Page 7 of Sons of Sorrow
And speaking of timing, I wanted to reassure myself that there was no real hurry to explore the Oriel of Fire. The combined efforts of the Wispwood to amplify the power of the Wispwell had actually worked. We could now draw much more Wispwater from it without ever depleting its supply, providing a bottled cure in case anyone in the arcane underground was infected by the Withering.
Sylvain and I had taken a few trips back into the Verdance as well, replenishing the Court of Autumn’s own supply. His mother and sister had both recovered from their injuries, Queen Aurelia from succumbing to the Withering’s drying plague, and Yvette from being gored in the stomach by the enraged mummified husk of her mother.
But somehow, picking up the pace still felt completely necessary. We’d finally laid down the groundwork for dealing with the Withering, but I couldn’t help thinking that all of us would be better off staying one step ahead.
In terms of magical power and prowess, to me, that meant securing another guardian, completing this set of elemental gemstones dangling from my neck. But before we did that, we’d need to head into the Verdance for another promised visit to the Court of Autumn, as well as to check out this method Sylvain had proposed of protecting ourselves from the environmental hazards of the Oriel of Fire.
To accomplish all that, the sensible thing to do was to head back to my bedchambers, where both my familiar and my favorite eidolon-slash-boyfriend were waiting. We could then get a start on packing and preparing for the Verdance trip. But my feet were bringing me downstairs instead, leading me to open spaces, one of the many, many stone courtyards strewn around the Wispwood castle.
“Empty,” I muttered, my fingers running down the timeworn smoothness of the stone archway before I stepped through.
The students of the Wispwood liked to use these spaces for practicing all sorts of magic, enclosed and mostly unmaintained plazas that contained nothing of note. What most had in common were stone floors long buckled over by adventurous roots, trees growing strong and tall out of cracks in the broken tiles.
Depending on the plaza, if we were lucky, we might have one or two moss-covered gargoyles for an audience. This particular courtyard didn’t have any gargoyles, holding only a single ancient fountain, so unattended that its spouts had long crusted over with lime, serving as nothing more than a glorified pot for a mass of leaves and vines.
It was somber and sad, in a way, but seen from a different angle, these rooms spoke of the quiet majesty of the Wispwood. Nature would always triumph in the end, the tranquility of the courtyards seemed to say, as quiet and cold as graveyards. When humanity died out, when civilization crumbled, the plants and trees would take over. Nothing would remain, save for nature.
And maybe some of the more powerful forces of the elements, too. What could kill the wind, level mountains, dry up the seas? Time, perhaps. But time would take humanity first. Earth, fire, wind, and water would outlive us all.
I reached for my medallion, tracing the shape of every gemstone, memorizing the texture of every element. I thought back to Alister Brittle’s garden. Would I dare ask my guardians for this horrible favor? Was it more monstrous to request one of them to do this, or for me to seek out a willing victim in the Oriel of Fire?
Dead leaves tumbled across the stone floor, a slow wind blowing despite the absence of any openings to the outside, a magical gale. The wind sighed, then faded, leaving three distinct shapes standing around me, the four of us arranged around the ancient stone fountain. A towering sentient tree, a hawklike man with beautiful brass wings, and a tentacled monstrosity, its many arms writhing in the air.
Frederick the harpy bowed his head, speaking for his companions. “Greetings, summoner.”
“Thank you for coming,” I said, addressing all three, making sure I met each of their eyes with my gaze. “I’ll keep things simple for now. Some of you have encountered this magical disease that plagues the world, the curse we call the Withering.”
Frederick frowned. A deep, croaking groan emanated from the great tree, out of the knothole that served as its mouth. The sound was wordless, but I could sense the tree’s displeasure, and something close to anger. It must have remembered, then.
Of the three guardians, only the kraken had never experienced the Withering. Maybe the persistent, ever-present moisture of the Oriel of Water made infection impossible to begin with. Still the kraken squiggled backward and away from the fountain, clearly expressing its opinion.
“We have discovered something that appears to be connected to the plague,” I said, envisioning the strange writing on the parchment in my mind’s eye. “And according to what we’ve learned, only a powerful elemental creature may interpret its contents. It’s a piece of parchment that holds a spell of some kind.”
It was a terrible time to realize that it likely wasn’t the only one in existence. Surely it was reproducible, too. Was every instance of the Withering in the Verdance and on Earth connected to one of these things? Sister Dolores at the Convent of Perpetual Indulgence, Queen Aurelia at her Amber Pavilion.
A human, and then a fae. No mere fae, either, but a member of high fae royalty. I dreaded to think of Aphrodite’s theory, how the Withering had started by affecting plant life, and then fauna, working its way up to sentient bipedal creatures.
Each time it had amplified the host victim’s natural talents, making them more powerful at the expense of rapidly desiccating their bodies. Only the Wispwater had ensured survival. What if the Withering claimed a god instead?
“With all due respect, summoner.” Frederick’s feathers rustled as he took a step forward, every single one a work of art, seemingly crafted out of filaments of brass and silk. “Are you asking one of us to volunteer to read this accursed manuscript of yours?”
I took a step back, my eyes downcast, already ashamed. “I don’t know what I’m asking, if I’m being honest.”
My hands wrung at each other. I looked back up at the guardians, saddened even more by the disappointment in Frederick’s eyes. The tree shook its great head, its leaves seeming to whisper. The kraken made wet, indignant noises with its tentacles and beak. Again, without words, both successfully and politely conveyed that there was no fucking way they’d agree to read the parchment.
“When you found me in the Oriel of Air,” Frederick began. “When you and your friends caused that commotion to summon me from the clifftop? My mind had already been taken by the Withering. There is no accurate way to describe the sensation of being drained of all life from the inside out, of being turned into an animated husk.”
I crossed my arms and shook my head, regretting that I’d even thought to ask the guardians for this favor.
“There are many ways in which we are willing to aid and serve you, summoner. This is not one of them. I bled in that battle against you only because the Withering had not yet fully claimed me. Any longer and I would have begun to bleed dust. If you compel me to read your parchment against my will, then I have no choice but to obey. But know that you would cause me to relive that horror. Know that you would elect to make us suffer.”
Blood welled into my mouth. I hadn’t noticed that I was chewing so hard on the inside of my lip. “I wouldn’t do that to you,” I muttered. “I would never force you.”
“And for that, we are grateful. If that is all, summoner.”
Frederick didn’t wait for an answer. He raised his head to the ceiling, beat his wings once, then disappeared, as if he’d flown straight through the thick slabs of stone above us. The great tree creaked and rumbled as it turned away, shrinking into a bush, then a sapling, then a seedling, before it too vanished into the cracks between the tiles.
And that left the kraken. It had always been surprisingly expressive despite only ever communicating with tentacles. It squelched and slurped as it crawled away from the fountain, but only after making sure I could see it showing me one tentacle. Ever been flipped the bird by a sea monster? Not a great feeling.
