Star of Silvaria (V)
Reveal
“If he’d stop being reckless for five minutes!” Raphael exclaimed. He jerked Seidon into the moss curtain. “Haste, Mother!”
“Raphael, please!”
“Mother! What Rolf is doing will help us little if we don’t run, now. He’s reckless, but he’s the warrior of us. If he can’t get away, we won’t, either- if we stay, we all become bait!”
He herded Mirala’s mare ahead as quickly as the horses dared to run through the moss-coated corridor, leaving the sounds of the suchides to fade behind us. Thickly matted vines flashed overhead between gaps in the rock, and the clattering of hooves was muffled among the ferns and damp moss. Rivulets of water ran beneath us, forming from droplets dripping from the porous rock walls. The sky was hidden from below, save glints of blue now and then, and the corridor was concealed from above.
A mile must have passed between us and the entrance by the time Raphael reined Seidon in. He found a grotto, light shining through the thin quartz overhang.
Gently removing me from the saddle, he directed Mirala and I to sit quietly. The horses were allowed to graze among the mosses and wild berries. It seemed we were to rest and wait, which was hard to do. I saw Mirala’s lips moving silently, and there were unformed words in my mind, too.
Raphael stood at the mouth of the grotto, leaning on his spear, guarding us as he listened to the sounds of the forest above. It was clear that he was concerned for Rolf, and yet again, he seemed to have a well of strength that rested any fear. I admired him for it, as my own dread had been getting worse. I half-wished I could be asleep until it was over.
My unease grew with every passing moment, as did my fear of trusting my friends. I didn’t trust Rolf’s judgement, I didn’t trust that the suchides didn’t know where this passage was, I didn’t trust that my family was safe, and I remembered what Rolf had said about Raphael never having been off the road before.
Rolf didn’t trust himself, his family didn’t seem to, and if Raphael was wrong, we would be back in a straight line chase, trapped in the crevasse, if the suchides found us.
I hated myself for not being able to hold onto anything, except the locket that I was clicking open and shut.
Raphael glanced back. He left his post.
“Hey,” he murmured, crouching before me. He took my hand to stop the restless clicking.
“He’s going to be alright.”
He studied my face as I didn’t meet his gaze.
“You don’t believe me.”
“I want to.”
“Essa, what I said earlier? Rolf’s done many imprudent things I wish he hadn’t. He’s also done many things I thought weren’t possible, which I couldn’t repeat. For instance,” he said, sitting on the rocks beside me, “on one occasion, he fought two scouts, minus suchides, and escaped unhurt. He defeated both of the tainted without even scratching them. I couldn’t do both if I tried, Essa. Besides, Rolf is right – of all the horses currently clocked in Silvaria, none are a match for Ashtaego. Not to mention, he has a penchant for breaking suchide teeth.”
I tried to believe him. At least this made it a little easier. Mirala wasn’t saying anything, but by the slight easing of tension, I knew she was comforted, too.
“Essa. Let me be the one to worry. Everything that hurts you, I’ll see to it that anything that can be done, will be done.”
Repeatedly, I began to feel that Raphael was taking me under his wings, taking my burdens onto his own shoulders.
Raphael unpinned a brooch from beneath the lapel of his tunic. He gave it to me to hold.
“This was my father’s,” he told me. “It always helped me when I needed something to hold.”
I grasped the pin, running my fingers over the crimped aurical that braced the image of a soaring falcon, silhouetted by the ubiquitous Silvarian star.
“Your father?” I asked hesitantly, noting the past tense.
“He fell defending civilians from Typhon’s monsters many years ago.”
So this was why Rolf had been so sympathetic. Though, it seemed out of character for him to be the most sympathetic. He’d been so gentle with me ever since, but perhaps, while Raphael was the most outwardly affectionate and protective, Rolf was more sensitive.
Seeing that I was at a loss for what to say, he explained that they’d since convinced Mirala to remarry one of the knights. “A better foster father than Sir Roland would be impossible to find,” he assured me, taking up his post once more.
I jolted to my feet. Faintly came ringing that same unearthly whistle I’d heard when Raphael and Rolf had first made their entrance.
I looked to the former and saw him clench his jaw.
“What is that?”
“Bad news. He’s attacking.”
He didn’t have to tell me how foolish that might be, how unlikely it was that Rolf could hold his own against four opponents, and he didn’t want to, either. He’d just encouraged me to trust Rolf, and he didn’t want that to be made wrong.
Hardly a minute later, there was a roar, louder than the whistle, and the birds fled the trees, crying. It was the suchides, I assumed, though it sounded more like a lion – and like worse news.
Raphael closed his eyes but said nothing. The call came once more, different now. When nothing else was heard, Raphael let out a series of four birdlike whistles, which cut through the trees like ice.
A tired answer came and Mirala shakily released the breath she’d been holding.
“He’s coming back,” Raphael sighed. “It’ll be a few minutes.”
I fell silent, watching the corridor in the direction whence we’d come. My lack of faith, though excusable, had been proved wrong in painful relief. Now, if all else could be proved!
The sound of hooves echoed up the passageway. Rolf and Ashtaego came into view, the former nearly literally dead in the saddle. It was as though he were using every ounce of effort to remain in it and stay awake.
He stumbled out of the saddle, nearly crumpling onto his mother’s shoulder.
“Raphael! Bring him over here,” Mirala breathed, and together they helped him rest against the moss-cushioned stones.
I scooted closer, anxiously looking for signs of wounds. There was only one, a gash in his shoulder from a tooth that had rent through three layers of tunic.
“Rolf, was it the scouts?” Mirala’s voice dripped with an anxiety that was for more than the wound.
“Just a tooth. . . safe,” Rolf muttered, closing his eyes. “. . . Tell you about it in a minute.”
Mirala exhaled, brushing his dampened hair away from his face.
“Hush, then, my little Žvaigdė, rest for a while. You’ll feel alright soon.”
Raphael soaked his handkerchief in the grotto’s pool and plastered it to the wound.
I wanted to do something to help, but there was nothing I could do but touch Rolf’s arm gently and be glad he had proven himself, and me, wrong.
He gave me a half smile before he closed his eyes and seemed to go into a coma for nearly twenty minutes.
Troubled, I turned to Raphael, as I was growing accustomed to doing.
“Don’t worry,” he soothed me. “We’re of Elvish blood, Essa, and Rolf received the majority of the genes. He possesses the gift of elven rest, which means he can sleep deeply and entirely in a short time, and it helps him heal.”
I stared at him, agape, trying to decipher what he’d just said. He chuckled, clearly at ease again.
“Yes, elves, insofar as your world would name them as such. They aren’t so inhuman as some stories would tell them to be.”
One of many wishes I’d had growing up was to know what an elf would really be like, but to actually find out? I’d never expected so much, and I couldn’t help but be excited for the first time since my arrival.
I vaguely wondered how Rolf received the majority of the Elvish genes. Perhaps it was like the blond and blue-eyed recessive gene he’d also received. I set to waiting, trying not to worry, and watching the lowering sunlight going through the quartz overhead.
“I’m awake,” Rolf said abruptly at that moment, and woke up laughing at my shock.
He sat up.
“We won’t have to worry about those scouts now. I had to attack them, but Ashtaego and I made it after dropping the suchides, minus riders, down another crevasse. I’m nearly certain they were scouts, like the ones in Amal last summer. There shouldn’t be any others in the next hundred miles.”
“That’s a relief.”
Raphael looked at me. “Wasn’t I right that you didn’t have to worry about him?”
“Heavens, your wording - just don’t tell me you trusted me for once,” Rolf teased.
“Oh come on, I’m not that bad-”
“There you go again!”
“That’s not what I mean!” Raphael smacked him lightly and checked the shoulder wound. “You and your healing; it’s ceased bleeding, fortunately.”
I watched Rolf, finding that he was almost as well as before, only tired.
I opened my hand, remembering the brooch that had left an imprint in my palm. I held it out to Raphael.
He took it with a knowing smile and replaced it beneath his lapel.
“My sons, you’ve both proven yourselves,” Mirala commended them. “Raphael, your geographical studies as the Stellan have been tested, and in safer times, such field practice will be of great import to you.”
She turned to Rolf.
“Your recklessness greatly displeases me as always, Rolf. I wish you would act upon plans that aren’t half so dangerous – or should I say, impulses? Yet I know of no other who could have escaped from the test you placed yourself in. One day you will be a very strong warrior, if you can couple your courage with wisdom.”
She touched his hair.
“Only please. . . don’t make me relive what happened to my husband and brother,” she added softly.
A shadow passed over Rolf’s face and his eyes darkened as he rubbed the ring on his hand.
Internally I continued to guilt myself for distrusting their judgment, when this wasn’t my world. In the same breath, I began realize how safe I was with them.
Layer by layer, my distrust was peeling away. I felt safer with the three than anyone else I’d ever met. Not only were they capable, but gentle and loving, and consistently careful never to push me or hurt me. Any roughness was only between the boys, and that was because of Rolf’s nature, and, I quietly noted, what might be Raphael’s pride. I tried to gloss over that since I didn’t want to overthink there faults, when I had my own.
They were smiling now, promising me we’d be safe in Edessa soon, that no more trouble would come on the way.
If I could trust only one thing, it was that they were truly good, and upright, gentle, and never any of the things I’d come to fear. This was far, far more than I’d ever trusted anyone, and it bode well of Silvaria’s culture.
The remainder of the ride passed uneventfully as we rejoined the road. The belt of Venus was setting the horizon in jewel tones when a city came into view, the spires illuminated by the final rays of the sun. The city crossed the low slopes of the crag from which it was carved, which winged her about like a swan shielding her cygnets. Golden lights glowed from within the streets and slender towers, and even in silhouette, I could see that it was only the better ghost of the loveliest medieval city, for its construction was more graceful than any I’d ever seen.
“We’ll enter through the garden,” Mirala instructed the boys. “The less attention the better, I think.”
So it was that we came up the side of the slope, avoiding the cityglow, and came to a door in the wall. A guard opened it, revealing a slanting path that wound away from the city and up the hill. It carried us to a gardenwall, with a hidden door. The shadows were deepening, and all my tired eyes could see were vague shapes of shrub and tree. The band of light on the horizon deepened to a burnished blue, and the stars were being hung overhead.
“Just a little farther, Essa,” Raphael said kindly, sensing my weariness. “You’ll be able to rest soon.”
I knew we all were, particularly Rolf, for weariness still clung to him. He’d been quiet ever since the battle, and fallen into dark moods where his eyes were like gathering clouds, and them he’d seemed to forget any of us were there.
The gardens must have been extensive, for it took us some time to reach the stables, and from there it was equally far to reach the palace. It wasn’t a medievally turreted castle, that much I could tell. There was only one main tower that I could make out against the sky, and it was a slender spire.
We rounded a marble sculpture, which hauntingly reminded me of the one on Le-Lion-De-Mer, only this one’s eyes shone like starlight, for they were made of a bright, clear stone. Her hands were outstretched as though to take mine this time, and lift me from the waves at her feet.
The palace rose above us now. Filigree columns were backlit against the warm light seeping from the palace windows and the crystal lamps which illuminated the exterior corridors and stairs.
Two figures hastened from the veranda.
“Mother!” a youth’s voice hailed. He advanced, revealing himself to be taller than Rolf, with blond hair lighter than his mother’s.
“My son!” Mirala dropped a kiss on the youth’s forehead.
A knight followed, evidently the youth’s father, for he kissed Mirala’s brow and hugged the boys.
“I’ve missed you both. Is all well?”
“It is,” the knight replied, “now that the three of you are home. Everything has been quiet. Your efforts at Athenon?”
She shook her head. “They wouldn’t listen.”
“Even to Raphael,” Rolf added.
“We’ve done all we can for now. Let us hope the situation eases. What of your exams, Gabriel?”
“I believe they went well. I had some mistakes on the theological exam, as expected, but the medical quizzes weren’t overly difficult. I’ve been told those are the last of the studies. In autumn I’ll be spending more time serving.”
“Hey, Ave, you missed all the action! It was quite entertaining, actually,” Rolf said breezily.
Gabriel raised an eyebrow, taking in the bandage that was visible through Rolf’s tunic.
“You’re a little overly fond of it, aren’t you, Lion? My apologies for not being able to join you.”
He hugged Raphael and lightly punched Rolf in the unwounded arm.
Gabriel, acknowledging me with a calm smile, didn’t seem surprised at my presence. He waited patiently for his mother to introduce us, as must have been the custom.
“Without Rolf here, someone had to keep Blossom company,” Raphael pointed out. “Has she gone to rest?”
“We just spent an hour trying to convince her to sleep,” Sir Roland answered dryly. “Which duly failed. Either she needs you, Rolf, or Raphael’s persuasion, or your mother’s singing. I can’t fathom which. I believe she’s presently contented by marshmallows. Untoasted, may I add.”
“She always does,” Rolf sighed. “I’ll get her to rest.”
He barred Raphael when he began to volunteer.
“Oh no, Bear, this is one case where I am exceptional in persuasion.”
“Marshmallows?” I whispered to Raphael. “What did he just call you?”
“Mm, long story to the latter, but as for the former, we’ve ended up with a collection of fascinating items from your world over the years. Marshmallows took Silvaria over last spring. You wouldn’t believe how many ‘marshmallow makers’ filed it as an actual craft, and somehow they’ve managed to support themselves. Well, part of it is Blossom,” he chuckled.
Mirala remembered me then and left her conversation with her husband to introduce me.
“We found Essa pursued by a suchide on the Etorrera coastline,” she explained. “She will be our guest until we find her family. Essa, this is my son, Gabriel.”
Gabriel gave me a half-bow in greeting and took my hand, and I fixated on the rosary wrapped about his forearm, each of the beads bearing an intricately carved pattern.
“It is good that you’re safe now, Essa. God knows where your family is,” Gabriel told me. “It won’t take long for Him to show us where.”
The knight, too, greeted me kindly.
“This my husband, Roland,” Mirala continued, “and -”
“Mother, mother, Rooooolf!”
A little golden-haired whirlwind exploded out of the palace to meet us. Rolf tried to brace himself.
“Whoa, whoa-!”
There was a collective wince as the girl hurled herself into Rolf’s arms, sending him sprawling.
“-My daughter, Bryoni,” Mirala finished.
“I missed you, I did!” Bryoni declared, kissing Rolf’s cheek. “Don’t go away so long, you’re always home now, aren’t you?”
“Uhh. . . sure, Blossom, I missed you too,” Rolf answered wearily.
Blossom immediately paused. She gave him a little glare.
“Did you get yourself hurt?”
“Only a little,” he answered, climbing to his feet and picking her up. “It’s okay. I mean, alright,” he corrected himself, sending a laughing glance my way.
At his insistence, Blossom remembered to hug her mother and Raphael, and finally noticed me.
“Is she staying?” she asked with interest.
“For a little while, Blossom. This is Essa.”
“Yay! You can play with me and I’ll show you my pony, and we can go on the rose swings! Mother, Mother, Mother! She can stay in my room with me, and we can ring the bells tomorrow, and-”
“Bryoni, Bryoni!” her mother laughed softly. “Essa needs to rest. Don’t overwhelm her yet, Blossom.”
She drew Blossom and Rolf closer.
“As do you, my little warrior. Come now, let’s all get some rest. Roland, would you see to it that palace guests are limited for the time being? We could use a breather from suchide patrols for a time.”
I had been hovering, slowly withdrawing into the shadows, too tired to be present. Their voices faded as I wandered back to the statue.
Raphael noticed and returned to my side.
“I apologize, Essa. I know it’s been a long day for all of us, and a difficult one for you. We’ll go inside and get something to eat, and find a room for you to stay.”
I nodded, pulling at the little white buds growing around the statue’s pedestal. I gazed up at the net of stars which was now twinkling overhead. I didn’t recognize many stars and constellations, but above me shone Leo, and some ways below, the flickering Arcturus in rainbow hues.
A cloud I hadn’t noticed seemed to dissolve, unveiling a set of stars I didn’t recognize.
I wasn’t too tired to ask another question, and at least it was a distracting one.
“What are those stars?”
Raphael followed my gaze. The silence lengthened.
“That,” he said, voice reverently low, “is Our Lady, Virgo.”
The wind whispered at that, billowing the blossoms against my hand. Raphael’s eyes swept over the flowers as though he’d never seen them before, then to his parents, and rested on my face with an expression I was too tired to read.
I was too tired to mind that I’d seemed to distract everyone. The speech I’d ceased to hear stopped. The others likewise turned to the sky.
Bryoni, poised on the stairs with Rolf, pivoted.
“Mother, when did they plant the flowers?” she asked in delight, and pulled on Rolf’s sleeve to draw his attention. She paused to rethink. She cocked her head.
“Or did they just never bloom?”
I finally tore my aching eyes from the sky. Rolf was looking at us silently, all the laughter gone from his own eyes. Silenced, he turned away and pulled Bryoni inside.
Raphael cupped his hand at my elbow.
“Come. Let’s get you to your rest. . . princess.”
Thank you for reading! This is the final chapter of Silvaria that will remain free indefinitely; subsequent chapters will remain free for three months after publication, before returning behind the paywall.
Windflower is a reader-supported publication, so if you’re enjoying its content, please consider subscribing, sharing it with your friends, or leaving a small donation if you’re able. 10% of all proceeds are donated to my parish and the Sunday Latin Mass.