HALIA'S POV
"Watch out and make no noise," Siegfried said.
I stared as he placed his hands on the cell door and removed it. It seemed so easy, for a moment I wondered if we had really been prisoners all along.
"Go!" he said again, beckoning for us to leave the room and walk out into the great hall.
Aras grabbed my hand, firmly, as if she would not let me out of her sight again. It had been hard for her to wonder every day if I was still alive, or where I was at. I hadn't realized before how selfish I had been. I could have at least tried to give her a sign of life, while I was with Phi in the fortress.
I heard the pillywiggings speak as they flew near me. Their voices sounded like chiming bells. It was not the first time they had seen the great hallâthe first time being at Phi's wedding with the Evil King, but they were still stunned by its grandeur and splendour.
Every place we looked, our eyes met with sparkles of gold. Its furnitures, long tables and benches, and incredibly high ceilings. Even the furs hanging off the wall seemed to have been mixed with threads of gold.
They're skins of magical creatures, I thought, shivering in horror.
I hadn't noticed them before. I had been too focus to find the books hidden under the Evil King's massive throne the first time, and on Phi the second time. The third time, well, I was out.
"Shh," Ryn said.
I glanced around the room. Only a few thralls were there, sitting and staring at the emptiness before them. I could almost smell their fetid breath from when I stood. The stench of human, which, even as mindless, they could not shake off.
I sighed with relief. The pillywiggings hadn't disturbed them, and I took care to avoid their gaze.
My eyes lingered on one of the women who sat near a large wooden post. I recognized her. Frida. The servant Phi and I had freed.
Has she returned under Wotan's control?
Just as I wondered that, she lifted her head in my direction and I saw her eyes deep. Full of sorrows.
I sighed with relief. She is still herself.
I didn't want that another one of my victories be reduced to nothing by the Evil King. He had already taken the happiness I'd felt when I arrived to this new world and twisted it into something evil.
He did the same with my love for Phi. My friendship. So beautiful it was. I now wondered if it would ever recover. When she would look at me, she would always remember those dark times.
Our union will always be a symbol of that.
At least, Frida was not destroyed. I waved at her discretely and beckoned for her to follow us.
She glanced around, worried that some of her peers would see, raised herself back on her feet, and joined the ranks behind me.
Aras gave me a quizzical look. I gestured I would explain later.
"You are the one who knows the fortress best," Siegfried said to Domovoy. "We only have a few number of weapons in our homes, and we do not know if the Evil King took them away from us in our absence."
The hairy creature nodded, understanding what the king was asking of him, and led us to the armory where Wotan kept his and his servants' weapons.
There were swords, axes, hammers, morning stars, lances, forks, as well as different kinds of bows and arrows.
"The weapons are centuries old," explained Domovoy. "They are the weapons the humans were using before they fell under the Evil King's influence."
Ryn reached for the swords first and handed them down to other fairies in turn. My eyes met his and I read encouragement in them.
He had been my sword master for so long, only I had never used a real sword. I trained with carved out twigs or other debris the humans left in the alley. This was the first time my hands had touched the fine and cold metal of something this deadly.
It was beautiful. With jewels decorating its hilt. I wondered if it had a name or if I should name it.
Or perhaps I should wait until victory to name it.
"Afraid of that old myth that iron is like poison to a fairy?" Ryn teased, noticing how intently I was contemplating the object.
I giggled, thankful he was trying to lighten the mood. "No," I said. "It's just heavier than I expected."
He smiled just as Nixie whispered loudly, "A guard is coming our way."
I whipped my head around, only to see Mr. Merrow, who stood with his back turned to the door, being impaled by a guard's sword.
Mrs. Merrow's screams filled the room as her husband fell to the floor. With rage, and faster than I had ever seen her, despite her being heavily pregnant, she sliced the guard's throat.
Mrs. Merrow, the Tisannieres, and Siegfried rushed to Mr. Merrow to test his pulse. Mrs. Merrow held up his head on her knees and sobbed.
"It's too late," Siegfried said. "There is nothing we can do."
He then brushed his hand on the dead creature's face, shutting his eyes to the world of light.
"I didn't feel it coming," Banshee said as she began to panic. "I don't understand. Why can't I feel the death coming?"
"It's probably because we are weak and experiencing some limitation by being in the fortress," one of the Tisannieres said to comfort her.
The fair folk divided into two groups. Some trying to solace Mrs. Merrow, others to reassure Banshee.
I stayed frozen in place and noticed instead that Frida was approaching the sturdy guard that lay on the dusty floor, left alone. She turned him around and removed his helmet to look at his face.
The man was still alive, although his breathing was still unsteady. Frida pressed on his wound, to stop the bleeding while biting her lip. Already, a large puddle of blood spreading out around him.
"You know him?" I asked.
"He is my husband," she said. "Please help. My husband would never hurt anyone if he was himself. It was not his fault."
I was moved by the despair in her voice.
"He has lost too much blood," I said. "I don't think I can save him. But let me try . . ."
I kneeled beside him and removed his helmet. The man, who looks as if he was in his late forty, had locks of curled brown hair glued to his face. Apart from his vacant eyes, he looked harmless.
I placed my hands over the injured man's forehead. Then, as I had done with Phi before, I focused on the nature around me.
There was very little to concentrate on. Only the herbs in the Tisannieres' pockets, a well we had passed by on our way to the armory, the feeble sound of the wind, and the sun outside.
The guard gasped and coughed.
"Frida," he croaked. He was himself again. His hands shivered as he tried to reach for his wife's face. "You are free."
"As are you, my beloved," Frida said.
"I could not wish for a better death," said the man in a voice so low it was almost unaudible. "Seeing your face again, alive and well. And being free to tell you so."
Then, just like the merrow man before him, he drew his last breath and his eyes went blank.
Frida began to sob, holding her husband's head close to her heart. Worried looks were cast. The little people suddenly were afraid of the human woman. They did not know what to expect from a grieving human. They didn't know if she was going to be violent towards them and seek revenge. After all, it was a fairy that had killed her husband.
I didn't believe such thing. I put my hand on her shoulder, to comfort and get her attention.
The noise didn't go unnoticed and soon we heard the thumping sound of the guards' boots. Domovoy left the armory to meet and whisper to them. To stop them while we grabbed the last weapons and got ready to leave.
"Frida," I said. "I'm sorry, but we have to keep moving. We have to find a way out of here."
She nodded and rested her husband's head on the floor as around us the fairies grew warier. Although they said nothing, I knew they contemplated the idea of leaving her behind.
I wouldn't let this happen.
"He is at peace now," she said. "May the Father receive his soul into his kingdom." She looked up at the pregnant Mrs. Merrow, still in tears. "And I wish the same for your husband."
The idea of a Father that protected the dead, instead of a Mother, sounded unusual to all, but it was irrelevant now. Mrs. Merrow's face softened. She extended her hand for Frida to grab. "I do not blame you," she began, slowly. The words were difficult to utter but they were heartily felt. "I blame the Evil King. Because of him, my unborn child will never know his father."
"Halia is right," Siegfried said. "We have to go."
We left the armory and faced a dozen of guards, immobile, because of Domovoy's whispers. We walked around them and followed the hairy creature until we faced a wall in a place far enough from the priests' dwellings. Out of sight.
"The forest stretches on the other side of this wall," Domovoy said.
Our freedom was almost palpable. Only a palisade was between us and our liberation. We were almost in the clear. My heart was suddenly filled with hope.
Siegfried extended his arms and, with his newly found powers, pierced through the shield. He burned a gaping hole into the wooden barrier.
It was not without effort, however. The sigils on his body, a myriad of runes, and lines cross-crossing in the most complex pattern, turned red and began to fume. His lips were in a line. He was in pain.
"Go!" he ordered to the community.
I crossed the opening holding Aras's hand and found myself face to face with scenery even more depressingly bare than when I had last seen it.
Looks of pain appeared on the little people's faces as they came through the wall, one by one. All around us the forest was dead. The air was filled with the smell of the lifeless remains of trees and small creatures. Birds, squirrels, rats who hadn't been fast enough to escape the Evil King's wrath. A heavy silence rieght. No birds were singing, no leaves frolicking in the wind. The silence after a war.
"Our poor Mother," the three Matres said, wiping a few tears off their motherly faces. "How much she must be hurting!"
"We can't leave the land like this," the Tisannieres said in their turn.
Siegfried came through the wall last. He was already exhausted after opening the fortress for us, but nodded. It is in a fairy's nature to want to help the earth.
He once again used his magic and planted his hands into the ground. His fingers grew into roots. His eyes went blank. Soon, the clouds in the sky raced with the wind and rain drops fell.
The celestial body of the moon appeared through a haze of clouds, although it was the middle of the day, and I joined the fairies in a dance of flowing arcs and graceful poses. Our arms, our hands and fingers, everything was ever so elegant and fluid. My feet were as light as a feather and moved in perfect sync to the beating of my heart.
"They look so graceful," I heard Frida say to the house spirit.
"Some people call fairies 'moon flowers," Domovoy told her.
"You have to see them dance to understand why," she muttered.
As the dance progressed, a carpet of greens expanded from Siegfried's hands and slowly reached the horizon. The trees regained their leaves, their lives; Flora ventured on the grass and under her feet blossomed flowers; the pillywiggings called the birds back and the Tisannieres emitted different sounds to do the same with the animals.
We then ventured into the woods, which now provided us with enough cover from the thralls.
"We need to eat to regain our strength," the Tisannieres said. "We need to be ready, for soon the Evil King will realize we are gone and come after us."
The three sisters replaced our now depleted king by planting their thumbs in the soil. A tree of forty kinds of fruit grew almost instantly.
The dwarfs climbed up its branches and, after biting avidly in apples and pears, threw fruits at the other fairies still on the ground.
I took bites of cherries, figs, oranges, pears, peaches, apples, grapes, and other fruit I had never tasted before.
With the sight of the moon, looking over us, and the sugar coursing through my veins, I felt better than I had felt in a long time.
"You are free to leave," Siegfried said once everybody, including himself, were satisfied and recovered some colour on their cheeks. "You are no longer prisoners. You can hide, go as far away from here as possible." The idea was tempting to many. "However," he continued, "shall you decide to stay and help me defy the Evil King, I will be eternally grateful to you."
Ryn was the first to join our good king's side, his face hardened. I clenched my fist and followed, along with the other dwarfs.
I have to do this for the girl I love, for Phi.
Seeing my stubborn expression, Aras was next. My guess is that she assumed she could not convince me otherwise and that the best way to protect me was by fighting at my side.
She waved at me with her right hand, for good luck. My mouth curved into a brittle smile. Although she knew how to wield a sword, her stature was so petite I was apprehensive as to how much damage she could really do.
In the end, almost everybody was willing to fight. Only Phi's grandmother and Grannie did not join, because of their advanced age. Instead, they left to find refuge in a tree and hope for the best.
We each carried at least one weapon. We were ready for war. I began to hum the Fortunate Land a song that had become our anthem of hope. Death was looming but now . . . now we were alive.
���y[����