Glass bells clinked against the yew roots above Oberon's shrine. The sound had been sad before but now rang frightened and urgent in her ears. Their soft clinking rang with the same timbre as the tolling of a warning bell atop a tower. She envisioned being trapped in Thalia's dream, unaware of the prison surrounding her. A chill raced through her body and caused her shoulders to shudder. Like a puppet being pulled by a master, she would spend her days in the fairy forest, an eternal slumber where nothing changed—surrendered to bliss, without the warmth of kinship or the consequences of her actions.
That was a life, but it wasn't living.
Yet the temptation lingered. Since becoming an orator, Elodie had been bombarded by sudden and unrelenting change. Every day was a new adjustment, whether learning the etiquette of court advisors or ice skating with fairies. Now, the dangers of the position had seeped in, and Elodie felt the weight of it like a dreadful anchor.
Fen appeared at her side, as silent as a ghost. He shifted into his more human form, but the ends of his hair and tail trailed into mist, swinging in tandem with the baubles surrounding Oberon. Stiffly, and perhaps out of habit, he reached to a matchstick near the shrine and began lighting candles that littered the area. With each flame that flared to life, more corners of his face illuminated and filled.
Elodie thought he looked very ethereal and otherworldly, even next to hills marbled in prismatic colors and the bronze yew tree that marked Oberon's rest. He had a wildness to his features but an aged calmness to how he carried himself. Even now, in such an emergency, he looked on with serene indifference. It was only through their shared bond that Elodie could feel him twitching underneath the veil, paranoid and eager.
"What now?" Braum asked, looking at her obediently, another warden awaiting her command.
Elodie looked at them both, suddenly shy with the attention. The enormity of their trust weighed on her like a cloak, clasped around her neck and strangling her confidence. Every idea her mind conjured felt lofty. Foolish. The feeling grew claws and teeth as Fen and Braum looked at her with what she assumed was a patient pity.
"Something to strike them down with," Fen offered.
"I don't want to hurt them ... Titania is still in there too."
"Iron to restrain them," he pitched more insistently.
Elodie's brows furrowed. "Then I would be no better than them."
"They don't extend you the same sanctuary." His words struck her with icy clarity. He wasn't wrong. "The higher road may be honest, but the low road is sometimes necessary for survival. There is no shame in it."
"I could make iron that erodes?" Elodie offered meekly. "Once we're gone, they'd be free."
"Who are you talking about?" Braum finally interjected. "You mentioned those spiders being Thalia's scouts- is the fairy queen here?"
Elodie's face paled as she realized Braum didn't know about Thalia and Titania. He didn't understand why they were being chased or what still lurked in the woods beyond the hills. She was very touched and very frightened all at once that he had hiked into the woods with her on blind trust.
He didn't know they faced the full power and might of an untrammeled muse.
"Oh god," she breathed.
"What?" he asked, this time more urgently.
"Thalia is here. They're trying to steal Elodie to Tír na nÓg," Fen explained in her place, using a name Elodie didn't recognize. "Close off the forest, keep her here forever in an amnesiac dream. Like Oberon, but not by choice," He gestured over to the sleeping man's body. "They were trying to work their magic by deceit, but they've lost patience, and Elodie caught on too quickly. They intend to take her by force instead."
"Like hell, they will," Braum barked. He paced a few times back and forth, hands wringing an invisible neck.
Then he pivoted to face Elodie. "I told you not to entreat with the fairy queen." He ran a hand through his bangs and pushed them back in annoyance. She shrank, having nothing to say in retaliation. She'd been warned at every turn and refused to listen to their guidance.
"And you," he snapped, pointing at Fen, "You brought her here! This is as much your fault as it is Thalia's." There was a crackling storm in his dark eyes, one that Elodie hadn't seen before. It was a fury that she found misplaced, but sparks flew, and embers struck regardless.
The gelert's tail flicked, and Elodie could feel waves of aggravation rolling off his sleeves, but he said nothing. His eyes flitted to meet hers for only a moment. He was holding himself back for her sake.
The sight was enough to flare up a righteousness in Elodie she hadn't previously been capable of. "If it's anyone's fault, it's mine. Everything went all wrong." She hung her head as hot shame burnt her cheeks red. "But I ... I'm going to get us out! Somehow."
The prince waved his arms in an undignified motion. Then, he rubbed his eyes. He let out a sigh that sounded like a rupturing pipe and stung twice as much. He started several sentences that went nowhere and eventually settled into a contemplative silence.
When he spoke again, he pulled back his shoulders to stand broader, and his tone became colder and more distant. "Right now, we need a way out. I won't let them take you to Tir na ... whatever he said." Something more sincere crossed his face, but he quickly looked askance to avoid showing it. "Tell me how I can help, and I will."
When none of the three had any answer for him, Elodie quietly proposed, "I'll need time. I have an idea that I'll need to work through. I'm- uh- I'm still not very good at orations, and if Thalia does find us, they'll easily overcome me."
"Indeed, I will."
All three heads swiveled at the sound of a melodious, booming voice atop one of the nearby hoodoos. Thalia clung to the stone with articulating joints, more monstrous than Elodie had ever seen them. Their silhouette hung upside down, red, orange, and white, and vast pairs of feathery moth wings sprouted from their back. Their head tilted to the side at an uncomfortable angle, and antennae swept past their head, arcing in ribbons between their wings. They were terrible and beautiful. Their eyes shone as two lights reflecting candlelight in the dark and they simmered with feral, untamed malice.
"Shit," Braum muttered. Thalia's flaring wings reflected in the metal surface of his axe as a ghostly doppelganger.
"Why run, pet?" Thalia mewled, descending the rocks in a lizard-like fashion. "The land of everlasting calls." Their gaze turned to Fen, "I'll deal with your betrayal later." Fen snorted in response.
Small pebbles and motes of sand flushed off of the rocks as they moved downward, eyes remaining trained forward. The angle their head bent at was unnatural, words seeming to come not from their mouth but from the very air around them. "We want the same thing. We want Elodie to be happy and free from the clutches of manipulators like him."
So many in number were the butterflies that clouded the sky behind Thalia that they smothered out the stars.
A parade of phantom animals and fey flanked Thalia, writhing in anticipation of a hunt. Elk with eyes shining in the moonlight brayed alongside pixies that flitted between their horns. Satyrs, foxes, and living trees whirled in dizzying anticipation.
Braum put a hand on Elodie's shoulder and stepped past her. "I've had a few choice words to give the fairy queen since their pranks at the castle. Now seems like a good time." More assuredly, he looked back and promised, "We'll buy you whatever time you need."
But his words fell wayside as Elodie's eyes became luminous orbs of light.
* * *
Energy built in the air and drowned out the sound of Thalia's taunts. Like jumping into a cold river, her vision filtered out color until all that was left were morose navy tones and shades of monochromatic moonlight. Please help them, she pleaded as she watched Braum step forward. Fen stood by Oberon, a silent guardian to two victims of Titania's descent.
Her muse feathered the edges of her mind, its voice as soft as satin sheets pressing against one another. Encased in ice, no harm can come to you.
There must be a way to free us. Some way we haven't thought of.
Describe intention, then command.
Wings? Elodie thought. She was met with a skeptical noise. A tunnel beneath the woods? Silence. Please.
Command. Do not debase yourself with pleads. I thought you had a plan.
They're in danger, Elodie thought, horrified. Her dialogue ran away from her, and all she could think was, They came to save me. It's my fault they're here. The next thought came meekly. I don't want them to die.
When no response came, tears stung at the corners of her eyes and quickly froze in geometric patterns around her eyes. A nauseous wave of terror washed over her. A wind picked up through the trees and shook the canopy, barraging those beneath with pine needles and cones.
It was one thing to rehearse lines in a play, to imagine how you might say the words or how you might gesture to sell the performance. It was another entirely to be on stage. Oration was similar, and for Elodie, the pressure to create, to perform, and to succeed was paralyzing.
Finally, her muse spoke. The courage to be blunt is difficult for you. If you want them to live, you must cull the danger at its source. It is as the gelert said; Thalia does not deserve your empathy.
Thalia may not deserve it, but Titania does, she thought. She was keenly aware of Oberon's presence behind them, magic still ebbing off his body. It resonated with the pools that gathered around her feet, whispering promises of potential. There has to be a way to protect everyone. I'd like you to try my idea.
* * *
Beady, bloodshot eyes locked on Braum from above. "I don't recall granting an audience today," Thalia said haughtily, "I thought you self-named royals cared about procedure."
"We tried giving the message to your spriggans," Braum shot back. "It didn't take."
Thalia pushed off the rock and hovered above them, their wings emitting a thrumming, buzzing noise. Dust drifted from their wings in flame-colored specks, dancing with the snow created by Elodie's oration. From over the hill came three more spriggans, flanked by dark walls of writhing thorns. The brambles grew as thick as tree trunks and curled to create an impenetrable arena from the bowl of the valley.
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"Elodie needs to concentrate," Fen told Braum, "I will run the spriggans ragged."
"Then leave Thalia to me," Braum agreed.
As though they were chatting idly over lunch, Fen blithely remarked, "Good. You excel at annoying fey."
Fen put his hands to the earth and closed his eyes. The mist rolling off his tail and hair stretched and billowed until only the grey lights of his eyes could be seen. A low fog settled into the valley until it was hard to see more than ten feet ahead. Silently, Fen nodded to Braum and disappeared. From the obscured wall of grey, Braum heard the sound of cracking bones and an echoing howl.
* * *
You act like you know Thalia somehow, Elodie pushed. She wondered if there was something her muse was hiding from her, some reason why it was so bent on violence. She clambered behind one of the cairns beside Oberon's rest as she contemplated. The stack of rocks barely covered her forehead, but it provided some cover from the persistent perception of Thalia overhead.
Some. They are one of the newer orators.
Meaning?
Meaning I did not spend as much time with them as the others. Their personality leaves ... much to be desired. I do not care for duplicity. Their tone mimicked that of a displeased housecat, but Elodie sensed something more sinister underneath. Her muse stalked the recesses of her mind, and she realized that her muse was also agitated by the events unfolding.
The air hung heavy with thundering steps and metallic clangs. A shadow passed over the rocks, a flash of monarch wings in the mist, followed by a pained cry. Her heart sank. It was impossible to sift between the voices to determine who had cried out, and each possible scenario made her heart clench further. All three people were important to her in different ways. She pictured Fen, covered in wounds like when she'd first met him. She imagined the wardens clutching a prince and watching the hope for their kingdom fade. She thought of Thalia's wings bent askew and losing the friend that had lightened her burden and understood her struggles as an orator.
She pulled the instrument stick from her pocket and squeezed it between both hands as though wielding a weapon of her own in the fight. It provided little comfort. She desperately wished that it was a shield and that she could join them on the battlefield as a shield warden to protect them from harming one another. The seething mist around her mirrored her desolation.
As she dreamed, energy ebbed away from her. Some grass at her feet turned metallic, and the cairn she hid behind wavered and shifted between stone and what looked like a tower shield. The silent incantation caught the attention of a slack-jawed spriggan, who was quickly pounced upon by a ten-foot-tall wolf.
Focus, her muse snapped, bringing her attention back to the present. Why the sudden interest in my dealings?
Is there something you're not telling me? Elodie finally demanded. You never give me the whole truth.
Move!
What?
* * *
"Elodie!" Braum bellowed, stepping in front of her just as one of Thalia's claws came down. He intercepted the spikes with the handle of his axe and then swept low, hooking the axe's head on one of Thalia's heels and tugging hard. The move unbalanced the moth creature, buying Elodie enough freedom to scramble away.
He jumped back and contorted into a stoop to catch his breath. Blood trickled down one cheek, and he wiped at it with the butt of his palm.
Braum had little time to wallow as Thalia returned with more force this time. Claws flashed. He swung. They exchanged blows, and each block, parry, and evasion felt like it took more of his strength than the last. He was a scurrying mouse mouse entangled with a capricious cat. His axe grew heavier with each swing while Thalia seemed to rile themself up more. Time was limited, pitted against his stamina. The brutality seemed incompatible with his image of the winnowy orator that had befuddled and insulted his court months ago.
Thalia twisted themself around, batting him across the face with a wing, and followed the assault with a slash from their claws. He collided with the earth and felt some part of his ribs bend. His teeth ground together as he tried to force his body to absorb the pain. Tousled hair matted into his forehead and mixed with wet, cold snow around his cheeks. He rolled onto his back to reach for his weapon, only to be met with excruciating shards of discomfort in his chest. Thalia plucked his axe off the ground with a free limb and examined it indifferently before snapping the handle in half. Splinters of wood rained down, and the axe head fell into the mist with a dull thud.
"You know," Thalia cooed, barely above a whisper as they crouched over his crumpled body, "I'm not a heartless monster. You could stay with Elodie in Tír na nÓg. That's what you want. The orator under your little thumb. I'm here to give you want." Braum tried to stand, but Thalia forced his back to the ground with one hand. Their claws locked into the ground on either side of him, like stakes pinning down a tent. He was splayed and helpless, and a wheeze left his body to show it. "We can live with our precious orator by our side, safe and soundless."
The mist felt like a convenient blessing because it obscured the momentary pause of consideration he had on his face. An invisible mantle of exhaustion compounded the pressure from Thalia's bulk. Each breath felt like it lifted less and less air into his lungs, and the desire to breathe became more significant than any of the fairy queen's temptations.
"Surely Calladon could watch your castle? Oh ... that's right. He can't."
Braum's eyes grew to saucers, and his struggle redoubled. Whatever barb had been intended by Thalia had met its mark. "He has nothing to do with this," he rebuked coldly. "And how do you know that name?"
A muscle in his jaw betrayed his frustration, and Thalia grinned.
"No, he doesn't," they agreed, "But he certainly means more to you than I thought."
"I'll gut you."
"Promises, promises."
One of the towering brambles staggered at an angle, and crunching wood foretold its fall. A cloud of kaleidoscopic dust exploded at the bramble's base, and several blackish figures emerged from it. Thalia's head snapped toward the sound, where hoofbeats punched holes in the snow. Cresting over the hill, clad in the wolf's sigils were a dozen wardens atop chestnut and black horses. They rained into the clearing with weapons extended in a practiced formation. At the tip of their arrow was Emerys, barking orders with focused clarity.
"About time," Braum complained, a smile tugging at one of the corners of his mouth.
As Emerys' horse thundered into the clearing, he pulled his bowstring taught in several repetitive motions, losing arrows that all found their mark in a spriggan's side. He maneuvered his horse to cut off Thalia's path. To add insult to injury, he adjusted his glasses as though this were a routine patrol.
Thalia's face twitched with annoyance, and they relented their grip on the prince. "How many of you are there?" they grumbled. "Stay put."
With a heave and several powerful wingbeats, they pushed into the air to greet the wardens with all the pleasantness of a gardener to snails.
* * *
Elodie put her hands over her ears to block out the noise of shouts from behind. She scuttled over to the base of Oberon's dais in the clamor. Now that the battle had spread through the meadow, there was nowhere to hide.
Thalia is a trickster by nature, but Titania's humility and compassion tempered them. Without Titania, they run as wild as hares in spring.
She meditated on the words, rolling them around like marbles in her mind. It felt like her muse was trying to give her a clue, but it provided no enlightenment. Titania's continued absence was Thalia's greatest strength. If only there were some way to wrestle them both down, to talk reasonably and forthcomingly, as friends did.
Can you tell me how to pull a muse apart from their orator?
An orator must be broken. Muses act through orators, and without them, they are lost.
She recalled how Titania had been lost in the first place. The thoughts muddled, frustration lumping in her throat, caustic like bile. Titania, Oberon, orations. There had to be something there, something that could make sense of this vortex of misunderstandings. She felt her pulse rising, her breath quickening. She became aware at once of every sound, every movement, every flicker of snowflakes around her. Lightheadedness settled in. Panic.
My idea was to separate them somehow, with a spell or a magic cage or something like that. Please, please just tell me how to do it. I know you know how.
I am a muse, it said with a clean tone of complete neutrality, It is in my nature to inspire, not instruct.
"Then inspire me! Quit speaking in riddles, and speak to me as though I'm capable." Elodie cried, unable to contain her grievance any longer. "Act like I'm capable of succeeding- like oration, being an orator is possible for someone like me." As she spoke, the words reverberated and magic pulsed into the air in wobbling, uneven waves. Tears welled over the lids of her eyes and spilled down her cheeks, covering her face in ice. "I need help." She crouched and ducked her head. "I need you to hear me."
A new wave of force pulsed in a ring from her, and the mist was chased up the hills and into the brambles, more powerful than any magic in the grove thus far. Her sorrows manifested as raw, unfettered magic that yearned for understanding. In one fell wind the candles around Oberon's rest were extinguished. Everywhere the ring touched was coated in a thin veil of rime.
The impromptu battlefield cleared, and Elodie could see the full extent of the danger she was in. On one side, Fen ran a spriggan into a rock, which shuddered and collapsed onto the spidery, black body below. On the other side, Braum, who now held a splintered shield as a blunt weapon, stepped toward her and seemed to call something out, but the words were drowned out by the blast. Bloodied and beaten wardens scattered like marbles from bears, deer, rabbits, and lynxes, knocked off their feet by the wave.
Thalia's face contorted in indignation in the same stroke, and they lowered their hand. One of the towering brambles slammed laterally into Emerys. He flew off his horse and crashed into a stone pillar, hitting the ground with a dull, decisive thump. Elodie's hands clamped over her mouth to keep herself from screaming.
"Enough!" Thalia declared. They leaped into the air and extended their full wingspan, blotting out the moon with the motion. The air stilled, and the clearing fell silent. A tremendous pressure permeated the clearing, and every pigment of color on their wings seemed to oscillate. The cascading lines of stones and brambles seemed to lean in, hungry to be near. Thalia's very being begged for attention, their allure impossible to ignore.
Their lips creased open, and Elodie realized she was witnessing something very deep and very powerful. The divination Fen had spoke of, the threads of fate made themselves manifest.
An oration from a creature that possessed millennia of practice.
Thalia threw their head back, and their voice boomed in a round shape as golden and smooth as honey. "The enemy surrounds us. Defend me from the threats to balance. Bring me complexity, rising from earth, and let it fortify the thorn and vine. I bade them sleep in the shade, safe in my arms. Out of this wood do not desire to go. I am a spirit of no common rate, and none shall disturb slumber but me."
The panic that welled within Elodie was dampened, covered with a veil of soft velvet words. Her limbs liquified. She blinked and took in her surroundings, confused and afraid. She couldn't recall why she'd strayed to Oberon's valley. Weariness tugged down her eyelids, and she thought a nap would be nice. Several thuds sounded in the distance as weapons dropped and armor fell. One by one, each figure in the glade collapsed into a peaceful slumber on snow that was as soft as pillows.
I'd like to join them, she thought aimlessly. I feel foolish out in the woods so late at night. What a good thing that Thalia has found me.
Thalia had never had anything but the best intentions since she stepped into this forest. Elodie mused fondly about how thoughtful they had been to send messages to the castle and how patient they had been through their lessons. She could scarcely imagine a better friend.
"There are awful things in the dark corners of my forest," Thalia purred. "I adore you, Elodie, so go with me. Come, return to my cabin, and we shall think no more of them."
"No more ..." Elodie repeated with a voice slurried by enchantment.
Dimwitted girl, she heard a warbled, gruff voice call. It sounded far away somehow, like hearing a voice underwater. Words are illusions, intent is real. Then a hint of dread tinged its voice, and it spoke with urgency. You are going to break, Elodie.
The sharp lash from her muse was enough for a singular moment of lucidity. What had she been doing?
It was enough for Elodie to realize that she was falling under Thalia's spell and that her mind would soon be lost to reverie, to what Fen called Tír na nÓg.
A sickening crunch came from behind her, and she was triggered by how similar the sound was to the one Ann's body had made when it impacted against the castle wall. Her windblown hair whipped around as she swiveled. Thalia perched over Braum, massive cracks in his armor where a heavy blow had struck.
The singular sound was enough to snap her into sharp focus, and an idea crept into view. It was one that she hadn't considered before but saw now with such a haunting clarity that there was no choice in the matter. Like an actor doomed to read their lines, she saw only one way forward.
She knew what she had to do.
Clever, her muse complimented, having sensed her thoughts.
Through labored breaths and trembling lips, she whispered an oration of her own.
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