by Molly Ringle
With a shiver, he returned his gaze to Rosamund. “But the people ended your tenure as court sorcerer. Years before your disappearance.”
“They did. The king and queen grew weary at my lack of results. Their son was still asleep, the people were still turbulent, legal restrictions on magic use were still being debated. The new laws made witches angry, which made the anti-witch faction defensive, and meanwhile fae-human relations remained tenuous as well, what with the hostilities in such recent memory. Folk no longer liked over-powerful witches such as me. A referendum was called. I was voted out.”
“That’s when you moved permanently to Highvalley House,” Merrick said.
“Yes. From there I continued to work at my solution, telling only Philomena about my progress; or rather, my lack thereof. I wrote the notes you found, and created the charmed items, but I had to approach the fae to see if I had any hope. As you see … ” She gestured toward the nests. “I did not.”
“Then Philomena hid your notes and items so that none would attempt this plan, and free Ula Kana along with me,” Larkin said.
“I didn’t learn Philo had hidden them until she died and turned up here. Then, of course, there was little else we could do.”
“Except I did find them,” Merrick said. “By trying to summon my mother. Someone led me to the statue.”
“Aye,” Rosamund said. “You see, I’ve done my best to cling to my will to live. When other air fae drifted in to visit Vowri’s realm in curiosity—such as the lovely Haluli—I spoke to them and captured their attention with stories of the human world. They in turn brought me gossip and news, to keep me entertained. Over the years, gradually, I did what I should have done long ago: I became friends with fae.”
Haluli fluttered to her, blue wings spreading wide, and settled on the edge of her nest. “I’m not the first of such friends, only the most recent. I’m young enough that I can’t remember Rosamund and Larkin’s era, and was interested to hear of it.”
“I requested that she look in on the Highvalleys for me,” Rosamund said, “my brother’s descendants, to see what they were doing, and report back, simply because I was curious. Which, before long, was how she met Nye.”
Merrick pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. “You’re telling me I wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for Rosamund Highvalley’s interference?”
“I rather know the feeling,” Larkin said dryly.
“After leaving Cassidy and then you to be raised by your father, Haluli looked in again to find you both growing into fine witches,” Rosamund said. “And when, one recent night, you approached the verge and used one of my own summoning sticks to try to call her to you, which she reported to me shortly after—well, I knew I had an excellent candidate for daring to carry out my plan the way I intended it.”
“Then it was you who cracked open the statue,” Merrick said to his mother.
She nodded. “Rosamund told me how to find it.”
“The fae never knew about the box before?” Larkin asked. “Ula Kana’s allies would certainly have tried to obtain it and free her, if they’d known.”
“Highvalley House and its gardens were warded quite well against fae in my time, thank you,” Rosamund said. “As was that box. None knew of its hiding place until I told Haluli.”
“It was a well-kept secret,” the ghost of Philomena Quintal said. “I had not even the heart to tell the king and queen of Rosamund’s plan. After the devastation of the years Ula Kana was free, I feared what might happen if anyone acted rashly. All the same, it was Rosamund’s final work, and I could not bring myself to destroy it, especially as it would mean leaving the prince asleep forever. I held out hope that someone in a more harmonious future might accomplish her aim and release him.”
“Why bother?” Larkin said. He felt wretched, sick in head and heart—an emotion this realm surely heightened. “I could have been left asleep. You had no guarantee that Merrick, or any other witch, would carry out the plan with success.”
“Which I didn’t,” said Merrick, resting his forehead on the invisible wall.
“You did accomplish it in part, which may yet assist me,” Rosamund said. “I wished you to try it, I confess, from selfish reasons of a sort. Enchanting the prince was my greatest crime, my most horrid regret. The longer I sit in this prison with that crime left unatoned, the longer Vowri holds me and feeds upon my guilt. My hope—a slim one, I grant you—is that she might at last release me, now that you’ve righted my wrong. I might finally become less interesting to her, and she can allow me to join Philomena in the other state of being—for I am certainly too old to last much longer.”
“But nothing’s yet resolved,” Larkin said. “I’m awake, yes, but we’re trapped, and meanwhile Ula Kana wreaks destruction.”
“I did intend,” Rosamund said dryly, “for my great-nephew to read the book properly and not awaken Ula Kana until the desert was ready to contain her, and only then rouse her along with the handsome prince. But Highvalleys never quite do things the way they should, do they?”
“I’ve told everyone, over and over.” Merrick had no steel left in his shoulders; the whole of him drooped. “I’m no hero. Never was.”
“Ah, take heart, boy,” Rosamund said. “You haven’t failed yet. Why, you’ve not even spoken to our charming host. Mind you, I rather doubt you’ll like her terms for cooperation, whatever they might be.”
“Merrick,” Larkin said. “I don’t regret it, your waking me. Not even now. Please know this.”
Merrick looked at him, though said nothing. Tears glistened in his eyes.
The furling piece of darkness above coalesced again into the hooded figure. Fear closed Larkin’s throat.
Vowri was enormous, the size of a full-rigged sailing ship, and her vaguely human shape made her all the more frightening. What head did the hood conceal? What hidden appendages made the tattered gray cloak move in that manner as she gestured slowly toward himself and Merrick?
Then she spoke, and rather than the otherworldly screech he expected, her voice was a miracle of beauty: a heartbreaking tone, the quaver and timbre of an opera singer delivering the tragic lyrics that made every audience member weep. Yet it stripped away the satisfying thrill of an artistic performance, leaving only the stark grief.
“You speak true, Rosamund,” said this crystalline contralto. “I do, at last, weary of you. It has been long, and the next chapter begins.”
“This interests me, powerful friend,” Rosamund answered. “Will you hear these young witches tell you what brings them to your land before you decide what story this next chapter tells?”
“They may speak,” Vowri said.
Larkin dragged his breath inward, though his lungs shuddered. “I thank you for hearing us,” he said. “Our mission is to … to contain Ula Kana, but I see not how we can do it anymore. We’ve brought gifts. We … Merrick, you have them, have you not?” Depression had torn apart his skill for speechmaking.
“I, yes, I do.” With a shaky sigh, Merrick found the lapis lazuli sphere in his pack and held it above his head.
“Ah!” Rosamund said upon glimpsing it.
“Made by Rosamund long ago,” Merrick said. “To … cast your land into darkness, whenever you wish.” He sounded desolate as well.
Now that they were imprisoned, everlasting darkness was indeed a dreadful prospect to face, on top of their other miseries.
A shred of Vowri’s cloak elongated toward Merrick and lifted the sphere from his hand. He snatched his arm away at the brief touch and hugged himself, shivering.
At once the sky darkened, falling to night, so that Larkin could see nothing except the gentle glow coming from Haluli. Her light was sufficient to illuminate the shapes of Rosamund and Merrick upon their nests. All else was bitter, ashy black, full of whispered sobs.
“I accept this gift,” was all Vowri said, then waited, hovering above them at the edge of his senses.
Larkin wanted to lie down upon thorns and cove
r his head; fall into a stupor and never rise from it. But he could still see and hear Merrick, and remembered that this bleakness was only the magic influencing him. He made himself speak again. “The poem and the fragrance, Merrick. We must give her those.”
“Yes … ” Merrick found the card and perfume and brought them out. “This is a scent created by my sibling and me. It’s called Melancholia, after a poem by our father. It … has notes of cold flowers in rain … iris, lilac … the sadness of vintage perfume on old clothes. Here’s my father reciting the poem.”
At the stroke of his finger, Nye’s small illuminated figure rose up, as thin as the ghosts, and began speaking.
There are days I know the sun rises
Yet I cannot see it nor feel its warmth.
There is too much of the chilling and the dark
Everywhere I look, my own home or far away.
The filter of my sight is twisted, stuck,
Showing only the despair
And all I can do is sink under its weight.
The child I met at the beach,
Telling me insistently that Daddy will, must, return from the sea,
Though in the sad mother’s eyes I could see he never would,
Under that weight
I cannot stand.
The tags that hung around the dog’s neck
Retired to a hook on the wall, in memoriam,
Rousing the ghost of that departed friend by the chime they make
Clinking together when touched.
The house where one’s elderly parents lived,
Their bedroom closet opened for the first time since their deaths,
The scent of Mother’s perfumed skin on the collar of her favorite lilac sweater.
The crib too little used,
The tiny clothes too little worn,
The young parents stricken silent, moving like sleepwalkers.
No, beneath these things,
I cannot stand.
The dreadful knowledge that these moments wait
Lurking in each life’s tapestry, the threads no one wants but which cannot be torn out,
Though we kneel with our faces upon the floor
And beg for mercy.
It weighs upon me till, some days,
I cannot stand, I cannot stand.
Larkin wished to stop up his ears. Such words were too cruel to hear, in this place and under this spell. But at the end, he was still standing, though ash-poisoned tears stung his cheeks. Merrick handed up the perfume bottle and the poem-card, and they vanished into the darkness.
Vowri said nothing, though her sigh was like a rainstorm doubling in its strength, washing anguish over everyone.
Larkin sniffled, clinging as best as he could to his reason. “The blade. Give her that as well.”
Merrick found the obsidian blade and delivered a halting explanation of its purpose, which seemed to Larkin a moot point entirely since they could never get out now to reach the desert and draw Ula Kana into it. The blade was nonetheless handed up to Vowri.
She remained silent some time, undulating over them like thunder. Then she spoke. “Your gifts and your despair have moved me. I have not captured anyone new, with such strong desires to harvest, in so long. I offer a deal that only you, Merrick Highvalley, may make the choice to accept or not.”
“Me?”
“Either you or the prince must stay, as Rosamund has, imprisoned here, for as long as I wish. I will release Rosamund and the other. My realm shall cooperate in securing the border if they reach their aim.” She did not sound gleeful or wicked, the way Ula Kana would have. Rather, Vowri sounded as despairing as Larkin himself felt. Yet she pursued and cultivated such emotions as if she enjoyed them—or, at least, as if she could not help it, as if it was but her nature.
“Me,” Merrick said—softly but instantly. “Let Larkin go.”
“No! Merrick, no,” Larkin said. “Choose me.”
Merrick looked into his eyes from across the space of air. “It’s my turn. You deserve to be free.”
“We can negotiate! Attempt a compromise—”
“No use, Your Highness,” Rosamund put in. “She never compromises.”
“This is true,” Haluli said.
“You have to stop Ula Kana,” Merrick said. “If you have Rosamund with you, the two of you can do it; I know you can. Then … maybe you can free me as your next quest.”
“Merrick, no. I refuse to do this without you—”
“He has accepted,” said Vowri, her voice a cold flood. “So shall it be.”
“Tell my family I love them,” Merrick said, his hands pressed up against the wall of his prison.
“Yes, but—”
“Also, I love you. In case this is my last chance to tell you.”
Larkin’s breath caught. His response had no time even to form in his mouth before Merrick and his nest vanished into the ashy clouds.
CHAPTER 42
THE SILENCE. THE ISOLATION. IT WAS IMMEDIATE, and such was Vowri’s magic that within moments Merrick already felt he had been alone and desolate for a month. His legs buckled and he dropped to the nest. Thorns stabbed through his trousers and pricked the backs of his thighs. He didn’t bother trying to adjust his position for comfort.
Vowri seemed gone, along with everyone else, though he guessed she was only lurking, to watch him grieve and fall to pieces. It was tempting. Tears throbbed behind his eyes; horror churned his stomach. If he allowed this realm’s spell to overtake him, he would be a sobbing wreck within seconds.
But he gathered his magic and pushed it into his skin, giving himself a shell within which he could shelter, where her magic couldn’t touch him. He would grow tired soon, of course, would have to let go of the spell and rest, and he’d suffer then. Until then he would face this, his nearly-worst nightmare, with dignity.
Rosamund had endured it. Larkin had endured it, in a different but equally unwilling way. Nye would endure it for Merrick, if given the chance. But Merrick would choose it himself rather than commit anyone else to this prison in his stead.
Haluli materialized, fluttering to a stop on his nest. Her eyes were wide with distress. With so much emotion spilling from her, she looked more human than ever. “I’ll be with you,” she said. “I’ll visit often, as much as Vowri allows. I never wished this fate for you, my child. I wouldn’t have broken open that statue if I had known, never.”
Merrick got his feet beneath him, drawing his pack forward to open it. The thorn-stab wounds throbbed in his legs. “I’m glad you’re here. I wanted to give you this, to bring to Larkin and Rosamund right away, if you would.” He handed Rosamund’s box to her. “They’ll need these things to finish the mission.”
She took it. “I’ll go at once. Then I’ll return to you, unless Vowri shuts us out. She does sometimes, chases off all visitors, but I promise I’ll come when I can. Don’t lose hope.”
Her empathy was a comfort; a small one, but one he had missed his whole life. With everything else taken from him, it did console him a little to have this piece at last.
“Thank you. Mom.” He tried out the word. It felt utterly bizarre.
It made her smile, however, and after bestowing a cool kiss on his forehead that sent a sparkle of soothing sensation down his whole body, she flew away and disappeared.
Merrick spread out his bedroll and sat on it. It was still uncomfortably bumpy, but at least the thorns didn’t draw blood anymore. Then he shut his eyes and held onto the images of those he loved. Especially Larkin. Over and over he returned to the image of Larkin’s smile, Larkin’s voice, Larkin’s touch, even as his mind kept trying to drift and seek nightmares in the burnt clouds.
“To stand upon a surface other than thorns.” Crouching beside Larkin, Rosamund spread her weather-beaten hands upon the rocky ground. “To move more than an arm-span in any direction.” Rising with a hand pressed to her lower back, she hobbled several steps away and whooped a laugh. Philomena’s soul glowed beside h
er in the night, wearing a proud, poignant smile.
The last thing Larkin could imagine doing was laughing or smiling. He could scarcely bring his legs to move from where he stood on this gods-forsaken mountainside. He felt a sharp ache in his chest, and he kept staring about, seeking Merrick in the drifting gray, his ears straining to hear Merrick’s voice.
Haluli had brought him the box a minute earlier. Larkin clutched it, unwilling to let go of an object that so lately had absorbed the warmth of Merrick’s hands. The sylph had then flown off to comfort her son, while Larkin lingered, struck immobile by the cruelty of the separation.
“But what will he eat?” Larkin asked.
“Better not to ask, Your Highness,” Rosamund said.
He glared at her. “I am asking, and you shall answer.”
She clumped back to his side, her leathery feet wrapped in old, filthy silk. Haluli and her other fae friends must have brought her what scraps they could, over the years. “When you are hungry enough,” she said, “you will eat any moth or fly or other loathsome thing that finds its way to your nest. Or, if you choose not to, Vowri will see to it you stay alive anyway, through magic. Better to eat, though. You feel less wretched and weak.”
Larkin looked about in distress, seeking some glimpse of the nests.
“You drink the rain, when it comes,” Rosamund continued. “Though it tastes bitter, of burnt rock. When it soaks you, it stings your skin. On hot days, you think you will perish of thirst; you go out of your mind with heatstroke. On cold nights, you curl up and shake until the thorns have worked their way through your clothes and stabbed you in a hundred places, and then you are almost grateful, because the burn of those wounds helps warm you. Through it all, Vowri sees that you go on living, because the longer you suffer, the longer she is interested.”
Larkin could scarcely draw breath. “We cannot. We cannot leave him here.”
“We will never find him. Not a chance of it, when Vowri hides him.”
“I refuse. I won’t go.”
“We could wander her realm till we dropped from exhaustion, cry out for her mercy till our throats were raw. You could seek until you were as ancient as I. It would make no difference. Changing Vowri’s mind cannot be done. That said, Merrick is my kinsman and I owe him a great favor, and if I live to see the human realm again, I will use what power I can to devise a plan to free him.”