Chapter Four
Elysia
By the time I reach the edge of the village again, the lanterns have begun to flicker to life, casting soft pools of light on the worn cobbled paths. I make my way home with quiet purpose, my steps brisk with new resolve.
Maybe madness remembers what clarity forgets.
Maggie might be the only person who’s ever come close to that world.
If anyone could recognize the thoughts, sensations, and fear that still linger in my chest …
it would be her. Maybe all it would take is someone to speak the right words, paint the right memory, for something in her fractured mind to spark back to life.
Even if it doesn’t … at least she won’t repeat what I say. No one would believe her anyway. That fact stings more than it should.
The moment I step inside our little cottage, the scent of roasted root vegetables and warm broth greets me. My mother hums softly by the hearth, ladling stew into wooden bowls while my father tends to a loose hinge on the window frame with a furrowed brow.
“You’re back late,” my mother says without turning, but there’s no reprimand in her tone, only warmth.
“Work ran long,” I answer, slipping off my boots by the door. “But I was wondering … do we have any extra dinner to spare tonight? I want to bring something to Maggie.”
My mother turns, a smile blooming across her face. “Of course we do, sweetheart. Take as much as she’ll eat, and more. I don’t know how often she eats anymore, she has become so frail.”
She ladles a generous portion of the stew into one of our clay crocks, covering it carefully with a tight-fitting lid and wrapping it in a woven wool cloth to help retain the heat. “I’ll never understand how this village could turn their back on her after she returned from the selection.”
It’s entirely cruel, the way this village treats her like a plague they could get sick from.
My father pauses in his work, his gaze sharp as he watches me. “Just don’t stay out too late,” he says, voice low and protective. “You know how the cold settles in fast this time of season.”
I nod as my heart warms with his concern. “I won’t. I promise.”
From across the room, my younger sister looks up from her stitching and grins. “Will you be back in time to braid my hair the way I like for tomorrow? You know, with the ribbon twist?”
I laugh softly and walk over to brush a kiss across the top of her head. “Of course I will. I’d never leave you to your own tragic braiding skills.”
“Rude,” she teases, but there’s love in her voice.
With the warm parcel tucked into my satchel, I step back out into the cooling night, heart a little steadier, breath a little fuller.
The stars begin to blink to life overhead, and the weight of what I’m about to do presses against my chest, but it’s not heavy.
Instead it’s thrumming, alive with something unspoken, something stirring just beneath the surface of the world.
Because something is changing. I can feel it in the way the wind shifts, in the way my pulse quickens.
As I head toward the crooked path that leads to Maggie’s tiny, vine-covered cottage at the village edge, I know one thing for certain: Tonight, I’ll start asking the right questions.
The twinkling stars have taken their rightful place in the sky by the time I reach the northern edge of the village opposite from my home. The night air is crisp, settling over the land like a hushed whisper as the bustling town square quiets.
Ahead of me, Maggie’s cottage looms and my steps falter. I swallow a lump of unease choking my throat as I stare, feeling like there is an invisible barrier I’m about to cross that I won’t be able to come back from.
“Take the step,” I whisper to myself as my hand tightens on the well-worn satchel strap at my shoulder.
All of my previous determination seems to have withered away in the face of actually implementing my plan.
What if the answers I get aren’t the ones I want? What if they are the kind that twist thorns into my stomach with nerves and lead shadows of doubt into my already tumultuous thoughts?
My brow pinches at the overload.
Should I even be this worried? I could be unnecessarily building up this strange thing that happened to me.
I take a few moments to breathe in and out, slow and controlled, as I focus on Maggie’s home.
Ivy crawls all over the battered fence posts lining her crooked yard, and the shutters creak softly in the wind, one of them hanging loosely on rusted hinges.
Shame fills me that no one, including myself, has thought to come help repair her home, since her dad passed attempting to do just that.
I add it to my mental list to ask my father to stop by before the winter cycle comes.
With a huff I force myself over the line between the village path and into her private residence. I can’t daydream about all that is out there, thinking I’m meant for more, and then shy away from taking a step in that exact direction.
A single candle flickers behind the dirty glass of her window, casting distorted shadows across the door.
It’s the kind of light that feels more like a warning than a welcome, but I push the thought from my mind.
Maggie has never been anything but warm to me, even amidst her confusion.
I don’t think there is a drop of malice in her soul.
The cobblestone path narrows as I continue, wild with thistle in the cracks.
I raise a hand and knock softly. At first, there’s nothing.
No footsteps and no greeting called out from within.
Only the faint sound of a low hum, drifting through the door like the echo of a lullaby I just barely recognize. I knock again, firmer this time.
Suddenly, soft footsteps sound just before the door creaks open a breath, just wide enough for Maggie’s pale face to appear in the gap.
“Hello?” she says, soft green eyes unfocused as she gazes up at my face.
“It’s Elysia,” I say gently, taking a small step back, in case I’m intimidating her at all. “I brought you dinner, like I promised you earlier. My mother made stew and it’s still warm.”
I hope she lets me in, even if she doesn’t feel well enough to talk. She needs to get some food in her belly.
She blinks slowly, her gaze roving over my face. For a flicker of a moment, something sharp cuts through the fog of her mind as her eyes widen and lips part.
“Still whole,” she whispers, almost to herself as her fingers run through the loose strands of hair hanging around her face. “Not yet frayed at the edges.”
Is she implying she needs help cutting her hair?
I smile at her before asking, “May I come in?”
She nods absently and steps aside. I quickly enter and hear the door creak closed behind me.
The interior is dim and cluttered. Dried herbs hang in bundles from the rafters, their scent mingling with dust and old earth.
Bits of parchment and broken trinkets are scattered across every surface, like she’s stopped halfway through a copious number of projects.
I set the crock down on the nearest table, unwrapping the wool and letting the heat rise in gentle steam.
Maggie doesn’t seem to notice. She shuffles toward a worn rocking chair and lowers herself into it, her gaze fixed on a point far beyond the walls of her cottage.
I hesitate, unsure how to begin. “I wanted to ask you a few questions, if you feel up to it. About what you experienced being chosen.”
Her body stills. The air in the room instantly seems to be sucked out.
“The orb,” she mutters suddenly as her chair begins to rock back and forth, almost as if it helps her focus. “It hums. Sings. Burns.”
I swallow at the last word. That sounds decidedly unpleasant. She’s spoken of the orb before in ramblings, but never anything understandable.
“What was meeting an elf in person like?” I push gently as I prepare her meal and breathe a sigh of relief that my mother included a spoon. I wouldn’t know the first place to look to find one here.
She doesn’t answer and I press on, “Was the High Priestess a Dromin? One visited me in my dreams last night.”
She turns her head slowly as I approach her with the stew, eyes flicking toward mine but not truly meeting them. “It knew me. Unmade me. Made me again, but not all of me came back.”
Unease presses down on my chest. Is this still about the orb? I steady my voice. “And the elven High Priestess? What was she like?”
Maggie’s fingers trace patterns on the armrest as I offer the food to her. “White-fire eyes. Tongue of silk and sharp teeth beneath. She speaks with shadows. Calls it devotion.”
I shiver as the sharp teeth of the Valgys in my nightmare surface.
A grimace tugs at my lips at her disinterest in the food. I place it on the side table near her chair before taking a seat on the floor in front of her. I’ll ensure she takes a few bites before I leave.
Maggie laughs then, low and hollow, but shocking me down to the tips of my toes. I could never recall a time I heard her laugh. The chair creaks sharply as the pace of her rocking increases. “She chooses what bends. Not what breaks.”
We sit in silence as I struggle to process her words. I knew they would be confusing, but I wasn’t expecting for her answers to inspire such dread within me. We’re speaking of the High Priestess, after all. If anyone should inspire tranquility and peace in someone, it would be her.
“Maggie … do you remember anything else? Anything about the Nithrin or nightmares, maybe?”
She tilts her head as if listening to something I can’t hear. “History repeating. A name spoken over and over until it forgets itself. A crown and no head to wear it now.”
My hands clench slightly. “But the crown is on the Queen’s head, right?”
Maggie is quiet for a beat too long as her rocking stops. “It comes in threes, but the middle one never saw it coming.”
I fear I’m losing any clarity from her mind. “Earlier, when you told me my kindness will make them choose me next, what did you mean?”
Her eyes shift and settle on mine, clear and focused for one devastating heartbeat. “You’re next.”
Silence swallows the room whole as she doubles down on the sentiment with no added explanation.
Then, as quickly as it came, the clarity drains from her face. She hums again, low and tuneless, her fingers twitching in her lap.
I push to my feet, my thoughts warping under the weight of her words, but I don’t leave.
My gaze falls to the untouched crock of stew, the steam nearly gone now. I pick it up, settle back beside her, and gently scoop up a spoonful. “Maggie,” I say softly, “you need to eat. Just a little, please.”
She doesn’t resist when I lift the spoon to her lips, she only blinks slowly and opens her mouth as if it’s a reflex. I offer another, then another, in silence. The rhythm of it soothes some of the unease inside me.
When the bowl is nearly empty, I set it aside and take her hand in mine. Her skin is paper-thin and cold, her fingers feather-light in my grasp.
“Let’s get you to bed,” I whisper, helping her stand. She leans heavily on me, her body lighter than I imagined, like a collection of bones held together by sheer will.
I guide her across the room to the small cot tucked in the corner, its quilt askew and faded with age. She sinks onto it without protest, and I help ease her beneath the covers, tucking the edges snug around her frame.
She hums again, softer now, like she is content to drift away to her dreams.
My thoughts drift to the Dromin and I make a silent prayer. Please ensure she always dreams of happy memories and a time before her mind was fractured.
I linger for a moment, brushing stray strands of hair from her forehead. “Rest well, Maggie,” I murmur.
I turn and quickly stoke the fire in her hearth before stepping quietly back into the night, the door clicking shut behind me.
The wind is colder now, the shadows deeper, and my heart heavier.
Deep in my bones, something begins to stir, a truth I don’t yet understand, but one that’s already watching me from the shadows.
I make it home faster than I expected, my feet seemingly carrying me instinctually through the quiet village paths. The house is quiet now, dimly lit by the last embers of the hearth. My family must have gone to bed.
I push the door open softly, careful not to disturb the lingering silence. My satchel slips from my shoulder with a quiet thud, and I make my way toward my sister’s room, where she lies curled beneath her patchwork quilt, already fast asleep.
I sit on the edge of her bed, smiling down at her peaceful expression. The purple ribbon she loves so much is clutched loosely in her hand, tangled slightly from where she must have tried to braid her hair herself before sleep claimed her.
Gently, I take it and begin weaving her hair into the braid she loves, careful not to wake her. The familiar motion calms my fraying nerves. Each twist of her dark strands pulls me back from the fog Maggie’s words left behind.
Once I finish, I kiss her forehead and slip away, padding softly toward my own room. I close the door behind me, leaning against it for a long moment before finally crawling beneath my covers.
Yet sleep doesn’t come. My mind is too scattered with thoughts and questions to quiet. I stare at the ceiling, my breath shallow and pulse frantic. The weight of Maggie’s words echo in my mind.
You’re next.
My body remains still, but my thoughts refuse to rest. I don’t know if I’ll dream tonight. I don’t know if it’ll be a dream at all, or another nightmare.
I keep my eyes wide open, suddenly terrified to drift away as it hits me that I could experience another one, and without him.
Fates help me, I hope he’s okay with breaking another law, because it’s starting to feel like something isn’t wrong with me … more like something is coming for me.