I couldn’t help but wonder if the Mages Consortium weren’t neutral to the realm’s problems, would Lustria be better for it? Or would power on such a scale only fester the wounds?
On the Phoenix Heart, the choice was simple. There was nothing to lose. No chance of our power being abused or controlled because what power did we really have? One pirate ship full of individuals trying to escape their own fates, sailing the seas in the hopes that helping a few others might assuage their own guilt at never having been strong enough to save themselves. We couldn’t save a girl from zealots, a male from a political marriage, his knight from dishonor, nor a half-Orc from banishment from her clan. But maybe, piece by piece, we could chip away at the evil in Lustria and make it a better place.
That alone had been enough for me. Had been. But now I had the power of a god inside of me, and if I could just survive... Icould finally do more. Be more. Not chip away a tiny piece, but crumble the whole damn foundation.
It is a fantasy, what you seek to accomplish, child.
I’d grown used to a voice suddenly appearing in my head, so it no longer startled me as it once had. But this wasn’t Zaelos’s voice. This voice was deep and feminine, and as alluring as it was deadly. Every word ticked in my mind like a silent command—find me—and my feet began moving on their own, obediently searching for the source of the voice. They did not force me down the right path, towards the town, but instead, the left, towards the forest.
Fields of sunshine-drenched flowers gave way to a verdant forest shaded by its towering trees. The stone pebbled path quickly shifted to dirt, far less traveled. Yet even as I walked farther and farther from the Consortium, away from the familiar and into unknown territory, I felt no fear. I felt nothing but the chill of the breeze against my cheeks and a pleasant warmth inside my chest, spreading farther throughout my body with every step I took deeper into the forest.
I shouldn’t have been able to keep walking for as long as I had. Nil’Faerith was a small island. The trees should’ve thinned until there was nothing left but rugged coastline, waves lapping against scattered rocks. Instead, the trees grew denser. The flora, fauna, and fungi, once familiar, no longer matched the Elven forest. The colors were all off. Too bright. Too vivid. The smell was wrong. Sickly sweet when it should have been earthy and mingled with sea salt.
Still, I walked on. On and on until I saw her. The origin of the voice—my enchantress.
She had an unruly beauty about her. Rich, dark skin that shimmered like reflected moonlight, and bright green, gold-flecked eyes staring straight ahead, amusement flickering within. Tight, black curls trailed down to her waist, decoratedwith wooden beads and wrapped gold wire. She seemed almost melded to the surrounding forest. It was impossible to tell where the branches and leaves that were coiled around her arms and legs ended or began. Chaotic, mesmerizing, and definitely not Human.
I felt her name innately, and it rolled off my tongue in a whisper before I could question how or why. “Amorphael.”
“Faylin lusoth.”
Panic coiled in my gut, and I reached up to grip the side of my head, bracing for Zaelos’s fury at seeing her—the woman he despised.
“He cannot access your mind here,” she said, bored. “He is banished from this place. The magic here is ancient. It runs far deeper than his own. So long as you are within my domain, you are safe from his control.”
“The Faewilds.”
She didn’t answer, which was answer enough.
“Why have you brought me here?”
There was a long pause before she responded with a question of her own. “Why have you come?”
I’d read enough books on the Fae to know their inclination toward trickery and riddles. I’d made a mistake in asking my question plainly. If I wanted information from Amorphael, I needed to make her believe it was on her terms, for her benefit. Not a bargain, never a bargain, but a carefully maneuvered dance. Give and take disguised by pretty words. I was out of my depth, but I had to try.
“I don’t know why I’ve come,” I sighed. “I thought freedom was enough. The desire for freedom from my people became the desire for freedom from Zaelos, but then what? I don’t know who I am or what I want, but at the end of it all, I believe I am meant to right the wrongs that I and the people I love have endured.That is what people with power should do. Change things. Why is that such a fantasy?”
“You are grasping for a dream you don’t fully comprehend. Not yet. You are but a speck of yourself, so how can you speak of your desires?” She tilted her head to the side curiously. “You’ve grown used to your cage. The door is open, yet you still remain inside as though it were locked tight. What is it you fear, child?”
I scrunched my nose, blinking. “Dying.”
“No, you’ve never feared death. It was living that terrified you. That is why you took his hand so many moons ago, is it not? To die rather than live with the truth.”
“The truth...”
“That you were inconsequential. Alone.” Amorphael stood to her full height, a smile rising to her lips. “But now look at you! A Saintess. So very important to those who once forced your hand, and given the chance to save them, you abandoned them all. The sweetest form of revenge, the very thing you yearned for when you accepted him, and still you are unfulfilled. Your soul seeks that which it had once found and then lost.”
I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”
She moved towards me, closer and closer, until she could hook a finger under my chin. “Do you have a reason to live now, child?”
I opened and closed my mouth, struggling with a response.
Amorphael gave me no time to consider my answer. She narrowed her eyes and pressed a finger to my chest. “You need to remember it, or you will stand no chance against him. You may have gotten your revenge, but he still seeks his. There are few things that drive one’s soul stronger than that.” She leaned forward to whisper in my ear, “Do not let him devour you.”
There was a stabbing sensation in my chest, then. Searing hot and so agonizingly painful, I squeezed my eyes shut tight, blinking back tears. I sucked in a shaky breath, clutching thefabric of my shirt, when the pain vanished all at once. A gentle pulse in my head was all that remained. I opened my eyes and found I was back in the forest, back in Nil’Faerith. I’d deny I’d ever left at all, claiming it as a moment of madness—if the once bright blue sky was not now peppered with stars, a full moon hanging high overhead.
Real. It had been real.
