The Heirs

Chapter 20- The Never-ending Dead Forests

we wove a web in childhood
a web of sunny air
we dug a spring in infancy
of water pure and fair
we sowed in youth a mustard seed
we cut an almond rod
we are now grown up to riper age
are they withered in the sod ...
-

"Not Lantern Waste again!" Selene exploded, after Seraphina- stammering and stumbling through her entire account, with very little help from Pleion- was done speaking. She'd hastily grabbed a dupatta she'd demanded a cleaning maid bring to her, and had wrapped it around herself, concealing most of her face. Jem seeing her for those few seconds, had been horrifying enough, though he hadn't shirked away from her. But Seraphina- she wanted to protect her from all things bad and ugly, and now she was one of them. "Didn't it just get fixed!?"

"Two years ago, Sel." Jem said- the guilt in his throat had now bubbled to such a degree that even speaking was hard, he was close to choking on it. Grief over losing his mother had placed a veil on him, allowing to see only his own heart and mind, forsaking his loved ones and his country. But it was lifting now, slowly and surely, and he was disconsolate at how everything was. Seraphina should be concerned with her lady-loves, and training and books and her panther- not with running a country!
He really had been an awful big brother.

"Whatever!" She tossed the end of the dupatta over her shoulder, before crossing her arms. "It was fixed, is what I meant. What the fucking hell suddenly happened? Did some faun play some bad music on his flute?"

"We don't know." Seraphina ventured, sitting next to her sister, leaning against the headboard. "And it's not just Lantern Waste. Owlwood, too- and even here, in the palace, but Lantern Waste is the worst-hit. The Dancing Lawn is, for the time being, alright-"
But why weren't they worrying about the dragon? The matter of the woods was important, but- well- dragons! How could one think of anything else!?

"Wasn't there some fire in the Dancing Lawn fifteen years or so ago?" Jem queried, rubbing his nose. If that was the case, perhaps it would be fire and not decay which would claim that area. He hoped, selfishly, that it would not be affected. It had a little part of paradise, and he'd been privileged to see it. "I think it was somewhere there- I remembering Uncle Trinus saying something about it-"

"There was one." His youngest sister said, her voice curiously hoarse. "I- um- it's- it's the fire where Lys's birth parents died."

"Can you ask her about it?" Pleion, leaning against the door, asked. He wasn't sure why he was even included in this meeting, and he had no idea who this Lys was, but he was pretty sure no one could say no to the little Princess's dark, doe-like eyes. "Could it be related?"

"A small fire from fifteen years ago, and most of the woods decaying now?" She looked at him, frowning and her lips downturned. "Why would it be linked?"

"We can never rule out correlations." Selene said, biting what remained of her lip. She had remembered what Temissa had told her- darkness and fire, storms and ruins. What if this was what she had meant? Nature dying, dragons devouring, the castle crumbling, the world shattering. She had said she would not let that happen, and she had meant it with all her heart. "The Dancing Lawn is near Aslan's Table- maybe that's why it's still safe. The- decay, it might be slower there."

Jem looked to Seraphina, "Who exactly came to you with this news?"

"Oh- er- a Badger. He said that- his cluster had been killed and buried near Lantern Waste, and he'd been to visit their graves- and he saw the place grey and the plants wilted." She chewed at her nails, as she recalled the frantic visitor. "He was terrified, but he wanted to check other the other places, too. Owlwood- the owls were fleeing. The rivers, fish floated up, dead- he couldn't be sure, but he said he thought that the underwater vegetation had been wiped out. And then, as he was winding up his story, a fa-faun came in, and said that the Gardens were beginning to die. Then a dryad rushed in, saying the trees had stopped dancing in the woods."
Her voice had become quieter and quieter as she kept talking, but each word was as clear to the others, as though she had screamed it in their ears.