Moon Flowers (Book 1 of the Flower Trilogy) #Wattys2016 #Featured

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - HALIA (Edited)

HALIA'S POV

"Phi is still alive," Aras told me, wishing to infuse my mind with hope. "Wotan has to keep her alive if he wants to marry her."

It wasn't enough "She is still alive," I said, "but in which state? Two moons have passed since the thralls took her away. And we still don't know what has become of her."

It's not like we'd sat there and waited for a sign of her well-being. Some air fairies had tried to fly near the fortress to get a glimpse of her, but a field protected the construction and made it impossible for them to get close enough to see inside.

"I need to see her," I told Aras from the bed I rarely left now. "It's unbearable."

Phi's absence had become a physical pain to me. We had never been separated for so long before. I needed to be with her, to know what had become of her.

I fully realized now that what I was feeling for Phi was much more than a simple friendship. It was much more. And it hurt most was to have realized that just when she had been taken away from me. Oh Mother!

"Come here," she said, drying my tears with her finger. "I'll brush your hair. You can't go on like this. You have to take care of yourself."

It's true I hadn't been eating well. I had lost any appetite. I obeyed and pulled myself closer to my godmother. Her touch was appeasing.

"I need to see her," I repeated.

"I know, child," she said, despite the fact I now looked older than her. "Tomorrow morning, we will go in a group to ask Wotan what has become of her. I don't promise we will get any answer, but we will try."

I didn't need to have the gift of sight to know that wouldn't work.

The next morning, after hours of incessant banging at the fortress's doors, they finally opened.

The thralls blocked the way in, their glowing eyes reflecting the emptiness of their minds. "No harm has been done to her," they said with empty voices.

They weren't their words. They were the Evil King's words. He was observing us through their eyes.

"I don't believe you," I said. "We want to see her!"

Useless morons. The thralls closed the doors in our faces.

I was boiling. I hated the king. Not only for what he had done to Phi and me, but also for what he was doing with the kingdom. He had destroyed the land, the nature, sucking the energy out of it.

He had already killed all the plants in the meadow where Flora and the pillywiggins lived. He had transformed it into a desolate place of dirt and crisp, dry grass.

"Isn't he a fairy too?" I asked my godmother once we were back to home, not remembering well Grannie's story about him. "Aren't fairies supposed to protect nature instead of taking from it?"

"He is not a fairy," Aras replied. "He is the son of a succubus and an incubus."

"But demons cannot have children," I said.

"That's true," replied Aras. "The succubus collected life from a human man she seduced and gave it to an incubus for him to forcibly impregnate a human woman."

"Against her will, I suppose," I said.

She nodded. "The human woman was married and could not know for sure if the child she carried was her husband's or a demon's. Since she feared judgements, the woman said nothing of what had happened to her, her rape. She believed that the love she would provide her child with, whether he was demon or human, would make him good."

"Clearly, she was wrong."

"Yes," she replied. "It was soon revealed that the child was evil and inclined to dark magic. Everything living he touched, plants or animal, died. He absorbed their life force. The woman still loved him and tried to protect him, but she was accused of being a witch. Even her husband rejected her. She was sentenced to be burned with her child. She died in the flames but the child was left untouched. That scared the people in his village and they decided to leave him in the woods to be eaten by wolves instead."

"And once again, he did not die," I said.

She shook her head. "He reunited with his succubus mother and with her help became king."

*

Every night, I wandered around the fortress, disobeying my godmother's direct wishes for the first time in my life. She wanted me to stay home. To keep an eye on me, just as she had done for hundreds of years. She had always been the Elder, and I the child. But I was not a child anymore. I ruptured that bond in favour of my feelings for Phi.

I surrounded myself with fireflies to enlighten my path – I asked Will to accompany me first, but he refused out of fear of being cut.

"Don't bring me into this," he said. "I want to be neutral. Or Wotan will just put me out!"

I thanked him and went on my way to tes the fortress's walls, trying to find a weak spot to penetrate. Oh, Phi, hold on, I'm coming.

I hadn't found one yet, but the search was the only thing that calmed me down anymore. The only thing that alleviated my sorrows and allowed me to eventually sleep.

"You're Halia, aren't you?" I heard a voice say one night. "Your red hair gave you away."

I jumped at the call of my name. I turned around only to see a hairy creature with small red eyes looking down at me. He was crouched at the top of a rampart.

"Fear not," he said. "I am Domovoy, also a friend of the princess."

I relaxed, and then my heart leapt.

"What happened to Phi? How is she?"

"She misses you and her freedom," he replied. He paused, pensive. "I can help you get into the castle to see her. But you won't be able to get out."

"How?" I asked.

"Simple," he said. "Knock at the door. I will meet you there." He disappeared behind the ramparts.

I jogged back towards the doors, leaving the fireflies behind when I stepped in the light of the torches above the barricade. I held my breath and knocked on one of the two heavy doors.

A thrall opened it for me. His eyes were empty. Another mindless servant of the king.

"Come in," Domovoy said from behind the thrall. I felt a weak resistance against my skin as I came through the doorway. A tingling sensation. "Follow me."

He led me through the empty roads of the fortress.

"Who lives here?" I asked when I saw the few houses, aligned perfectly along the way. "The thralls?"

"The thralls stay in the house we are heading to," Domovoy said in a soft voice. "Those other houses are inhabited by the rare humans that willingly serve the king."

"Humans?" I said. A thrill ran up my spine. "The thralls are humans?"

"They used to be," Domovoy replied. "Now don't say another word or you'll have us discovered. We're about to go into the Evil King's lair and we wouldn't want to be caught by him or his priest."

He led me towards the back of a house that looked just like the others, to a hole he had clearly dug.

"Apologies if it's a bit tight," he whispered. "I was not expecting guests."

I crawled in after him through the aperture. The room on the other side was dark and humid. A fire burned in the middle of the place.

My breath caught when I saw her.