Day 202
I find Alder asleep in the grass and as he wakes we fall into each other's arms. Hand-in-hand we shadow step back through the trees towards our camp on the other side of the nearest hill.
Bran is waiting just over the height of the hill and wraps me in his arms, “Welcome back,”
Exhausted, we return to camp to some scattered applause from the fae and Zemini rushing up to huge me hello. As I settle down with a huge mug of tea and some reassuring magic from both Bran and Camellia, Zemini tells me that over the night the feeling of magical pulling got stronger and even the non-mages could feel it. People cried, he says, and it got worse and worse and then it stopped and they started to hear voices on the wind.
I force myself to stay awake and beckon the fae over the hill with me. Day breaks over the restored grove as we stand and watch it. Then, slowly, the entire group approaches and the fae touch the trees and flutter up into the branches, enchanted. Tiny flickers of light float around us like the forest itself is reacting to the presence of new fae.
For my part, I sink down against a tree and curl in on myself a bit as Bran watches over me. Sleepily I suggest that the entire camp be moved here, right beside me. He chuckles and agrees.
When I wake, the camp has indeed sprung up all around me and I am surrounded by the fae. I wake myself up and begin to tell the story of what happened to Dreamfall not only last night, but in the War. I’m careful to explain that this is a place that was sacrificed, not quite stolen. The distinction here might be fine but it is important to me. Sacrifices ought to be remembered. As I describe speaking to the shard of the Empress and convincing her to restore the grove I begin to spin the story a little - though I know the Empress would not have wanted to return this place without me I am careful to describe the magical energy required as too great for the presence that was here already. They needed something more. It could not have happened until now. Zemini stops me here with some questions about the specifics of the magic involved but Camellia gently restrains him (“Technical questions after,”). As I weave the story and emphasize this I see Bran with a funny look in his eye. Some of us have to weave fate manually...I wonder what he thinks of my attempt.
As I come to a close by speaking of the songs I can hear in the branches now Camellia stops me.
“You can hear the songs?”
I nod, confused. The rest of my non-fae family looks at me equally confused and it dawns on me that they do not hear the faint whispered music in the same way. Bran didn’t hear the Kings and Queens at the bottom of the dark pit either. Camellia beckons me to lean forwards and points at the bark behind me where the tree is glowing where I had rested upon it. They tell me that this happens for fae at the Grove - even when it’s not time for them to sleep entwined in light in the roots, the trees recognize them.
Perhaps this is because of Magdalena? A part of my mind tears off to think through what to write to Amytri and whether I can send him to Wellspring to listen for songs beneath that tree.
The rest of my mind, still exhausted, requests lunch and a brief respite before bringing some of the fae deeper towards the ziggurat. I am partway through a hearty stew when Miriam joins me with a light floral pastry, which I devour immediately with thanks.
As I keep eating she talks softly about the way the magic in the air has changed. Yesterday it was all pulling and now it is breathing but it feels like two magicks together, just like how she holds both her magic and her sister’s. My magic, too, feels somewhat split. She feels the cool familiar magic that she’s used to from me but now there is also something dark and scary, burning like ice. I recall the two heartbeats that blended into one and I tell her quietly that I’m bringing this part of the Empress home again and that she is held within me until we can go home. But still, when the Collective took my family from me and nearly killed the woman I love, I was like that in my own right. That burning ice is part of me too when I need it. She seems reassured at this and snuggles closer.
Still, when it comes time to approach the ziggurat I leave behind all the apprentices except Hella and bring only my family, Regir, and Zemini.
The shadow cast by the enormous structure feels welcoming now - not icy and cold but still refreshing. It feels like my own magic, in which I now recognize the Empress’ ruthlessness as well. The air feels like yet another unique blend of magic both fae and Imperial. As we approach the door it opens at my touch, releasing the clearest songs I’ve heard yet. These are not whispered melodies on the wind but actual songs that I can understand. Glancing around I see Camellia crying though no other members of my family seem to hear.
“Something new was created here...something bright. It feels like you, Heiassa”,” Bran says just as I catch sight of a swirling vortex of light and shadow in swirling rainbow colours. Out of it steps a fae man,, clad in golden-bronze armour with a sword, staff, and wands at his side. For the first time from a fae I can sense the same power that I would expect from a peer not only in magical strength but in wisdom and experience.
He greets me and asks my name, which I give. I give him my heart name without really thinking about it. If I were to find a new Dread Lord in this place I would have introduced myself with my title but for some reason...I don’t. He introduces himself as Amelie and invites me to sit with him for a moment and share stories before returning to the world. Perhaps it is my exhaustion or perhaps I’m open to anything right now but I join him and tell him my story. I start with my own orange groves, meeting Mistress, lonely years at the Academy, decades of adventure and learning from Magdalena. Rising in status and responsibility, finding each member of my family, nearly losing some of them and then myself. Arriving here and finding still more family and new opportunities. A winding path that leads me to here having told my Empress to get out of my way.
He seems impressed by this. He and his people heard the words I spoke to the Empress last night, saw her hurl me against a tree and saw me stand my ground again. He congratulates me on having faced down something terrible and my heart pricks a little - not terrible but still growing. He knows that I’ve saved the fae here.
And in exchange he shares his own story with me:
The war had been going for more than fifty years by the time he was born. He was three when he first picked up a sword. This forest is his birthplace. A warrior, a wizard.
The Empire is the most terrifying thing he’d seen. The elves and their assassins...while I’d heard songs about how important it was for warriors with strong armour and stout shields to stand in the way, it didn’t matter to elves. You’d step out of the shadows and take a knife faster than you could react.
The Grove gave me a respite. I took the name Analise and fell in love with another man. I had a son. For a time I was a healer and took care of my family and the sick and injured. After a few years the songs spun me out a warrior again. The war was not going well. We were losing everywhere. It felt like there’d be no end to it. I wandered for a while and started making some friends that weren’t fae. I left the ordered ranks...believe it or not there were elves and dwarves who fought on our side as well...oathbreakers. But I had friends. When I slept again the Grove made a scoundrel of me. We did what we could, the six of us. Every year I’d come back and the Grove would send me out again. My friends waited for me while I slept, however long it took. I had another child. This time I got to be the father. That was harder, watching them sleep out of sync with me. I got old. I was twenty-two. By then I had done everything that I thought I ever would. My children had children. We were still losing. I sang my last song. People told me it was early and that I had another year or two left but I couldn’t risk it anymore. When I took the Blaze I met her: The Heart of Song. She told me it was okay if we lost this place. If we lost the songs but saved the people it would be okay. There were three of you that came against me - two Dread Lords and a Dread Lady, and their full armies. The most terrifying force I’d ever seen. Behind them, a Hand. We were doomed and I knew it. I sent everyone away. A few stayed, others like me in the Blaze. It was our time. We let down the ramparts and the walls. This whole forest was filled with the sound of dying. We watered the trees with the blood of your people. There were fifty of us and we killed two thousand of you. It didn’t matter. What matters is that everyone else got away and that life would go on. Not many of us get to sing a last song in the Blaze. It’s the price we pay to have that one last year at your best.
I was dying and I knew it. There was this elven woman, terrifying, with a cloak darker than night and a sword red with our blood. I knew her - we’d all heard the stories. She was something special to your Empress. The elf that could be a Hand but wasn’t. We’d all heard the stories.
She could have put an end to me but she didn’t. She sat with me and told me I was going to die. She asked if I wanted to sing first. She couldn’t heal my wounds but she used potions on them and kept me alive long enough to sing one last song. And then she helped me end it. What happened next is hard to describe. We were all ripped away, thrown into something vast and turbulent. It felt worse than dying. All around us - darkness and screams for a very long time. Did you know you look a bit like her? Not your face but your eyes. Something about that...you have.
There’s more there than just hating an enemy, and she was like that too. I died on an elven sword but it wasn’t the worst thing that happened to me. And now you’re here. This place is strange - not what I think any of us expected it to be. But you made this place last night and now I ask: How I can help you use it.
I know who killed him. To hear myself compared to her is eerie. To think that the Empress has thought of me as a custodian of our people brings the hierarchy into sharper focus for me. I may have become a Fifth Hand last night but this is on a scale that doesn’t fit into the structure the way I’m used to.
While I have this flood of thoughts, my mouth rushes ahead and says the first request that comes to mind: When Zemini inevitably drowns this poor ancient fae in questions...will he answer as many of them as he can?
His eyes crinkle,
The Grove never let the fae forget that fae and elves were once friends. You are what the oldest songs say that elves were. Your first request is that I be kind to one of my own.
I laugh a little. Sometimes what comes out of my mouth is not necessarily the true answer, just something that will give me time to think. It’s a tried and true strategy for dealing with courtiers.
And then I ask that he bring some peace to the Raita if we send them here. He nods quietly and tells me that he knows how my people are being treated by humans. “Send them here,” he says. He’s right. It’s something I was already intending to do and hadn’t thought to ask about. I’m glad that they’ll be well received. I ask for more Groves and he shares the most wonderful secret - near the end of the War many groves were hidden by powerful magic from fae still in the Blaze. We can find them again!
Finally I tell him that I need advice in talking to trolls.
“No you don’t,” he tells me. Someone who has done what I’ve just done will have no problem talking to trolls. “Just be yourself” he says. I laugh at this. What an age-old piece of advice.
And then he takes my hand and steps into the light with me, bringing us back into the ziggurat where everyone else is frozen. They blink back into time and handle Amelie’s appearance fairly well, all things considered. I give Alder an apologetic look...it can’t be easy being shadow to someone who tends to disappear from the world itself.
Now we are all together - my family and this ancient, almost translucent fae speaking in elvish older than I am. We step out together into the shade of the ziggurat and he blinks, still alive. After some experimentation and amongst six other of these ancient fae ghosts we find that they can stay within the shade of the ziggurat safely. There is laughing and joy as they greet the young fae I’ve brought with us, translating between ancient elvish, modern elvish, and modern fae. Their changeable language is so different but ours is relatively the same after only a few generations. Another good reason to have elves living in the groves, I think.
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