Page 46

Chapter 46

Karus

Moira cupped the white bloom of a morning glory in her hand, dipping her finger into the red paint she had made from the petals of a demorte flower. She traced swirls of scarlet around my eyes and along my neck, repeating what she’d helped me do a thousand times on my lips.

“ I remember this,” I chuckled under the tickling of her long fingers.

“ You didn’t hold still then, either, Karusss .” She drew my name out, and I laughed, hindering her progress.

She finished her work and fluttered back, cocking her head to one side then the other. “ Hmm . It’s missing something.”

I looked down at my sheer paneled dress, draped in a golden fabric I was fairly sure a fae had woven. Two panels fell across my newly large and cumbersome breasts, tying at the waist before spilling over my enormous belly to my toes. Two long slits at my side rose to my hips, displaying more skin than was used to showing.

I took a glance in the mirror of the washing room, admiring the designs she had painted on my face in preparation for The Sun Which Does Not Sleep . She flew out of the room, yelling something at Revich who waited for her to be finished with me so we could get ourselves to the fae festival. I heard his exasperated call back to her, all the words just mumbles from where I stood, adjusting the fabric at my chest.

“ This is what you needed!” she squealed on her return. She placed a crown of sunflowers across my white hair, and I guessed she’d torn apart the vase of them at my bedside.

“ It’s perfect, Moira .” I knocked my forehead to hers and she grinned, all sharp teeth and wide eyes. She herself had been painted in an intricate pattern of lines across her green skin and wore no flower clothes at all.

“ I must go. They won’t start without me, and I’ve been gone too long already.”

I nodded, waving her out the door. I took a last look in the mirror, adjusting my conduit ring on my finger, tight as it was from my swollen limbs.

Stepping out of the washing room, I scrunched my face, closing my eyes and waiting to hear what Revich had to say about my faerie festival attire.

He said nothing for too long, and I peeked an eye open.

He sat on the edge of the bed in his usual black pants and a creamy soft shirt. Moira had told him to lose the Baron vest to make the fae more comfortable with his presence. He looked me up and down slowly, and I felt that pull on the line between us. I followed it, walking toward him. The golden panels of my dress shimmered in what might have been actual sunlight as far as I knew.

I stepped up in front of him, tossing my hands in the air and down to my sides, saying, “ Well ?”

He let slip a breath from his lips in a puff, looking me up and down one more time. He took my hand to his lips and stood, begging, “ Please tell me there are more faerie festivals in our future.”

Giggling , I bent my head to his chest where he caught me and lifted my chin. “ No , no, Karus . We are not smearing this…masterful artwork. You are a glorious sun goddess, and I will not allow even the slightest smudge until I get you back here in my hands tonight.”

“ Promises , promises, Baron Revich ,” I cooed.

He squeezed my hand, bringing my knuckles to his lips once more for a teasing kiss and wink. “ Shall we?”

* * *

We met Clairannia and Figuerah in the forest, both of them dressed similarly in a gown of red and a gown of silver.

“ I wish Nyeimah could see this,” I called to Figuerah as she turned to show the movement of her dress.

“ I plan to bring it back with me when I return.” She held her hands out to me, and I kissed her cheek, then Clairannia’s , careful to avoid smearing their paint.

“ How are you feeling tonight?”

I shrugged, squeezing Figuerah’s hand in reassurance. “ Heavy and hungry. Same as usual.”

“ I am very much looking forward to finding out just what these faeries eat!” Clairannia exclaimed, grabbing my other hand, guiding us onto the path that would lead to The Sun Which Does Not Sleep . The three of us followed the path that wove deep into the trees, glowing in a display of warm, golden sun.

Revich followed close by, giving us time to predict just what we were about to see. Moira had told us at least a dozen times that humans were not allowed to join in the festivities of The Sun Which Does Not Sleep and that we’d been given special permission by the Growers due to the decimation of the Blight in Felgren .

We trekked deep into the forest, and I was thankful I had worn the simple sandals Figuerah had brought me to fit my swollen feet. We heard music and laughter up ahead, rifling through the trees in a joyous revelry.

“ Karus ,” Revich mumbled in a reminder. I nodded and sent my shield of green power around us, letting the haze of it dim as it blended with a blue shield of his own.

“ We can’t see everything if we’re like this,” Figuerah complained.

“ No more risks,” Rev replied, then moved in front of us to lead the rest of the way.

We reached a wide field of tall grass where the sun indeed was not sleeping in the sky as it poured its heat and rays of gold down onto the various puddles of water cut into the clearing. Each body of water was circular in shape with a circumference of summer blooms. The sun reflected over every glassy surface, illuminating a glow over the span of creatures who danced, sang, and laughed before us.

I’d never seen so many bodies at once in every shape and size imaginable. A flutter of pixies, even smaller than Moira , flitted by while sprinkling something behind them in their wake. An enormous tree with the bodily shape of a woman swayed nearby to the beat of the drums, her hair forming as the branches of the tree, blooming in white flowers. More Growers than I had ever seen at once moved languidly around the open space, two of them tossing what looked like little sapling children into the air.

The music came from fae in the center of the field covered in green vines blooming in purple, pink, and yellow. They sat in a circle, playing on instruments they must have built from the forest. These fae looked the most like humans with similar shades of skin and long flowing hair.

“ The fae warriors,” Revich whispered in my ear as we gawked at the celebration and the creatures dancing in celebration of the longest day of summer.

“ They look like us,” I stated in disbelief.

“ They most surely are not human,” he replied, pulling me to the long fallen tree draped in fae foods.

Clairannia and Figuerah were already there, filling a stiff green leaf with fruit and what I could only guess was a nut paste. I hurriedly joined them, filling a leaf the size of my head with a little bit of everything. The four of us humans sat on a log, facing the dancers near the fae warriors as they played their songs hard and fast, the branches and legs of the fae moving to the rhythm with a mesmerizing ease.

I dipped a rolled flower into the paste, my tongue delighting in its smooth texture with the crunch of dried petals. Rev brought an enormous crimson strawberry to my mouth and I bit down, its juice trickling along my chin. He caught a drop on his thumb, bringing it to his mouth to lick. I laughed, the sound a common theme in the celebration which honored the sun descending slowly toward the horizon.

Hours later, I leaned into Revich’s shoulder, watching Clairannia and Figuerah dance together, holding hands and twirling around to avoid the puddles of water still glinting in the last glow as the sun began its sleep.

We swayed slightly to the song, and I rubbed my hips, an ache settling in deep and unrelenting. Revich rubbed my back, turning toward the sun setting low in the sky, murmuring in my ear, “ So I will see you at dusk, said the moon to the sun.” He pointed into the darkening sky above us, the moon showing her silvery face already in the hazy blue of twilight.

I hummed, pushing on my belly where I could feel Saelyn’s body, tight and heavy.

I heaved a breath and he placed his hand over mine asking, “ Are you ready to go? You’re shifting around quite a bit tonight.”

I scrunched my face, a tight pull racing across my taut skin, squeezing my insides before releasing. I took another deep breath. My face flushed, even through the cool breeze of a summer night.

“ I’m suddenly very uncomfortable,” I admitted, taking more deep breaths in and out. Revich reached into his pocket, pulling out the rhyzolm. It vibrated across his palm, convincing us both that Saelyn was well and healthy inside my womb.

Another stretch of tightening drew across my belly, and I yelped, bending to relieve the heaviness.

“ Clairannia !” Revich called, cupping his hand at his mouth. She couldn’t hear us in the echoes of laughter and strings being pulled and plucked with the beat of drums in the shape of mushrooms.

“ Sit here and do not move,” Revich ordered, guiding me to the stump of a tree. “ Shield up. I’ll be right back.”

I did as he said, pulling from the well of power at my core and producing a haze of green, like emerald glass.

Yet another pull raced through me, and as I caught my breath, I finally admitted what would happen this night. My body was ready for Saelyn to arrive, regardless of where I was or what creatures I was with. I breathed in through my nose and steady out of my mouth, just as Clairannia had shown me days before in preparation of bringing Saelyn into the world. Another pull, this time more like a vice across my belly, squeezing and yanking in a pain I could not escape. I cried out, the sound lost in the din of the celebration.

BOOM .

A shattering explosion of black blocked out the last of the sun, the sound rippling through the puddles around the clearing.

The music stopped and I looked up.

“ No ,” I gasped, my cry barely escaping my lips.

The Blightress sauntered out from a portal of abyssal black, scanning the fae of her making with a few dozen Blight beasts following behind her.

My hands gripped the sides of the wood stump, and my breathing became erratic, filling my lungs with air, but not nearly enough. The tallest fae warrior had risen in the arrival, her skin dark as night wrapped in vines the shade of green grass. With a steady voice, she addressed the Blightress . “ You are not welcome here, Visalia , Endless One .”

The Blightress stepped forward out of her portal. “ Come now, Nova , I bid you no ill will on this evening of celebration. I come only to claim what is mine.” She pushed forward, ignoring the Growers gathering behind her back. Her glowing eyes darted to me. “ And what is mine is about to enter this world. Isn’t that right, Little Sprout ?”

“ She is our guest and a friend to one of us.” The fae warrior, Nova , stepped forward, dismissing the menacing growls from the Blightress’s beasts.

“ Neither of those things dissolves the truth that she is mine to take, and the time has come to leave.” She reached out a hand in the waning light. “ I give you a last choice, Baron Karus . Come with me now, or forfeit their lives, and I take you with me still,”—she paused as a crimson grin grew across her face—“just a bit more bloodily.”

A battle cry rose from the five fae warriors as they drew swords of steel, running across the field toward the dark stain on the dusky sky. I heard her laugh drawl through the clearing as another forceful pull shifted across my belly. I stumbled from the stump, keeping my shield steady, searching for Revich . A fist pounded at my power behind me, and I turned to see him there, pressing a hand on the glassy surface. I spread the green light around us both and he took my hand, pulling me into the tree line away from the cries and roars behind us.

“ Keep your shield up and keep moving!” he shouted, calling to Clairannia and Figuerah already in the trees.

I shifted my light again, enclosing the four of us as we tumbled through the underbrush and into the growing dark.

Clairannia held my other hand, huffing, “ Is Saelyn coming?”

I nodded, unable to speak through my timed breathing, gritting my teeth through the pain, slightly bent as we ran.

A light beamed ahead, not the blue of Rev’s , but a hazy purple wrapped around wings I knew like the back of my own hand.

“ Through here!” Moira said in a harsh whisper, leading us onto a different path unburdened by bushes and fallen leaves.

I slowed, crying out in the swift pulse that shifted through my womb as if it were being torn out of my body.

Without missing a step, Revich pulled my arm over his shoulder, baring more weight and guiding me down the path. Figuerah loomed behind me, screaming, “ Fulgyren !”

Lightning struck the ground behind us, and I turned to see the line of Blight beasts darting down the path. The scent of burned Blight followed us as we pushed forward, Clairannia joining her in an attempt to keep the beasts at bay.

“ Fall back with me, Clairannia !” Figuerah shouted, stepping out of the shield that flickered and bent to allow her leave. Clairannia pressed my hand to my belly, saying, “ Keep going. We’ll meet you at the Fortress .”

“ No !” I fought to keep her hand with mine, but she pulled from my grasp, leaving my protection to join Figuerah .

Laughter filtered through the dark, confirming what I knew to be true. The Blightress had followed us out of that clearing and wasn’t far behind. Tears , hot and flowing, slid down my cheeks as I tried to gauge where in Felgren we were.

“ This way!” Moira called and Revich followed, pulling me with him though my legs shook profusely. I fumbled, almost hitting the ground, but he was there, lifting me back on my feet, my sandal broken and useless on my foot. I kicked it off, limping through the underbrush.

Clairannia’s scream pierced my thoughts somewhere behind us, and I cried, “ Revich ! We cannot leave them!”

“ Keep that shield up!” he ordered, urging me forward to follow Moira’s guiding light.

A bodiless voice of malice echoed around us. “ Oh , how I do wish you had come when I called, Little Sprout . You should have taken my very first offer, and we could have brought the heroic Baron Revich with us.”

More screams flew through the darkness, followed by distant shouts and the groaning of wood. I fell to my knees, out of Revich’s grasp, heaving and covering my mouth to dampen the sound of my cries. A warm stream of liquid trickled down my thighs in another signal from my body that Saelyn was coming very soon. I dug my nails into the forest floor, my knees sunk into the earth as I looked down at my belly, giving myself a moment to breathe.

“ Karus .” Revich grabbed my face, and I saw him clearly for the first time. His tears had not come, only the anguish of his pain fell on his face in a resigned acceptance that radiated through our bond.

“ I just…need…a minute.” I heaved, gulping down air.

“ Now , I’ll have to kill them all,” her voice called. “ Your friends, your lover. Oh , Little Sprout , I am sorry to inform you that Thalia’s sacrifice was in vain. You still cannot stop me, nor should you try.”

The taunting in her words frightened me beyond any fear I’d known before. I struggled to rise from the dirt, begging for Revich to help.

He did not.

“ Help me!” I cried, reaching up for him as he stood, staring into the dark forest behind us. I twisted my head to look. Moira’s violet light cast a haunting glow on what prowled our way, illuminating two Blight beasts.

I knew them both. The Blightress had brought what remained of Parvus and Rauca , both of them patched with remnants of their fur, even through the black vines of the Blight digging under their skin and around their jowls.

Moira shot forward in a purple stream without a word, bouncing off of their maws as they snapped at her in the air, jumping high to reach her with their black teeth. The beast which was once mine bit down on her wing, shaking her tiny body, and flicking her across the path where she landed in a sickening slap against a tree and lay still as death.

“ Moira !” I screamed, then turned to Revich , pulling on his arm again. “ Help me up! We need to get to them!”

He bent instead, meeting my face with his, his hands holding my head as he stroked my tear and paint-stained cheeks. “ Give me twenty years, Karus . I know how to stop her for that long. I know what to do with her heart, but you need to give me twenty years.”

A stumbling laugh escaped my lips. “ You cannot be serious. Our friends are hurt! Help me up right now!”

I gripped his shirt, now smeared with red paint of a demorte bloom. His lip trembled. “ I have loved you since the moment I knew of you.” He reached down to my belly, pressing a hand there and murmuring, “ Remolyn .”

The pain subsided and my body relaxed. Blue swirls of power spread over my belly, but I did not look away from his face, gripping his arm harder. “ Help me up, Revich !” I screamed through gritted teeth. He pressed his lips to mine in a hard kiss that was no kiss at all in my cries.

Her voice echoed through the wind again, closer this time. “ Why do you draw this out when we could be gone from all this death and pain?”

Revich moved to rise, but I refused to let go, my nails pressing into the chilled skin of his arms. “ We can both go,” I reasoned, my voice a stutter as my teeth chattered. “ We -we can make it back to the Fortress , and I will bring our child into this world, and then we can follow your plan.”

He took a deep breath through his open mouth, murmuring low, “ Saelyn must be shielded at all times. You are strong enough to do this. I can keep her heart subdued and weak, but neither you nor Saelyn can leave this forest until it is time.”

I pulled at his shirt, his pants, his skin, slicing a gash across his neck. I tore at anything I could grab, trying to rise with him, falling back down to the earth, keeled over in another wave of pain. His hand shifted over my hair before he turned away, forming a glowing portal of verdant green.

“ You won’t do this,” I breathed, crawling toward him. “ You would n-never leave me like this.” My body shook even as I felt the undeniable pressure to push our child from my womb.

He stood over me, the blue of his eyes piercing my soul, opening a wound I feared would be the truth of each of my days if he left. “ There is only one reason I would leave you. Tell me you know what it is.”

I called out in pain, reaching my hand out to him as I fell with my back to the wet earth, pleading for him to take it.

He did. Instantly , he was there. The tears had finally come, spilling down his face as it crumbled. He kissed my forehead, whispering the spell of easing the spasms across my womb once more. He took my face in his hands. “ Tell me you understand why I have to go.”

I shook my head, denying it. “ No . No I will not understand. There must be another way. There —” I grunted, holding my breath through the wave of pain. “ There must be?—”

“ Two decades is nothing,” he lied, his voice shaking as he sniffed, squeezing my hand tightly in his.

“ You won’t do it,” I cried. “ You won’t leave me.”

“ I must. I can save you and stop her from taking our child. There is no other choice.” His voice wavered, “ She’ll be so perfect, Karus . You’ll bring her into this world beautifully.”

I stifled my scream, the haze of my shield breaking in the agony. I heaved in and out rapidly, gripping his hand with all my strength. “ You can go for one ,” I bargained in a whimper. “ You will come back in one year, and I will have s-something new planned. I - I’ll spend all my time in Viridis looking.”

“ Saelyn deserves a life, too. She deserves her mother for all of it.”

“ SHE DESERVES HER FATHER !” I bellowed, my own voice echoing through the trees, carried on the wind.

“ Seventeen years then,” he promised. “ Seventeen years—how old you were when I first saw your face, and then you’ll have an army trained and ready, just like we planned. Tell our daughter I am dead so she does not grow up fearing for my safety. Give her a life of peace and sanctuary until the day comes where you can fight for what we’ve tried to build. Give her a future, Karus . This is the only way she has one.”

Sobs wracked my body in disbelief. In my desperation, I ripped his shirt sleeve, pleading, “ Do . Not . Leave . Me .”

He bent once more, kissing my temple and then my hand, forcing his rhyzolm into my palm, releasing his fingers from my rigid grip. He stood as a shadow swept forward in a void of any kindness or love. The Blightress walked toward us on the path, a true symbol of the darkness I feared was my future. Her black skirts flowed behind her as she lifted the hem of her gown, stepping in casual footfall over bushes and leaves.

Rev’s comforting presence left my side as he stepped to his portal, murmuring back to me, “ I love you, Karus .”

“ Don’t you dare .” I wailed, trying to raise my body off the ground. “ Don’t you say it like that and leave me!” I dropped the rhyzolm and dug my fingers into the soil in a feeble attempt to crawl my way to him.

“ What’s this?” her voice cooed. “ You leave the mother of your child as she labors?” She reached my legs and bent, her hand pressing lightly on my belly, murmuring the same words to soothe my muscles. “ How utterly disappointing, Baron Revich . I shall find you and bleed you dry myself. You cannot hide in this world.”

I ignored her, dragging my body toward my love, my companion, my every reason to fight and live. “ I - I ,” I stuttered, gulping and shaking my head with tears that left me blind. “ I will never forgive you for this!”

I heard the finality in his voice as he stepped forward. “ I will never forgive myself.”

The portal closed and he was gone.

“ Do not fret, my child,” the Blightress soothed, stroking her pale hand over my womb through another bout of pain, “ You will learn at my side that the love of men is—” She stopped, pressing her hands to her chest. Her black nails dug into her gown, ripping and tearing, exposing her porcelain skin with streaks of red that coursed down her flesh in trails of blood. “ Where did that portal lead? ” she raged. Her iridescent eyes flashed red and her body began to fade into the darkness. “ NO !” she screamed, slumping to the ground and flicking her hands at the space between two trees. She summoned a black portal just before her face fell into the dirt.

“ I will kill him!” she coughed. Blood seeped from her lips as she crawled away from me. The two Blight beasts Revich and I had loved bounded to her side, tugging at her sleeves, pulling her unconscious body into the abyssal void. In a flash, they fell into the inky black, and I was met with cold silence.

In a desolate cry, I fell back into the earth of Felgren , reaching a hand toward the space where Revich had left me.

Alone and afraid.

* * *

I came to occasionally. Enough so to push as Figuerah held my legs bent at the knee and Clairannia , draped in a wash of fresh blood, knelt, ready to catch my child. I heard a cry, a scream from healthy lungs fly through the night, my daughter’s first cry fitting with my latest in the night breeze of Felgren .

I wept, howled, screamed until my voice had nothing left to give me to release the torrent of pain that ravaged through my bones, my heart shattered in the acceptance that he was not coming back.

Figuerah wrapped our wailing child in the fabric of her skirts and held her close while Clairannia mended my body.

I had no strength to stand, no strength to move as I lie, gazing up at the starry night sky, my body longing to fade back into the earth where I could live forever. Where I would live on, growing trees and flowers, providing shelter for the creatures of the forest, feeling nothing but the breeze, the sun, the damp chill of winter.

“ Karus , you must get up.” I heard Pompeii’s voice, followed by my brother’s.

“ Don’t do it,” Philius seethed, his face appearing above mine. “ You are getting up and we’re taking you back to the Fortress .”

“ No ,” I rasped.

“ Help me lift her,” my brother called. I felt the hands of Pompeii slide under my body to scoop me upright.

“ No ,” I whispered again, forcing my shield around me and pushing them back as I sank deeper into the earth. The roots of the trees crawled over my legs and the scent of freshly turned earth lifted under my nose.

“ Karus !” I heard the shout, indistinguishable to my ears form who it came, and I settled further, ready to relinquish my body to the forest because I would not be living in the home we’d made without the man I loved.

A harsh wail sounded at my ear, and I turned my head, catching sight of Pompeii in the haze of green, holding my baby toward me. She cried in the night, just as I did. A tearful plea to be comforted, to be warm, to be with the one who did not hold us.

I reached out my arms and my shield dropped as he settled her onto my chest. Figuerah lifted my back, fitting me onto her lap deep in the ground. Clairannia pulled a warm blanket up over my body as I looked down at Saelyn’s face for the first time. A mess of black hair sprouted from her head in every which way, and her round cheeks bloomed to red as she squeezed her eyes shut and wailed again.

“ Shh ,” I soothed, rocking her in my arms.

She was perfect, just as he said she would be.

She settled slightly, but whimpered still, her traumatizing emergence into this world deserving of such fierce cries.

My voice was a useless thing, but I tried anyway, singing into the dim glow of the conduit lights around me,

“ Sweetly does sing the wren to the tree, calling into the summer breeze.”

Voices hummed somewhere, but I ignored them, focusing solely on my daughter, the child Revich had promised away years of his life to keep safe.

I let my shield spread, understanding dawning on me of what he had meant. The power to protect came from within. And I had our daughter to protect now, just as he, at the heart of the Blightress , protected the isle from her full force of wrath.

I didn’t know how he planned to do it for seventeen years. I didn’t know what he had just done to cause the Blightress such pain. But a warmth drifted on the wind through the trees, and I felt him through our bond. He sent me love, he sent me loss, and he sent me the feeling of a peaceful calm.

I swallowed, wishing I could send him this image of our daughter, her deep blue eyes lulling as I sang to her in my arms, continuing the song that came from her grandmother, sung long ago in a little cabin in the Hallow Marshes .

“ Softly does hum,

The bee to the sun,

Flying into the summer breeze.

Shyly does bloom,

The babe in the womb,

Arriving into the summer breeze.”