by Willow Sova
“How could you possibly suffer such guilt?”
“I failed my mother by not bringing her here.” The girl bowed her head; the shame of forsaking her mother, as she saw it, was too painful to bear. “For once in her life, she could’ve discovered the happiness she deserved.”
“Clouding your mind with guilt is an unfair burden to you, my dear lady. The decision not to come to Aeweniel, to cease living, was hers, Sparrow, not yours.”
“Yes, the choice was her own. But maybe she would’ve reconsidered had I been more insistent. Her life in the human world was so… dismal.” She shook her head as though banishing a nightmare, stood up, and walked toward a lone willow cloaked in verdurous moss. There, she rested her hand and weary head, surveying the waterfalls below and the billowing mists floating like ghostly glaciers above the water.
“Don’t you believe she would’ve journeyed with you had she known of the prospect of happiness here?” asked Thalion, taking his place behind her.
“Of course. So why choose death instead? After she died, I was alone.” Just then Sparrow glimpsed a gyrfalcon flying through the lucent vapors rising from the lagoon. She was envious of its gift of flight, to fly away and ascend the heavens, unshackled by Earth’s hold. Such power would’ve suited me well back home. She turned around and said, “Father had long disowned me. And, for certain, Geoffrey betrayed me.”
At least, she suspected so.
How else could it be?
Nigh on three fortnights after Geoffrey had abandoned her in the wood, a mob of witch-hungry villagers had marched up the path toward her cottage. In horror, she had watched their torches blaze like amber stars in the night sky, burning ever more fiercely as the horde had edged closer and closer and descended upon her home. The girl shuddered to think on what may have become of her. Another witch for the pyre.
“I had no choice but to leave for Aeweniel.” And though the possibility wounded her, she wondered aloud, “Maybe Mother chose death all along, knowing I wouldn’t leave without her. But why?”
The chattering of birds and thundering of distant falls drifted through their silence until Thalion broke it.
“I fear there may’ve been more weighing on your mother’s heart, sweet lady.”
“What are you saying?” Sparrow saw how her question unmasked his disquieted mien.
With a light hand to her waist, the elf coaxed her back to the marble dragon to sit and took his place beside her. “When you first arrived, you spoke of your mother visiting Aeweniel years before you were born.”
“Yes, that she did,” she said, eyeing him curiously.
“Did she ever speak of Erynion?”
“Erynion? No, I can’t say she had. Why?”
“Erynion was an elf who lived here many years ago. He and your mother were…” Thalion glanced over the kissing birds of blue moonstone snuggled in the diaphanous ruffles of her ivory gown.
“They were what?” The anticipation struck a sharp knot in her throat as she sensed his unease in what to say.
“They were lovers, Sparrow. Erynion traveled to your world in search of your mother when she failed to come back to Aeweniel. They had planned to marry upon her arrival. But neither of them ever returned. Erynion was burned as a witch by ruthless humans while visiting your world.”
“How can this be true? Mother never mentioned him.”
“No doubt the pain she suffered after his death rendered her unable to do so. You spoke of a gloom that plagued your mother all her years.” Familiar as she was with this truth, it still stung her heart like a festering wound.
“I always assumed it was my father’s rampant infidelity that troubled her so. Though I never felt true love ever lived between them. Their marriage was one of convenience. Her betrothal was arranged.”
“From the agony of a lost beloved I fear there’s no recovery,” Thalion replied, taking her hands. A breeze whispered through the willows, stroking them with dancing shadows. Sparrow noticed the light speckling his hair with shifting highlights of pale gold, his eyes glinting with sadness. “The love bond an elf forms is a powerful force. Measured beyond the physical and emotional, it’s a spiritual bond and what sustains us throughout life. And despite our immortality, once a love union is destroyed, an elf’s demise is sealed. Though it may be slow in coming.”
The thought saddened her, even more so in knowing how love was lost to her mother so long ago. “Darkness burdened my mother much as you described. Few things brought her joy—her memories of Aeweniel and watching me practice my magic.”
“The death of an elven lover can torment a human relentlessly. Without question, Erynion’s death wore her thin in mind, body, and spirit, leaving little to hold on to in the world she knew.”
“You speak as though you knew her,” she said, astonished. Never had the girl thought of this possibility. Since he looked so close to her own age of twenty-five years, she had forgotten Thalion’s true age spanned over centuries.
“The stories of the love bond your mother and Erynion shared abound throughout Aeweniel, especially so since theirs was an elven-human bond,” he replied, his mood lightening a moment before shading solemn again. “I’ve also seen firsthand how grief breaks the spirits of those left behind. Friends, loved ones, and now my brother.”
“You worry for him, don’t you?” Sparrow sensed his concern for Aranhil weighed heavy on him, but Thalion spoke little of it. “Is it possible he’ll find love again?”
“For his sake, I hope he does, as now Aranhil’s days are filled with blackness. He needs an Evenstar.”
“An Evenstar?”
“That one soul and one spirit another is fated to be with for life. Together, their light shines where there was once darkness. Never is one complete without the other. Why, most assuredly, Erynion was your mother’s Evenstar. And she was his.”
While Sparrow gained some solace in knowing her mother had found her soulmate, her quieted mind was only fleeting: Both her mother and Erynion had died tragically. Visions of the elf being tried and burned as a witch and her mother’s anguish upon hearing the news flashed before her. The images suspended her present reality, Thalion and the liveliness of the forest, into the unseen, haunting her until she felt leached of all her verve. Each second that passed was agonizing. Then she heard that familiar voice.
“Sparrow?” The elf now stood before her.
With a swift suck of air, she was swept from her thoughts. “I… I’m sorry, Thalion, but my mind is swimming with all you’ve told me.”
Sparrow paused and closed her eyes.
More like drowning.
“I know how dark words can dampen bright spirits,” he said, extending his hands toward her. She took hold of them and rose from the stone settee. “I’d love to take you to one of my favorite places in Aeweniel, to dwell on happier things. I gather it’s fair to say you’ve never ridden a dragon before.”
“Only in my childhood dreams have I had the pleasure,” she replied, trembling with excitement.
“Then I’ll be content to grant you this dream and more, my lady.” Thalion inclined his head to kiss her hand and stepped away. Her eyelids grew heavy as a kaleidoscope of colors shone through a myriad stars around him. When the blinding brilliance passed, his dragon was standing before her.
The beast kneeled like a horse, lowering his head, and watched as she approached him, awestruck. Sparrow espied those reptilian lips curving into a grin. Even in his dragon, she sensed her sweet Thalion living in spirit, and she reciprocated with a smile. She sidled up to him, wrapped her arms around the base of his sinuous neck, and mounted his flaxen form. To her touch, his scales were as smooth and warm as sun-drenched silk. Every deep grumbling and fiery huff from him tickled the delicate skin of her arms and legs.
Once the girl secured a hold of the beast, he wheeled around and sprinted toward an untimbered edge of the bluff where a window to the sky beyond was open. He spread his wings and flapped them, the whooshing inundating her ears a
s they swung up and down, accelerating, until he lifted off the earth. Her stomach fluttered with the fury of a thousand tiny dragon wings as they swept into the twilight, flying through the cumulous brume of coral and lilac.
Riding atop him, Sparrow relished the wind caressing her skin and fingering through her black tresses. Her spirits soared as they glided through the clouds, sailing ever higher as they flew, forging a link between her and his beast.
I’m as one with his dragon. His wings are my own. Now I’m soaring like the gyrfalcon. But this is much sweeter by far.
CHAPTER 12
DRAGONFIRE
From the comfort of a luxurious bed dressed in buttery yellow silk sheets strewn with damask pillows, Thalion and Sparrow peered through the aperture of the domed gazebo, far up into the fire within the clouds. It was a ring of eight tanglewood trees, evenly spaced apart. Inward arching limbs webbed with shimmering faerie glass formed the roof, and an unglazed skylight opened to the heavens above, framed by the furthermost twigs where the trees ceased their reach.
Thronged by crowds of gnarled oaks and maples, fragrant pines, and spindly aspens, the gazebo lustered like a faceted diamond beneath their indigo shadows. They were kindred trees—the tanglewoods—known for their beauty in form and symmetry, and their symbiotic spirit. Alabaster in texture and hue, the skin of them glowed like the moon with the arrival of nightfall, and the trunk and branches of one always mirrored that of a sister tree. Never did one grow without another of its kind. Instead, they gathered in clusters forming gazebos, pavilions, archways, and tunnels throughout the realm. Each tree of a covey shared ever so subtle similarities with the other, from every intricate curve and twist of their trunks and limbs, to the very count and color of flowers they bloomed and withered, blossoming in scarlet, violet, and cerulean. As in life, they were alike in death: When a tanglewood died within a cluster, all were doomed to suffer the same.
“Dragonfire.” Sparrow viewed the flaming sky and sighed. “How sublime, the lightning flashes behind the clouds.” She spoke as one living in a dream, watching a variegation of auroral hues strobing in oranges, reds, purples, blues, and greens. “So many colors, beyond my imagination. I’ve never seen the sky so alive like this before.”
Thalion turned to face her, more enchanted by Sparrow and the play of lights on her skin and raven hair as she fixed toward the heavens. This was the place he cherished most in Aeweniel, the place he wanted to share with her. “It’s believed the zephyrs carry the firelights through the skies along with the songs of Elvish gods. But the words were lost long ago, so only the echoes remain,” he told her. Over the years, he had found solace in the wonder that was Dragonfire. Its soothing songs riding along the zephyrs, chased by a rainbow of lights, had eased his restless mind more times than he could remember. This was his sanctuary. A place where the skyscraping cliffs kissed the clouds and the firelights shone their brightest.
“From where were the lights born?” Sparrow asked, shifting her head on the pillow to face him.
Thalion propped himself up on his elbow to look upon her and replied, “Elvish myth has it they are the fiery breaths of Locien, the first known dragon shifter. Many elves believe he succumbed to death thousands of years ago, alone and unmated, and the wildfire within the clouds were his last breaths on earth.”
“That’s so sad.” Her black lashes grew heavy in mournful thought. “Do you believe the same?”
“No, not exactly. If they are as most say, then why are the lights so bold and ever-changing, from one moment to the next?” A light breeze sprinkled petals around them and on the bed. The elf smiled as one of scarlet landed above her left breast and blew it away to kiss her where it fell. “Besides, how can something so joy-inspiring and beautiful be born from such a sorrowful story?” By telling her this, he hoped to untether Sparrow from unhappy thoughts of Locien’s tale. Yet he meant every word spoken. This was the hope, of love requited, Thalion held on to for Locien, Aranhil, himself, and other lovelorn shifters like him. “No, if he has passed, I believe his quest for love continues even into the Spiritworld. His firelights are like those of the fireflies, always ablaze in hopes of procuring a soulmate.”
As twilight dimmed, she spotted the sprites taking shelter in the canopy of flowers above. While they retired for the evening, their orbs of peridot pulsed inside the varicolored petals and shimmered against the iridescent glass inlaid within the latticework of limbs comprising the gazebo roof. Wherever a faerie clan declared a particular covey of tanglewoods their home, they spun webs of glass between the twining boughs and twigs to shield them from the wind, rain, and cold.
Sparrow tilted her head, listening to Dragonfire’s wordless melodies soughing up high. “And what of the music riding the breeze? Could they be the dirges of Elvish gods lamenting the loss of Locien?” The mystical windsongs floating through the firelights were layered with mellifluous voices, accompanied by a hollow drone.
“Some think so, but not I. I believe they’re the songs of a sweet lady yearning for Locien to find his way to her,” he confessed, content on dwelling on this alternative more than the other.
“A beautiful elven lady?” Sparrow asked while plucking a fallen violet petal from his silver-blond hair.
“A tender lady, whether elven, or human as you,” he offered with a gentle smile, folding her hand in his to kiss it. Smacked with unease by his last three words, Thalion realized the truth of her halfling nature was better left unsaid—at least, for now.
You are by far the gentlest lady throughout Aeweniel. Elven ladies had no claim to tenderness. Medlinya was proof of that.
He reveled in the spectral hues dancing in the warmth of her eyes. The elf lifted her chin, gliding his thumb across the plumpness of her lower lip. His loins ached to be inside her. But he fought the urge, unsure her mood would allow it. Earlier he had revealed too much to her dolor.
“What is it, Thalion?”
“I… I want…” He was so lost in Sparrow, his thoughts wandered far outside himself. Few other things mattered now. How I want to thrill you in ways you never imagined. But he could not bring himself to say those words. “What I want would be selfish to act on.” With his eyes averted, he slid a hand down her thigh, feeling her through the silk folds of her gown.
“If I wish the same, then perchance you’re not so selfish after all.”
Thalion looked up at her, blue-violet passion in his eyes. With a hint of trepidation, he moved his hand up toward her sex but hesitated there; the thought of asking if she was certain sprang to mind. But Sparrow whimpered with a widening smile, and that was all the reply he needed.
After wishing their clothes away, he draped his arms around her and kissed her. She tastes of wineberries and chocolate. They had enjoyed the sugary confection after supping before dusk. “I want to see the brilliance of Dragonfire dance across your skin as we make love, my sweet Sparrow,” he declared when they parted lips. The elf trailed kisses along her neck and passed over the glow of the Isilmë pendant to taste her breasts. His cock grew heavy when her moist nipples budded before his eyes as he blew on them. Her tummy twitched as his mouth wandered south, each kiss hungrier than the one before it until he found her navel. Over the tiny hollow, he pursed his lips, suckling it while she fisted his hair. “Ah, sweetling.” He clutched her buttocks and nuzzled her nest of black curls, inhaling her scent mingled with the sweetness of lavender roses. “I want to taste more of you than with my tongue.”
The girl sighed, raking her fingers through his hair as he pulled away. “Oh, Thalion, such sweet agony you inflict upon me. Come, lie down with me.” Her request tempted him into obliging her. But he had something else in mind. He raised her bottom off the bed and placed a generous pillow beneath her. After parting her knees, he kneeled between them and grasped her ankles and rested one upon each of his shoulders.
“We can explore each other in more ways than that, my love. For now, I wish to please you in this way.” While caressing her legs, opene
d and welcoming, his eyes drifted to her breasts. They heaved with anticipation, her nipples puckering more with the same. Their eyes met, and he saw hers glitter with the incandescence of Dragonfire. Lustrous hues of red, orange, and violet on eyes of cognac.
With a touch of her sensitive flesh, Thalion knew she was aching for him, just as he was for her. A throbbing heat surged through his cock at the sight of his fingers glistening from her delectable wetness. So he rubbed his sex with her essence, and a slick pearl of his own emerged from the head of it. The elf then steadied his rod in one hand and tickled her with the tip of him, rubbing it up and down, again and again, arousing her to moan.
“Oh, Thalion. Why do you tease me so? I must have you inside me. Please.”
“It’s not to tease but to please you, my darling. Tonight I wish you to savor me as I will you,” he replied, further tempting her sensual folds with more lazy strokes.
“Mmm, but a nibble is hard to bear when you make me hunger for a healthy swallow,” she urged, legs trembling with every pass.
“Aye, but a nibble at a time and the feast will last longer.” Thalion beheld the rosy pebbles of her breasts, and the lush pink of her lips as she moistened them with the roll of her tongue. The sight of them engorged his cock even more. With every stroke a little deeper but shallow still, he breached her a bit more with the head of him. Just a nibble, love.
“Please fill me, Thalion. I’m so hungry for you. Please. Please…” She arched her back off the bed as she fisted the silk sheets.
Ah, Sparrow, how you weaken me with your words. A tremulous heat on his fleshy tip intensified with every pass. His sex expanded more with her enthusiasm till it was near bursting. “Aaaah… as you wish, sweetling. Let me sate my delicate bird.” Little by little, he entered her, giving her more of a taste of him until her walls embraced him fully. In waves she clenched around him, moaning as they ebbed and flowed until he thought he would lose his seed. May the gods help me! He fought to stave off his release. Thalion desired this night to linger as much for Sparrow as for himself.