“I would do anything for your family,” I say. “If I have to carry you through this maze, I will.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” George tilts his head to the right as we approach a T-shape in the maze.
I turn us right, only to be faced with a huge archway carved with cherubs. Beyond, it widens to a walled grove. The ground is purple grass, dotted with rocks that shine like amethysts. Trees glowing with iridescent leaves tower nearly as high as the walls. Bright pink butterflies flitter to and fro.
“Well, if this isn’t a nice change of pace!” George exclaims. It seems to have given him a second wind. He pushes off of me and heads with urgency into the grove.
“Careful. Nothing is placed in the labyrinth without reason.”
At the far end of the grove lies another archway: the continuation of the maze. There must be some sort of trap or trial here. Each step is dangerous.
“Keep an eye out for anything out of place,” I warn George.
“Like that pile moving over there?”
“What?”
George points to a cluster of trees across the grove. At their base lies a large lump covered in brilliant pink butterflies. It shifts and moves, as if awakening from a great slumber. I stand protectively in front of George.
The pile heaves upward, a mass of butterflies flapping. Standing, it’s nearly ten feet tall. A woman’s shape begins to form amid the crowding butterflies. Long white hair falls out from beneath the shroud of living creatures. A large butterfly covers her face, the spots upon its wings appearing like ghastly eyes peering through me.
“I saw that you would pass this way, Keldarion, High Prince of Winter,” the giantess says, her lips covered by butterflies. She begins to walk toward us. Her arms swing like pendulums, much too long for her body. Her legs, too, seem unnaturally thin and elongated.
“I hope we didn’t keep you waiting, Philiris,” I say. I knew we’d come across her eventually. The Fates are never far from each other.
“Of course not. I knew when you’d be here.” Her butterfly eyes loom over George, and her whole head twists nearly upside down upon its long neck as if getting a better look at him. “Though some of you are harder to see than others.”
“This is Philiris, the Visionary,” I say to George. “Another of the Fates.”
“Many have come to me before.” Philiris’s voice is deeper than her sister Clio’s, a strange, echoey sound that seems to originate from within all the wings covering her body. “I have shown a great many futures that have come to pass. The last to see me was the youngest son of Spring. The flutter of the wings depicted a great and terrible future. So, it has come to be.”
“Knowing the future has never helped me before,” I growl and grab George’s arms. “Whatever you’re going to offer us, we don’t want it.”
We start to walk past her when a massive expanse juts out before us: a culmination of all the small butterflies flying together to form Philiris’s giant wing. “I wasn’t going to offer to show you your future, Keldarion, High Prince of Winter. Or even yours, George of the O’Connells.” Her head twists all the way around so she can look at us. “But the future of the Prince of Thorns and his Golden Rose … That is what the wings have shown me.”
I should go. Keep walking. Spring every trap in this grove if I have to. But I can’t move my feet. “You … you know Rosalina’s future?”
Philiris sighs, her butterflies rippling with sound. “The wings of the future flutter endlessly. I catch sight, here and there.”
“Show me.” George pulls out of my grip and walks up to her. “I would see my daughter’s fate.”
Philiris places her unnaturally long fingers over George’s face. A butterfly springs into existence, forming a mask across George’s brow, with spots for unseeing eyes.
“No,” I say, reaching out and grabbing her spindly wrist. “I’ll do it.”
“High Prince?” Philiris asks, pulling the butterfly from George’s face.
I look at Rosalina’s father. “Seeing the future can set even the most determined man to hopelessness. I have lived with such despair for decades. Let me bear this burden.”
George holds my gaze for a long time, before finally, he nods.
The butterfly flits up from Philiris’s palm then lands on the bridge of my nose. All goes dark.
I see her. Rosalina. She sits on a throne at the top of a huge staircase crafted of intertwining purple and golden thorns. Her long legs are crossed, the milky skin I long to touch visible from the high slit in her dark gown. A crown of thorns adorns her hair.
I stagger up the stairs toward her. Heat radiates on all sides of me, but not the normal warmth of fire. This heat seems to chill and burn all at once, raking my skin with clawed fingers. Emerald fire licks the edge of the stairs. Faces form in the blaze, screaming mouths and eyes agape, before vanishing in the next flicker.
Rosalina taps her fingers on the armrest, mouth curved in a frown. Her eyes, usually so kind and warm, are vacant and dull.
