A girl laments

Over a billion shattered bones

Their obsidian grave

Draws me

Home

IN HER HEART OF hearts, she promised vengeance. How could she? Allory knew this was not her belief, nor even the Fae way – perhaps more a Dragonish or Human concept – but it had to be. She no longer had a choice, for she carried the resonance of their souls, according to the Faerie belief, with her, and those souls had departed for the afterlife screaming in anguish. They must be laid to rest.

She was the only one left standing.

Seven siblings down to four – make that three and one worthless runt. How could this tragedy be?

As evening drew in, Yaarah brought dry wood and arranged it around the bodies. He spoke a long, eloquent Dragonish blessing over them, committing them to the care of the world soul, to strengthen, nourish and sustain those who yet lived, who would come after. His words were poetic, beautiful and distressing. He wept openly over the task, and more so when at last he expelled his whitest flame to ignite the pyre and send the twenty-eight Fae on their last journey to join with the world soul.

There followed the longest night of her life.

None of the boneyard nightmares assailed her, despite that she would have welcomed fresh anguish, greater torment and castigation than any mortal flesh could bear. All of her soul dissolved in a grief-filled void.

Eternity passed.

Even in the void, she could not be alone with her grief. Allory stirred, moaning at a memory distinct from any other. Undying shadows had always haunted her dreams, but this one was different. Murkier. More mysterious. Unidentifiable, a shadow’s shadow. That ancient crux of malevolence hid amongst the veils between worlds, tugging upon silken strands of reality with a spider’s cunning, hungering, seeking and consuming all that lay in its path.

In the faint glimmer of dawn about her cocoon that day, the Marakusian Slavers had come, shifting amidst the horrific images that flickered behind her eyelids now, over and over – arrows piercing bodies, a screaming Faeling trampled by a green boot, blue Fae skin bursting into flame – yet she sensed something spine-chilling in addition, a hint of necrotising breath, perhaps?

Or did she?

The sensation played about her soul for the longest time, like a glint in the corner of one’s eye that disappeared the instant one turned to glance at it. It was dread. Decay. Corruption. The distillation of every terror the night ever held. It was stronger than death, a spectral echo, a rapacious wraithlike being that … that evaporated …

… like a mist seeping out of her grasp.

Ungraspable.

Imperceptibly rearranged, her recollection of that day merged seamlessly into an image of her Dadfae tucking her into her cosy purple cocoon for the night.

‘There’s my little twig,’ he smiled. ‘Nothing will harm you, Allory Fae. I’m here for you.’

‘Give me a kiss, Dadfae.’

His dry, chapped lips touched her forehead briefly between the antennae. ‘You’ll always be mine. Here’s your nectar for the night. It’ll steal your dreams right away, my sweetsap. All your dreams.’

I’m safe here … safe from the shadows.

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Yet the shadows had come. And she had seen …

Nothing.

* * * *

Before dawn, Allory moved past the char and ash, searching and sorting through the debris. She recovered two cepril tusk daggers and belted them at her waist. She found her Momfae’s bow and quiver in the remains of their family cocoon. Several oils, medical necessities and a small gourd of nectar went into a travel pouch that she arranged carefully so as not to lie across her wounded back. She strapped her back and shoulder with heavy bandages that made her serami top look as if it had been stuffed with a strange cream-coloured fungus.

Enough?

No. Something had been stolen from her. Something important.

Glancing up, she found Yaarah watching her with a shadowed, grave expression. His eyes were almost devoid of fire. Was this grief? It moved her inmost sap to see him thus, gutted of soul. Dazed. A heaviness lay upon his paw and heart.

He said, “Made up your mind, frrr-hrrrt?”

“I’m ready.” Best squeak ever. In a stronger voice, she tried again, “I am ready.”

“Good. I was thinking last night – couldn’t sleep either –” he shook his muzzle forlornly “– but what are you doing?”

“I …” Allory cast about forlornly and shrugged. “I can’t remember.”

It stole all my dreams away …

‘You will remember!’ Repeated mockery. Why had they tried too hard, so many times, to force her to remember? Remember what? What need had driven the incessant questioning, the bullying, browbeating and even outright beatings?

He said, “Forgot something important – an artefact, perhaps? Can I help you to search?”

“I did forget – aye! Thank you, Yaarah. I’m looking for an heirloom I’ve had since I was a Faeling. An ariayaenvul – we call it a soul locket.”

Allory picked haplessly through the wreckage of her family’s cocoon and its charred surrounds, combing through the debris with increasing desperation. She hissed as her questing fingertip brushed a blade and she sucked on the small wound. Where could it be? Why these dislocated, unformed thoughts? What was wrong with her?

The search turned desperate. She quarried beneath piles of debris, careless now of life or limb, groaning, “It must be here. It must! I can’t leave without it.”

“A locket, hmmm-frrr,” said the Felidragon, helping her to turn over larger pieces with care and saving her when a wrecked cocoon slid alarmingly, threatening to crush her. “What colour is it?”

“Azure and gold. I know it’s here; I just know!”

He regarded her askance.

It’s more precious than you’d know, Yaarah. It holds real memories.

Tears tracked down her cheeks, humiliating and unstoppable, before a glint of gold caught her eye. Swooping, Allory cried, “Found it!”

“Arrr-prrrt, very good. May I see?”

“No!” She flushed as the nature of her reaction drew a mild growl from the Felidragon. “Alright, it can’t hurt. Here. See?” She held out her hand, palm up.

His feline eyes blinked very slowly. “There’s … uh, nothing … there?”

“Right here. Look. Pretty, isn’t it?”

“Prrr-nrrt?” The cat eyes blinked in puzzlement.

Her self-assurance wilted beneath his openly bemused scrutiny, but she checked again and there it was, a heart-shaped locket about a third of an inch tall and only slightly greater in width, in the light blue commonly called Scintillant azure, the legendary colour said to accompany the greatest workings of ariavanae. She could not tell him what was inside. Instead, she slipped the lightweight jeliki chain over her head and settled the locket upon the soft spot at the base of her neck. Perfect. It rested upon the pulse of her life.

As it should.

Nothing to it – in fact, it weighed almost nothing at all, except for its melancholy connexion to the fate of myriad souls, a weight no creature could ever measure, and its ability to record her most intimate, painful memories.

Yaarah looked on uneasily as she donned the antique.

He thinks I’ve been driven mad by grief. Even on a feline face, she could read this much. He … can’t understand? I’m not imagining any of this, am I?

She fingered the well-remembered, intricate design of seven intertwined roses, the seven Elemental Spirits of the Fae, sensing the metallic coolness with relief. Real. This was real. Yet his reaction rattled her. It questioned a tenet of her existence she had always held immutable, a truth treasured since before she could remember.

Yaarah breathed, “It’s magical, your locket?”

Allory nodded at once, more relieved than she would admit. “Aye. Very magical and precious.”

“Very good, grrr-ssst. Now, returning to what I meant to explain before you … found your locket.” He paused to lick his left foreleg, a gesture she took to signify discomfort. “I wish I had discovered your colony earlier, Allory. Maybe I could have prevented this … needless tragedy.”

He yanked at his whiskers much as a Faerie might pull on their antennae in distress.

“What strikes me as strange, however,” he said, “is that you Faerie hide yourselves ever so well. Even amongst the rare Faerie, Scintillants are so fabulously exceptional that to most, you are nothing more than a legend, hurrr-zurrr. These wilds are the deepest, most dangerous jungle in a radius of hundreds of miles, yet the Marakusian Slavers found you here – almost as if they knew exactly where to search, where to come find you. What’s more, your people were vigilant, with scouts and warriors constantly out on patrol, you told me. Yet not one escaped. They were all caught here.”

What? What did he mean?