Ambrosia

by Aaron Lee Yeager

  “Storgen, don’t.”

  “The real victim here is Agaprei. If you want to feel bad for someone, feel bad for her, for she lost someone who loved her dearly.”

  He let go of the faded paper, and it fell into the flame, catching fire and burning away. In seconds, it was reduced to mere ashes, and then it was gone.

  Storgen closed his eyes and collapsed, falling out of the chair and onto the floor.

  “Storgen? Storgen!”

  Cornett scooped him up and shook him, but Storgen would not wake.

  “Storgen! Storgen wake up!” Cornett yelled in panic.

  Guests stirred in the hall, and Agaprei, Erolina, and Philiastra ran up in their nightgowns, concern on their faces.

  “What’s wrong? Cornett, what’s happening?”

  Cornett placed a glowing hand on Storgen’s chest, then looked up in fear.

  “He’s dying.”

  * * *

  Storgen lay unconscious in his bed, powerful stimulants flowing into his sallow body through a needle and tube system Agaprei had rigged up. Yet, despite the high dosage, his heartbeat grew slower and slower, his breath growing fainter and fainter.

  He looked so miserable, so ashy. His lips, so often twisted into a mirthful smirk, were now thin and sallow. His blonde hair, so often whipped with breeze and fluffed with energy, now limp and faded. His rough and thick skin, always so kissed with sunlight and dotted with strong stubble, now ashen and waxy, the scars crisscrossing in white, jaundiced ridges.

  “I don’t understand,” Erolina said, looking over him worriedly. “You’ve pumped him full of enough tonic to kill a griffon. Why isn’t he waking up?”

  “The death curse Master Kynigó put into Storgen was very powerful…” Cornett explained.

  “That’s why we were forced to amputate his legs,” Agaprei said through her tears. “To stop it from spreading further.”

  Cornett nodded. “But obviously we didn’t get it all. A shard remained, and it has worked its way into his heart.”

  “Can it be removed?” Philiastra asked, her eyes red and weary.

  Cornett lowered his eyes. “Not even divine magic could save him now.”

  “Perhaps if we had the stone, we could have used it to nullify the curse,” Agaprei mentioned.

  “The stone is lost,” Erolina said. “Buried beneath a mountain of rubble at the bottom of the ocean.”

  “Even if you could nullify the curse, it would not save him now,” Cornett reasoned. “The damage done to him is not just physical, but spiritual. His soul has been shredded, and no craft the gods possess can mend it.”

  Philiastra’s eyes went wide. “Then, there’s nothing you can do for him? He‘s going to die?”

  “I can’t, but you three can.”

  “Us?”

  “There are forces in this world that are older and more powerful than any magic. Older than even the gods themselves. Have you never noticed, that for all the authority we gods have obtained, there is one realm over which we have no power?”

  The girls looked at one another in bewilderment.

  “Love,” Cornett explained. “You love him, don’t you?”

  They all averted their gaze in shame, unwilling to respond. It was Erolina who finally broke the silence.

  “Storgen was kind and generous towards us, and we repaid him with blood and treachery. It doesn’t matter what we feel.”

  “No, that’s not true,” Cornett argued. “Your feelings are the very heart of the matter.”

  “We were no better than animals!” Philiastra shouted. “He had something we needed and we took it without a second thought.”

  Cornett looked them over sympathetically. The air was thick with remorse. “I’m not sure I believe that. An animal would never have had a second thought, never shed a tear. But not you girls. You regret what you did so much you can hardly sleep at night. I see it in your faces. For a brief moment, desperation and fear caused you to set aside your decency, but you cannot let that one decision define your entire lives. What you have done is a part of you, and it will always be so, but it is not ALL you are. You are also what you choose to be from here on out. If you hate what you’ve become, then you can change. If you despise what you have done, you can make amends. It is not too late for you.”

  “Make amends?” Agaprei spat. “He’ll be a cripple for the rest of his life. You can’t just make amends for that. There’s absolutely nothing we could give him worth what we took. The scales will be forever imbalanced.”

  She began to cry. “We ruined him. We took everything from him.”

  “And now you have a chance to give something back. It won’t make things right, maybe nothing ever will, but would you rather give him something, or give him nothing?”

  Erolina took courage from his words. “What do we need to do?”

  They watched as Cornett coaxed a few drops of ambrosia from his flask and held out his hand. From the golden mist that he emitted, he fashioned a very strange-looking vessel. A chalice of crystal and silver, glimmering with specks like starlight, the base made of whirling fire, the rim of clear ice. Carefully, he pricked Storgen’s pale finger and let a drop of blood fall inside. The blood mixed into a whirling vortex, filling the chalice like a miniature hurricane, clouds of light swirling around within.

  “Is this a portal?” Philiastra wondered.

  “Of sorts. In the era before the gods, the fates used not the energies of magic, but anima, the power of consciousness itself. This gate does not lead to a physical place, but rather leads into Storgen’s soul.”

  “A gateway to his heart,” Agaprei surmised.

  “I have only known Storgen a short time. I cannot enter, because he has not let me into his heart. But he has let you in before. He may let you in again.”

  The girls looked at one another apprehensively.

  “Well, I’ve known him the longest,” Philiastra said. “I should probably go first. What do I do?”

  “Place your hands on the edge of the chalice, and call to him.”

  She looked over at Storgen’s still body. “Can he hear me?”

  “His mind is in a dark place. It will take great effort to reach him.”

  Philiastra placed her hands on the edge, and had to pull them away again. “It’s so cold.”

  “It is not temperature you feel, but the loneliness he feels.”

  “The fire from the base…it’s too hot.”

  “The burn you feel is the sorrow he feels.”

  She forced herself to touch the chalice again, her hands trembling. “It hurts.”

  “As does he.”

  Philiastra took a calming breath and tried to focus.

  “One word of caution…”

  “Oh, now you bring up a warning?”

  “Connecting to his heart requires completely honesty. If you hold anything back, if your feelings are not pure and unconditional, the process will fail, and he will die.”

  “So, no pressure, then.”

  Cornett put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Just remove your filters. Don’t think about what you should say, or what you think he wants to hear. Just say what you feel, nothing more, and nothing less. If you do so, your feelings will reach him.”

  Philiastra closed her eyes and focused her thoughts. She tried to think about all the good times, all the happy times, but each memory had a shadow hanging over it. Every time she recalled his laugh, the image of him lying in bed overshadowed it. Every time she remembered his strength, the reality that he had lost it came intruding in. She thought about how nice it felt to rest her head against his strong, broad chest, but then the guilt came crashing in.

  “I…I don’t know what to do,” she said, feeling a little afraid.

  “How do you connect with anyone? Talk to him, be with him. Understand him.”

  She could feel the coldness traveling up her arms, but she forced her hands to remain along the rim. “A-all right.”

  She closed her eyes again, a
nd the chalice pulsed with a beat of light.

  “Storge…I don’t know if you can hear me. I hope you can. I…I’m so sorry. I’m sorry what I said, I’m sorry what I did…”

  Her eyes began to tear. “I’m sorry about everything. I don’t want to make excuses, I’m not asking for your forgiveness or anything. I just want you to understand why I did it. Why I hurt you. And it’s fine if you hate me when I’m done. I deserve it. Just hear me out first.”

  She took a deep breath. “My people need me. My forest needs me. I finally found another survivor of the massacre, and he and I are the last of our kind. If I don’t start a family with him, then my race will vanish forever. The stone could have helped us protect a new forest. It could have convinced the trees to forgive me…but that doesn’t make it right, what I did, and I want you to know, I am so very, sorry.”

  The chalice began to pulse with a heartbeat. She could feel her own heart beginning to beat in sync as tears trickled down her cheeks. “I have to go soon. I have to return to the forest. But before I go, I want to thank you. You were such a good friend to me. A better friend than I deserved. With you, I could always be myself. I hate to admit it, but I’ve never really fit in anywhere. Not amongst the humans, and if I’m being honest, I don’t really fit in with the forest, either. Trees don’t like me, and I don’t really like them, either. I feel like a person torn between two worlds. I don’t really belong in either of them. I am a person without a place to call my own. But, when I was with you…when I was with you, I felt like I belonged. And that should have been enough for me. But it wasn’t. I wanted to be more than just friends. And that was selfish. You had already given me so much, so much more than anyone else ever had, it was wrong of me to demand more. I’m sorry that I forced my feelings onto you like I did. You can’t control how you feel, and I shouldn’t hold it against you just because you don’t feel for me what I wanted you to. I acted like a big irrational, grox, and I’m sorry. But still, even though now I know that you will never see me as anything more than a friend, I am still grateful, so very grateful that I was able to know you, and the time we spent together was the happiest…and most frustrating…and exciting…and frightening time of my life. I am, and will always be, your friend.”

  The room filled with light, and Philiastra felt herself sinking down, falling out of her own body and through the deep storm. It was a bizarre sensation, tumbling through reality as if the world was no longer solid, falling through layer after layer, space and time unraveling around her, the very fabric of the cosmos pulled apart, thread by thread, into nothingness.

  When she opened her eyes, she was standing on a green pasture before a swift sunrise. The ground was cool and moist, the air warm and healthy, the sun strong and pure. Birds sang, resting on the branches of a great, smiling forest that rose up before her.

  “Where am I?”

  From somewhere far above, she could hear Cornett’s voice carried on the wind.

  “You have entered his heart.”

  She looked around. “But, why does it look like a forest?”

  “This is the place in his heart he has set aside for you.”

  “For me?”

  “Yes. He carries a piece of you in his heart, as does everyone who cares deeply for another. That is what makes all this possible.”

  As she entered the woods, she found the trees farther in were smaller than the rest, their bark and leaves of unnatural bright colors. Fuchsia and lilac, maroon and turquoise, salmon and vermillion. The ridges of their bark formed pleasant, smiling faces, and they hummed sweetly, as if singing a song.

  Philiastra held up her hand, and a tree lowered its branch and grew an oversized cherry into her palm, as if presenting her with a gift. She took a bite, and found it sweeter than any fruit she had ever tasted. “This is wrong, though. This isn’t what the forest looks like at all.”

  “But remember, he doesn’t know that. He’s never been inside a forest before. This place is made up of his understanding.”

  She rounded a tree and found a quaint little cottage built up in one of the trees. The roof was painted white like clouds, and the faces blue like the sky.

  “Is this, a house? Is this what he thinks forest nymph houses look like?”

  “This is what he imagines they look like.”

  “It’s like a kid’s treehouse.”

  The front door opened, and a young woman came out to hang up the laundry. She was radiantly beautiful, her long leafy hair styled in large twin tails on either side of her head. As she sang to herself, fresh fruit grew on the branches nearby.

  “Is that…me?”

  “Yes, that is you.”

  The radiant woman unfurled her white angelic wings and fluttered down to the forest floor. When her feet touched the ground, beautiful flowers sprang up spontaneously.

  “But, she doesn’t look like me.”

  “What you are seeing, is how he sees you.”

  She put her hands over her heart. She could feel it beating hard inside her chest. “Storge…”

  From all around, dozens of young forest nymph children ran up, happily embracing the woman and kissing her cheeks. They told her stories and she listened in fascination. She told them jokes and they laughed with her.

  Philiastra could not make out their words, but she could feel them nonetheless. Here there was joy, love, safety. A place of peace, a realm of joy. “But, here I have children. Lots of children. I’ve never had a child in real life.”

  “What you are seeing, is nothing more and nothing less, than the sincerest desire of his heart towards you.”

  A strong man came into the clearing, holding a sack in one hand, and leading a young child with the other.

  “You mean, this is what Storgen wants me to have?”

  “Yes.”

  Philiastra felt her heart beat harder and faster. So strong that it felt sore inside of her.

  The man set down the sack, revealing the mushrooms and nuts he had collected for dinner, and the children cheered happily. He leaned over and gave the woman a deep kiss, and she beamed with happiness. As Philiastra scooted over to get a better look, she found she could not make out his features. His face was blurred, as if he had no face at all.

  “That man I am with. My husband. The father of my children. Why doesn’t he have a face?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? Because to Storgen, it does not matter who you end up with, as long as you are happy.”

  “Oh, Storge…you will always be…my first love.”

  Her heart beat harder still, so hard it overwhelmed her, the beats pulsing out like waves in glass, distorting everything around her. The world filled with light, and then she was back in her body, falling hard to the floor before the chalice.

  “Wha…what was that?”

  Cornett smiled in relief. “You succeeded. You released your own anima within his heart, purifying part of the shard lodged within him.”

  They looked over, and saw Storgen’s body faintly glowing with a pure and holy light. It quickly faded away.

  Philiastra found her head settling down to the floor. “I’m…I’m so tired.”

  Cornett stooped over and placed his hand on her forehead. “Rest now. I will watch over you.”

  “All right.”

  He picked her up and sent a nurse to go fetch some blankets. She was in a deep sleep before he even set her down on the couch.

  Cornett flew over to Storgen and placed his glowing hand on his chest. “The shard has been weakened, but it will not be enough. More anima will be needed from the two of you.”

  Agaprei looked at Erolina. “Well, you are a champion emeritus, by tradition I must go first.”

  “Ladies first, as they say.”

  Agaprei stepped close and put her hands on the cup. She sucked in her breath when the sensations flowed into her.

  “Does it hurt badly?” Cornett asked in concern.

  “It’s all right.” Agaprei responded. “This is nothing compared to what I�
��ve put him through.”

  She looked down into the swirling mist. “Storgen, I like to plan. I like to prepare. I like to anticipate. It’s who I am. I guess it gives me a sense of satisfaction. Well, that’s not it entirely, it gives me a sense of control. Storgen, you were something I never planned for, I was completely unprepared for the disruption you would cause. I never could have anticipated you showing up in my life. It startled me at first, and I resented all the chaos being thrown into my perfectly ordered plans. But, now I realize I was never in control to begin with. It was always chaos, but chaos can be nice too, right? I always thought love was something I had to earn, something I had to be worthy of, something I had to strive and sacrifice for. That I had to prove myself, then it would be given to me. So, when you showed up offering it for free, it felt like you were somehow cheapening it. But I was wrong to feel that way. You were giving me what you had, what else could you do? You were just being yourself. That big, sincere, gentle idiot that you are. And you are strong, so strong. You have a heart that moved mountains. That wrought miracles. Without magic and without help. I want you to know, I am so glad I met you, and I am so grateful that we met.

  The chalice remained completely silent.

  Agaprei became afraid. “What’s wrong? I don’t get it.”

  “Your feelings must be completely unconditional,” Cornett explained.

  “But I was. It must be something else. It must be my curse.”

  “Your curse cuts you off from magic, not love.”

  “That’s not true, it has always cut me off from love. It must be happening again. Scythe, you go next. I…I’m not ready.”

  “Once you have started, you cannot stop.”

  “Well, you never told me that.”

  “Just try again. And don’t hold back.”

  She gripped the rim angrily. “Fine, you want the truth? I’ll tell you the truth, but the truth hurts, okay? So don’t blame me for it afterwards. The truth is…I’m tired of being cursed. I’m sick and tired of living in a world I can’t be a part of. And I don’t know who to be mad at anymore. Should I be mad at the gods for cursing me and turning me into a mortal? Should I be mad at you, Storgen, for causing the commotion in our former lives? Should I be mad at you for causing problems for me in this life, too? Should I be mad at myself? I’ve been mad at all of them, and more, and the truth is, I’m sick of it. I’m tired of feeling angry all the time. It makes me tired, so tired I feel it in my bones. It makes me feel old, and I don’t want to feel that way anymore. I just want my curse removed!”