The Elf Who Would Become A Dragon

CHAPTER 143 – Obscure and Lonely

No structures had been left standing in Saphienne’s mind, her library razed to the ground, her foundations shattered; Hyacinth found no entryway through which she might carry the crippled dragon into her unconscious self.

Yet there was a route.

Flowers twined over the broken steps, taking root in the crevices, burrowing deep as Hyacinth embraced her master. Whereas previously Saphienne had led whenever they had walked together, on this occasion the bloomkith predominated, Hyacinth-Saphienne being far more like the spirit than her beloved partner.

Their union was also closer than ever before, nothing held back. Hyacinth had revealed her secret name to Saphienne, for only by knowing the promise of winter’s end could they join without reservation. This was crucial: if they were to tread the path downward together, the intermingling of their essences had to be absolute.

And so it was that Hyacinth-Saphienne emerged in the totality of herself, a crumbling statue of a magician wreathed in springtime blossoms.

* * *

She needed to gaze inward; she was afraid of that. Hyacinth-Saphienne had spent so long concealing her roots from herself that she feared what would result from their showing, should her voyage succeed. Would she still love herself afterward? She could not know for sure — the dragon in her was too diminished to offer any certainty.

“We are not dissuaded,” she told herself as she peered over the roiling field of blooming hyacinths and sparkling snowflakes. “Saphienne was fearless, and Hyacinth remains her reflection: we are of equal depth.”

She waded out from the bloodstained steps, her will burning as she sank into the pallid purple flowers.

* * *

Receding snow; the waking roots of spring; things long thought dead, resurrected by winter’s passing.

Slithering leaves, wet with meltwater, slid aside — for the blooms lay open and unguarded to she from whom they grew. Snow evaporated against her face, the scent of hyacinths intoxicating in every breath. She would not be soothed. A storm of traumas crackled among the roots, but she plunged toward them in abiding love for herself.

Glimpsed beyond the stems, fragments among red petals; she chose the earliest that she remembered twice.

* * *

You have heard some of the following events before. I shall nevertheless tell them again, from another vantage.

* * *

Furtive whispers; they had drawn her curiosity, attracting her attention away from the glade in which the priests were diligently watering her cradle. She listened carefully, straining to hear where they tickled her petals against the babble that carried along the length of the woodlands.

There — not far from a boundary between gravel and grass. She focused, feeling the bulbs through which she could emerge, her awareness creeping across the garden and around the tall tree, settling into the flowerbeds in which her cradle was flourishing.

She had no lips to smile with as she pressed through the opening.

A familiar elf was close by. She did not know his name, but she had often felt his tenderness as he cleared dead leaves and withered blossoms from the garden, the shade cast by his floppy hat interrupting her nourishment. He was a wizard, or so Mother Absinthe had declared when explaining the difference between the elves who could see her and those who were blind. Were he or any other to invoke her before she was ready, she was to call for a sister to intervene on her behalf.

He was not watching for her presence, nor was the hallucination in which he clothed himself meant to deceive spirits. As he locked his front door his eyes were surreptitiously studying two more elves — much smaller than he, therefore younger.

They were children, she realised, perhaps roused from their slumber in the woodlands near to when she had animated within her cradle, and theirs was the conspiratorial whispering she had sensed. One was a head taller, unremarkable save for a striking, green gaze that reminded her of Mother Absinthe; yet the other was fascinating, with ears bizarrely pruned and hair that was blonde like the summer despite the earlier season.

She had never before beheld such a strange elf. Intrigued, she gathered her strength and conveyed herself to the pair, rippling by before she found her flow and wound back to–

Magic surged between the trees.

The wizard had cast a spell, dimly discernible as another deception. Mother Absinthe had assured her that she need not yet concern herself with the magic that elves employed — especially where their spellcraft was intended for each other. She was precocious, however, and laboured to perceive the hallucination as an elf would, impeded by having never directly experienced the forest through their flesh. He held something in his hand… placed his weight upon it as he strode on…

A stick? Like those Athidyn would lean on, when he rambled through the woods with his offspring? What was the symbolism behind that?

Whatever its meaning, she could tell that the shorter child was given pause. While she was not yet conversant in the Elfish tongue, she understood tone, and she felt apprehension behind the uncomfortably discordant syllables.

The taller was undeterred, pushing through the bushes to lead them to the doorstep.

She puzzled over elven behaviour as they bickered, intuiting that the older was mimicking – goading – the younger she now drifted behind. Were they friends? The vulnerable lulls in their conflict suggested so, as did the smiles that sweetly shone between them, brighter than the sun of polished metal that the blonde demanded from the brunette.

…Only to discard it among the flowers? The taller of the children retrieved the disc without resentment.

Then the summery oddity tried to enter the tree, and the two were stunned to discover the door was locked, and their explosive laughter startled her where she hovered over them, then swept her up in a mirth that was pure and playful and joyous, giggling when it receded with them toward the village–

And then a marvel unfolded.

The unfamiliar little elf came back to the flowerbed, there to crouch and delicately uproot her cradle. Holding bulb against dress as though it were an unearthed treasure, uncaring that it soiled the white fabric, the child with pruned ears ran off, dragging the more conventional youth on to new adventures.

Delighted, she breezed after them, spiriting them along with her wind at their backs.

* * *

Reminiscence was hard to evade. Hyacinth-Saphienne wandered the memories that followed, recollecting the parallel lives she had lived, one in happy play, one in unseen admiration.

Kylantha had never returned the red flower: her mother had been charmed by the story of her daring, and had insisted that she replant the blossom in a pot. Her solitary cousin had previously taught her to cope with her feelings by telling her troubles to flowers, which naturally led to the excluded girl talking often to the potted hyacinth, unaware that her one-sided conversation was feeding an immature bloomkith — who could not resist growing attached.

Although the spirit who was yet to name herself had been encouraged to shadow Athidyn, there were very few days thereafter wherein she failed to trail the mortal elf. She witnessed firsthand how Kylantha was treated in the vale, uncomprehending of what was spoken yet keenly observant of manner, becoming adept in reading behind what was said.

That was how Hyacinth first knew Saphienne: as the mirror of her own budding love.

* * *

None of these recollections were powerful enough. Hyacinth-Saphienne needed a singular moment of confluence, charged with shared, primeval sentiment that bridged the gap between roots and heart.

She knew what it was. Of course she knew. Both halves of her being had avoided revisiting it, unable to contemplate the pain. She dearly wished she had any other alternative.

Yet spirit and dragon had been made to weep together through the infliction of a singular wound, and to that day she inexorably fluttered, a moth to blazing flame.

* * *

Much had changed in the year and a half since their first meeting. The spirit who would become Hyacinth sprouted, aided by cuttings bestowed by her sisters, her familiarity with elves increasing to the point that she came to understand the divisions by which they understood themselves. She realised that the child whom she followed was female; discovered that she was descended from a human father; and observed the names and habits of Kylantha, Saphienne, and Phelorna.

Why Kylantha was held in poor regard by other elves remained a puzzle. As best the fledgling bloomkith could discern, the girl was a sweet if wilful child, adventurous and playful, quick to cheer and seldom complaining. That her sylvan sisters withheld the answer was frustrating, her desire to learn the whole of the ancient ways stymied.

Still, she knew enough of the elven side to look forward to Kylantha being introduced to woodland spirits… that would bring her one step closer to unveiling herself. Would the girl reciprocate her fondness? She prayed for that.

Alas, she was utterly unprepared for the morning when she heard Kylantha wailing, and came soaring up from her blooms and whistling down the stairs of the cramped home to find a foreboding scene on its doorstep.

Phelorna was standing in the entryway, clasping the frame to hold herself upright, her knuckles white. She was shaking and tearful as she tried to console Kylantha, who was attired in autumnal browns instead of white, dressed for travel where she was held back from her mother by a mossy-eyed stranger in leather armour…

A Warden of the Wilds.

The spirit knew of their existence, though solely for their work tending to the health of the forest with her sisters. Her first thought was that Kylantha might have damaged a tree, or perhaps unsettled a burrowing beast or nesting bird. Yet the longer she watched, the more unsettled she became, feeling in her air that this was no admonishment, rather an unwanted separation.

“… Mother …”

“… Love …”

How she wished she spoke Elfish! She could not be taught until she had worn the flesh of elves — or so Mother Oak had claimed, though she had come to recognise a few key words.

Kylantha screamed as she was pulled away; yet her mother did not help the frightened little elf. Phelorna simply collapsed and wept.

What was happening? The bloomkith needed answers, and so she did as her unrequited friend wished to do, flying into the house and to the vacated bedroom and dipping into her flowers, that she might run to mother.

* * *

Mother Absinthe was forever going to and fro on the vale, never encountered unless she wished to be found, which was rare. In one of many significant contrasts, Mother Oak made herself the most approachable of the matriarchs, almost always at the Shrine to Our Lady of the Basking Serpent, and so the nameless bloomkith of hyacinths had trod the ley lines leading there, flickering through the intervening landmarks with such haste that her sisters chided her passage.

Understand: theirs was not a realm of form. Even the mental images conjured by spiritual possession are too definitive for their ephemeral, conceptual state. What I now describe to you is – quite fittingly – poetic metaphor.

Mother Oak’s bark grew around the sacred icon, her towering branches cradling the naked statue of a goddess that uplifted a slumbering snake. Many other trees and flowers had planted themselves around her, lesser in stature, supporting her worshipful song as her devoted chorus. Gathered between them were the radiant shadows of the elves praying at the physical shrine, shedding sentiment that flavoured the magic pouring down from the incandescent bowl of the sun.

Sang the choir, “Comes now our little sister, black of bloom! For why does she so cry? Whyfor — and for whom?”

“Mother Oak, Mother Oak!” She rained petals in her wake. “Lend me your ear! A child of elves is weeping, is weeping!”

Spreading out her boughs in welcoming shade, the woodkin beckoned. “Hither come thou, seedling fair, and tell well what befell this babe. Be she the girl with whom thou art wont to dwell?”

“Kylantha, Kylantha! That is her name! A warden wild is stealing, is stealing–”

The chorus repeated their naïve sister — yet their echo was not frantic, only endeared, and amused.

Mother Oak creaked as she straightened her gnarled limbs. “Thou hast beheld too much, too sad, too soon. Yon child of elves be not an elf, in sooth; thou art too green, too soft, too kind for what thou art to now endure.”

The spirit of hyacinths stilled. “…She is no elf?”

“From human seed in elven soil she grew. Mortal is she,” groaned the oak tree, “and to the ground shall she return. To this she is condemned; for this, she hath been damned to quit these woods.”

And the choir called out, “So the ancient ways demand! So we uphold ways ancient!”

Her blackened blossoms darkened further. “Why?”

Sigh rustling her browning leaves, the matriarch replied, “Thou shalt not know ‘til thou hast reached full bloom. Let prayer for her console thee in thy grief, and to the gods entrust the girl.”

How pitiless the icon then seemed; how cold; how lifeless.

“Come thou hither; shelter thee in my roots, I shall. Forget thou this–”

Yet the flower had gained much from Kylantha, becoming a wilful spirit, and she would not bend her stem, for she yet heard the distant screams. She fled into the realm of elves… and the mortal she would save from them.

* * *

Scarcely any time had elapsed while the bloomkith sought advice; she had caught up to the warden at once, who was pulling Kylantha by the wrist toward the edge of the village, better to spare their neighbours from the sorrow.

What could she do? She could not weave herself a shell from her cradle, and possession was forbidden thrice over: she was too young, as was Kylantha, and consent could not be given. Feebly, she gusted in the face of the man, urging him to turn back… yet he could not feel her presence, and would not readily abandon his duty to the woodlands.

All the while, the girl sobbed and struggled.

Swirling, despairing, the spirit cast herself about the grove, prepared to seize on any permissible means to oppose what was occurring. She did not dare to be seen breaking the ancient ways, not after visiting her imprisoned sister, but if she could contrive a deniable scheme…

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

Two elves were talking beneath an open window, flowers potted on the sill. No other spirits were nearby, and the bluebells in the rounded pot would not allow a floral sibling to perceive her were she to occupy them. She was not sure she was able, having never rested in any blossoms beside her cradle, let alone animated them.

Even if it were possible, could she lure him under there?

No.

Then, could she hurt an innocent?

* * *

Kylantha had known better than to flee immediately, waiting for her abductor to be fully distracted by the unconscious elf before she snuck from the garden and ran. Her guardian spirit buffeted her as she went, guiding her deeper into the village, nudging her toward the only person who loved her enough to surely help.

Catching sight of the library, Kylantha–

* * *

Hyacinth-Saphienne recoiled, stung by what awaited inside. Despite all the years, she was still raw, her terrible wound still weeping blood and sap.

She needed anger to cross the threshold.

Fortunately, her memories held a plentiful supply.

* * *

Rage had sent her after the warden, chasing him up the vale as he marched Kylantha by her collar. She was inconsolable, desolated by betrayal, a murderous intent grafted onto her and binding fast as she listened to the man answering the dejected, whimpering girl. He had no compassion; he did not deserve the hollow heart that beat within his chest.

Soon they neared the lake. From her overhead view she spotted another warden sitting on the shore, the woman having brought supplies for a long journey.

She had to intervene. Let the ancient ways burn: she would accept the same imprisonment as the sunflower. Kylantha needed her.

Pressing against his skin–

“Thou wouldst err.”

Bitter cold swept her from the warden, effortlessly restraining her as she whipped and flurried. Her song was shrill, crying, “Release me!”

“Nay,” replied Mother Absinthe, who becalmed her on the waters beyond the shore and spoke in matching discord. “Thou hast been spied upon, and caught in deed most fell. Hither doth thy passion grant me cause to interdict. Sundamar and Alavara shall take the girl abroad.”

Beaten, she ceased hurling herself against the constraining spiral. “Cruel are you! Why not forbear to punish me until I free the girl? Let some slight good come from my sacrifice!”

Wry laughter met her plea. “I shall not punish thee; nor shall I let thee waste thyself upon this foolishness.”

Confusion stirred her zephyrs. “No sanction? Why not? You saw I harmed an elf.”

“Necessary passion refuses restraint.” Mother Absinthe eased her grip. “Sayeth some, ‘tis madness; sayeth Wormwood, otherwise.”

“Then,” the young bloomkith pleaded, “help me save her from–”

“Desist from thy rash folly.” The matriarch was blunt. “Had thee the rhyme and name to firm thyself, I would allow thy desperate defiance, and mock thee in thy undoing. Yet thou wouldst perish as thou art: for want of selfhood, thou wouldst by elves be swallowed whole — and to meagre end. Thou canst compel no more than ancient ways permit.”

Eyeless, yet not without tears, she stared upon Kylantha being driven along the beach. “Have I no other choice? Then I would choose to fall back asleep… unthinking slumber is better than this. Truly, is there no hope?”

“Not for her…” Winding widdershins about her junior, Mother Absinthe wove her words with honeyed venom. “…Yet, be there no other wrongs to light anew thine ire? Thou who wouldst to thine own self cleave, if thou wouldst defy ways ancient, it would profit thee to rove with subterfuge. What passeth by unseen is not forbidden, nor shall thy sisters rebuke thee for what the gods alone decree.”

That was when the spirit who would one day promise winter’s end first saw why her sisters feared and disdained Mother Absinthe. “…Why counsel me so?”

“Idle fancy.” Her dismissal was mild. “So long as I bear goodly fruit, my master holdeth my stem but lightly; I do as I will, my reasons mine own. If to apostasy thou dost incline, so be it — yet whatever thirst thy roots would quench, thou shouldst take care to drink deeply and well. Thou art capable of better schemes.”

She contemplated the possibility. “Mother Absinthe–”

“Wormwood.” No warmth was in the word.

“…What do you propose?”

“Anon, when thine anger again kindleth,” Wormwood promised, “thou shalt refrain from self-immolation, and come then to my roots for schooling. I shall teach thee the song of the green, to do with as thou wilt.”

Few of her sisters had been granted such favour. “Why bless me so?”

“Indeed: why dost thou deserve it?” The invidious spirit of absinthes retreated. “Thou alone shalt justify thyself. Until then? Find another girl to haunt.”

* * *

So she had. The bloomkith had returned to Saphienne, conflicted as she settled down with her for the restless night, sharing in her furious tears. That was when she resolved to embody the principle she had unwittingly imbibed from Athidyn, and find an act through which she might balance the expulsion of Kylantha.

Her plot grew in slowly. The ashes of extinguished joy made good fertiliser.

As did the fertile mind of Saphienne, whom the spirit came to love, clinging to her as the only other person who grieved for Kylantha… and who loathed how she had been failed. Within a year the bloomkith had begun to reflect that scintillating intelligence, oblivious to how she was changed, believing that the potential had always lain within, encouraged in her conviction by Wormwood.

The next time she hurt someone, she acted with careful calculation. Steering Athidyn and Iolas toward the cliff was no harder than when she had caused them to carry her into the hidden clearing, and she made certain a priest was attending the nearby shrine and would hear the startled yells of father and son.

If she had known that Filaurel would guide Saphienne toward wizardry, she would not have needed to make an apprentice she could puppet. Later, once Tyrnansunna had been liberated, she regretted her callousness, and swore to never again cause harm to anyone who had not first harmed others.

Yet for all that her affection for Saphienne would temper her grievance, her anger at the woodlands smouldered eternal.

* * *

Heady with the noxious fumes of contempt and shame, she was at last ready to face the pain she deserved:

Hyacinth-Saphienne to the dark library came.

* * *

Two perspectives, interwoven.

“Saphienne! Saphienne!”

The bloomkith watched as Kylantha nearly ran into Saphienne, and then she did collide with her, arms thrown around the taller girl with a muffled wail that only became louder as she cried.

“Kylantha!” Saphienne held her, caught between shocked white and an uncertain blush. “Kylantha, what’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

But she only cried and cried, and clung more tightly, her grief too great for words. They stayed like that as the spirit’s panic rose — for the librarian was leading a man to where they were standing, a man that the bloomkith feared and Saphienne would soon revile, dressed in dull brown leathers and draped with a cloak that was patterned like the forest. He did not interrupt, not at first, waiting until the wailing turned to sobbing, and only then did he crouch down, his voice gentle but firm.

“Finish your goodbyes, girl.”

As softly as he spoke, suddenly Saphienne felt very cold. “Goodbye?” She pulled Kylantha tighter against herself.

But Kylantha drew back far enough to look up, her face red, nose running. She swallowed, and her usually vibrant voice was hoarse, broken.

“Saphienne…” She struggled to speak. “Saphienne… they’re taking me away…”

“Taking you away?”

Kylantha tried to nod, and fell against her chest again as fresh sobs stole her breath.

Here was the moment the unnamed hyacinths had hoped for, when someone who adored Kylantha would come to her defence. Let Saphienne comprehend, and interpose herself; let her put herself at hazard, and make them see through her the evil they were doing; let her win a reprieve for the girl, beloved by bone and wind alike.

An older Saphienne would have pulled Kylantha behind her, protected her. All she knew how to do then was look up at the crouching stranger and ask him, “Why?”

Shrivelled then the roots of the bloomkith, gradually withered with horror, grasping too late that the girl was too gentle to be a saviour. Her air became stale as the warden gave his justifications: though unable to translate his speech, she was conscious that the necessary rage was absent from his audience.

Saphienne was burying all she felt beneath the puzzle. “But she needs kindness. Someone will have to take care of her when she’s sick. Someone will have to help her when she’s frail.” She tried to make sense of it. “Is her mother going with her?”

Now Kylantha was shrieking, and Saphienne started in surprise, and felt something hot and wet spill down her own cheeks.

The bloomkith grew desiccated. Saphienne was not helping; nor would the daughter of ancient Eletha intercede to spare the child, merely stepping behind the pair of girls to lay a comforting hand on the taller of their shoulders.

“Saphienne…” Kylantha’s voice was a moan.

Saphienne’s eyes fell to her friend’s head. “You can’t take her away,” she said, and felt the hand on her shoulder squeeze.

The man stood, and as he stepped forward Kylantha pressed herself into her friend more desperately. “Saphienne!”

“You can’t,” Saphienne repeated, her voice frail, watching as his gloved hands took Kylantha by the arms and pulled her, delicately at first, then more insistently.

“Saphienne! Saphienne, help! Saphienne!”

But Saphienne would not help. She just watched, eyes streaming, as her only friend was dragged away from her, to be carried out of the world she knew.

And the spirit who hung over her?

The spirit, who had diligently avoided this memory?

The spirit, who would have given anything to spare her lover from knowing?

Underneath every rationalisation, below later understanding, wrongly conceived in her youthful hurt at the loss of her dear friend…

She blamed Saphienne for not fighting.

* * *

That was it; that was the intersection. Hyacinth-Saphienne felt the inner and outer recriminations align, and she slipped into the relived past, her spirit and her body joining as the library petrified. She possessed herself, then pulled away from Filaurel, pacing in trance to the back of the stacks and the closed door that was perhaps a passage of another kind.

Hyacinth-Saphienne opened the door.

Then she closed it, before once more turning the handle. Two.

Again, she shut and reopened it. Three.

Then four…

Yet nothing happened when she reached the number of the magician.

Staring through to the front of the library, Hyacinth-Saphienne shut her eyes. “We have suffered enough; we shall not suffer failure.”

Again. Six.

And again.

For seven was the number of the spirit.

* * *

Inky blackness enveloped Hyacinth. She was alone, no longer walking with Saphienne, aware that her master was both asleep in bed and languishing, listless, within the dream that they had shared.

This place, too, was a dream… yet it was not all a dream.

Hyacinth was standing upon a stepping stone inscribed with tadpoles, surrounded by dark waters that lapped ceaselessly at its edge. She wore her petaled form patterned after the elven aspect of adult Saphienne, and was perturbed to find herself constrained by the physical limitations imposed on sight, sound, touch, and scent. Lucid though she was, she could not reshape this place.

Her eyes adjusted. There were other stones, stretching out into the distance.

She crossed in trepidation. Step by step, the shapes beneath her feet underwent metamorphosis, growing limbs and losing tails to arrive at last–

On grass. She heard ribbiting calls, saw frogs and toads crawling and hopping back and forth upon a small but vivid island, the amphibians teeming over ground that led to a familiar weeping willow.

And seated under that tree? Not Saphienne.

Hyacinth shivered, reduced to reverence by awe and dread. “…Kylantha?”

The girl smiled where she lounged beneath the canopy, undiminished, as carefree and flourishing as when she had stolen Hyacinth’s roots. “Not exactly. Are you going to ask me if I’m a god? Saphienne used to ask me that, though she understood me before the end.”

Unsteady, the bloomkith picked her way through the throng, not daring to take her yellow gaze from the spectre. “What are you?”

“I’m all that you yearn for; all that you seek.” Kylantha clasped her hands in her lap as she spoke, brown eyes replete with mystery. “I am that which spirits lack. Saphienne knows me as the love she feels for herself, experienced through her selfless love for the friend she loved most… but I’m really the other half of herself.”

The spilling leaves brushed her scalp as she entered the curtain. “…I thought I was her other half…”

“There are no halves in nature.” The girl giggled. “All things are themselves; reflection is how we may come to know ourselves, but mirrors are illusions. She and I are one and the same.” Her smile became a grin. “Perhaps you’ll join us? When Saphienne is ready for you.”

Hyacinth slumped to her knees. “She will hate me. Now she knows–”

“Don’t be silly.” Kylantha rose to her feet, light and easy. “Were she still a child? Then Saphienne would have been hurt, but she has far outgrown the moody elf she used to think she was.” She danced to music the spirit could not hear. “You blamed Saphienne because you blamed yourself. You were powerless to save me, and so was she, but you can only understand yourself in relation to someone else — and she was the closet person to you in your mourning.”

“I could have acted.” Hyacinth hugged herself. “I should have possessed you, when you ran from Sundamar. I ought have guided you to safety. I would have kept you safe in human lands.”

Kylantha laughed, tickled by the notion. “No, that’s impossible! Wormwood would never have let you go. You remember what she did when you tried to stop Sundamar, and you know that you were important to her master’s plans for Saphienne.” She paused in her dance, nose wrinkling, head canted. “She’s an evil old mugwort, isn’t she? Did you ever stop to wonder what parts of herself she grafted into you, when she visited you in your nursery?”

“…I will not be absolved.” The bloomkith could not forgive her own transgressions.

“That’s where you’re wrong.” Kylantha knelt down before Hyacinth, staring up into her face with mischief. “You told me your secret name, remember? You don’t have the capacity to see yourself as you really are, which is why you can’t heal.” Her petty vanity was made loveable by her childlike glee. “But me? I can mend you. Saphienne can mend you. Just as you once offered to take away the pain–”

“She refused.” Hyacinth was afraid. “As must I.”

“Too bad!” The child stuck out her tongue. “You aren’t going to lose yourself, Hyacinth; you’re going to find yourself. You aren’t the sum of the horrors visited upon you, and you’re more than the wickedness given life through you.”

“I am not here for myself,” the spirit deflected, “but for Saphienne. She told me to bring her to you, but I lost her in the library.”

Kylantha softened. “You’re wrong again. You’re still walking with her now; I can reach her through you. To heal her requires that you let yourself be healed.”

Beheld then the moth her cleansing flame.

“…For her. Only for her.” She submitted to the agony of love. “What must I do?”

The immense stillness opened wide her arms.

* * *

Peace.

Hyacinth-Saphienne was tranquil, floating on the field of flowers, caressed by snowflakes that melted away her turmoil. Kylantha’s embrace had purified the promise of winter’s end, who was now known – and loved – in full.

“You should have told me sooner.”

Astonishment made her sit up — bewildered by the steps that jutted from the blossoms, then agape at the figure who impossibly sat upon them. “Saphienne?”

The dragon snorted, lounging in her enchanted robes, her scales brilliant in the sunlight. “Not exactly. You’re the real Saphienne — walking with Hyacinth. I’m hallucinated – or maybe conjured – by your unconscious mind, which is to say the part of Saphienne that Hyacinth touched.”

Unsure whether she was sane, Hyacinth-Saphienne rose. “We must be dreaming; or we are mad. You cannot exist independently from us.”

“Correct.” Saphienne smirked. “You’re replicating the effect of the fascinator, enabling my innermost self to dream me into being. I believe Hyacinth met her? I’m sure she sends her love.”

“But we are Saphienne,” the spirit-dragon insisted. “How can you tell us anything we do not already know?”

“The Saphienne you’re walking with was broken.” She slashed with her claws. “Split apart! She sealed herself away so that Tolduin couldn’t destroy her. You’ve bridged the divide — allowing me to convey my plans to Hyacinth.” Her fangs gleamed. “I knew she’d come when called: she previously thwarted the chimes surrounding the hidden clearing. Did she sneak herself in with Phelorna?”

“As a seed, in the stitching of her dress.” Hyacinth-Saphienne settled on the lowermost step. “Shed onto the floor, she rolled to the wall–”

The magician laughed. “She possessed the house! Reaching Saphienne unnoticed. Quite an oversight by her sisters.”

“Mother Oak is not adept with such arts, and the woodkin she relied upon was sympathetic to our plight.”

“Then the spirits are divided,” she grinned. “Did they help Hyacinth hide from the Luminary Vale? Where did she secret herself?”

Hyacinth-Saphienne couldn’t help but smile in turn. “Six months within the First Vale; some escaped confinement in the early days, and the High Masters did not think to look within a vacant prison tree. History was once Hyacinth’s inspiration.”

“Interesting. And then?”

“When their search was spent, she moved between sacred glades, disguised among the flowers fed by the floraliths. She was not aided, but many chose not to notice her comings and goings, and were steadfast in opining that she had fled from the woodlands.”

Saphienne chuckled. “This is excellent! I’m pleased with you, Hyacinth.”

“She exults to hear your praise. Tell us what you would have her do?”

Acquiescing, the dragon stood to pace the narrow span. “Saphienne must be healed; she cannot repair the damage herself, not until she is better recovered. My conjecture is that Tolduin’s spell was patterned after elven physiology, and the result scarred over my higher brain. You can examine her; am I correct?”

“Yes. Her mind is now a desolate place.”

“Then the solution will take time.” She stalked down to sit beside Hyacinth-Saphienne, clasping their petaled hand in her claws. “The enhancing transmutation she worked on herself before she healed her brain was permanent. She doesn’t have full draconic regeneration – she can’t replicate that without her spells and the blood of a drake – but she does possess a tiny measure. The problem,” she elaborated, “is the scarring. While her brain remains scarred, her mind cannot rebuild itself.”

Hyacinth-Saphienne frowned. “…The damage is extensive.”

“And that’s why I want Hyacinth to destroy the scars piecemeal, a little every night.”

She blanched. “Wound Saphienne? This she cannot do.”

“More like picking dead leaves from the branches of a tree, that new growth will follow in spring.”

“You misunderstand us,” she clarified. “While she often walked the mind of Saphienne in health, she did not map its contours, for there was no need. Without a memory of that shape, she cannot tell what would be safe to abrade, nor in what order.”

Yet the fiction, which was not all a fiction, was unfazed. “Well, then it’s very convenient that she has a reference available.”

“…Of what do you speak?”

Saphienne closed her draconic eyes and smiled. “My mother. I couldn’t see it for the longest time, but we are very much alike. She may not be a dragon, but what lies inside her skull is even closer to our ancestor’s semblance than mine. Hyacinth can study her.”

“Lynnariel has never walked with a spirit.”

“I know.” She focused on the flowering woman. “But if she is visited by a spirit looking like me, and begged to trust, and warned to stay silent, she will do as asked.”

Reluctant to force possession, Hyacinth-Saphienne hesitated. “We are unsure…”

“Hyacinth?”

The dragon – realer than the shattered self with whom the bloomkith walked – leaned in until her breath flowed into a petaled mouth.

“I invoke you by your secret name. Hear me, my beloved promise of winter’s end: fulfil your long-pledged service, and prove your love for me is adamantine. Take hold of my mother, map what has been unmade in me, then unpick the knot that binds my thoughts.” Her gaze was steady. “Trust in yourself; break from the ancient ways. Where we are going, they will trouble us no more.”

End of Chapter 143