Fairer Than Fae

Rescue from the Wild Spring

After only two days, the young knight had been melded into the roots of the ancient oak. When the giant tree had fallen sometime in ages past, instead of rotting, the Wild Spring had claimed it's corpse as a vessel for it's power. There were many such places in the Black Forest where the Wild Spring was born each year and spread throughout the continent. However, since the death of the Spring Queen twenty five years earlier, the Wild Spring had grown weak, sickly. It's creatures were feral and starving. 

The balance of nature had been thrown with the death of Goldtwist.  It was all the remaining three queens and their half-mortal charge could do to keep the peace. Belstone showed no interest in the matter and left it to them to remedy. 

Dove knelt beside the uprooted end of the oak and laid a gentle hand on the ragged bark, her violet hair draping her shoulders like a cloak. "He is well, I can sense his heartbeat. It is weak, but still there."

"The Spring will not like it's first blood of the season taken from it." Darkrose paced behind her, wringing her hands.

Dove gave a ghost of smile over her shoulder. "You have the Authority, the High Queens have bred it into you. You may not be queen yet in title, but the Wild Spring recognizes you. You've dwelt under it's eaves since you were a babe."

Darkrose bounced on the balls of her feet and drew a swift breath through her nose. Pulling back her veil, revealinv the crown of white blossoms that Meadowmoon had sewn into a braided ring around her head, she lifted her eyes towards the quivering canopy. Ever more merciful than her sisters, Meadowmoon had given Darkrose the incantation to release a captive of the Wild Spring. She had said it would be Darkrose's right to know every element of her future realm's magic. Leafwind and Foxfrost, though they rarely agreed, both felt that mortals entrapped by the Black Forest should remain there, no matter the cost. 

But she had never preformed such a rite. Whenever she practiced her arts in the Black Forest, she had Foxfrost at her shoulder, ready to correct any dangerous mistakes. What if she spoke the words wrong and he remained there, or if she harmed the oak tree or even the mortal inside it?

"Are you having second thoughts?" Dove asked.

Darkrose recalled how to knight hadn't screamed or cried out, even as he was being dragged into the earth. How concerned he had been for her well being and her mother's, throwing aside his weapon to help someone in need. No, it was not right for this youth to pay for the sins of his kingdom. 

Staring into the mess of roots, she lifted her hands and spoke the ancient phrase of release under her breath. Dirt trembled from the oak, the air around them stirring with confusion. Darkrose squared her shoulders and planted her bare feet firmly as she had seen the three Queens do to assert their authority. Again she spoke the words.

A flock of crows overhead rose up from their roost, cawing and flapping away into the grey, the bittersweet scent of the wood lifting in a damp breeze. The gaping trunk of the oak rocked to the side, it's roots trembling as their untangled themselves. The roots lifted, revealing a dark cocoon, the knight sleeping under a dusting of dead leaves. 

Darkrose's arms dropped, her hands shaking, as Dove reached into the concave. She lifted one of his limp hands. Silken tendrils of roots were wrapped around his wrist, embedded into the skin and feeding off of his veins. This was the hard part. 

"If these come off too quickly, you'll anger the Spring and kill him, he'll bleed to death," Dove spoke, brushing a pale strand of hair from the knight's sleeping face. "He has a kindness about him. Even when he sleeps."

Darkrose sat down beside the Vila and grasped the boy's wrist. "By the new soil and budding green within me, the authority of the blood of my people, I command you to release him." She spoke the final ancient words of the spell and the roots slithered away, leaving his wrists clean of wounds.