The evil intruder hadn’t spoken in a while; instead he watched Elspeth’s body hanging in the air as it was slowly disrobed. The emperor had stopped begging for her to be spared, as he knew it would just serve to anger his opponent even more.
The evil being approached her body as he spoke. ‘Have I not convinced you to help me yet, child? Is your princess so precious to you that you would continue to suffer just to help her?’
‘I would rather die than help you!’ Elspeth spat back at him. ‘There is nothing you can do to make me change my mind!’
‘I will kill you, girl, trust me — but allow me to indulge myself first. It has been a long time for me, lying in wait, and I’m enjoying the display of innocent flesh.’ He turned to the crowd, cowering by their doors, and bellowed at them, ‘Who wants to see more?!’
As the emperor shouted ‘no!’ the vile being dragged his claw-like fingers through the air, his magic tearing the last of the maid’s dress to shreds and casting it aside.
Naked and shivering, Elspeth cried out loudly and tried to plead with him. ‘Please, just stop, I cannot help you anyway. I don’t know where the princess is, so I couldn’t tell you even if I wanted to! I’m of no use to you.’
‘You underestimate yourself, girl. You are far more useful to me than you think. You seem reluctant to help me though, so maybe you need some convincing?’
As the evil being’s black smoke swept away from her, Elspeth watched it snake around the courtyard, as if searching for something, before finally it flew at a figure in the dark and dragged them out into the open, dumping them at her feet.
Elspeth stared in horror as the face of this person was revealed to her, and she screamed at the stranger, ‘No, please don’t touch her! She is nothing to do with this.’
‘But she is your mother; I think she has everything to do with this.’ And the stranger laughed as he used his powers to squeeze the life from the woman.
‘Time is short, dear Elspeth. Your mother’s life or your help? The choice is yours.’
‘Don’t help him…’ her mother croaked, unable to speak as her throat tightened. She could barely breathe.
‘Stop, I beg you! Let my mother go and I’ll help you!’ Elspeth screamed, finally defeated by this dark power that seemed intent on destroying anything that stood in its way.
‘Elspeth, don’t…’ her mother managed to say before she was sent flying across the floor and back into the shadows.
‘You have chosen well, child. Now, there is one thing I need from you, and trust me, if you give it to me I will let your family live.’
‘What do you want?’ the maid asked, the tears flowing down her face.
‘Your body,’ the evil being said coldly, and with a flick of his hand he sent a stream of thick, dark smoke from within him, across the gap between them, and down her throat.
The emperor watched in terror as the smoke disappeared inside her, making her gag and choke, until she fell still and her head slumped forward.
‘You promised you wouldn’t kill her! What kind of sick creature are you?’ the emperor yelled.
‘I am what you all fear the most, Emperor. Those hidden desires every man holds deep down within him. I am what you are all too afraid to be: true power. Anyway, your daughter’s slave isn’t dead; go see for yourself.’ With this, the dark power released the emperor and let Elspeth drop to the ground at the same time.
The emperor ran over to the girl’s body and knelt next to her. ‘Elspeth, are you alright? I’m here, I won’t let him hurt you again,’ he said as he removed his robe and tried to cover her with it.
She sat bolt upright and stared at him, her eyes glowing an eerie shade of red, and she spoke with a gravelly tone. ‘I’m fine, Emperor, I don’t need to be protected from him — and he’s right… You should join with us and make the whole kingdom ours.’
‘You don’t know what you’re saying, child. This thing is pure evil and we need to get away from it.’ The emperor was shocked by her strange behaviour and moved back from her slightly.
‘You have nothing to fear, Emperor. I have been liberated, woken from my sleep, and I can help you.’ She shrugged the robe off her shoulders, letting him see her naked flesh, and moved closer to him. ‘It’s been a long time since your queen left us… You must get lonely… Maybe I can help you find some happiness again?’ She took his hand, placed it on her chest and leant in to kiss him.
‘What are you doing?’ he said in alarm, pushing her away and scrambling to his feet. He turned to the evil being, shaking with anger. ‘What have you done to her? Who is this monstrosity you’ve put before me?’
‘I told you I wouldn’t kill her, Emperor. But I also told you if she didn’t help me, I’d make her in my image.’ He laughed loudly. He turned to one of the guards and used his power to take his sword from his sheath and drop it at Elspeth’s feet. ‘I don’t think the emperor trusts your plans, child… Maybe you need to convince him.’
Elspeth picked up the sword and stood before the emperor, still naked. ‘Maybe I should make you my queen then, if you’re not man enough to take me?’ she sneered, before turning the sword so it was pointing towards her own face.
The emperor panicked and looked towards the cruel stranger again. ‘You said you wouldn’t hurt her, please just stop this!’
‘I won’t hurt her… It’s what she’ll do to herself that you need to worry about now.’
When the evil being had finished speaking, the emperor turned back to Elspeth to find she had pressed the tip of the sword so heavily against her skin that a small bead of blood had appeared.
‘Are you sure you don’t want me, Emperor?’ she taunted him. ‘Shall I destroy myself instead?’
‘Elspeth, please stop, I’ll do whatever I can to protect you. Just put the sword down and we can talk.’ He knew he was running out of chances to stop her from hurting herself.
‘The choice is yours, Emperor: accept me as your new queen, or I might as well end myself now.’ The question hung in the air. Suddenly, the emperor was powerless to help as Elspeth drew the sword slowly down her cheek.
CHAPTER 27
When Black Wolf returned to the others by the fire, he noticed Tallulah was back in the shadows, sitting quietly and avoiding eye contact with him. Luna was cooking food but Grey Moon had got more out of his bag for his tribe to eat. He’d explained to the others quietly that no humans should ever eat faery food, as the magic they possess seeps into the food itself when they prepare it, leaving the person unable to survive on anything other than faery food once they’ve sampled it.
‘I see the knowledge of our charms, as well as our food, is known to you,’ Luna said to him cheekily.
‘I mean you no offence, I promise,’ Grey Moon replied, placing their food separately on the fire. ‘But we cannot afford to be trapped in your presence, no matter how beautiful you or your home are.’
‘I understand, Grey Moon; we will be on our best behaviour, I promise.’ Luna winked at him, smiling, as she handed out her food to the faeries.
As they sat eating, Grey Moon and Amelia told their hosts everything about the troubles at Orgent and how the roots of this problem stretched back a long way into the past. The faeries listened to every word with furrowed brows, trying to understand the madness going on in the world around them. When they had finished the story, Ember was the first to speak.
‘I sensed that something had changed in the world around us, but I never realised how serious it was. We are in a world of our own making here. How can we be of any use to you?’ she questioned, feeling confused.
Grey Moon spoke to Ember but looked curiously at all of the faeries, trying to work out which one he might need. ‘As I said, our Great Mother split the power four ways and we have discovered three of these powers. They all match the elements with their own individual, hidden talents, and we have come here in search of the fourth power. Once we find it, we can go and save Orgent and restore natural order to all of the lands.’
‘Do you know which of us the chosen one is?’ Tallulah said quietly, looking up nervously at Black Wolf.
Black Wolf reached into his sack and passed the box to Grey Moon. The fourth light was glowing bright green and it confirmed to him that they were definitely in the presence of the final power they needed.
‘We can find out easily enough if the four of you will allow me to perform one of my people’s ancient rituals,’ Grey Moon replied, getting more of his paste and herbs out from his sack, ready to get the answer.
The faeries all looked towards Luna and she nodded in agreement. ‘We trust you, and our Great Mother wouldn’t have allowed you here otherwise, so we will do what you need and let her magic reveal the answer,’ she said to him.
‘Thank you, Luna. It won’t take long and I promise it is safe.’ Grey Moon dabbed the paste on all four of the faeries’ foreheads and threw a heap of herbs into the fire.
Everyone sat around the fire waiting for something to happen; the faeries all looked nervously at each other — then Tallulah slumped to the floor. Aira moved towards her to help, but Luna grabbed her arm. ‘It’s okay — leave her and she’ll return when she’s ready, I promise.’
They all watched as Tallulah’s body twitched slightly, as if she was dreaming, and they knew she was on a strange journey that only she could reveal once she was awake again.
Eventually she woke, her eyes wide and staring, before scrambling to her feet and fleeing into the woods.
‘Tallulah!’ Ember called after her, but she was already gone.
‘I’ll go and talk to her — you wait here,’ Black Wolf said hastily, and he headed off after her.
When he caught up with her, she was sitting at the base of the tree overlooking the Lake of Essence. Black Wolf kept his distance, not wanting to scare her. ‘Tallulah, are you okay? Did you want to talk about it?’
She looked up at him, her eyes full of sorrow, ‘Do you know what this tree is?’ she said.
‘No, I know very little of your world,’ he replied, feeling lost in his surroundings.
‘This is the wolf tree and it is said to hold a very sacred power. Its lifeblood is taken directly from the Lake of Essence. For as long as I can remember, I have sat here alone, feeling like something was missing from my life and always longing to know why. Now I know why this place has always meant so much to me and why I’ve always felt saddened by its name. I was the one waiting for a wolf, and now he is here.’
‘Is it really you, my child?’ Black Wolf asked nervously, unable to believe what he hoped was true.
‘It is,’ she said. ‘I saw it all in the visions. I love my faery family and always will, but I longed for more, for something I never even knew existed until now.’
Black Wolf fought back the emotions rising in him as he spoke again. ‘What is it you longed for, Tallulah?’
‘You,’ she said. She then uttered two words that both broke and fixed his heart with equal measure. ‘My father.’ As she spoke those words, she ran towards him and threw herself against his body, sobbing loudly.
‘Hush now, it’s okay, my child, I’m here. I won’t leave you again, I promise.’ He pulled her closer into him and softly kissed the top of her hair, inhaling her beautiful scent.
‘Then it’s true?’ she asked. ‘I’m the chosen one you all spoke of? I’ll be going with you to Orgent?’ Her tears had started to subside, replaced instead by typically infectious faery excitement.
‘Yes, child, you are the one. You need to speak to Grey Moon and your family, though, then we can start planning.’
‘I’ll go speak to them now. I’ll see you back at the fire,’ Tallulah said, suddenly full of energy, before kissing him on the cheek and bouncing off back to the others, leaving a bemused Black Wolf stood alone, looking into the lake.
‘Is that her?’ Amelia’s voice broke the silence and she stepped quietly out of the woods and joined him.
‘Yes, Princess, she’s the one,’ he said, a solitary tear rolling down his cheek.
‘Our daughter…’ Amelia whispered, amazed at how much those two words made her feel.
‘But she’s not though, is she?’ Black Wolf said furiously. ‘And there is no us — it has all gone and we cannot get it back. Time has moved on but we are all stuck, frozen in time and aching with loss.’ The tears came hard now as he pulled his knife from his pocket and cut his hand open. ‘This is real — here and now. The blood, the pain… Everything else is just a ghost of another age.’ He threw the knife in anger and it stuck deep in the base of the wolf tree, where Tallulah had been sitting.
Amelia stepped closer to him. ‘Remember what Grey Moon said? Sometimes you can live in each other’s hearts for a lifetime and it still takes time for the souls to recognise each other when you meet as strangers. We don’t need to chase ghosts; it’s what we feel now that matters.’ She took his injured hand and tried to stop the blood flowing from it by ripping a part of her dress off and soaking it in the lake.
‘When I look at you, I feel alive, Princess. Every part of me wants to be with you, but how can I tell if it’s real or not?’ He wiped the tears away and his eyes burned into hers.
‘Is this real?’ she said, stroking his face. ‘Or this…’ She leant towards him, kissing him passionately, their body heat combining as they were lost in a moment that had been building for a lifetime. Together they knelt down, hungrily reaching for each other, unaware that the mystical lights around them faded before eventually disappearing, leaving them together in the dark with just their combined silhouette reflecting off of the moonlit lake.
***
Back at the campfire, Tallulah had returned and told the others what she’d seen; they’d barely been able to get a word in as she’d babbled excitedly at them all.
Luna looked concerned as she finally got the chance to speak. ‘But you know nothing of the outside world, Tallulah — none of us do. This all sounds very dangerous and I cannot accept you leaving here. You could get hurt!’
‘But we all saw the vision of what will happen if this power isn’t stopped. The forests will be destroyed and we’d all die anyway.’ Tallulah was desperate not to miss her chance for an adventure, even if it was dangerous.
After a long, thoughtful pause, Ember spoke. ‘She’s right, Luna, and we’ve always felt like she wasn’t truly happy or fulfilling her potential here. I think we need to let her go and pray that this works, for all our sakes.’
‘You have my word that I’ll protect her in every way I can and this really is our only chance of any of us surviving,’ Grey Moon chipped in. ‘Once we have defeated the evil, Tallulah will be free to do what she wishes.’
‘Please, Luna, it’s my destiny, I’m sure it is,’ said Tallulah.
Realising that this wasn’t an argument she could win, Luna finally bowed backed down and nodded.
Tallulah squealed in excitement and hugged Luna. ‘Thank you, Luna. I’ll be fine, I know I will. I have Black Wolf and Grey Moon to protect me, and Lone Wolf too of course — he’s a brave warrior,’ she said, looking at Lone Wolf and realising he needed to know how important he was.
‘It’s an honour, Tallulah — it always was,’ Lone Wolf said to her, smiling.
‘We are all agreed then,’ said Grey Moon. ‘We leave for Orgent at first light.’
By the lake, the twinkling lights were back, and Black Wolf and Amelia were lying together by the lake, smiling for the first time since they’d met.
He spoke gently in her ear. ‘As much as I want to stay here, I guess we need to get back to the others.’
‘I know… We’d better find them before they come and find us.’ She giggled and made sure her dress was intact before getting to her feet.
As she brushed the leaves from her dress, Black Wolf walked over to the tree and pulled the knife out. As he did so, the cut on his hand healed itself before his eyes. ‘This place is very strange,’ he said, showing Amelia his hand. As he did so, he noticed blood running down he
r cheek. ‘You’re bleeding, Princess! What happened?’
As he moved towards her, she slumped to the floor, murmuring, ‘Elspeth…’
Panicking, Black Wolf threw her over his shoulder and carried her back to the others, where he laid her down by the fire and dabbed her face with a wet cloth.
‘There’s no cut, Grey Moon. Where did all the blood come from?’
Grey Moon held some strong scented herbs under her nose and she woke up immediately, looking dazed but unhurt. ‘What happened, Princess?’
‘I don’t know… I saw Elspeth’s face — she’s my maid — and then I felt like I was choking and I had blood on me. It was really frightening. I felt so cold.’
Grey Moon looked serious as he spoke. ‘All of the four have individual powers, Princess. You are air and your power is empathy. I fear you are getting feelings from your home.’
‘What can we do?’ Amelia asked, apprehension growing within her.
‘Nothing yet, my child, but it means we don’t have long. We must rest and leave as soon as it is light. It will take us another day to gather our people and get to Orgent, but we cannot take longer than that.’
‘We have faery blankets you can use, and we’ll wake you early,’ Luna said to the group, and she headed off to fetch the bedding.
‘Don’t worry, Princess. Tomorrow we will save your people,’ Black Wolf said, lying next to her and holding her close.
‘Thank you, Black Wolf. You are a true warrior and I owe you everything. Can I ask that you do just one thing for me though?’ she asked, curling into him.
‘Anything you ask.’
‘Call me Amelia,’ she said, smiling to herself and holding his hands tightly around her waist.
The faeries moved off to their own sleeping areas, nestled deep in the hollow trunks of the larger trees, invisible to the naked eye — all except for Tallulah, who lay down close to Lone Wolf. ‘I need a brave warrior to keep me safe,’ she said to him, smiling shyly.
‘Again, it would be an honour,’ he replied. He stayed awake for a while, watching the lights around them fade.
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