Awake: A Fairytale

by Jessica Grey

  Alex tightened her grasp on the diamond and pulled it out of her pocket. She reached out her other hand and grabbed Becca’s, their wet fingers intertwining as the wind picked up and whipped around them. They walked towards Lilia. The wind was getting stronger by the second, pushing them back, and they had to fight against it, leaning into it as they struggled toward her.

  As they reached Lilia, they saw she was still shouting up into the storm, this time in Fae, but her words were being snatched away by the wind.

  Becca looked at Alex helplessly.

  “Just do what you did in the storage room,” Alex shouted at her over the wind. It was whipping, harder and colder, snapping their hair against their faces with stinging accuracy.

  Alex could see that Becca was holding the gold pieces tighter, still not sure what to do with them, but she reached out and put her other hand on Lilia’s shoulder, turning her face up towards the storm. Alex reached out and did the same. She could feel the energy vibrating through Lilia’s thin shoulders.

  “We reject you, you don’t belong here,” Becca’s shout sounded unsure and tentative, but Alex felt the answering jolt of power in the hand she had placed on Lilia as it shot out of Becca and through the princess.

  Alex curled her fingers around the diamond, the ridges digging into the sensitive pads of her fingers and palm. Elanthe, she thought closing her eyes. I need you to show me how to use your power.

  The diamond flared to life against her hand, the energy rushing up through her arm and filling her mind and body with its clear light. Alex felt for a moment that she might not be able to contain it, that the diamond’s crystalline power would shoot out from her body, breaking her apart, shattering her into a million points of light.

  Then, abruptly, when she was sure she could hold no more, the energy centered itself in the middle of her chest, and the stone spoke into her mind, its voice cold and bright. Alex couldn’t hear the storm, the pounding of the rain, or the screaming of the wind. She couldn’t hear Lilia’s voice chanting in Fae, or Becca’s voice, still somewhat tentative but growing stronger adding to Lilia’s spell in English. Her entire mind was filled only with the diamond.

  Its language was strange and ancient, similar to the Fae that Alex had heard from Lilia, but deeper, older, and infinitely more elemental. If she had heard the voice in any other context, it would have scared her, but now, holding it in her hand, knowing it was placing its power at her disposal, it thrilled and excited her.

  As Elanthe spoke, Alex’s mind recognized its words not as language that she could understand or replicate, but as images flooding into her mind. She saw the three of them kneeling in front of the burial stone, braiding their strands of magic together. She saw Becca and Lilia’s hands intertwined on the gold of the crown, and her own reaching for the emerald. She saw the three sisters in the tapestry holding a shimmering braided cord.

  Alex concentrated on the center of power in her chest. Go out…go out through me and into Lilia. She felt the energy moving at her command, flowing up through her arm and into her hand as it rested on Lilia. She opened her eyes and watched as the energy pulsed out of her hand. It was like a river of hazy, glittering fog pouring out of her hand and surrounding Lilia.

  “Alex! How? Tell me what to do!” Becca shouted at her.

  “Ask the gold to help you. Ask for its power,” Alex shouted back as she tried to slide her hand down Lilia’s arm, searching frantically for her hand. As soon as her fingers closed around the other girl’s, she felt the diamond’s power meeting and mixing with Lilia’s power.

  There was a sudden flash of gold-colored light as Becca found Lilia’s other hand. Becca was literally radiating thick golden energy. It pulsed out of her in waves, which floated across the blanket of lilies around them.

  Lilia looked between Becca and Alex and said something quickly in Fae. A pale green band of energy writhed out of her hands. It lifted up in the air—a weighty, twisting band of magic.

  “We have to twine them together, like we did in the storage room,” Alex said, her voice pulsing with the strain of the energy flowing through her.

  Lilia looked down at where their hands were joined. “Alex, it is not just the diamond, it has to be you too.”

  Her words struck Alex forcibly. Elanthe was lending her its power, not because the diamond had any side in this fight, but because it recognized Alex as its mistress. It wanted to serve her just as the alyssum in her dream had. It wanted to be known and used by her because it recognized the power in her.

  Without letting go of the gleaming white power of the diamond, Alex shut her eyes again, and reached deeper into herself. She closed her mind to the storm, to the voices inside her own head that said she wasn’t good enough, that she was too small, too quiet to be noticed. Finally, there it was, where she had shoved it, all the way into the back of her mind, at the back of her heart, the piece of herself that she knew to be the most true. And it did seem small and quiet compared to everything that was going on outside of Alex, but that was because she had let it be small and quiet.

  As she reached for it, acknowledged it, called it by her name and claimed it as a piece of herself, it flared to life. Brightening against the back of her eyelids, she felt it surge through her, warm and white and soft, like the petals of the alyssum, like the white wool of her dress in her dreams. It filled her whole body, not pushing the diamond’s power away, but joining with it. Elanthe flared in her hand, wrapping itself in Alex’s power, as if acknowledging that its power was subservient to her magic.

  As she opened her eyes, Alex saw the magic flowing out of her coalesce from the smoky, glittering haze of Elanthe’s power to the warm white band of her own, glowing with the added force of the diamond’s energy.

  Her magic rose in the air, joining and twining with Lilia’s green strand of power. Alex could hear Becca’s voice saying something urgently over and over, but she couldn’t make it out. She was about to look toward Becca away from the spectacular sight of the magic strands twisting themselves together, when the two strands were joined in the air by Becca’s power, tinted gold but pulsing with a warm lavender, adding the third part of the braid.

  The tenor of the storm changed, responding to the power emanating from the three girls below it. The clouds were hanging lower, changing from gray to a deep red black. They were swirling in a circular motion, tightening in on themselves. The rain bit and stung as it hurtled down on them and Alex realized that it wasn’t just rain but hail—tiny pieces of ice beating down on their faces and bodies. It felt violent. And lurking behind that violence was an edge, the recognition that this wasn’t a natural weather pattern. It was as if the storm had lifted its mask and let them see the dark magic that was fueling it.

  The girls tried to ignore the storm’s changes and focus instead on the bands of magic they were weaving together into a thick braid above their heads. It was growing bigger and brighter, each strand adding to the next. The braid hung heavy and laden with power, holding strong against the wind that buffeted it.

  “See if we can send it against the storm,” Lilia said without taking her eyes off the mass of power over their heads. Alex didn’t reply, but concentrated on moving her portion of the magical braid. She could feel Lilia and Becca doing the same, and the vibration of the streams of magic coming from them changed, humming and snapping as the coils of braid gathered themselves together.

  “We three send you against the storm. We declare our power to be stronger than this rain that has no place here. Return to where you came from. Be gone!” Lilia shouted.

  At her words the braid exploded into a bright fire. The green, lavender and white of their individual streams of power were consumed, and the new brightly burning tower in front of them was sparkling and multi-faceted, reflecting those colors and yet somehow its own unique shade.

  The burning mass of power—Alex comprehended now that it had responded to Lilia’s words and had moved from being unformed magic into a spell—towered in fron
t of them. It was still growing, wrapping more and more tightly in on itself as the top extended, like an inverted funnel cloud, stretching itself toward the darkening sky.

  When the tip of their spell reached the lowest hanging clouds there was a huge rush of wind and power as the two spells collided. The energy unleashed from the collision crashed back down on the girls with a deafening force. Alex had been caught in the undertow of a huge wave once when she was younger, the dark force of the ocean pushing her into the sand, pulling at her from all sides until she wasn’t sure which way was up or down. The push back from the collision of the spells produced a similar sensation, overwhelming, disorienting, not only on an elemental level but on a physical one as well, pressing the girls onto their knees in the mud. It pulsed over them, in waves of dark energy. They could feel their spell still gathering power as they managed to keep their hands linked even against the magical onslaught.

  As Alex looked up at their spell, sparking and writhing like a living thing as it pushed through the clouds, she was able to see the spell holding Briar Rose’s storm. To see how it had been woven together, and where it had frayed at the edges and at places where it folded back on itself. It looked, she thought, like a rug that had been used for too many years. The spots where it’d been worn down and tattered from pressure were becoming obvious. And it was at these places that their spell was attacking it, wearing it down further, exerting pressure on the worn threads of her spell. It was going to snap. Alex was sure of it. Maybe only a thread at a time, or a patch here and there, but if they could keep up the pressure, their spell would eventually unravel the older, weaker, one.

  Alex began to feel a stirring of hope in her chest. They could do this. The power that they were pumping into their spell wasn’t taking much out of them. Although they’d been driven to their knees by the backlash of the two spells meeting, their spell hadn’t dimmed. The inverted funnel of their power was gleaming and twisting and growing with their combined force.

  “Do you think you can challenge me?” The voice, dark and menacing, reverberated out of the clouds and across the field. Becca and Alex tightened their grip on Lilia’s hands and all three looked uneasily at each other.

  “Do you think my ancient power will break when faced with the paltry offerings of three little girls?” the voice asked. The deep red and black clouds were swirling faster and faster, stretching down as if to touch the earth.

  Briar Rose was standing across the field in front of them.

  She was extremely tall. Her flowing blond hair was much like Lilia’s, but her face was fierce, the contours of her features cut sharply, as if out of glass. Power radiated out of her, shimmering along the edges of her dark red cloak. She was there, but somehow not quite all the way, like an image from an old movie projector, insubstantial and flickering.

  Alex heard the sharp intakes of breath from both of the other girls. She wasn’t sure she had taken or let out a breath since Briar Rose appeared. The air burned in her lungs, begging for release, but her mind was working too hard to maintain the power of her strand of the spell to worry about sending messages to her lungs.

  All of a sudden, the hail stopped, and the wind from the storm quieted. As Alex finally gasped out a breath she looked up at the sky and saw that the dark clouds were quickly dissipating. The dark red tinted power holding together Briar Rose’s storm seemed to fall out the sky and gather behind her, amassing itself at the back of her flapping cloak like a waiting army. Whatever hope Alex had been harboring a few minutes before was replaced with fear. It settled in the middle of her chest and spread throughout her body like a numbing drug.

  Briar Rose let out a laugh. It cut through the field like a scythe, cruel and punishing. “Is this how the daughter of a queen fights her battles? On her knees in the mud?”

  Beside her, Alex felt Lilia starting to struggle to her feet. For some reason Alex was sure this was a bad idea, but the drugging effect of her fear had slowed down her brain. She couldn’t quite figure out why it was a bad idea, or how to form the words to tell Lilia. Before she could reason it out in her sluggish mind, she felt Becca tugging Lilia back down from the other side.

  “Stop. She’s taunting you. We have to stay joined together,” Becca whispered fiercely. “If we get up, we get up together.” Lilia sank back down to her knees, her fingers twisting tighter around their hands.

  “So you will not stand to fight me?” Briar Rose mocked. “You will let this little mortal give you instruction? You may be only demi-fae, but I would think you had more pride than to ally with such pitiful humans.” She shrugged, her slim shoulders rising and falling under her dark cloak, and the magic behind her writhed to life. Gathering in on itself. Waiting to attack. “It is of no matter to me; you shall die alongside them, then.” Her voice sounded bored, as if she was discussing a mundane household matter.

  It was that tone of voice that finally snapped Alex out of her fear. She tightened her right hand around Elanthe. Pathetic human on her knees in the mud in front of an evil and obviously very powerful fae she might be, but Briar Rose was forgetting the towering multi-faceted cloud of magical power the three of them were still holding together with their joined hands. Or was she? As the fear drained out of Alex’s mind, replaced once again with the bright, cool clarity of the diamond’s energy, she knew that Briar Rose hadn’t forgotten about the mass of power. She was hoping to distract them from it.

  Their spell hung in the air. It no longer had another spell to fight so it was pulsing, looking for an outlet. The loops of the braid were loosening, expanding, searching.

  Briar Rose said something sharp and malevolent sounding in Fae, and the gathered power behind her took on shape. Huge coils of vines twisted out towards the girls, moving so quickly they appeared to curl in on each other as they raced across the field.

  “Pull down our spell! Pull it down now!” Alex shrieked. She focused every piece of herself on the sparkling braid of their magic, commanding it with all her strength to come down to them. She knew the second that Lilia and Becca joined her. The coils stopped their idle movement, stuttered for a moment, then dropped like a rock to the ground, surrounding the three girls and tightening in a protective circle. Alex could see through the shimmering magic in front of her…it was like seeing through the heat waves off of the pavement in the height of summer. Everything was slightly distorted, but she felt that if she could just tip her head the right way or squint just enough the distortion would resolve itself. Except that Alex didn’t want this distortion to resolve. She emptied as much of herself as she could out through their joined hands and into the spell.

  “Protect us,” commanded Lilia. Alex added her own voice, chanting “protect us, protect us” under her breath. She could hear Becca chanting the same thing, although she was tagging on a desperate “oh please, please.”

  The braids in front of them coalesced, becoming more than just a distortion. A solid yet translucent wall stood at least eight feet high in front of them. It was streaked with colors—green, lavender-gold, and brilliant white, as the strands of their individual powers rushed through the spell. Alex knew if she reached out and touched it she would be able to feel it. Please hold, she thought frantically as Briar Rose’s vines reached the wall. The vines recoiled for a moment, surprised by this obstruction, then began to writhe up the walls. They were able to reach about halfway up the wall then, abruptly, they stopped in their tracks. Not only did they stop, but the vines that were twined against the wall began to wither and die. More vines tried to take their place, growing up and over their fallen comrades, but these too began to turn brown and brittle.

  Alex could see the look of surprise flit across Briar Rose’s face all the way across the field, and a thrill shot through her. The fae must not have expected such resistance from a demi-fae and a couple of pathetic humans. Sobering, Alex recognized that resisting was one thing, but getting out of the situation was going to require more knowledge and power than they had at their disposal. Sh
e wasn’t sure how long their wall would hold against Briar Rose, but she knew it wouldn’t be long enough.

  “We need help,” Becca said softly, giving voice to Alex’s thoughts. “We need it soon.”

  Lilia nodded her head in agreement, not taking her eyes off of their protective spell. “She is not sending her full power against us, but I am sure she will.”

  “The three sisters, your aunts. If Briar Rose is still around, then they must be too. Is there any way to call them?” Becca asked.

  “We could try,” Lilia said sounding unsure. “I do not know how much power it will divert from our spell.”

  “I’m more concerned with getting out of here; we should focus our power on that.” Alex said.

  “I have no idea how to get out of here, do you?” Becca asked. “Let’s at least try calling for the sisters.”

  “Fine,” Alex snapped. “But if it starts weakening this wall, we stop immediately.”

  Lilia unfocused her eyes again and began to speak softly in Fae. Alex felt tendrils of her own power being drawn into the new spell that Lilia was weaving, but she could tell the wall was still holding strong against the climbing vines, so she allowed the power to seep out of her.

  The new spell appeared in front of them, lit with the individual colors of their magic, and Alex could hear Becca chanting the names of the three sisters—Bryony, Violet, Saffron. As she watched the spell begin to take on mass and shape, Alex contemplated briefly that Lyssia’s sister Viola must have been named after her aunt. She wondered if Lilia’s sisters had been blessed on their christening day too, and what Briar Rose had thought of it. Or maybe they hadn’t been and that’s why they stayed safe from a similar curse. Maybe they’d just been treated as plain, ordinary, pathetic humans—keeping them safe from her notice. It was funny, Alex thought, dividing her attention even further from the two spells, that she and Lyssia both had the same flower at their command, at least in dreams. She remembered that Lilia had said that her mother’s flower had also been a lily…