopped, only a few feet away, there were tears rolling down my face, but I didn’t dare move a muscle to rid myself of them.
Shaking her head slowly back and forth, as if battling herself, Titania lifted her eyes to meet mine.
Their brilliant amber color burned into me, but it was her own tears that almost caused my knees to buckle again.
I stayed perfectly still as she lifted a hand and brushed it over my cheek.
“Oh, beautiful girl,” she murmured. “You are hers…but you are not her.”
“And I would never try to be.” I choked out the words between sobs. “But do I not still deserve a-a family?”
“Of course, you do.”
“I am s-so sorry for your pain. Truly, I am…”
“You were never the cause of it, child,” Titania whispered, “and I know your life has not been easy either. But…I still cannot do this. It is too much, and…I do not want to make it worse…”
“Make what worse?” I asked. Titania turned and motioned behind her, to the grove of trees just beyond her perch on the post oak.
I had not even looked at it before, but now I saw the creeping darkness covering the ground.
Every tree in the grove had been consumed by the Rot, to the point where I could not even tell what species they were—every tree, that is, except one.
In the center of the grove grew a silvery, bent-backed weeping willow, much like the one at the heart of the Arden.
This tree, and the grass immediately around it, were free of the Rot, somehow, and I took a few steps toward it, squinting to see something large at the base.
It appeared to be a stone bench at first, but as I got closer, I realized what it actually was: a sarcophagus.
A stone tomb, with an intricate relief carved onto the top.
“Lyric?” I asked, looking to Hippolyta instead of Titania, who seemed frozen as she stood behind me, her eyes averted.
The Commander nodded sadly and answered, “This was her grove, where she was born, where you were born, and also where she…died.”
I swallowed and turned my attention to Titania. “This is where the Rot began, isn’t it?”
She just nodded.
“Oberon thinks that it began because of Lyric,” I said, “because she was part of the Arden. I came here to ask what you think it is, and how it might be healed.”
Titania’s eyes shifted to meet mine and she shook her head. “It cannot be healed.”
“Why do you believe that?” I asked gently.
“Because I am the cause,” she answered, “and I cannot heal myself.”
I did not know how to reply, but a well of bitter fury grew in my stomach again, and I clenched my fists. “Would you really doom the entire Arden because you do not want to let go of your grief? What good does it do you to hold on this way?”
“It is not a matter of wanting…” Titania murmured, turning away and wrapping her arms around herself. “I cannot let go of it…of her…”
She crumpled, as if injured, and Hippolyta held her as she sank to her knees and rocked forward. I opened my mouth to speak again, but my words were drowned out by a strange sound—like cracking river ice, or the snapping trunk of a falling tree, followed by a hollow, whistling howl.
“No!” Titania cried out. “No, no, no! You must leave, please!”
Before I could ask why, Hippolyta glanced behind her, and I followed her gaze.
The Rot was spreading. Like rivulets of rainwater cutting through dry earth, it crept along the forest floor toward us, climbing the tree trunks—a swarm of hellish insects consuming everything it touched. Hippolyta lifted Titania to her feet and pulled her past me.
“We must go,” she barked. “Now, Marina!”
“No!” I whirled to face her. “Oberon said it can be stopped. We can do it together!”
“Oberon is a fool!” Hippolyta snarled. “If their combined power cannot stop it, then what do you think you can do?”
“I can try,” I hissed. “I can stand and face it, instead of running!” Without stopping to think, I faced the Rot again, fell to my knees, and slammed my hands into the ground.
My shadows spread across the grass, then plunging into the dirt, searching for the Arden’s magyk currents.
But I found the river of power sapped, flickering like a candle.
While sweat dripped from my forehead, I poured myself into it, pressing back against the suffocating cold.
The Rot went straight for my magyk without mercy, testing it, tearing into it, looking for a weak spot.
“Please!” I called, not even knowing if Titania was even still there. “I need your light!”
There was no answer except a strangled sob, but then she appeared beside me.
Her hands moved like a pair of dark, graceful dancers, weaving beams of light together and sending them bouncing across the forest floor toward the tendrils of Rot.
With tears wetting her cheeks, she pressed her palms into the grass beside mine, and the suffusive glow of her magyk engulfed us both.
But it was not enough. The darkness pressed on, bringing death with it.