“What did you do?” he asked. “What did it cost you?”
“That is not your concern,” I told him defiantly. “Your only concern now should be the Rot. It has spread beyond the Arden, and whoever is responsible would see us destroyed by Johar and his ilk. Please…thismustend now. I am begging you to end it. I cannot lose another home, another family, to this disease.” My chest heaved, the raw pit behind my breastbone deepening and churning with feelings that did not even seem like my own. But I thrust my shoulders back and looked from Oberon to Titania.
The faerie king spoke first. “It started at Lyric’s tomb. We must end it there.”
He suddenly vanished in a swirl of shadow, and Simeon quickly followed. Titania was looking at me now, and I took a few steps forward, hands open in supplication.
“Please. I know how much love you still carry for Lyric, and for the Arden. If she truly was part of the forest, then this quarrel is killing her all over again. You promised to help when I was ready, and now I am. If saving the Arden means sacrificing everything I have ever known myself to be, I am ready to do that too, but I cannot do it without you.”
Slowly, falteringly, the faerie queen made her way down the dais steps and approached me, twisting the skirt of her white chiton. Her mere presence still made my legs quake, but when she offered her hand, my heart and stomach both jumped. I took it, squeezed my eyes closed, and waited for the sensation of magyk travel to pass. We arrived at my mother’s sacred grove in a burst of light, which left me blind and blinking for a few seconds. When my vision returned, I sucked in a sharp breath. The grove looked completely different than when I’d first met Titania there, because the Rot was gone. The blackened ground was now faded, but green, and trees that had once been infected were now gray. I could not say whether they would ever regrow their leaves, but at least they were no longer being choked by the oily darkness. The infection still lingered in the forest beyond the edge of the grove, but this was the first time I had seen it shrink, rather than grow and devour.
“It moved back,” I breathed, looking over to see Oberon standing nearby with Simeon, hands clasped in front of him. “It moved back because…”
“Because of you, Marina,” he said. “Because you helped us see what it really is, what our hatred and mistrust has truly done.”
I just nodded, fighting down the swell in my throat. Across the grove, beneath the bent-backed weeping willow, sat the stone slab marking my mother’s final resting place. I had not been able to approach it before, and now I was not sure I even had the strength to see her cold, carved face.
“I promised to help you,” said Titania, turning to face me, “but I am not so proud that I cannot admit my own fear.”
“We can be afraid together,” I told her, looking to Hippolyta. She gave me a solemn smile, and we both reached out to take one of Titania’s hands. Side-by-side, the three of us walked slowly through the grove toward Lyric’s tomb, with Oberon trailing behind.
The granite slab was clear of Rot now, but a few dark splotches remained, marring the intensely lifelike relief. On instinct, I brought out a small, black flame and held it up to the spots, burning them away to leave the surface clean and shining. I let my hands brush over my mother’s image, feeling every notch and detail of her stone fingers, which were clasped around a bouquet of musk roses. The carving was not as real as the colorful, lightborne images Devil had created for me the night of the revelry—where I could see the way her eyes crinkled at the corners, and the tiny gap between her front teeth—but this, at least, I could touch. I ran my thumb over her cheek and eyelid, then trailed my fingertips down the intricate details of her coily hair, which was spread out down to her elbows like a pillow. She looked peaceful and happy, but I still let my tears fall freely onto the delicately carved dragonfly wings that draped over the sides of the slab.
Titania gingerly touched Lyric’s face too, then whispered, “If I let go…I am afraid of having nothing left. For so long, I have shielded my grief in anger…wrapped the pain and helplessness in violence, because it made the burden of her absence easier to carry. But I fear if I set that shield down…it might swallow me whole…”
“I will help you carry it,” Hippolyta promised.
I nodded. “So will I.”
“Pain is always lighter when it is shared,” Oberon murmured. “And I promise, Titania, if you let go, you will still have me. You have always had me.” She turned toward him at last, and Hippolyta gently pulled me away to give them space. Oberon faced his wife and bowed slightly, lifting her hand, then waited for her nearly imperceptible nod of consent before pressing his lips to her skin.
Chapter fifty
Flames & Forgiveness
With only a soft,heart-wrenching cry, Titania fell against her husband, allowing his arms to wrap around her. He buried his face in her hair, like a man holding the very last strand tethering him to reality. Faint tendrils of light and shadow crept around them, weaving together and dancing in a way I’d never seen them do before—timid but gentle, becoming reacquainted with after such a long time apart. Hippolyta squeezed my wrist gently, and I looked back to see her grinning like a madwoman. It was so infectious, I let out a quiet, involuntary laugh. Oberon and Titania broke apart and faced us, still holding hands, and Titania reached for her commander. Hippolyta walked past me and pulled her into a tight embrace, smiling at Oberon over the top of her head. I was light as a feather watching the three of them together, and very nearly sent one of my magyk Huntress moths to Devil, summoning him to the grove. But I knew there was still work to do.
“Marina,” said Oberon’s steady voice, breaking through my reverie. “Come. It will take all three of us, I think.” He motioned for me to stand between himself and Titania, in front of my mother’s tomb. Instinctually, I dropped to my knees and pressed my hands into the pale, green grass. A pair of hands gripped my shoulders from behind—one warm and soft, one cool and firm.
“The Rot will not go easily,” said Titania. “It will fight back, and it might come for you first, Marina, but we are here. As you said, we can be afraid together.”
I nodded and dipped my head, sending my magyk out into the Arden’s currents. Oberon’s shadows and Titania’s light swirled around the thread of my healing gift, strengthening and protecting it as I searched for the Rot. But we did not have to search long, because the darkness found us first. It slammed intome—a furious blast of malice and unchecked bloodlust. When I pushed back with my own rage, it faltered, and threw something else at me: Cold, slithering, insidious anguish. It paralyzed my magyk, causing me to cry out before Oberon’s shadows swooped in as a shield.
But the clash of our magyk brought up something else, something I could not escape from. Suddenly, I was looking down at my own mother, who was very much alive. She was lying beneath the willow tree, holding her swollen belly and writhing in pain. When she cried out, I reached out to comfort her, but the hands I saw were not mine. I was watching through Oberon’s eyes, I realized, reliving his last, and worst, memory of Lyric—the night she died. I pulled back, horrified, trying to escape, but the Rot would not let me go. Not until I bore witness.
“She’s almost here…” Lyric gasped, rolling onto her hands and knees and allowing her dragonfly wings to droop into the grass. Her body heaved, sweat pouring from her face as she groaned through a contraction. “Not much longer. Please…Huntress, let her live…please…bring him back to me…”
“My little light,” came Oberon’s voice through my own throat. “I am trying everything I can. Your magyk might be weakened, but your body is still strong. Youcando this.”
“Henry,” gasped Lyric. “You have to find him…once I’m gone…promise…”
“You are not going anywhere! Lyric, listen to me, do not—”
I threw myself at the Rot, desperate to be rid of the terrible memory, but the images were merely ripped away and replaced with something worse. Lyric slumped in the roots of the weeping willow now, her torso and legs covered in a blanket of shadows. In her arms was a tiny, mewling baby wrapped in green cloth. It might have been a wholesome sight, if Lyric were not fading so quickly. Oberon’s despair clutched at me, rending my heart as he knelt beside his only child and watched her final breaths, unable to stop the inevitable. With trembling arms, she passed the baby to him and smiled.
“Make sure she knows love…if nothing else…please…”
“I swear,” Oberon promised, taking the child as his body—the body we were currently sharing—became wracked with sobs. “I swear, she will know it. Lyric, please, do not give up, my sweet girl.”
