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“A river is not a wet stone,” she murmured in Elvish, switching the cross of her legs.
I scoffed and took another drink. “I am not the Blade.”
The truth of those words echoed deep inside me like a rock at the bottom of a well. I had taken that title as a way to end the Crown and protect the Shades. It seemed fitting that I should lose it the same day I failed at both those tasks.
Maerhal nodded, accepting my answer with a flip of the page. I watched her gaze shift amongst the words and noticed the way she always seemed to be half in a daze. Like she couldn’t tell if the world she was walking in was made of dream or not. Nikolai had told me that the healers didn’t think her mind would ever be the same after centuries in that hole.
My heart twinged. Maerhal had chipped away at herself as a matter of survival, letting her memories fade year after year. I knew what it was to wake up different and alone. In a world that had forgotten you.
I wanted better for her.
Something warm flowed under my skin. My healing gift pooled in my chest and then down my arm closest to Maerhal. I lifted myfingers to the bed and brushed her knee. The moment I did, the magic flowed out of me, slow and controlled like a lazy river.
Maerhal flinched at the touch but then she relaxed. Her eyes softened and for the first time when she looked at me, I knew she was seeing me for exactly who I was. She lifted her hand to my face and held my cheek. “You and I spent a long night together,” she whispered in perfect Elvish. No riddle to untangle.
I kept my magic flowing over her. “Many.” I swallowed knowing she had spent so many more alone than we had ever shared.
Maerhal shook her head. “Our days are too many to count by the turn of suns. We count by how tall and wide the forest grows.”
She finally blinked and gave me a pointed look. “A tree does not grow in darkness.”
I sighed. I was tired of growing. I was tired of standing in the same spot, unable to change anything that was happening around me. I understood why the trees of the Dead Wood had curled into themselves, withering away into blackness to protect their sisters in the neighboring woods. That was all I was trying to do, contain the pain to myself and not let it spread to the rest of the wood.
“Your mother wore that same face.” Maerhal waved her hand above her head in tight delicate movements like she was painting a design into the air.
My magic stilled. “You knew my mother?”
Maerhal nodded slowly, her gaze still focused on her fingers. “I know her still.”
I pursed my lips to the side and slumped back in the chair. Syrra had told Maerhal about the Light Fae and everyone else who had been lost to the Blood Wars, but some days Maerhal spoke as if the present and the past were the same. Happening all at once in a single braid of time.
I didn’t have the will to tease apart the order only to watch her tangle the strands again. “My mother is gone.”
Maerhal brushed her fingers along one of the open blooms glowing in the warm faelight floating above our heads. “The wind dies but surely blows again.”
“My mother is not the wind,” I answered, shocked by the anger in my words. “But if she were, she’d be a storm lying in wait to unleash her gales onto the realm.”
A slow smile grew across Maerhal’s face. She grabbed my hand and the flow of my healing gift returned. Maerhal’s eyes focused on me once more as she tapped my nose. “She used to torment the older Elves with her gusts.” Maerhal giggled and fell on her bed. “She’d carry their food away on the wind, letting children chase it before she brought it back to them. But her favorite thing to do was craft wings for the children of Kieran’thar and let them fly on her gusts over the sea.”
Maerhal spread her wings and I knew from the joy on her face that she had been one of those children.
“My mother lived in Koratha?” I swallowed. “With you?”
Maerhal nodded, her arms still extended. “I would come and visit Syrrie as a child atNiikir’na. Your mother was always there with her. And when I met Nikolai’s father, she would come to visit in our wood. Though Syrrie says the wood has died now.” Maerhal’s face fell as the ghosts of her past closed in.
I grabbed her hand, bringing her focus back to me. “Syrra knew my mother?”
Maerhal nodded and cupped my face in both her hands. “A wind may die but it will always blow again. There are many in this city who can breathe life into her gusts if you let them. To die is not to end.”
I looked down at my hands. I had never considered that the gift I had been given in the Rift had come from my own mother. Myvision blurred as I looked back up to Maerhal. She had stopped speaking in riddles. I let my magic flow between us once again. “Do you have any more stories?”
She nodded. “Ravaa taught me how to make purple nectar tea fromlilthirablooms. It was Miiran’s favorite; he would never stop laughing every time I made it for him.” She smiled widely and I pictured the small child bouncing on Maerhal’s knee in that statue, tight curls covering his eyes.
“You should make it for Nik again.”
Maerhal’s smile faltered. “The blooms must be picked under daylight for the nectar to be its sweetest.” She pulled on the ends of her hair that still hadn’t fully bloomed.
“Maybe I can find a way to bring the suns to you,” I whispered, half in jest, half in wonder.
