by Dana Piazzi
Cohen’s love for Aldaina grew until he didn’t want to be away from her any longer. He held her face close to his. “There will come a time when I can be with you always, but we must be patient.”
Aldaina smiled. “My heart is yours forever.”
“You are the love of my life, beautiful fairy. How is it that you say I love you again in your ancient language?”
She kissed him gently. “Unga mey a oto.”
“Teach me everything so that I can talk to you with the beauty of your ancestors.” Cohen spoke softly.
Their afternoon meetings became a time of teaching and learning. Cohen was a brilliant student of language and began speaking the ancient fairy language in no time.
But one beautiful spring day, Cohen didn’t come to meet her at the tree. Aldaina waited until after the sun had moved down behind the trees. Her eyes grew tired, and she leaned against the tree. She felt herself sink slightly into the bark and she knew the tree was comforting her. Sleep overcame her quickly, and the night moved on.
“Aldaina, wake up.” Cohen’s voice filled her spirit. She woke instantly.
“I must have fallen asleep waiting for you,” Aldaina whispered.
“Forgive me, my love. I have sad news. My mother slipped into eternity yesterday. My heart was broken as I watched my father hold her hand as she drew her last breath. We bury her today, so I mustn’t stay long. I wanted you to know so that you would not worry about my not coming. I’ll spend the day with my father and then I shall see you tomorrow.”
“Will you bury her in the woods as she requested?”
Cohen smiled weakly. “With a crown of flowers. She was a fairy at heart.”
“Then I shall command the woods to breathe in the spirit of her heart. She will forever be a part of this place, and forever a part of me,” Aldaina whispered. “Go to your father, and worry not over me. My love goes with you.” Aldaina kissed him gently on the cheek.
“Your love will carry me through this heartbreak.” Cohen kissed her hand and turned to mount his horse. “Kieta simboso,” Cohen said and smiled at her.
“I shall dream of you, too, for in our dreams we are never apart.” Aldaina waved her hand and leaves from the tree flew and encircled Cohen.
“Amazing woman.” Cohen smiled.
The day seemed to last forever, and Aldaina only thought of how hard it must be to bury a loved one. Her family never died; they simply became a part of what gave them strength. Her father became the water and her mother, the wind. The beauty of each dwells with her, and her power extends in each. She feels them near and knows that they will never leave her. Just as she will pass through to the trees when it’s time to move on and give her place as queen to her daughter.
As promised, Cohen came to her the following afternoon. He rode in slowly with his shoulders drooped in weariness. Sliding off his horse, he ran to Aldaina and held her tight. No words were needed. She held him in silence, allowing him to feel every emotion running through her.
“I have to tell you something dreadful, and please don’t interrupt me until I’m finished,” he said. Aldaina nodded as he continued. “My father is from across the mountains. All of our extended family is there. It’s not that he’s close to any of them, but with my mother gone, he has lost hope. I thought being here would give him a greater sense of belonging, but it has only made him feel out of place. He longs for the old country and the old ways. He has never asked me for anything. Never. He has always done for my mother and for me, sacrificing all that he had to make our lives better. With his brokenness, he came to me and took my hand in his. He knelt by my cot with tears streaming down his ragged, worn cheeks and asked if he could just go to his homeland. He has asked me to stay with him.” Cohen paused as tears welled up in his eyes. He squeezed Aldaina’s hand. “I can’t refuse him. I’m all he has. I don’t know if I will be able to return for a long while. I won’t stop loving you, Aldaina. I won’t, but I can’t stay. Perhaps someday I can return to you, but I’ll not ask you to wait for me.”
Aldaina snatched her hand from him. “Wait for you? You won’t ask me to wait for you? How dare you say such words to me? How could I love anyone else when my heart knows only you? There won’t be another.”
Cohen took her hand in his again. “I don’t know how to leave you when my heart is locked so tightly to yours and to this place. I feel as if the life is slipping from me.”
“We must suffer broken hearts until our paths cross again,” Aldaina said as she gave in to the tears. She hurried to retrieve the bottle from her pouch to collect them.
Cohen breathed deeply. “I don’t want you to suffer. I don’t want to live in resentment toward my father for taking me away from you. I don’t want you to grieve over me. And, that’s why I’m going to ask something of you. Our kiss. Our first kiss was one of magic. This I know from legends. If you can grant me my heart’s desire, then I shall ask it of you.” Aldaina dared not speak. She looked at him without wavering. He continued, “I want you to take the sorrow from our hearts. Take our love and suspend it in magic so that we will not have to endure the pain of saying goodbye.”
Aldaina kissed him on the cheek. “Anything for you.”
Cohen embraced her quickly. “You are my one true love, Aldaina, and my heart won’t forget you. I’ll return someday, I promise you. But for now, I know living without the pain of you is the only way I can survive being absent from you.”
Aldaina waved her hand around him, and he felt a surge blow through him. His heart tightened, and he dropped to his knees. The pain in his heart felt as it might explode within him. Then, with one deep breath, the pain was gone. He stood and took the reins of his horse, mounting quickly. He looked back only once and, with a quickened pace from his steed, he disappeared into the woods.
Aldaina could not tell him that her magic would not work on herself. So, even though he would not endure the suffering of losing her, she would feel it with each breath, with each tear, and with each moment that her traitorous heart beat within her. Tears could not be stopped, but she made sure that each was caught in the bottle within her pouch. Her tears were too precious to waste, and she knew what she would do with the abundance she was collecting.
The morning light filled her room, and she rose quickly. Making her way to her tree, once a place of happiness and hope, she found herself full of hate and anger. The tears in her bottle had solidified into the magical ointment. She dug a hole at the base of the tree, poured the ointment from the bottle to fill the hole and then covered it quickly. A shudder ran through her, and the tree trembled. It swayed without the force of the wind, and moaned beside her. The tree accepted her pain and, for a brief moment, she didn’t feel so alone.
The others tried to make her happy, but no matter what they did, her heart seemed to find no healing. Each night she cried in the moonlight at her window, catching each tear. Through the night, the tears in her bottle solidified into the powerful ointment, and each morning she buried the ointment from her tears at the base of the tree. As time passed, she noticed a change in the tree. The growth was continual, but the bark was turning black. It looked as if someone had taken great care to paint each curve and crook as black as the ashes in fire. The other fairies worried silently about their beautiful queen. She spoke to no one, she no longer sang in the garden, and the air around her was thick with sorrow.
One restless morning, Aldaina rose with the sun and carried her pouch to the black tree. Grief overcame her as she dug, and she cried out loud. Not bothering to catch her tears, she wrapped her arms around the trunk of the darkened tree and allowed her tears to flow down her cheeks without care. Drop by drop, they fell onto the bark of the tree, and overhead large, brilliant white blooms sprang forth from every branch. The aroma of the blossoms brought Aldaina from her tears. Looking up, she gasped. The air was filled with the sweet perfume of the white flowers. The scent filled her lungs, and from within, she felt a surge of power flow throughout her body. The flowers wer
e her magic, her sorrow in beauty, her brokenness in bloom.
One of the wood fairies was flying by and stopped in front of the tree. “My queen, your tree. It’s breathtaking.” The small fairy breathed in, and her wings glistened and grew larger. She gasped. “What’s happening to me?”
Aldaina stood. “My power is in the aroma of the flowers. It gives you more of who you are.”
“May I tell the others?” the wood fairy asked quietly.
“I think they would enjoy the news.” Aldaina smiled. “Tell them to come see the beauty of the Ember Bark Tree.”
The wood fairy flew quickly away. The others came, and then more made their way to her tree throughout the day. Aldaina stayed close to the tree, enjoying the company of those that she had neglected in her sorrow. Creatures throughout the forest heard of the beauty and power of Aldaina’s tree. Her sorrow was replaced with a deep anger for Cohen. She hated herself for loving him. A man. A man never to be a part of her world. How foolish she had been! How utterly careless it was to give her heart to a human! He took her heart with him the day he turned his back and left.
Day after day, creatures from the depths of the forest came to view the Ember Bark Tree and breathe in the power of the queen. However, the anger of her heart began to poison the roots of the tree. The roots ran deep and wide, poisoning the ground. And for the first time, forest briars and thick brush began to create a barrier around her garden. Aldaina’s castle became secluded, and she shared her heart with only the fairies of her land.
Years passed and, being secluded, the fairies were believed to have moved on and disappeared. Many magical creatures of the forest moved to find sanctuary in a different land. They no longer had a queen to protect them, and the rise of man in the far north caused them great danger. The fairies moved deep beyond the castle into the woods far south. They never moved beyond the briars and thicket. Their loyalty remained with the queen. She gave them a beautiful home, but her heart was hollow. She stayed close to the Ember Bark Tree in the light of the sun. At the base of the blackened tree was the only place that she felt she could exist.
In the dark of the new moon, late in the hour of the night, a band of thieves passed through the woods. They came upon the edge of the briars and saw the Ember Bark Tree. Cutting their way through the dangerous thicket, they knew the tree must be that which was spoken in the myths that they had heard in the town just to the north.
Once they reached the tree, they began stripping the vines and cutting away pieces of the bark. They took all the flowers from every branch they could reach and stuffed them in their bags.
“Can you imagine the price these precious blooms will get in the market? The legendary Ember Bark Tree blooms. Magic, they say. One just needs to breathe it in, is what I’ve heard,” one thief whispered.
“If the tree be real, mind you, then the fairies must be near. They are a troublesome lot, full of mischief. We best hurry, lest we fall victim to their trickery,” the other thief said, yanking a vine from the lower branch.
Aldaina sat up in bed covered in sweat. Pain shot from one side of her body and seemed to rip through her arms. From her window, she saw movement in the far end of her garden. Her tree. Something was happening to her tree.
Quickly, she ran out the castle doors and straight across the wide open garden. She saw the five men standing beneath the tree, ripping the beauty from it. Anger welled up inside her, and the ground began to rumble. Large roots shot up from the ground and grabbed each infidel, and the screams of the men echoed through the forest. Aldaina seethed in anger, and the roots tightened around each man, pulling him into the ground. She watched as the lumps in the ground disappeared, and then smoothed over, leaving no trace of the thieves.
Her heart beat wildly, and she watched as the white blooms that covered her tree turned a deep crimson from the blood of the intruders in her land. Walking slowly to the tree and touching its damaged bark, she felt the pain of a thousand lifetimes. Taking the ointment from her pouch, she rubbed it on the cut places of her tree. Instantly, the bark smoothed over and rippled under her hand.
Aldaina took a crimson bloom from the tree, which bore black seeds, and buried it on the other side of the garden with the rest of the ointment that remained in the pouch. Up from the ground snaked a dark vine. By morning, a new tree had taken shape. At the beginning of each day, she buried a crimson bloom, and a new tree began to grow until her castle was surrounded by an orchard of darkness. The smell of the beautiful white blooms filled the air, and standing out in the clearing, the queen would breathe in their magic and could feel herself grow younger. Soreness left her, pain ceased, sadness melted away. The white blooms gave her the power to release the hurt of her brokenness and continue on in her day to rule over those that were counting on her.
Only, her tree still bore the crimson blooms, and under her tree was where she sought sanctuary. She slept there many nights, never fearing outsiders. But her comfort deceived her, for one night, as she slept, a greedy bunch of trolls were scavenging through the forest. Trolls from the east were a ravenous lot. They pillaged the forests and stripped the land without ever giving back. One of the trolls noticed the queen sleeping beneath the tree. So, he crawled quietly through the briars, never flinching in pain, for the skin of a troll can tear and cut without much notice. He stood up beside the queen and motioned for the others to follow. When they had surrounded her, one of the trolls grabbed her arm and put his hand over her mouth. The others grabbed her arms and legs. She woke with a start, and, seeing her captors, she knew there was no escape. She couldn’t call for help and could not summon the magic of the tree. She was their prisoner.
One of the trolls spoke quietly. “She’s the queen, she is! Aye, we will take her to the king! He’ll reward us greatly for a fine lot as she!” The troll licked the side of her face. “Or we could keep her!”
“I don’t want to keep her. She’ll kill us all,” one of the others whispered. “This is a Sidhe. She has magic beyond what we’ve ever seen. I’m afraid of her, I am! I’ll not be dying tonight. Take her to the king, I say! That’s the only way.”
The others nodded in agreement and made their long journey home. They carried her with her mouth covered, for fear of her calling down the other fairies to torture them.
On their arrival to their land, the king of the trolls was called forth. He stepped close to Aldaina. “Your majesty, welcome. You’ll be staying with us from now on, so don’t make this harder than it has to be.” He turned to the others. “Take her to my dungeon. She should be harmless there.”
Aldaina was bound in chains and taken to a dark cavern. There, she was bound to the wall, and time began to pass. Each night she was brought to the open and made to dine with the trolls. The king ran his fingers through her hair. “One hundred years. That’s all I need from you.”
“You believe the tales of old?” Aldaina laughed.
The king grabbed her hair and pulled her face close to his. “One hundred years, and all your power is mine.”
The thought of the queen so near consumed the king of the trolls. One evening while she dined among them still in chains, the king stood up and demanded that everyone listen. “I have decided that I will take the queen of the fairies as my bride.”
A roar rose up from the crowd. Cheers and laughter made Aldaina’s skin prickle. The king stepped close to her. “Your beauty is fading, Aldaina. You are becoming one of us, and your kind would never accept you back. No one will ever believe you were once the beautiful Aldaina.”
That night in the darkness she touched her face and knew that what he said was true. She could feel that her face had twisted and her cheeks were fractured and bulking. As it is with trolls, to live among them for any length of time caused even the rarest of beauty to diminish. She could feel the power and magic within her also begin to fade, for they were the source of her beauty. Those around her were absorbing her strength. She could see it in the king and the trolls he kept close; the same tr
olls that captured her by her tree.
The king and his close followers came to her that night in the cavern. He spoke with a deep, scratching voice. “I know the stories of old and how one kiss from you will grant my heart’s desire. One wish. Whatever will I chose? Power? Gold? The rule of a thousand lands?” He walked around Aldaina. “With you as my bride and the kiss of a wedding, well, that kiss should be most powerful.”
Aldaina kept her head bowed and said in a low voice, “I can take you to a place of greater power. I can show you how to become the most beautiful creature of the land. All will worship you and fear your greatness if you but listen to me.”
At once, the king demanded that they be left alone, and then he turned to her. “Now, tell me of your secret place.”
Aldaina told the king her story. She told of her love of a human and about the tree. She told of the thieves and the planting of the crimson blossoms.
“There is enough power and magic in breathing in the aroma of the dark orchard to change all of your warriors into beautiful creatures. I will show you how, if only you can take me back to my home.”
“So you can call down your followers to kill us all,” the king said, laughing.
“On my honor as a queen, I’ll not utter one word, and you can take in all the magic of the trees. You may take as many blooms as you desire to plant ember bark trees in your own land. You’ll be the most powerful ruler of all, and you won’t need me. All you have to do is breathe in the magic of the blooms in the circle of ember bark trees.”
The king thought for a moment. “I will take from you the wish that you are to grant me, and I will go with you to your garden. And for that, I will leave you with your castle. You are your own prisoner there, and I won’t have you underfoot any longer. We leave at morning light.”
