The door slammed behind them and Henry whispered something she couldn’t make out and suddenly the door and all the windows were gone, the walls solid. The smell of magic became stronger, mixed with something spicy and woody and Henry was surrounded in bright green light. Alira felt lightheaded as she wiped the cold sweat from her brow.

“They sent their spirit familiars to guard the cottage.” Henry’s voice was hoarse with panic. “The Morinn can see anything they see and they can communicate vast distances with those crows. Fortunately, they can’t do much other than fly and watch.”

“There’s always been crows around here,” Alira said but stopped herself. Of course the Morinn had had her mother watched.

“Chances are they were waiting for you to come retrieve the blade.”

“But,” Alira began as she took off the spidersilk pack. “I have this blade.” She unwrapped her mother’s blade and took out the second knife and laid it on the dusty table beside it. They looked very similar, like siblings instead of twins yet her mother’s blade sparkled as the gemstones in the hilt caught the light while the strange blade lay bare.

“The blade you found has no gemstones,” Henry remarked, reaching out his empty hand to stroke the spot where a large gem had rested. “Where are they?”

“The sockets were all empty when I found it.” Alira shrugged. “Why does that matter?”

“Because the gemstones are where they trap the pieces of soul to make the blades sentient,” Henry’s voice was angry. “Someone blinded this blade, making it harder for the Morinn to track it.”

“Someone?” Alira had a feeling creeping up inside her. “My mother.”

“Yes, and…” Henry looked at her with a deep frown. “She knew exactly what she was doing.” He made a fist and his mouth twisted into an ugly sneer. His usually animated face had suddenly gone blank, his dark eyes wide and empty. His breathing picked up, a rasping, panicked pant.

“She made me the babysitter of the blind blade.” His voice was a whisper and Alira could see something horrible falling into place inside his mind.

“Henry?” Alira whispered. She looked at him and saw his form bulging and rippling. Darkness was seeping from under his collar, smoke-like wisps of black.

“She wasn’t visiting me, she was depositing soulstones in the burial mound and using my own spiritual essence to keep them from being traced. Erin knew that my powerful energy would essentially cloud the signal of the soulstones.” Henry’s voice grew dark and embittered.

“But surely, you knew?” Her eyes were wide as she saw how dark his expression had become.

“You’d assume so, with how much Erin seemed to need me to complete her plans. One could safely assume that she had told me all of her plans so that I may aid in their completion.” Henry’s voice deepened as he spoke, shifting into an angry, dark growl. His hair was growing slowly, his skin turning a pale green. He looked to her and Alira saw panic flit across his features briefly before being replaced with rage.

“And now, with your blood pact binding the blind blade...and we’ve brought the blades together. I’ve transferred to you…The prophecy.” His voice was a wailing moan now, his horror apparent as he slowly shifted into something alien.

“Alira, you must run!” His roar was inhuman, louder still inside the confines of the tiny cottage. Terrified, she flung herself at the wall where the door had been but it was just a wall, blank and solid.

“Erin lied to me!” The sound of Henry’s voice was layer after layer of animalistic roars, screams, and screeches. He shut his eyes and large, golden tears fell down his face. “She didn’t trust me to help her fulfil the prophecy, she told me as much in the Temple, knowing what she did about my origins.” His form bulged again and a bright reddish gold light filled the room, blinding Alira and causing her to cower against the wall. Her mother’s voice echoed in her mind, a lesson she had tried to teach Alira suddenly stark against the terror.

“Nature is inherently selfish, Alira. While it doesn’t often lie, it does do anything it can to get its way.” Erin said as she plucked the weeds from between the cobblestones of their path. She tossed them into a wooden pail as she continued. “If you don’t outwit nature and stay one step ahead, you’ll find yourself stuck. And then your only weapon left is your human intelligence.” Alira nodded, trying hard to understand her mother’s serious tone. “If I leave these weeds too long, they will overrun the stones and then all that I can do is take a weapon to them, a hoe or axe or even a blade. It’s far easier to stay ahead of them, and out -manoeuvre them by plucking them early.” The pail was getting full of the tiny weed seedlings.

“When backed into a corner, a lion isn’t going to kill you for revenge. It’ll kill you because it’s frightened and has no other means of escape. Even a seemingly tame lion can react poorly.”

“She said I was merely a nature spirit, untrustworthy, innately selfish. Inhumane!” His eyes flashed as they landed on Alira. “But she promised I would be rewarded if I was patient. She didn’t tell me she meant to release Shadesorrow!”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Henry!” she screamed.

“She lied to me, Alira, and now I see the true nature of humans. Deceit! All of you!” The whimsy he had always had was gone, replaced by hot, bright rage. The pain of betrayal. “I’ll repay her for her humanity! Thwart this terrible fate!”

The cabin lit up so brightly her eyes felt like they would boil out of her head. In the brightness she could make out a shape with four arms lifting the two blades. It turned to her as she raised her hands and screamed.

“No! Please!”

He can’t kill you. The voice in her head reminded her as the spirit raised the weapons.

“I don’t know any other way to stop her! I must try!” Henry’s voice was awful, the power of the sun ripping across her as he plunged both blades into her body. All sound faded and she saw the four armed figure stalking around her body, his head in two of his impossibly long hands. She looked down at her chest, the daggers plunged through her, pinning her to the wall. Sound returned in a whine, her ears running with blood.

“Erin,” weeped the Son of Nature. “Erin, why? What did you expect of me? What could I have done differently to make you trust me! I did everything you asked! I had no choice but to comply!” He threw his head back and roared, pain seared across his face.

“Henry,” wheezed Alira. “Help me.” He can’t kill you.

“She said she was trying to free me! She lied! She hid the soulstones! She told me it was my only hope for freedom…” His voice trailed off, his pacing slowed.

The figure dashed to her side and pressed its face to hers. Up close, she could see that his skin was continuously moving, like vines growing around an almost human shape, twisting and reforming continuously. His four arms were too long, the fingers twice the length of a man’s. His hair was a tangle of leaves, flowers slowly blooming and fading amongst the tangle of verdant strands. His legs were heavily muscled and ended not in feet but the claws of a large bird. He smelled like earth and sunshine.

“Alira,” he whispered. His voice was softer now but was still layers over layers of different animal calls. She could hear the foxish yelp in how he said her name. His enormous teeth did not hamper his speech but they were terrifying. She looked into his eyes, twin orbs of sunfire, the smallest of suns.

“She lied to us both,” he took her face in his hands, and she was surprised to note that she could not feel his continuously writhing flesh against her skin, merely a warmth.

“No,” croaked Alira, tearing her face from his hands. “She wouldn’t.”

“Littlest pet,” he crooned, leaning even closer to her, his lips pulled back to reveal his enormously long, sharp teeth. “You’ll die knowing the truth and failing all else, you’ll awaken as Shadesorrow.” He pushed his mouth onto hers as he crushed her in his arms. Enormous white wings flared up behind him and she gasped for breath but he breathed into her and she was gone.

“Mother, I have another cut,” four year old Alira said as she washed herself in the small tub. Her thigh had a long scratch across it, not deep but it stung as she rubbed the rough soap across her skin.

“You were probably careless holding the cat,” Erin said distractedly from across the cottage. She was baking bread, kneading the dough with her strong arms.

“I guess so,” Alira said.

“My feet hurt. I think I stepped on something.” Nine year old Alira dropped to a fallen tree and pulled off her boot then her stocking. Deep lines cut across the sole of her foot.

“Looks like you need new boots, darling.” Her mother smiled sympathetically and brushed her cheek as she hitched the basket higher on her hip. Several mushrooms fell out and she nodded to Alira. “Pick those up and let’s go. I’ll head into Endmoore at the end of the month and get you new ones.”

“Ouch!” Twelve year old Alira shouted as she cut herself with the paring knife. Her mother looked over to her and sighed. She put down the hen she had been looking over and blew a strand of hair out of her eyes.

“Here,” she said as she wiped her own hands and held them out for Alira’s. “I’ll bandage it.” She led her to the porch and sat her down and left. She came back after a moment with a long strip of cloth and a smaller one that smelled like tea tree oil and something else Alira couldn’t place.

“Let me clean it then I’ll heal it.” She wiped the cut with the small square of smelly cloth and then pulled her Witch Knife out from her belt. She pressed the flat of it to Alira’s cut. The pain went away immediately but she didn’t allow Alira to see what she did as she quickly bandaged it.

Over and over the memories of her injuries played in her mind as the spirit breathed into her. Everytime she was cut or hurt, her mother had healed her with the Witch Knife and bandaged it and said it would be better the next day, and it always was just as she said. The mysterious cuts stopped happening after Alira got her monthly cycle and when she asked her mother about it she had brushed it off, telling Alira that sometimes when girls became women they gained poise and grace.

The spirit pulled away from her and met her eyes again, searching for life inside her.

“She found a way to bind you to the blade secretly. She began to make you a Witch and never told you.” He tore her mother’s knife from her chest with a hot gush of her blood. “And she tricked me into finishing it with the other Knife.” He drew the other blade from her, another rush of her lifeblood covering the front of her. He must have registered the slight shock in her eyes as he smiled sadly, his enormous white wings flexing.

“She told me how to whisper to you, to speak to your heart. She taught me how to influence you. And I bade you grasp that blade and then climb the plateau…” the blades clattered to the floor and Alira felt a flow of blood trickle down the side of her mouth. She worked her tongue and tasted the hot metallic redness coat her mouth.

“Erin told me to enchant you, earn your trust, and guide you. She said that she thought she found a way around the prophecy. But nature will always get its way.” He looked down at her in his arms and looked both forlorn and angry. “Maybe this is what she wanted all along.”

“Hen…” She coughed. “Henry.” He can’t kill you.

“Time to sleep, Alira. Now you know the deceit of man, as well as the wrath of nature.” His four arms wrapped around her again and he crushed her to him, a soul piercing wail erupting from him. The loss of blood, the grief, the shock, finally caught her and she felt nothingness take her, her heart stopping.