Chapter 38 #3
“Real fairy?” Thessaly darted into a loop around my head, her wings brushing loose strands of hair. “Of course I am real. Do you ask the moon if she is real when she shines on your face?” She darted by my ear and pinched the tip lightly. “Shall I ask if you are real, faeling?”
Helka chuckled, sipping her tea. “Pay her no mind, Sylvanna. Thessaly thrives on mischief.”
The wisp pressed her tiny hands to her chest, feigning injury. “What you call mischief, crone, I call wonder.” She alighted atop Bjarnalf’s massive head, perching like a crown as the bear snored on. “Do you call the northern lights mischievous simply because they dance?”
Despite myself, I smiled. “Pardon my rudeness. I’m simply awed by your beauty.”
“Ha! Hear that, Helka? Finally, one of your guests has taste.” Thessaly winked, then leapt from the bear’s head in a trail of frost and perched on the armrest of my chair, crossing her delicate legs. “I like this faeling. Can we keep her?”
“The faelings’s name is Sylvanna. And no, we cannot keep her.”
Thessaly fluttered into the air again, wings buzzing like crystal chimes. “Then why summon me, crone?”
“I have need of you.”
The fairy grinned, her pointy teeth sharp enough to pierce flesh. “Need of me? Do tell.”
“Find the wolf prince in the woods,” Helka said. “Lead him astray. He seeks the girl, but you must not let him find her.”
Thessaly twirled in midair, trailing a curl of icy light. “Where shall I lead him? To the Weeping Forest, where the trees cry blood? Or the Wailing Ridge, where the winds never cease their sorrow?”
“Where matters little,” Helka replied. “Only keep him away.”
The fairy zipped forward until her eyes were level with mine.
She brushed one tiny, clawed hand through the silver streak in my hair.
“Ahh. The moon goddess favors you, faeling. You bear her mark. Selvarg has chosen you well.” Her smile widened, dazzling and dangerous.
“I will find your wolf prince…and I will weave him a path that leads to nowhere.” She winked, and in a blink, she was gone, her body folding back into the pale wisp of light that flickered once, then vanished.
Helka sagged deeper into her chair. “She can be a handful, but fairy folk are loyal to a fault. Once one of them decides you are worthy of their world, they will defend you to the death.”
“You’ve befriended the fairies?”
“Their queen is noble, and she has granted me many favors for keeping her forests safe and healthy. Thessaly was her gift to me—one of her many daughters.”
“She’s a princess turned servant?”
Helka’s eyes sharpened. “Thessaly is no servant of mine. She came of her own volition, and she stays because she chooses to. Loyalty, as I said, is their currency. It is valued as dearly as life itself.”
“Then why is she helping me? She doesn’t know me.”
“You heard her. Selvarg has chosen you.”
“They, too, worship her?”
Helka nodded once. “Like many of the hidden creatures of the forest, Selvarg is their patron goddess.” Her eyes roamed over the silver streak in my hair. “Thessaly trusts you because the goddess has marked you.”
I pushed to my feet, pacing before the hearth. “I still don’t understand why she’s chosen me.”
Helka folded her hands over her lap, her eyes darkening as if she held a grave secret that would shatter my world.
Icy fingers crawled over my skin, and a part of me wondered if I truly wanted to dig any deeper.
“The goddess led you to me because you needed answers, Sylvanna. But that doesn’t mean you will welcome those answers.”
Sinking back onto my chair, I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, as though I could exhale the weight pressing down on my shoulders.
“I’ve never worshipped the moon goddess.
For my people—for Skadgard—Skadi is our patron.
I simply don’t understand why Selvarg would mark me as a child of the forest when I’m clearly not of her world... ”
“Some truths are for the goddess herself to reveal. In time, it will all fall into place.”
“In time?” My voice cracked with frustration. “But wasn’t it you who told me I needed to make a choice now? How am I supposed to make any decisions when I don’t have all the facts?”
Helka’s eyes fixed on me as if she could see past my skin to the marrow trembling beneath.
“True character, child, is not revealed when the path is bright and easy. It is revealed when you walk blind through darkness, when every choice is a risk taken and every step forward feels like treading on thin ice.”
Her gaze drifted over me, over my bloodied, tattered gown and soot-stained skin. I felt stripped bare beneath her scrutiny, as though she was measuring me against the prophecy itself. Perhaps questioning if Selvarg had made a mistake and I wasn’t the sacred wolf.
I wasn’t ready to take on such a mantle, to carry the fate of a people on my back. A people who seemed to already claim me as theirs, yet I had no clue of their existence until now. How could I possibly be the chosen one meant to lead them? To break the shackles imprisoning their magic?
Helka sighed, weariness woven into the very thread of her breath.
“We have a long night ahead while the prince mends. Thessaly will play her part, and I will play mine. Skjolli will draw you a bath. Once you’re clean, we’ll sit for supper, and I’ll tell you the rest of the story the northern kingdoms were never meant to remember. ”