Thalia's Other crouched in the high branches, silent as frost as always. Her eyes tracked her mother's form tumbling and striking in the clearing below.
"She's tired again," Thalia's Other said
The words escaped as breath—cold, controlled, perfect.
"What do you mean leave her be?" she hissed, as she was stopped from leaping off the tree in help of her mother who staggered.
She rested back, seething. "Stop threatening me with that" Her voice cracked like thin ice, but she held still, gaze locked on the clearing.
Her mother turned too soon. The sting of the cane against her hip was immediate.
"You're reacting. Not listening," Eder, the faun said.
"I am listening—"
Crack. Another hit, this time to her calf.
"You're anticipating. That's not the same."
Her mother's jaw tightened, the blindfold clinging to her sweat-soaked face, pressing into her lashes. She straightened, hands flexing, and reset her stance, ready to continue.
Thalia's nails dug into the branch, her gaze burning. She's pushing too hard. She's going to break. Her mother's resolve was strong, but her body was betraying her under the weight of the collar, each movement slower, each breath heavier.
Eder left her for another trainee, delivering the same blows as she didn't get it right too.
"I'm telling you I can't guarantee his life if I see him again this soon" Thalia's Other said, while watching her mother struggle, barely restraining herself.
There was no way to hear what Thalia said in response, but her Other only long blinks in a time of tension.
"One more day" she breathed, softer than before.
Below, her mother's foot faltered. Her knee buckled and she crumpled to the ground.
Thalia's Other leaped off the branch towards her in panic.
She was by her side in less than half a minute, helping her sit up, while her mother cursed under her breath in frustrations.
Eder approached at a measured trot, hooves clipping the earth.
"It's been weeks already" she said frustrated. "I thought I would get use to it already"
"The more you get use to it, the more it adapts to keep you same" Eder said, his voice softening with old sorrow, eyes distant as if tracing ghosts. "The humans indeed crafted a vicious invention with this"
"Get it off her!" Thalia's Other shouted at Eder.
Her mother didn't even try to stop her, because she could barely feel her body.
"These are the king's orders" Eder said calmly, "And we don't have the keys"
Thalia's Other snarled. She gripped the collar, attempting to break it off.
"Don't" Eder warned. "You will only blow her neck off"
She cried loud in frustration and scooped her mother off the ground and launched into the sky. Morrs Hill rose before her, crowned with the shadowed silhouette of the King's Castle. As she neared the hill, she vanished, and reappeared inside the king's chambers, but it was almost in the same shape as it was when she left it, even though the debris had been cleared.
Her mother coughed roughly. Blood glistened at the corner of her mouth.
Thalia's Other stared, eyes wide, panic gripping her chest. "Mama?" The word came out smaller than it should have.
She hurried and laid her on the king's bed, its linens stripped; not that she noticed or cared.
"I'm fine, " her mother rasped. "Just—"
"Hey!" Thalia's Other whirled, shouting toward the hallway for help.
The king's chambers had no doors so there were no knights by his doorway , but she heard steps hurrying.
She turned back.
"Mama are you alright, do you feel pain—shut up! "
Her mother's eyes swam with pain. Thalia's Other trembled, overwhelmed with fear, her tears were falling now. She was helpless, not knowing what to do at all, but it was the crippling fear that held her.
A knight came, standing on the threshold of the door, looking at her in surprise, and perhaps a bit of fear.
"What are you doing?!" she yelled. "Help her!"
He hesitated.
He was one of those who subdued her that day, one of the few who survived, and the only reason he hadn't run off is because a knight should know no fear.
He approached the bed, and saw another elf, this one with a collar, dying. He brought out a healing vial, and tipped it to her lips.
She managed a swallow—then convulsed, coughing it back up in a spray of blood and froth. Her face sheened with sweat, skin quivering.
"W-w-what is happening?!" she stuttered. "Shut up!"
The knight knew the 'shut up' wasn't for him. He was surprised at such vulnerability from such an incomprehensible monster. He had seen her scared before, when the collar held her down, it was like a wild beast being scared. Still very dangerous, but now she looked like a terrified little girl.
"The collar is resisting the potion" the knight said coolly, answering a Zar for the first time in his life.
"Then get it off of her?!" she yelled desperately.
The knight looked at her, still fascinated. "The king has the keys, and he is out of the city"
The air in the room suddenly became oppressive.
"If anything happens to her" she threatened, heavily. "I will crush this city to the ground, with everyone in it!"
The knight knew she was serious, and very much capable of doing it within the hour, but he wasn't scared. He wasn't scared of what the King would do either, he knew the king would understood perfectly. The desperation and fear he feels from her were somewhat very comforting, and he wanted to know how she would be when the worst happen.
He lingered in the temptation for a heartbeat—then shoved it down. He walked out the room and went to the king's new chambers. He went to his desk, and through his drawers until he found multiple bunches of keys. He was in the process of collecting them all, when she appeared out of nowhere, jolting him.
"Do you have it?" she asked.
"Yes" he said, coolly, casually reaching for the last one.
She walked up to him, and grabbed him by the arm, and in a blink, they were in the king's former chambers.
"What are you waiting for?!" she urged desperately, as he stood there, a bit disoriented at the sudden change of space.
He walked up to the dying elf, drop the bunches on the bed and was going through them one after the other, looking for the one with her likeness. He found the first one, tried it, but it wasn't hers. The collar sparked at the wrong key, sending a fresh wave of tremors through the mother's body—she arched off the bed, a choked gasp escaping her lips.
The red-haired elf kept on pestering him desperately as he was going through the fourth one before it finally snapped up, and the dying elf took in a sudden, desperate gasp of air.
The knight fed her a potion, and took a step back, thinking on what to get out of the situation, but then he saw the red-haired elf had being replaced by the dull one. She had the tears on her face, but she wasn't crying. She took a look at the recovering elf, and then left the room.
┌─────── ♕ ───────┐
Nerissa returned to Drakoria just after dawn.
The first thing she asked was whether the witch was still in the dungeons. When they said yes, she went alone.
It was quiet, but smelled terribly. She walked into the last dungeon and found the witch. She was alone with a single knight, and the Priestess of the temple. There was a man on a torture bench, the source of the hideous smell and blood all over the ground. Near the torture bench was a table cluttered with all sorts of gruesome objects, herbs, jars, and stained bowls.
The knight and the priestess bowed with respectful greetings.
"Leave" she said, and the knight and priestess left the dungeon.
Nerissa's shoes echoed against the damp stone floor as she approached the torture bench. The man laid still, though still alive his eyes were dead. His chest rose and fell with shallow, mechanical breaths—each one a faint, reluctant proof of life. His skin, pale as ash, clung tightly to bones that jutted beneath, streaked with grime and crusted blood. Matted long hair hung over a face terribly hollowed by suffering, but still, the most prominent was his eyes. Open but unseeing. They stared blankly at the ceiling, their spark extinguished, like windows to a house long abandoned. It was impossible to believe he was once a proud knight of Drakoria.
The witch was not eager to know why the Queen mother wanted privacy, she was too busy crushing something fast on a small, hand-held mortar.
Or maybe she already knew why and was expecting the day to come.
The witch walked closer to the man on the bench. She used a blade and drew a deep line across his chest. The man barely reacted to that, but the moment she laid paste on it, he came alive. His screams wretched out louder than should be possible for a body this weak. He writhed, fighting to free himself, but it was impossible. She collected more and smear them casually on the wound to the continuous utmost anguish of the knight. He didn't stop screaming, even when the paste were finished. Tears were rolling down his eyes shamelessly.
Finally, the witch discarded the mortar on the table with a clatter. She placed a calming hand on the forehead of the crying knight, and he became quiet, though you can still very much see he was still suffering.
Nerissa eyes left the broken man to the witch who was washing her hand. Her eyes remained distant, half-lidded in thought, while her hands moved as though on their own accord.
"You played me for a fool" Nerissa said coolly.
The witch looked at her. "Whatever I did, I did with good reasons"
"And now you talk to me like one" Nerissa said.
The witch sighed silently. She flicked her fingers to the side, droplets scattering like sparks from a spell.
She approached the queen mother calmly.
"My dear queen you know nothing about your own child" she said to her. "I don't know why you wish to kill the unborn, but if it is for his sake—you stand a better chance sharing a child with him than taking the life of his child."
Nerissa simply stared at her. "Why are you so afraid of him?"
"Fear has never stayed my hand from what must be done," the witch replied evenly. "Have a conversation with your child, it will serve you better"
The witch went back to the table.
"I have never being one to care about the affairs of the court" she said, coming closer to the witch. "If I get wind of what you are playing..."
She took a deliberate pause. She knows her threats were useless on someone as powerful as the lost demon of Drakoria, but she felt it necessary.
She gave the witch a final look, then left.
Nerissa doesn't mind keeping the child. After a brief moment of confusion, she knew she had felt relief when her mother told her she was still with child. Her relief wasn't a surprise. She had always wanted another child, but it couldn't happen with her husband, despite all efforts. He was the last of the direct line after all. When it finally happened, with her own son, it was a choice between keeping the child, or lose her first son. It wasn't a hard decision. This Daran looks at her different. He values her presence. She had long to be loved by him after what happened with his father. That day, at the dinning hall was shocking, but somehow a lifelong ache was being answered. She was never going back to the time when he was emotionally distant. The times when he grew resentful of her. She has gotten used to his eyes, those stranger's eyes. She can't afford to have it develop hate, or disinterest. She will have to find another witch to give her the moonshadow elixir.
But what if the witch was right, and she tells him about it?
She can't even tell how he will react because she doesn't know who he is.
She should have quit when she still had her senses, she thought.
She stood, looked to her left, down the hallway leading to his door. Her heart was thumping.
He doesn't need to know, she convinced herself and started walking towards his door.