Winter's Child

Chapter Sixteen~The Return to the Palace

Elodie lowered her head as a small sob of grief escaped her. No, no this was too cruel. Not a child. Not Adele. North reached out and rested his fingers against the child's head, instantly renewing her healthy glow and her warm face. The king was powerful, but he could not raise the dead. It was impossible. The girl remained still.

Elodie's eyes flickered up to the king's once again, a pleading, begging look within them.

"North...please." The plead was a small whisper, desperate and tortured yet, delicate.

I'm sorry, my dear. It cannot be.

Countless tears rolled down Elodie's cheeks as she looked upon the face of the girl. She should be alive. She should only be sleeping. It was then that Elodie detected a gentle song in the air. A lullaby. The voices were soft and one wouldn't hear them unless they were silent. No one could understand what they were saying. It was spoken in a beautiful language.

It was the first time Elodie had heard the trees sing. Her book read that when they did, you would hear a soft, sweet voice joined by many others. The wind was their only instrument as they sang. No one could understand them except the person that the song was directed towards.

As soon as the lullaby was finished, Elodie sniffed and wiped her tears, pushing aside her grief as best she could.

"We need to bury her properly. And not with that." She gestured to the empty box, her eyes igniting with hatred.

Later, Adele's young, innocent body lay gracefully on Marcy's cloak, which was willingly given by Lark. Elodie scattered white lilacs around Adele, placing a single, white rose in her cold hands. The flowers were magic and could grow in Talvimora. They were as the people there, immune to the cold and beautiful. They all stood around the girl and closed their eyes. Marcy shifted her gaze to Elodie.

"Elodie," she began, still quite teary. "You should sing the song you sang for us at dinner that one night. The one from your world. It was beautiful." Elodie hesitated. She hated singing in front of people. But now was different. She felt like she needed to. For Marcy and Jack, who had just lost a sibling. And for herself as well. She began the song slowly and quietly.

Though the darkness grows heavy tonight,

Just focus on the light in my eyes.

And though the sun seems to cease to rise,

I'll stay with you until we see the light.

You are brave, wise, kind and dear.

If you leave, you shouldn't be forgotten here.

And though the sun seems to cease to rise,

I'll stay here with you until we see light.

And, just as the wind, we may wander for long,

but we'll always return to where we belong.

And though the sun seems to cease to rise,

I'll stay here with you until we see the light.

And if you go away and I go too,

I'll always find my way back to you.

And should the sun seem to cease to rise.

I'll stay with you until we see the light.

There was silence when the song ended. Short as it may have been, the beautiful ballad brought fresh tears to Marcy and Jack's eyes. Elodie had known the song off by heart since she was little. The lullaby had always been sung to her by her mother before bed. The song had been passed down from her mother's mother, from her mother, and so on. Elodie was told that she needed to learn the song as well, to pass to her children. The lullaby was immortal, like the love that was felt when one sang it. That was why Elodie loved the song so much. Even when she was separated from her family, the memory of her mother's sweet voice, and her father's from time to time, singing the song made her feel warm inside.