Mercy Your Majesty
DAPHNE
Veins snake across the ground, spawning from the single drop of blood planted by the axe's bevel into the earth. The land quakes beneath my feet, the rooted wall writhing and hissing ahead of me like wooden serpents come to life. They spit and sputter, spasming away from the trees, away from the protection of the tall, towering forest and its sharp bladelike thorns.
Three visible moons dance apart in the sky, each of them yielding a separate sort of glory. A variant shade of light. Yellowed silver, shimmering blue, opalescent lavender. Suddenly its as if I can feel their rays, as if their luminescence is soaking into my skin and infusing into my flesh.
My breaths begin to come in large swallows of air, my chest heaving as my eyes heat, as they widen and sharpen. Just in front of me, an emerald sparkle fuses with power, seeming to meet with the near visible reach of the closest trees, like fingertips of incorporeal beings that have longed to touch me for far too long.
It is as if I begin to float, as if my feet leave the ground and I hear a voice, clear as a bell, but no louder than a whisper.
“Finally you have come, so long have we waited. So dark has the day become that you have left us wanting. The poison grows thick beneath our roots, the false one’s grip too threaded through the soil to release. Surrender him and release us. Surrender him and free us all. Take your seat upon this throne my child, for the other is black with corruption. The other will poison your soul. Take your seat here and bear the mark.”
A loud cracking sounds between my ears, so ear splitting that I cannot help the scream that pierces the air, ripped from my very own lips. The ground before me splits wide open, the roots that once held invaders at bay, now twining and braiding, plaiting into a seat amidst the sway of the grass and flowers.
Stumbling forward, my boot catches on an upturned stone and I careen sideways, hands raised to break my fall that never comes. I land in the arms of the guard, his chest rising and falling with the erratic panting of breath. He nods to me, holding my arm and steadying my steps as I seat myself upon this dirt covered throne, dressed in naught but threads of sapling and shiny moss colored wood.
My back arches, the breath releasing from my lungs and catching, choking me, holding me hostage as one by one my fingers begin to glow, a swirl of green markings slithering across my flesh like eels in the river. They climb about my skin, stamping me with elegant scripture, glittering bright with emerald and gold. I feel the words heating my flesh and it burns so hotly all I want is for it to end, but it does not. The center of my chest bursts with white flame, my mouth falling open to scream into the sky. I’m vaguely aware of the shouts and commotion gathering around me, a circle of fae that dance about my makeshift pedestal. They spiral about me, singing a tune I’ve only ever heard in my dreams, dancing about with joined hands as they carol into the dark night sky.
Then just like that, in the space of an instant… everything stops and quiet falls again.
“The Queen has returned,” a wind’s whisper that all that have gathered about did hear, and with it, the twenty or so faeries of different shapes and sizes, different breeds of flesh. Winged beasts and pixies, proud wolves and shifted fawns, treelike nymphs and floran sprites, each of them kissing the ground. Each of them bowing before me, silent as the grave.
I do a double take, for the guard who once challenged me is no longer so intimidating, and all suspicion has bled from his features to join the rumbling beneath our feet.
The roots and thorns once roped about the grounds have begun to retreat, the trees shake, their leaves dancing as if in celebration. Tall flowers bow forward as if paying homage to me, as if honoring me, and suddenly the barricade has drawn in on itself, allowing Klyesque and Sylvan to gallop through the tunnel, breathless with swords drawn. It is then that the ground stops shuddering. It is then that peace and quiet starlight warm the air.
The guard's green eyes glow much like my own, sparkling and shimmering as he takes a knee. His voice this time is not nearly as growly as before and the light in his gnarled features brightens beneath the moonlight. "Mercy your Majesty," he says in the softest, sweetest of tones. "Mercy on me, for I did not know you when you first arrived. I know you now and I beg your forgiveness. The forest has spoken. The magic answers to your blood."
My breathing skitters as Sylvan and Klyesque ride up alongside us, with Trielle bringing up the rear. I nod toward the male guard before me and say, "There is nothing to forgive. It is not unjust that you ask for proof of my being. It is responsible. It is wise. And to be honest, it is just as new to me as it is to you. Please, stand and grant me your name, nymph."
"Lucas, your majesty. Lucas Tuerock. Son of Ambertan and Lydia Tuerock, whom served as your mother's gatekeepers until their deaths fifteen turns past."
"Oh! Oh my, I am sorry for your loss," I reply honestly, although I truly have no idea what it feels like to lose parents that you knew for fifteen turns. Parents you might have even been close with. All I know is that ache of those I've failed and echoes of ghosts and visions.
"We must hurry, Daphne," Klyesque whispers, eyeing Lucas warily. "The false one will have felt the garden's retreat. He will know something powerful has arrived here."
Lucas' eyebrows draw together, tight with apprehension. "The false one? As in his Majesty? King of the Meadow?" He looks to me, frowns, then hisses, “Is he not your father?”
Klyesque ignores his question, leaping from Delago's back to cast a cautious look around. "Where are the others?" she asks him. "Why are you the only guard here?"
A fawn shifts before me, her doe-like feet becoming the bare ten toed planters of common fae. Her short golden bob falls away to reveal large, dark eyes slightly tilted and entirely unchanged. She curtsies then faces Klyesque and says, "He took the entire army to the war table in the north. He left only the youngest behind.”
Klyesque’s eyes meet mine, worry flooding her gaze.
Sylvan asks, “And what of the oracle? What of the child blind?”
The fawn swallows thickly then whispers, “He took him as well.”