Nurturer of Nightmares

Xarran

She was still cuddled against my chest, her hand resting between us, when I opened my eyes the next morning, dawn cresting the horizon, and I yawned, rubbing at my eyes before glancing down at her, only to immediately stiffen. She was clammy, her skin pale and I pressed the back of my hand to her forehead to find it burning hot. Swearing, I scooped her up, knowing I had to cool her down fast if she wanted to survive, and placed her down against a tree trunk only a few feet away, packing snow around her as tightly as I could. Had the bone not been bound correctly?! She mumbled incoherently, her head lolling back… When I forced her eyelids open, the pupils beneath were unfocused and glazed over like frosted glass; like the snow had settled over her very soul, and I shook her roughly, hissing her name. “Selphien!”

Scooping more sludgy, early-morning snow into my hands, I packed it tightly around her body, the forest going silent, before I turned my panicking inwards, shaking awake the presence in the back of my mind.

‘What do I do?’ I begged, Astaroth’s dark, seductive voice replying, ‘Leave her to die. She is not your responsibility.’

‘Astaroth,’ I begged, ‘Please! How do I help her?’

‘You have a choice before you: The Manor will be bringing their army through here in two days time, on their way to sweep Ressila and her army away. You can remain here and guarantee torture for yourself, and hope they treat her illness in order to prolong her inevitable suffering, or you can attempt to carry her to Tarvenia and her home. The fever will not break anytime soon. It’s poison that courses through her veins, and enough of it to kill a Demonic-being slowly.’

I would have to carry her; a nearly impossible feat, considering I didn’t know the way to her home, but it was the last thing that my Demon Lady had said that flagged my attention, and I spat aloud, “Poison?! What kind of poison?!”

‘The innkeeper put it in those two jars you both took. She planted them there intentionally for the both of you. Selphien was the one to eat hers first, if you remember. It is parts of apple seeds the woman has crushed up.’ Apple seeds contained cyanide, and enough of it should have killed Selphien right away, rather than now! She had eaten it, the whole damned jar, on their first and second night in the forest, but why had the poison taken until now to begin affecting her? Cyanide was a fast killer, not a slow one!

“Sleepwalking,” she’d stammered to me, barely able to find the words, “I- I do it sometimes, when I’m nervous or sick.”

She truly was sick. Whatever the poison was, it would have a cure, right? Surely the innkeeper wasn’t that cruel! I could understand wanting to teach me a lesson for being rude, and she probably hadn’t intended for Selphien to eat the jar first- I knew it was stupid. There was no cure for cyanide poisoning, not here, in this primitive, backwards world.

Selphien mumbled something again, her voice slurring, and I brushed more snow over her forehead. I would remain here a day- just a single day, before leaving. I couldn’t risk being captured by the Maladur family again, even if it would take me closer to the Demonic Princess whose life I had sworn to protect with my own, in more ways than one.

Her cousin had been scarily close to figuring out that I found his cousin attractive, had even hinted to knowing, and I wondered if he realised just how quickly I’d fallen for Destiny.

Where was my Princess of Hell now? Was she being tortured again, her father adding to those scars down her back? I tried not to think about it, still packing snow around Selphien until her skin began to cool, and eventually, I turned my mind inwards again.

‘Will you help me hunt food?’

‘It is winter here, boy. Many creatures are in hiding. There are very few left to hunt.’

Rolling my eyes at her sarcasm, as though I couldn’t tell it was winter with the snow surrounding us, rolling out as far through the forest as the eye could see, I stood. Maybe it wouldn’t be wise to spend a day here. It would mean a day less travel between the Manor and us, and with Selphien sick, the Manor could easily catch up… Or for me to turn around and go find Destiny.

We would leave now, while I felt strong enough to do it. Scooping up the blankets, I packed them into our respective bags before heading back for Selphien, the Fae Queen still curled in the snow, unresponsive.

She was like a Faery tale Princess, the ones who would be kept asleep in towers, glass coffins, enchanted forests- Her purple hair glittered, richer than any gemstone, and I slid my hands beneath her shoulders and knees, lifting her. She muttered something again, and I replied, “What did you say, Selphien?”

She gave no response, although her eyes flickered beneath her eyelids, Astaroth saying, ‘She will be lucky to wake with no permanent damage. A fever such as that one will not be easy to break.’

‘Which is why it’s important we get to Tarvenia as soon as possible,’ I reasoned, Astaroth purring in agreement before vanishing. Demon Lords, or Ladies, in my case, were difficult to understand. Astaroth seemed to both enjoy and despise my company, the Demon Lady taking me as no more than a way for her to view the world outside of Hell, just like she was no more than a way for me to be more powerful in the Manor, a threat rather than prey. Placing our bags back on Nightmare, I strode over to Selphien’s own horse, placing the Fae Princess down and tying her into place. I would lead her horse, with Selphien on it’s back, as well as my own horse. We would have to walk on foot, the trees pressing together too tightly for two horses to fit at the same time, the branches too low for me to reasonably sit on Nightmare’s back without having my head come off.

‘What can you tell me about Selphien and her home?’ If I was going to lie for Selphien, I would need to know as much as possible. I untied both horses, beginning to lead them through the trees at the same time Astaroth said, ‘It was raided when she was fourteen in Fae years. A man who worked as a General for her parents wanted her hand in marriage, and they refused. He put together a rebellion group and stormed their Palace home one night. The King of the Lake Palace died at the same time his wife did. He was run through with a blade, while two floors above, his wife suffered the same fate trying to save their children. The citizens were never told what happened to the Crown Prince of the Lake Palace, or his sister.’

‘They don’t know she’s alive?’

‘No. There are rumours, as there always are, but nothing concrete. Interestingly enough, Syrphien and Selphien were not the only Maw’tryx children born into the family, although they are both unaware of their younger sibling. Namid, his name is, and he is now the Second-In-Line to the Lake Palace Throne, although he doesn’t know it. He knows he was raised by adoptive parents, but he doesn’t know that his family is actually Royalty.’

‘Wait, hold on a second! How was this child born AFTER Selphien’s parents had died?’

My jaw dropped open at Astaroth’s explanation of Fae births, how they had Seedling Fields and their children were born from flowers that could continue being fed by Seedling Caretakers- The men and women who offered their magic up to orphaned flowers so the child within may continue growing until they are born. From then on, they are offered up for adoption. Faery children didn’t need their parents magic, they just needed magic in general, but the person who offered that magic up would have an influence on the child. It could alter how their magic revealed itself.

‘Namid was marked as a special case by the Lords and Ladies who remained after the General’s attack. He was offered up for adoption and taken in by a well-off family in the city’s more expensive district, and his adoptive parents were told about his old family, and warned that their new child could be at risk for assassinations and the like. They named him Namid to honour his old family.’

‘What does Namid mean?’ I couldn’t see how the name, which sounded nothing like Syrphien or Selphien’s, could honour them in any way, until Astaroth replied, ‘It means Star-Dancer in the Fae language, as well as a language from Earth’s time.’

My gaze fell to the stars, although dimmed, that shone on Selphien’s cheeks, and I replied, ‘Oh.’

‘That child is only ten now, still a child through all intents and purposes. Funnily enough, he lived up to his namesake- He performs in one of their theatres as a dancer, and a very good one.’

Did he have the same purple hair that both Maw’tryx siblings had? If so, how had nobody put the dots together yet and named him the Crown Prince if they had suspected both Syrphien and Selphien to be dead? Why offer him up for adoption when he could have been raised by the court as a Prince?

To answer my unspoken question, which Astaroth seemed to hear regardless, she explained further how the magic offered up worked on Seedlings; In a normal Seedling, their features after their birth would be the same as their parents because their parents were the ones to offer their magic up. In Namid’s case, his parents offered their magic up for some time, until they were killed, which is when a Seedling Caretaker took over. Namid did have the purple hair that his older siblings had, but it ended halfway down his hair before turning white- the same colour of hair the Seedling Caretaker who had kept him alive had. He also had the same starry pattern across his cheeks, but some were gold and some were white. He had enough features that anyone looking too closely would recognise him as a relative of the Maw’tryx family, but they could just as easily be dismissed as coincidence.

‘How did his magic manifest?’

‘He has similar magic to his siblings, but it’s altered somewhat… His siblings have the magic of the universe, of stars and water and mist, and while he does have aspects of it, it also came with a hint of the magic his caretaker had, which was frost. He is, for lack of better words, unusual for a Faery. Normally their magic will choose one element, but he seems to have been born with a merge of two.’

Leading the horses between two large trees, the air humming around me, I pressed my lips together at the pinch of magic surrounding me. A Fae layline must have been nearby, or at the very least one of their sacred sites.

I’d met Faeries before, in Pangorama. They were normally found taking care of what little ancient places remained in the Dimension; museums, parks, religious places, but none of them had looked anything like Selphien- ‘This was a very carefully made Dimension, it seems. Every personality, every soul here, seems so particularly made.’

‘What do you mean?’ I asked, pausing to glance around the clearing I found myself in, stones humming around me loudly. Raising an eyebrow, I carefully avoided touching them, leading the horses through the long grass, only to pause again. This clearing was as bright as spring, the leaves on the trees swaying, the grass a deep, emerald green, not a speck of snow to be seen scattered across the dirt.

‘A Fae pocket,’ Astaroth explained instead, dodging my question entirely, ‘Where Faeries practice magic. One must be out here, practising their Spring magic.’

‘We should keep moving, then.’ I had no desire to run into a Faery, especially with one of their Princesses tied to a horse; a horse that I was leading through the forest. Alone.

It just didn’t look very good.

‘What I mean, Demonic-being, is that the Archangels were very careful to make rulers who would get along. They couldn’t have the Dimension tearing itself apart before the Gods of Daemonium had their war, could they? When you reach the Lake Palace Territory, you will have a choice. You can inform Selphien of her little brother, or you can keep the knowledge to yourself.’

‘Keeping it from her would hurt her,’ I said, and Astaroth laughed, ‘She hasn’t known for centuries. Knowing now won’t change anything.’

I would tell her. How could I not? “I’m alone. The last Maw’tryx in the world.” The heartbreak in her voice had hurt even me, and I could hear the loneliness in the words. I had my brothers. There were other Rarkamad’s in the world. If they all died, I couldn’t imagine the pressure I would have felt to continue my family line, not to mention how lonely I would have been. Her brother had been her link to a life she surely missed, and I had taken it away from her.

If Selphien did have a little brother, another Maw’tryx Prince, then I had to tell her.

‘Except give her more family to care about.’

‘Very emotional of you, Demonic-being.’

Ugh… Astaroth was right. I was acting like a damned Nephilim!

I was acting like Desterium’s Connected! The thought made me sick to my stomach, and I pulled a face, muttering in reply, ‘You’re right. Why should I care if the Faery is alone or not?’

Astaroth said nothing, although I heard her dark, mocking laugh in the back of my mind, calling me out for my bullshit.

Because, for some Hellish reason, I DID care…