Eternal

Mists wreathe

A ruined stone crown

Twisted toothy peaks

Splayed asunder

BIRDSONG WOKE HER. SWEET, unexpectedly raucous birdsong, which stabbed through her aching head complete with flashing lights and pain pounding the base of her skull like one of those blacksmiths they had passed on their way through the city. When had songbirds returned to Durhelm Castle? Oddly, a fresh scent like lemon tree blossoms teased her nostrils, instantly reducing the attack to bearable levels. She could have done with a touch of that power during her years of dream migraines.

“Allory! Allory Fae! Come look!” Yaarah gasped.

“Ooh … is it morning already?”

One eye just about managed to crack open. Exhaustion made a leaden weight out of every drop of her sap.

“Come look! The garden, it’s – it’s incredible! A miracle – I left, frrr-prrr, and it was – and now –” he beckoned so wildly he almost lopped off a couple of his own whiskers “– get over here this instant!”

“Less on the breakfast-time brouhaha, you beast,” she groaned, covering her eyes. “Where were you all last night? What time did you come in?”

“Are you mothering me? Seriously?” he growled unhappily. “Next, it’ll be, ‘Why were you out so late last night, young Felidragon? Who were you with?’ I haven’t heard that one since I was a kitten, mrrr-hsst! Now, shake your gorgeous wings and – fur and fangs! You!”

Alarmed at his rising volume, Allory uncovered her face and glanced demurely at the Felidragon. “Me?”

“Don’t ‘me’ me, you wicked little liar! MRRR-GNARR! Your face tells a thousand scrolls.”

Every inch of his fur bristled, but it was most impressive on his neck ruff. Suddenly, he looked twice the size. Allory had the oddest sense of her eyes growing wider while the rest of her shrank in fear. In a moment she’d be nothing but eyes.

Yaarah demanded, “Tell me I’m right. This was your doing, was it not? Has to be.”

He’s a friend. Doesn’t eat intelligent creatures. Is the teasing wise?

“What was my doing?”

“The garden!”

“You’re accusing me of gardening?”

Deep in the back of his throat, the Felidragon snarled something involving the ferociously righteous swatting of cheeky Scintillant Fae, despite their incredible rarity. Then, he gave her his signature quake-your-knees smile. Fangs. Curls of fire. The bristle, the unsheathed talons, the instant realisation that the room was in no way large enough for the two of them. She was quite confident that any sane Human, confronted with that smile, would summarily have soiled their trousers.

With maximum effort at remaining calm, since carnivores allegedly had an instinct for chasing sparkly little things should they attempt to flee, she offered, “I did pop out there to speak to a tree, however.”

“Mrrr-frrr-prrt, I knew it! Er, you … popped?”

“And sang to it.”

“You sang?”

“Arboreal lullabies.”

“Before I contemplate a smidgeon of light recreational murder, Allory Fae,” he snarled horribly, before switching with shocking facility to a saccharine smile, ten times more alarming, “do shift your skinny blue rump over here and tell me what this is all about?”

One unsheathed talon tapped the glass.

Dragons. Hmm. Tricky beasts at the best of times. Minding her manners, Allory dragged herself off the blanket and fluttered unsteadily over to the window.

She caught her breath. “Eep!”

“Aye,” Yaarah breathed in her ear. “What’s this, I ask you?”

If he had meant to scare her, dismal failure. She cried, “It’s amazing!”

Out there, the garden had come alive. In fact, it was growing so fast she could visually keep track of the progress of several dark green vines making themselves at home on one of the pillars supporting that tiled roof over the walkway. Exotic flowers budded. Bulbs had stirred for perhaps the first time in centuries, peeking their sleek green heads out of the freshly cracked soil. Fresh green grass-fuzz sprouted in profusion between the old, yellowing blades. Agreeable scents pervaded the air and a pair of red-beaked lovebirds canoodled in the vegetation in the far corner. Many tan-skinned Humans, four Centaurs, a feline of colouration similar to Tygra and two majestic russet Eagles who strutted along at least eight feet tall had come to the courtyard to gape at the transformation.

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She clapped her hands in delight.

Yaarah clapped her about the earhole, but gently. “Explain yourself!”

“In brief,” she said, without tearing her eyes off the burgeoning botanical display for a millisecond, “that tree over by the pond, where you see the white blossoms appearing, felt unbearably sad, so as I said, I popped over last night to help it feel better.”

The cat eyes blinked very slowly in what she understood was an expression of fondness tinged, if she were honest, with a healthy dose of exasperation.

She said, “Yaarah, in all seriousness, I believe that a tragedy must have occurred here perhaps a very long time ago, an event linked to the reason that this was once a place for courting. That tragedy destroyed or subverted the garden’s original purpose. I … I had to try to heal this place. I don’t know why. I don’t know why I do what I do – I mean, only that I must.”

“You’re right.”

“I am? As in, the Scintillant is always right?”

“Don’t push it, titch.” The smile broadened. “Cuddle, furrr-hurrr-harrr?”

Allory dodged his grasp smartly. “Not only am I right, but I’m also quicker than you will ever be. What do you know about this garden? Sprout it out.”

“Harrr-harrr-hurrgh, excellent joke.” Drawing himself up into scholar-lecturing-student pose, he purred, “When I studied here, I took a particular interest in the history of this garden. My painstaking restoration and translation of some particularly ancient emski-wood records confirmed, to my best knowledge, that this garden is the resting place of the last Dryad in all Spheris.”

“A Dryad? The last – Yaarah?”

“Aye, waggle those sapphire eyebrows. This is a graveyard, which is probably why you, being such a sensitive soul despite your irrepressible penchant for mischief, sensed its poignant history. As you’re most likely aware, Dryads are meant to be a mystical or spirit form of Faerie wholly eradicated by the Faroon pogroms of 1578 through 1619.” He warmed to his lecture, noting, “Those pogroms culminated in the final assault by Farzuli Farahim the Left-Handed against this very citadel, the last bastion holding out against his armies. That was a brutal seven-year starvation siege of which I’ll spare you the horrific details.”

Allory nodded briefly to encourage him. No, she had not known any of this.

He said, “Brief aside, left-handedness used to be stigmatised across many cultures and still is today among the Faroon. Farzuli was also called ‘The Exterminator’ in reference to his unstinting and genocidal hatred of all Faerie species. I believe it was his assault that originally chased your people, the Scintillant Fae, into the remotest jungles of our world. The Dryad said to inhabit that very tree you pointed out, was recorded as having been murdered here in late 1619 or some 316 years ago, by a process of askûo-ortimë extraction –”

“What … what’s that?” she shuddered.

“Ask-oo-oh or-tee-amy,” he said slowly, sounding it out with a twist of his lips that suggested he had tasted something vile. “I – I … oh Allory Fae, you do not want to hear this. I should never have mentioned it.”

“I must.”

She turned to confront him but felt no bravery in her heart, only dread.

With obvious reluctance, Yaarah said, “It’s a vile concept based on forbidden necromantic lore whereby a living Faerie creature’s soul-magic is extracted and consumed by the vampiari, the perpetrator of the crime. Death by such means is said to be an excruciation of the soul, an act more painful than any physical torture could ever replicate.”

His learned words swilled about in her head before suddenly leaping into clarity.

In the boneyard dwell nightmares, creatures of shadow reborn …

Allory vomited.

She clutched her stomach and vomited again.

Catching her in his paws, the Felidragon said, “I am sorry, little Fae. This horrific a revelation … I should not have spoken with such candour.”

She wiped her mouth. “How, Yaarah? How could such a thing be?”

“We know not. You must not fear it,” he soothed, but she shook so violently he had to catch her again, very softly between his pads. Unbearable consideration for her fragile state. “Vampiari are mythical creatures, an ancient legend originating with the Faroon and Geminid peoples. I believe there must be some other scientific explanation of this superstition which would, at the very least, point to –”

“How can you say that? I felt her pain! I – I lived it …”

Yet somehow, the reality, the full brunt of that despicable violation, had remained hidden. Had the Dryad protected her even beyond death? Was that possible? Merely a dream? For Allory knew, thinking back to the previous evening, that what she had experienced was but an echo of an echo of what the Elemental Faerie must have suffered, yet even that had knocked her out for the whole night.

Could it be that she, in trying to help the Dryad, had received more in return than she had ever imagined?

“There is no such thing as vampiari,” he insisted meantime. “Look, mrrr-hrrr, a scholarly examination of the textual evidence points to the reality of a physical leader behind the pogroms, a man of shadows seldom seen but always acknowledged as a key advisor to Farzuli Farahim, called –”

She gasped, recoiling. “Don’t!”

“– Wraêthu. That was his name, Wraêthu of the Faroon … mrrr-frrr, why are you shuddering like that?”

Him. That name. It’s too close to discount. Could he be one of the shadows? Or another being entirely?

Bitter bile filled her throat. She struggled to force it back down.

“Allory Fae, speak to me – stop that nonsensical shrinking and shivering this instant, mrrr-prrrt! All that’s left here is an ancient grave. Let the dead rest as they ought to. You are clearly far too delicate and caring a soul to be tying your wings up in knots over such existential non-issues –”

“You stop it!” she hissed, the anguish snapping into anger.

“Gnarr! Stop what?”

“How can you say these things, Yaarah? What do you even know about what was done here? You’re so wrapped up in all your stupid science and scholarship that you fail to see the agony of … of the … oh, my perishing sap …”

Her voice trailed off as she stared over Yaarah’s shoulder. A half-sob escaped Allory’s throat as she rued how she had lashed out at her friend. He was only trying to help. To explain from his safe worldview, to protect and comfort her. Yet behind his shoulder, a white flower with an apple-green heart tapped lightly at their window. Her flesh crawled all over in a thrill of realisation.

“Yaarah, she has come.”

Barely a whisper. Barely coherent.

He whirled in a blur of gold. “I – what the – mrrrwll!”