This morning, he asked her to tend to the garden. While she didn’t know the spells that could help with this, she was more than proficient in gardening from her years in the maze.
As she tucked the wand into the pocket of her pants, she grazed the burn on the side of her ribs. She cursed softly to herself, as she peeled the tunic away from the seeping burn, the scab having torn open, white blood oozing from the decades old but still fresh wound.
She delicately lowered the loose top over the cut. The blood would dry soon.
Heading to the garden, she kept her arm away from her body, trying not to bump the burn again. Above her she could hear the movement of the Faedemon in his lab.
She knew this burn was his fault, but there was an odd disconnect from the monster she knew he was and the man who had become her boss and teacher. Why’d he have to act so human? She wanted to hate him, every fiber of his being. He was designed, created for one thing; to wage and win war against her own people, and yet he seemed like a normal, albeit conceited, mage. It was infuriating.
She pushed the invasive thought from her mind as she reached the garden, choosing to focus on the matter at hand. She began passing the planter beds, examining the crops, known and unknown.
It didn’t take any time at all for her to realize how neglected the garden was. Weeds and vermin infest nearly every crop bed.
Needleroot was poisoning every edible crop she could identify, turning the yields mildly toxic. They wouldn't kill her and they certainly wouldn’t kill Zaramir, but they could easily kill small animals and leave something her size with less-than-fun symptoms. Zaramir clearly hadn’t noticed what was happening to his garden.
Pulling these weeds would ordinarily shred her hands, leaving minute and nearly invisible splinters. However, this time she realized she had not only a way to avoid it, but an excuse to test out her new found magic.
Carefully pulling out the wand, she began the motions, picturing her home and her grandmother's protective blanket. She began to feel the spell form, a recognition of a satisfying sensation she had begun to associate with spell casting over the course of her earlier practice.
A loud and sudden crash resonated from the lab just above her, startling her. She felt the spell snap and in that same moment she knew what was coming as the known pain shot up her arms. This time she knew not to drop the wand.
Instead she clutched it with all her might as the pain tore through her arms. As she lost grip with one hand, she felt the reverberation of all the bones snapping in the other. This caused her to finally lose the last of her attempted grip on the wand.
In a single blink of good fortune it fell perpendicular to her, launching itself sideways in a brilliant beam of red light. The hilt of the wand smashed into the stone wall. Inexplicably the glass wand remained unharmed, the same wouldn't be said for the wall which turned to powder where the wand struck it, deep cracks emanating from around the impact point.
The wand clattered to the floor, her own body along with it.
She cradled her shattered left hand. Bruises already turning her whole hand and up her forearm a deep wine purple. The hand was limp as though there were never any bones in the first place. This was nowhere near the first time she’d broken a bone, but this was the first time she could tell there was hardly any solid bone left to tend to.
Tears streamed her face as she bit back cries. The adrenaline was doing very little to dispel the pain in the current moment; she was terrified to know how bad it’d be when it wore off.
She tried to stand up, but every little movement sent agony through her limp hand and stabbing pain up her arm. She fell back onto her knees. That too would have hurt if every ounce of her attention hadn’t been focused on the appendage that was rapidly swelling.
She took a deep breath, readying herself for another attempt at standing. She bit her lip, prepared for the inevitable agony of movement.
She hauled herself slowly to her feet, using every bit of energy she had not to blackout from the torment every miniscule motion caused.
She didn't have much of a plan figured out for once she managed to get to and stay on her feet, but she knew nothing in this garden. Nothing she recognized could help her in any meaningful way at least, even less so with the Needleroot infestation.
Her best bet would be to return to her bedroom and hope the water in her bathroom was cold enough to help ease the swelling. From there she didn't know what she would do. There was nothing to set into place, nothing to brace.
Though, she never really had a chance to find out. A few steps toward the door rattling the shard of bone in her hand was enough for unconsiousness to finally claim her.
Her head was full of fog as she came to, but oddly enough she wasn’t in any pain.
She found, as she slowly sat up to examine her hand, that it didn't show signs of ever having been broken in the first place. She also discovered that she was no longer in the greenhouse.
During her unconsciousness, she had been moved to the guestroom she'd been given. She had been tucked carefully into bed and, more disturbingly, been changed into a soft white nightgown.
She glanced around the room. Zaramir wasn’t here but he was the only one who could have done all this to her.
The work clothes had been laid out neatly at the bottom of the bed and a small red note card was folded and propped on her night stand.
As she picked it up, a small ripple of shimmering magic ran over the paper in a flash so brief it could have been easily missed.
The message inside was short, “I will be there in a moment.”
In a very startling wisp of sudden smoke, he was and he looked very unhappy.
He didn’t give her a moment to speak, “I felt that little mistake of yours all the way in my lab. You utterly ruined a ritual! Those ingredients aren’t easy to come by! Then I find you unconscious and broken in my greenhouse. You humans are so fragile. I can’t believe you.” His tone was a parent scolding a misbehaving child.
She was so surprised she couldn’t find the words to reply.
“Well?” He demanded. “What happened? How could you fail such a simple spell? You knew how to do it correctly.”
She slowly found her words through the fading brain fog, “You.. your lab… there was a loud sound. It startled me during the spell…” She answered softly.
His expression seemed to soften ever so slightly, “I wasn’t aware that sound carried from my lab.” There was a moment of silence, “How is your hand? Was the potion enough to fully heal it?”
She looked at her perfectly healed hand, flexing her fingers, “Yes. It’s all healed, amazingly.”
“Good.” He replied shortly “ It would be a waste if it hadn’t. I decided I didn’t want to waste anymore time on injuries you might sustain so I have cast a stronger protection spell on you myself. You don't have to cast the weaker one yourself any longer. This will save me time in the future. It will work against physical injuries but not toxins and venoms. If you suspect you have experienced either, there are antivenom vials in the vanity drawer. They're all clearly labeled. You were unconscious for quite some time and I was able to make some modifications to your room to make your work more efficient. Better work clothing is in the closet for when you decide to return to whatever it was you were doing in the garden before this whole mess.” He turned away, about to leave.
“Needleroot.” She blurted out, trying to catch him before he vanished.
If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
He turned back just shy of the door, “Pardon?”
She slipped out from under the sheets, standing up, “Your plants are infested with Needleroot. If the antivenoms are made from any of those plants, they’ll only make things worse. I was going to remove them after casting the protection spell.”
His lips parted for a moment, his eyes widening in an almost imperceptible look of surprise before returning to the bland look of unamusement, “They were. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I’ll have to discard much of my current potion stocks. They are likely contaminated as well. For now, I recommend you sit down before you start coughing up blood. The healing potion was also made from the tainted plants.” He huffed, annoyedly. “I must go out and retrieve fresh ingredients. I’ll be back.” he turned back away from her.
She slid down into a seated position on the bed, feeling uneasy from his warning, “You have more ingredients in the maze?” She questioned. “Will I need to go back out there to tend to them?”
He sighed shortly, “ No, I don’t have more ingredients in the maze, making this all the more irritating. I truly despise leaving this maze.”
This made her leap to her feet, “You’re going to go out into the real world?”
He glanced over his shoulder, “You should know better than most this maze is very much real. Now, sit down.” There was a warning edge to his voice.
Ignoring his tone, she sprinted across the room to him, “I want to come with you.”
“Absolutely not.”
“I can’t run from you, our deal will still be good! I just want to see humans again. It was so lonely in the maze.” She pleaded.
“You’re not alone anymore.” He snapped.. “And you are not coming with me. It's a miracle you haven't keeled over already from the tainted potion. I should have just committed the extra time to a ritual. I suppose this is what I get for taking shortcuts. Now I have to waste more time on this nonsense. I will not have you slowing me down any further!” He flung a hand toward her face, as if he was going to strike her. She cowered away but the blow never came, instead a thin indigo mist enveloped her. Her brain grew foggier than the haze that already enveloped it. Her head grew heavy, her eyelids beginning to droop.
She noticed drops of scarlet falling at her feet and the last thing she heard was a low, “For the love of fae, I warned you,” before falling face first into him, his arms scoping her effortlessly before losing consciousness.
She awoke back in her bed once again, wearing the same nightgown, this time stained with a few drops of old blood. Her head hurt. Her throat hurt. Her stomach hurt. Everything hurt, like she’d had a bad sickness.
This time, there was no note. Instead Zaramir was sitting in the vanity, three ancient looking books hovering around his head. Their pages flipping slowly of their own accord. He was hunched awkwardly over a cauldron about the size of his hand, hovering over a flame with no fuel, also floating inches above the wood of the vanity. He was much too tall for the size of this vanity, he looked like an adult at a child’s play set.
He crumpled leaves with his fingertips from a small pile of dried herbs resting over the desk, sprinkling them into the pot. He snatched one of the books, its half-way-turned page falling still. He muttered something to himself, grabbing a different herb and examining it with his other hand, comparing it to the book in the first.
He mumbled something in a language that Corabelle didn’t understand but it sounded rude from his tone. He slapped the herb back down onto the vanity, releasing the book at the same time, which returned to its orbit. He swiveled around rapidly, snatching the book that floated behind him.
He started, noticing her sitting up in bed. The books fell simultaneously. The one behind him, over the desk, fell toward the caldron. She expected its contents to spill, maybe even put out the flame beneath it, but instead both the pot and flame shimmered and vanished. The one next to him fell smacking the corner of the desk loudly, flipping some of the herbs to the floor. The final fell into his lap with a painful sounding thud which he didn’t seem to notice.
He gathered the books with a scowl directed toward the mess, setting them on the desk and swept up the herbs, “I didn’t expect you to awaken so soon.” He said calmly.
“Something happened to me?”
He nodded shortly, “I tried to warn you. The tainted potion took effect before I could put that sleep spell on you. You should be fine shortly. The effect was minimal.”
She glanced at the desk, “What were you doing?”
“Working. I couldn’t stop just because you chose to ignore me.”
She began to side out from under the covers, “Why not work in your lab?”
He threw a halting hand toward her, “Don’t you dare get up again. I prepared a ritual this time and it’s not finished. You get out of that bed, and you and I are both going to have bigger problems than a tainted potion.”
She carefully pulled her leg back under the covers, “You didn’t answer my question.”
“Didn’t I? I thought it was fairly obvious with my previous warning,” He stood up, books tucked under his arm. "I had to be sure you didn’t get out of bed until the ritual was complete. And now that you’re awake and have been warned, I can return to my lab.”
“When can I get out of bed?” she questioned.
He huffed, waving his free hand. An hourglass appeared on her nightstand, sand sifting down at a snail's pace, “Six hours., when the sand runs out.”
She sighed, “It’s going to be a long day.” she muttered under her breath.
“I don’t suppose you would be able to sleep after that spell.” He said more to himself than her. His eyes landed on the books under his arm, “ and I don’t suppose you can read Fae?”
She shook her head.
He set two of the books down on the desk and held the third in his hands. Through his coat she could see a faint glow emanating from his skin, through the material. One of his Runebinds was being activated. A few moments later the glowing faded and the book hovered toward her, falling onto the bed at her feet, bouncing once before settling.
He picked up the remaining two books, “You can study that one. On the last page is a rune to turn it back to Fae. Place two fingers on it when you are done reading and turn it back for me?”
She nodded quickly, snatching up the book.
“That should keep you occupied until the ritual is complete.” The edge of his mouth turned up in the echo of a smile. “Afterward, get to removing the Needleroot. The protection spell I placed on you will have more than enough power to handle it.”
“I will,” she replied, only half paying attention.
She ran her hand over the embossed leather cover of the book. It was warm to the touch. She didn’t even notice him leave, she was so transfixed on the book. Her fingers tingled where she touched it. This wasn’t just a book for studying, she could feel it held power of its own. Imprinted in the leather was an unfamiliar landscape. Unfamiliar animals roamed hills of tall grass, in the background was an elaborate castle that defied gravity, its spires twisting and curling up into the clouds as though it were made of mist.
This was the faerie realm. She was sure of it. She had never seen a depiction before. Scholars theorized it must be a harsh, dark and wild place to produce such foul creatures but, looking at this image, it was a beautiful serene land, much like their world. If their world is so beautiful, what do they want with ours?
She broke her gaze from the cover, turning it carefully to the first page. Much to her surprise, it wasn’t a spellbook to study. The index indicated it was a text on the wonders of the fae world. The chapters were about practical use of the world's resources and on the history of the kingdoms.
She wondered if he meant to give her this book, or if he’d intended to give her another. Either way, she had no way of asking him, so she might as well read what she was given.
She quickly became enraptured by the history in her hands. The fae realm was magnificent, full of magic and wonder. It’s fauna, peaceful and its flora full of powerful and functional magic. The sixth hour came and went without her noticing. Fae couldn’t lie, but if this is how they saw their world, it was true. If this was their realm, why were they such beasts? She couldn’t pry her eyes from the words in front of her.
She was finally broken from her trance by the bedroom door flying open, “Miss Cora!” The faedemon burst in, “What have you been doing? I asked you to remove the Needleroot, I need those ingredients.”
She dropped the book, startled, her eyes flying over to the long still sand in the hourglass, “I’m sorry. I completely lost track of time. This book is incredible….”
He rolled his eyes impatiently, “It’s just history, Miss Cora. I expected you to be learning about the plants I have in my greenhouse. The diagrams are in the back of the book, but I see you didn’t quite understand my intent. Perhaps that’s my fault for not being more straightforward, I suppose it’s too late for clear instructions. Seeing as it’s late, you should sleep and get to work bright and early. I expect the Needleroot be to be removed by tomorrow evening.” he said coldly, extending a hand to her.
It took her a moment to realize he was expecting the book back. He slipped out from under the covers and crossed over, reluctantly handing the book back, “Do you think I could finish reading it when the work is done?”
“After the Needleroot’s gone, the garden will need to be heavily watered to allow the plants to recover and the toxins to begin dissipating from the soil,” He tucked the book under his arm.
“What about after I finish that? You said you wanted me to learn about the plants in the book. It might help to know what’s a weed and what’s an ingredient.” She really wanted to finish the story. That was more information than most, if not all, of humanity knew about the Fae. She was dying of curiosity.
His eyes went to the book, “After the root is removed, and the garden is watered, I want you to bring some Crystalline worms from the beast room over to ensure the Needleroot doesn’t come back. The previous ones must have died and I hadn’t noticed. Place one in each planter bed. After you finish with that, perhaps you may finish the chapters on Faerealm plants before continuing to tend to the garden. Just the botany chapters, clearly this book is much too distracting.”
She wasn’t going to be able to learn all she wanted, “Alright.” Her disappointment was clear in her voice.
“Go to bed.” Was all he said as he left.