Chương 157: CHAPTER 148 – Sweet Delight

Would Almon betray Saphienne? He'd done so once before; and yet he regretted that decision, his guilt evidenced by both his reluctance to take on further students and his behaviour toward her during her recovery. Nor had he wanted to vote to condemn her, having been threatened into compliance by the prospect of losing the only role that gave his life meaning. She knew who he was.

Almon was a man of tremendous passions he couldn't fully comprehend, denying himself the closeness for which he yearned, formerly made to feel inconsequential in childhood and thereby driven to be unignorable in adulthood. The wizard made of himself the fulcrum around which the world must turn. He'd seen himself in her, which was why he'd disliked her so thoroughly when she was only a girl.

A more mature man – a man who'd healed – would have resolved to be for her what had been denied to him, and unconsciously he tried to lend that support to his students. But he was marred by an upbringing that hadn't accepted him, forced to leave an unwelcoming home and press his case to a master who'd respected yet resented the wilful apprentice. Saphienne saw herself in Almon. He too was struggling against what the world had made him… and he was no dragon.

His solipsism was the lonely protest of a child overwhelmed by powerlessness before life, who compensated by insisting that all he beheld was really himself. He was the world in which he walked, and what he saw or heard or felt came not but from himself; and there he hallucinated a mystery to sustain himself against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. What else was there for him to do? He refused to end his life.

Jorildyn had moved to the Eastern Vale in concern for him, and Saphienne was confident that the tailor had assumed the responsibility of chair to the local consensus not to counter the man, but rather to mitigate his weaknesses. Almon was unsuited to politics; his brother compensated, preventing his worst impulses from breeding too much resentment. That he was loved so dearly by his older brother wasn't enough.

She could intuit the wound that had been inflicted, and why vulnerability was too painful for the wizard to let himself feel that which was offered and for which he yearned. His life was an absurd tragedy, prefiguring her own. No, Saphienne decided, Almon wouldn't betray her, not ever again. Witnessing her torture and durance had taught him a bitter lesson: cowardice was worse than death.

The surging emotions in his stare had shown her he'd changed, as had the swiftness with which he'd bowed and taken his leave, withdrawing lest sentiment overcome him. Yet a coward he remained. Plausible ignorance was safer than provable complicity; he would say nothing, do nothing, and would offer no help to her but his silence. And even were he to have been reforged in adamantine, given the bravery to selflessly free Saphienne from the woodlands?

No act could provide restitution for the suffering that had been inflicted on her and the people who loved her. There was no excusing the evil he'd done. Nevertheless… did his mercy not oblige she be merciful? Could she really make herself do what necessity demanded she do to him? Was she still prepared to destroy Almon? * Being challenged by mercy was not the only cause for hesitation."' The girl was afraid. Her mother had told her never to go outside during a storm, but her mother was missing …'"

She listened to Lynnariel reciting'The Girl and the Gulls' with great intensity, trying to imprint each word, every sensation into her memory. For this reason she had asked her mother to read to her without the fascinator, caring less for the illusory feelings of the story than for the real warmth of the woman she cuddled into. Saphienne wanted to recall their time together with perfect clarity."' She followed the song to the cliffs. From their edge she saw white within the water: the sorcerer of the sea!

Had the woman her mother warned about stolen her mother away? …'" Recollections were all she would have. Her mother didn't want to leave the woodlands; Saphienne had asked subtly but repeatedly, and the answer was sadly unambiguous. Losing her home and friends had been too injurious for Lynnariel to endure, finding peace afterward having taken her longer than many humans lived. To go would be an uprooting she couldn't survive, nor was there anything in Aiglant that could mend what the elves had broken."'

The beach roared at her as the waves crashed down. Her heart pounded like a beating drum as she neared it, and she wished she could hear the gulls instead. Their laughter would have made her brave, but they were huddled in their nests …'" Saphienne would miss her mother. She'd be missed, too, though Lynnariel would share that sorrow with Phelorna, both being mothers whose beloved daughters had been sacrificed to the ancient ways."' This is not a place for children, said the sorcerer. The ocean is unkind.

Go back to shore while you yet may …'" Were Lynnariel willing to depart, then Saphienne might have settled on another, less final means of escape. For her mother's sake she would've relinquished her principles and renounced vengeance upon the elves, going quietly and unnoticed, stealing beyond the border to seek new lives together."' The girl called out, What have you done with my mother? The sorcerer smiled.

If you want to know what became of her, she answered, then you must leave your childish ways upon the beach. Come and see …'" Had Saphienne done so, would she still have been a dragon? Her principles were the substance from which she grew her scales. Would she have been prepared to abandon them? Was she capable of that?"' Frightened, the girl retreated, running back to the warmth and safety of the empty house upon the cliffs. The sorcerer laughed louder than the thunder …'"

Could Saphienne forsake herself for her mother's happiness? * Admitting her self-doubts to Hyacinth would have been choosing to desist. The bloomkith had been horrified by what Saphienne intended, dismayed at the sacrifice required. She'd begged for there to be another path out of the woodlands, but the logic dictating the binary choice was faultless. Either Saphienne crept away, giving up on vengeance and the message it would convey, or she committed to her role in the drama in whole.

There were no halves in nature. What was Saphienne to be? Hyacinth couldn't deny what her master insisted upon. Reluctantly, the spirit had assented to the dragon. Deprived of counsel, Saphienne distracted herself. She finished vesting her sigils a week before the summer solstice festival, nine engravings lining her side of the studio.

They told a tale of a godly girl whose faith was tested by a dragon, and the most recent depicted the girl facing the viewer with the wyrm looming threateningly behind, tail lashing and fangs curling. Spirals in her hair – and the dragon's breath – artistically tied the pieces together. Supposedly, three depictions remained to be sculpted: divine intervention inspiring the girl, her conviction driving the dragon away, and her triumphant celebration with her fellow elves.

Admiring the sketches for them, no one could guess that they were redundant, never intended to be realised. Her frantic efforts with the tenth stone helped sell the lie. Even Gaeleath was fooled.

"You're trying to force what isn't ready." They stopped at the line of wooden sculptures that surrounded Saphienne, papers held underarm.

"I am ready."

"But your art isn't. You know your vision, but you haven't wholly reconciled yourself to bringing it forth: you don't feel its substance within yourself." Talking sincerely about her art had previously exposed her; she wilfully ignored the obvious parallels to her second thoughts in the present.

"When I made my statue honouring Our Lady of the Basking Serpent, I was inspired in Her depiction." She set down her chalk and wiped away the tentative cuts she'd been outlining.

"I don't feel Her presence in this. I can't capture what isn't there."

"I don't share your fervour," Gaeleath noted, "but I have faith in the creative labour, and I understand that forcing myself to make art before the art demands to be made results in bad work."

"Time won't stand still for my convenience." Sundamar had been listening from his usual place by the entrance.

"There's always the next festival. Waiting another five years to show your art will just increase the anticipation for it."

"Five years is too–" She stopped herself; despite her intent, she'd been engaging honestly about her secret frustrations.

"…I'm being impatient, aren't I? Please excuse my childishness." Saphienne solemnly turned her gaze to the sketch of the goddess.

"Perhaps She is telling me I need to learn to take my time. She hurried me back to health in Her kindness, but not everything in life will happen so quickly." The warden smirked as he whittled.

"You're just enthusiastic. Part of being a child." Gaeleath was more contemplative.

"My prediction? You'll finish these, put them away until the next festival, and midway through some future piece an insight will arise that makes you glad that you never showed them. Then you'll spend one or two years remaking them, greatly improved, and exhibit the final versions to great acclaim." She feigned agreement.

"Let the gods' will be done." Then, eager to move the conversation on, she pointed to the papers her teacher in sculpture carried.

"Speaking of the gods — are those the original designs? For the shrine to Our Lord of the Endless Hunt?"

"Reproductions," they corrected her, unfolding gorgeous calligraphy.

"The original pages were fragile. Some were unreadable. I went to their maker, and she obliged me by copying them out in full." Saphienne frowned at the neat script beside the illustrations, struggling to recall where else she'd seen the handwriting.

"She remembered making these?"

"She remembered everything! She'd been responsible for seeing it raised. I'd imagined a priest would've taken charge, but she proposed several shrines within the vale and local wilds." Squinting, Saphienne pretended she was perplexed — rather than concerned by what she'd belatedly recognised.

"…That is unexpected. Perhaps this elder is pious?" Gaeleath shrugged.

"Between us? I suspect she enjoyed the work. When I took the originals back to the archive I searched around, going much further back, and the plans for the second founding of the village looked like she penned them, too." Sundamar perked up.

"Second founding?"

"When it was expanded," Gaeleath smoothly lied to the warden, having disclosed too much to the uninitiated.

"The plans were all labelled in sequence — I misspoke." She acted as though she gave the matter no further thought, returning to chalking the green rock fruitlessly; undue interest would draw unwanted attention. Should she have been so shocked? She'd known for years that her life had been orchestrated by ancients. That one among them would be so meticulous as to set the stage for her wyrd before even Kythalaen was born shouldn't have surprised her.

Weren't the fringes of the woodlands the safest place to play with fire? But to augur so potently as to know where to set the shrines to Our Lord of the Endless Hunt and Our Lady of the Balanced Scales… … And to foresee so well as to give a collection of restricted poems to Athidyn, who would go on to nourish Hyacinth and Saphienne… … Athidyn, who before then had shown the poems to Nelathiel, inspiring her to become a priest at the first of those shrines… Saphienne paused in dizzying vertigo.

What an intricate web had been woven; how delicate its myriad strands; how inescapable its binding. Eletha truly was a master among artists. * Hyacinth was slow to possess Saphienne that night. The bloomkith descended into her depths to find Saphienne glowering over her stormy sea, perched on the edge of the isle furthest from the willow tree.

"Saphienne? What troubles you? My delay was not intended; there are more elves within the vale to be evaded." The magician raked her claws through the sand in distemper.

"I know. I'm not angry because you're later than normal. I'm not angry at you at all: I'm furious with myself. I've been slow to see what's going on." Hyacinth sat beside her, leaning on her shoulder.

"Tell what disquiets you."

"Eletha." Saphienne cracked her tail as lightning flashed.

"I finally understand what she's been doing." Hyacinth quietened.

"You don't need to say anything. I know you can't: she's a High Master, and spirits are constrained from speaking about the High Masters."

"What have you discerned?"

"She walked away from them." Saphienne drew her knees up, holding her legs against her chest like she was once more a teenager.

"When they found out about the curse laid by Lonareath they must have argued about what to do. Lenitha won; Eletha lost. She left the Luminary Vale and appeared to go into obscurity on the fringes of elven society."

"…And then?"

"She let them believe that she'd bowed to their consensus. In reality," she guessed, "Eletha has been working harder than all of them to thwart the curse. She augured the circumstances under which Kythalaen might be born, and arranged the Eastern Vale to provide those circumstances. She got ahead of the High Masters; she made certain Kythalaen would be given a name to help counter the curse, and became her mentor to try to shape her decisions.

Eletha's eyes are the colour of the sea, so couldn't she play surrogate mother to the 'daughter of green eyes,' saving everyone?"

"Why go to such lengths?"

"I'm a curse upon the woodlands." Saphienne bowed her head.

"A judgement.

'A daughter of green eyes will behold the suffering of the world at too young an age; will choose for her art the Great Art; will commit apostacy while still a child; will achieve mastery earlier than her antecedent; and will face a choice to either live out her life in the woodlands, or be destroyed by dragons' fire.' What they told me about the omens wasn't a lie — but it wasn't the whole truth. I was destined to live out my life in the woodlands, or to become a dragon and burn them down."

Silence fell over them; even the clouds quietened.

"My conjecture," the magician continued, "is that Lenitha and the others wanted to kill anyone who showed signs of fulfilling the prophecy. Perhaps they did. Perhaps a succession of green-eyed girls died over and over in the woodlands, until Eletha succeeded in catching Kythalaen in her trap. Whatever the case, she knew that the wyrd couldn't be thwarted directly, and that preventing its fulfilment would only increase its power. Thus, she tried to meddle in its unfolding with Kythalaen.

"And she failed." Saphienne hissed a twisted laugh.

"She underestimated my wyrd. She herself became part of its unfolding! By teaching Kythalaen about her omens and trying to deter her, she accidentally encouraged her to go out to meet dragons and study our magic. In panic, Eletha went back to Lenitha to warn what Kythalaen was doing…" Hyacinth hugged Saphienne tightly.

"I don't know how Kythalaen died. Perhaps Lenitha convinced a dragon to assassinate her; perhaps her wyrd really did cause her own daughter to murder her, for attempting to subvert Lonareath's vision. Either way, the High Masters came very close to facing consequences." She closed her eyes.

"What Eletha had shown was that they couldn't put it off forever; Lenitha therefore took a more proactive approach, and with me she tried the opposite strategy, making the omens happen as quickly as possible. This went about as well as one might expect."

"How would you imagine Eletha might have interfered?" Simply posing the hypothetical question strained Hyacinth. Saphienne smiled at her.

"I haven't imagined it. She's ensnared by my wyrd — she won't escape until it's done with her. Being direct failed with Kythalaen, since no single person could alter her trajectory. But for me? Eletha learned from her mistakes. She set the scene for my arrival so that I'd be influenced by everyone I encountered. While Lenitha pushed me toward fulfilling the omens, Eletha surreptitiously ensured I was raised to be capable of mercy."

"…You believed she did something to you when she taught you…"

"I missed the point. Having augured my future in terrifying detail, she altered my memory so that I would notice her influence, choreographing the revelation so that here, now, I can put together what she's done, and anticipate the favour she will call on." Shifting to kneel in front of Saphienne, the bloomkith was fearful.

"What will Eletha ask of you?"

"Only what I would be willing and able to do: she admitted that she cannot compel me to do otherwise." Saphienne laughed weakly.

"Nor can she save me from what my wyrd decrees. The moment the Luminary Vale refused to bend, I was condemned to suffer at the hands of their agents… and to endure. You know, I once thought she wanted me to mend her relationship with her daughter? But she would never ask that. My wyrd is the reason Filaurel hates her."

"I do not follow…"

"Caught up in my wyrd after Kythalaen, whyever would Eletha have a child?" Hyacinth blanched.

"…Surely not…""'A daughter of green eyes!'" Her laugh grew manic.

"Filaurel went outside the woodlands and returned, whereupon she was welcomed back by her mother, given prominence as village secretary and – more importantly – my librarian. Eletha's monstrosity is breathtaking. She knew that I'd be motherless during my formative years, just like Kythalaen.

"So, what did she do? She conceived a child with eyes like hers to fill the role. Someone she could shape who would then shape me." Breathless, she sagged.

"And the worst part? In spite of all this careful planning? Filaurel rejected and betrayed me. Far from being the reason I would spare the woodlands…" Hyacinth held her.

"Saphienne, my love… I can say no words to console you."

"Everything I am…" She wept in despair.

"Everything I love… everything I hate… you and I are the same…" Rain swept over the island. *"We are who we are." Saphienne held Hyacinth's hand as they lay staring up into calmer night.

"You're a spirit of the woodlands; I'm the spirit of judgement given flesh. You can't be anything but my beloved; I can't be anything other than a trial. Either I decide the happiness of the elves is worth all the suffering, or I punish them for their hubris. Choosing mercy requires I renounce myself and submit to living as they do."

"You are no elf."

"No. That's why the outcome has weight. I must be willing to suffer and forgive the elves anyway. Lenitha thought that forcing the first four omens early would leave me malleable enough to soothe and win over. If not, the consequences of failure would surely be easier to address. Eletha knew better, and staked everything on raising me to show them mercy."

"You are merciful… but you are a dragon."

"And my revenge is at hand. They have provided ample reason for condemnation."

"What will you do?" She didn't know. Eletha hadn't been permitted to compel her, but the ancient had succeeded in weighting the scales to the point where they balanced. That Saphienne knew she'd been manipulated didn't nullify who she was. Or that Filaurel had betrayed her.

"I was going to send you away," Saphienne admitted.

"The vale is becoming too busy to risk your comings and goings. My plan was to call for you on the second day of the festival, when I need your aid." Hyacinth peered at her.

"Has your mind changed?"

"Slightly." Saphienne faced her lover.

"I'm still sending you away. Go wherever you wish, so long as you can hear my call. Listen for me on the second day… and if I don't call…" Hyacinth's petals blackened.

"You desire me to quit the woodlands. I will not. Committed have I to die with you. I would sooner be imprisoned like Tyrnansunna than leave you here to wither alone."

"You might get your wish."

"I am resolved." Saphienne relented.

"Then kiss me before you go." More than that sweetness sealed their pact. * She went listlessly to the eve of the festival. Saphienne behaved as if she was struggling with her project, enthusiastic for the celebrations but keen to complete as much as she could before then; inside she was numb. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. How could she trust what she desired was what she desired? How could she trust her deliberations? Her feelings?

Had Lonareath created her, or was Eletha her architect? Good, evil, or merely flawed: was her entire existence the work of magicians? Receiving the festival gown she'd sewn was bittersweet, but not so distressing as the jewellery that Eletha had traded for her favour. She tried them on after Celaena left, finding that they fit as well as they had five years ago… at least physically. With her hair tightly braided, Saphienne looked the very ideal of elven beauty. She let down her wavy locks.

"Saphienne?" called Lynnariel.

"Tolduin is here." His presence hadn't been prearranged. She made herself smile as she descended.

"A vision of benevolence!" Tolduin was standing just within the sitting room, proud to see what he mistook as her demure blush.

"In sooth, your beauty evidences the affection held for us by the gods."

"You're too kind." She kept her anger from showing anywhere but her skin.

"Are you here to examine me?"

"I'm contented that you are a good girl who will behave on the morrow." His smile was sly as he placed his hand on the door.

"I bring a surprise! Sundamar and Celaena will be supported by another as they chaperone you." …No… Yet he opened the front door to reveal the one person she dreaded meeting: Laelansa, terrified.

"…Hello, Saphienne…" * Any ordinary person would have faltered. Stunned, Saphienne nearly did. Yet she'd come too far and deceived too often to be stopped. Sheer instinct for survival took over, and she squealed and raced forward to hug Laelansa, babbling excited nonsense to cover her fright. Her onetime partner bursting into tears helped divert attention from her performance — Tolduin pointedly asked if Laelansa needed counsel.

"I'm fine… it's just so good to see Saphienne… she's so grown up…" Therein, Saphienne learned that the priest had been made to bow. * Tolduin trusted them. They were allowed to go up to Saphienne's room unaccompanied, wherein she busied herself showing her artwork to Laelansa. She continued to speak rapidly, pouring forth an irrelevant deluge to fill the air. Laelansa was a captive audience.

"This is all… you're really talented."

"Thanks be to the gods!" She clapped her hands.

"And what about you? You look wonderful. I love your outfit!" The priest was wearing the garment Saphienne had tailored, the only difference in her appearance being that her hair was styled long, braided into a tail like Taerelle's. Her lips quivered as she answered, "Someone special made it for me."

"I heard you were in the wilds with a spirit! Are you a priest?"

"A novice," she confirmed.

"I serve Our Lady of the Proven Merit." Saphienne grinned as widely as she could.

"You always did like competing." Laelansa paced to the windowsill, staring out into the grove.

"…I missed you."

"I missed you, too! I don't remember much, but I recall we exchanged letters before I took unwell."

"…We did. I was closer to you than anyone."

"Was I your best friend?" Laelansa leant on the frame, her strong shoulders tense, her voice small.

"Yes." Antagonism had been stirring in Saphienne; all will to lash out at Laelansa withered into dust as she beheld the forbidden, unspeakable grief with which her lost paramour wrestled. This was not willing submission, nor the outcome of fascination or sculpting, but the broken back of a woman who had been beaten down until she couldn't rise, hollowed of everything but the love that now dragged her back to its vacant altar. Whatever she'd been through, Laelansa had not gone gently. But she'd gone all the same.

Audacity was dead. … Tormenting Laelansa wouldn't resurrect the drake.

"We'll be best friends again," Saphienne promised her, forwardly hugging her from behind.

"Whatever was lost between us, we'll find it. You're my favourite person."

"I… I would like that." Holding her stirred more than memory; Saphienne smothered that part of herself. She didn't intend to rekindle their heat. All she was doing was showing a little mercy, granting a little hope before they parted. She assured herself she was merely being kind. * Come morning Celaena and Laelansa returned, and Saphienne was made to sit as the apprentice wizard combed out her hair in the way that Mathileyn had done.

They chatted amicably about the day to come, Saphienne making an effort to include Laelansa, encouraging her to find comfort in being reunited. The novice tried. Whenever she believed Saphienne was occupied, Laelansa studied her with depressed yet resolute longing, desperate for any token of the dragon who had been.

"You've fussed with her enough." Sundamar beckoned them from the landing, dressed in fine clothes incongruous with his weaponry.

"Come on, girls: you'll miss the fun if you dally." Celaena rolled her eyes and set aside her wizardly comportment to casually flick her fingers at him in obscene gesture, earning an appropriately scandalised gasp from Saphienne and a throaty laugh from the warden. They giggled together as he waved her off and went back downstairs, to where Phelorna was arriving. When the group descended, Saphienne was amused to see her mother and Phelorna were joined by Myrinel.

"Are you helping Sundamar today?" Sundamar snorted.

"He's being lazy."

"I've taken time away for the festival," Myrinel explained through a yawn.

"Elowyn will be watching you at night." Phelorna draped herself against him.

"You might still see him here…" Lynnariel joined in with the teasing, mirroring her pose.

"… If he entertains us." His choked stammering won guffaws from Sundamar and Celaena, even Laelansa smiling at his plight. Saphienne pretended not to understand what was implied. When they left the house she fell into step with Laelansa, taking her hand. * Lynnariel and Phelorna were dragging Myrinel straight to drinking and dancing, whatever authority he wielded as a warden disarmed as they strung him along.

Saphienne pondered her mother as they were parting near the festival grounds, giving no indication of the question she was asking lest she be caught by Laelansa or Celaena. A faint rise of Lynnariel's eyebrow replied in full. Maybe; Phelorna was keen, but his profession gave her mother pause. Saphienne rounded on her chaperones once the trio had left. For the sake of lightening Laelansa's mood, she wanted to suggest competition, but needed to follow their lead.

"What shall we do?" Fortunately, Celaena had the same idea.

"We could try the games?" Squeezing the sweating hand she held, Saphienne faced Laelansa.

"That sounds fun! Laelansa can show us how they're played." Raw emotion was vivid in those grey-green eyes.

"…I'm not sure–""Don't be self-conscious!" Saphienne pulled her along, deliberately in the wrong direction.

"You have nothing to worry about. Everyone will be staring at me, not you." Sundamar sighed and pointed down another grove.

"That way!"

"…I was going to take in the scenery." Celaena laughed as she caught up and took her unoccupied arm.

"Nice try, odd bird." Tentatively, agonised, Laelansa squeezed back. * As they joined the crowds there was no possibility of missing the stares that Saphienne received, conversations falling hushed before her and whispers shadowing her passage. Inwardly, she was indifferent to the rumours of elves; outwardly, she had been practising ignoring them with Celaena, though she contrived to tremble as the throng thickened. Laelansa let go of her hand.

The novice slid an arm around Saphienne's shoulders, vestigial protectiveness overcoming angst.

"Don't mind them." Why did her heart have to flutter at that hold? She made herself lean into Laelansa, grateful that she had an excuse for the conflict she let be seen. Sundamar moved behind her and glared at anyone who was too obvious. His closeness helped; he reminded Saphienne that she was a prisoner.

Comically, her guards mildly panicked when they saw the fire-eater in the distance, Celaena and the warden diverting her elsewhere, and her mood brightened as she toyed with them, expressing an interest in the juggling that had lain ahead. Their caution was farcical: Tolduin let her occupy herself working on elaborate depictions of dragons. Did they really imagine that an illusory breath of flames would resuscitate her past?

"How about this one?" Celaena proposed, stopping where rocks were being balanced, the queue to participate not yet long.

"We could play on the same side, taking turns–""Absolutely not!" Saphienne wouldn't hear it.

"This isn't a team game: you choose a single opponent and try your best to beat them. We have to abide by the rules."

"Saphienne, I was told by Master Tolduin that you should–""Be a good girl." She folded her arms.

"Good girls play by the rules. Right, Laelansa? You'll play against me, won't you?" A spark had caught in Laelansa's gaze.

"Yes. Yes, I'll play you. And I'll win."

"No, you won't!" Sundamar chuckled to Celaena.

"Tolduin told me the same; but people are going to gossip about her anyway. You're only children once." The apprentice gave in.

"Laelansa, Saphienne: you heard him. We were instructed to ignore an elder by a Warden of the Wilds. We're just doing what we've been told." Saphienne bowed.

"Agreed! Let's join the queue." Sundamar smiled as he caught the attention of the referee.

"About that…" * In their unquestionable wisdom, the elders of the Eastern Vale had decreed that Saphienne should not linger too long in any place lest her prolonged presence encourage approach by misguided – meaning drunken – well-wishers. Sundamar therefore had her group forgo queuing, revelling in his authority to break with convention and vicariously enjoying the festivities through them. She offered token resistance.

Similarly, she restrained her competitive instincts, eliciting encouragement from Laelansa that she ever-so-reservedly heeded, growing bolder until she was gleefully bantering with her friends. Laelansa won nearly every game. Celaena bested them in riddles, unaware that Saphienne chose to lose, but the novice was the victor in every other contest… Save for one. Unaccountably, her aim utterly failed when she and Saphienne took turns throwing stones at distant statues.

The dragon never acknowledged the significance, but she graciously shared her treacle-dipped prize. *"Why are we leaving the village?" Laelansa and Celaena reassured her where they strolled on either side.

"We're going up to the lake," Celaena announced.

"There's a shrine there that Master Tolduin believes you're ready to see."

"I've been to the lake before," Saphienne objected.

"I've never seen a shrine." Sundamar coughed.

"You were always on the opposite shore…" Celaena hugged her arm.

"We won't be long. We're being met by someone." Inferring their identity from Laelansa's diminished cheer, Saphienne steeled herself. *"…This is me?"

"Ay. This shrine was grown to honour thy great deed."

"Holy spirit… Mother Marigold… I don't remember my past."

"Upon this ground a dragon was subdued."

"…A dragon?"

"You drove the beast away."

"I fought a dragon?"

"The gods vanquished thy foe. You were Their belovèd implement; and thou hath paid heavily for Their embrace.

'Twas the gods that drove thee mad, Saphienne. No one may endure Their will and come forth unscathed."

"The gods made me unwell?"

"Their will be done, and so to it thou submitted. To thwart the fiend, thou put on fiendish mien; but come the time to be thyself again, adrift thou wast. Into madness did thou descend."

"But Our Lady healed me."

"Proof of Their love, and well deserved! You are sanctified, Saphienne. Even in thy addled passions, Their kindness was ever your aim…"

"…My nightmares… and my story…"

"Fear not; never again will They call on you. Thine art betrays Their covenant. With a quiet life – in humble peace – have They rewarded you." * Laelansa and Ruddles were estranged. Taken in context with the solemn lesson that Mother Marigold had imparted, Saphienne comprehended the woman who still loved her, witnessed from afar the rage and weeping that had undoubtedly met the bloomkith when the spirit tried to console the novice.

Matron to the woodlands, guilty for participating in the affair with the goblins, it was Ruddles who'd been charged with making Laelansa kneel. She'd disciplined her ward as only a caregiver could; she'd laid down the cruel command to murder Audacity; and she'd done these things to ensure Laelansa wouldn't be punished for concealing Saphienne's delusion. For that, Laelansa hated Mother Marigold more than she hated herself.

And her self-hatred was unambiguous, for why else would she go wildling, if not to flee herself? Saphienne brooded on these insights when they led her from the floral shrine; the shore was conspicuously absent of merrymakers. She risked asking if she might be alone, and Sundamar's consent confirmed that she was surveilled by spirits as she went across the stepping stones onto the deserted isle. She made her way to the sculpture of dancers– Only to stumble onto an equally heavy figure.

"Jorildyn?" The tailor had been concealed by the shadow of the fir grown to shelter the statue, and he didn't respond at first, slouched against the tall roots, staring over the lake.

"…You remember my name?"

"I apprenticed to you." Tolduin had left those memories largely intact.

"When we passed by your studio, Celaena mentioned you're Almon's brother." She surveyed their surroundings.

"Why are you here? Alone during the festival, I mean." He roused himself to stretch.

"…I visit the lake on the first day every time the festival comes to the Eastern Vale. There's a lake much like this one in the vale where I grew up." She stood herself beside him.

"Remembering childhood?"

"Family." He contemplated the waters.

"We had a loss."

"…I'm sorry."

"I try not to dwell on it." He inclined his head to her.

"No shame in mourning, when given its proper place. Still, I don't like coming up here."

"It must be hard." He smiled wanly.

"…Easier for me than my brother. He's deathly afraid of lakes. Why are you here? Aren't you meant to be with Sundamar?"

"He's watching from the beach." She crossed her arms.

"I don't think he's seen you. I get the impression that everyone was cleared from around the shrine…"

"Ah." Jorildyn blushed.

"There was an exodus half an hour ago. I was preoccupied." They lapsed into companionable stillness.

"Jorildyn…" She had to navigate with caution.

"…Was Almon once my master?"

"What makes you wonder?"

"Celaena is my friend. Another girl in black visited while I was recovering, as did a boy, both very upset that I wasn't who they remembered. Almon takes a special interest in me… and a short while ago, a spirit told me what the gods made me do." She rolled her shoulders.

"Driving off a dragon by myself… that's wizard's work." His lips twitched.

"Sharp as shears. You should ask him."

"That's not…" She rubbed her ears.

"…I know he doesn't have faith in the gods like he should. I have the feeling he blames himself for me falling ill."

"You want to know who you are to my brother."

"If you can say." The tailor measured how close he dared cut.

"I'll say this. Whatever else you were, and whatever might have happened, Almon regards you and I with the same eye. He's catastrophically bad at letting himself be seen."

"Why?"

"Blame our father." His gaze swept the placid lake.

"He didn't want us to be like him. I wasn't. Neither was Almon, save for his creativity. That little was enough to make an unwell man into an unkind one. My brother used to be very timid, especially about what he liked." Jorildyn had confirmed her suspicions.

"…I better let Sundamar yell at me," he joked as he eased away.

"Try not to let the past weigh on you." She bade him farewell as she surmised the reflection of the blue sky. * Afterward? They went back to the festival. Despite herself, Saphienne enjoyed the day with Laelansa and Celaena, almost able to forget what held them apart. She was brought to her family home long before sunset. Celaena excused herself to attend a revel — or that was the excuse she gave to withdraw, leaving Saphienne and Laelansa in the kitchen, Sundamar gone upstairs to the bathroom.

The lull as they sipped tea was fertile.

"Saphienne…" She straightened.

"…We weren't just friends." Laelansa had trouble meeting her eyes.

"When you were unwell… we were more than that." How should she respond? What would the naïve girl who– "I know." Laelansa jerked as though struck.

"You do?"

"I'm not an idiot." She was being idiotic.

"The way you've been with me today… how I feel when you're close… that's not the way things are with Celaena." Lowering her cup, the novice's mouth had dried.

"You fell in love with me when I was confused." Letting Laelansa down gently was the only mercy she could give.

"I'm not the same person… and that means–""You are." Laelansa swallowed.

"That's the hard part. I feel like you are. I know it's just that I want you to be, but it doesn't change how I feel." Saphienne refused to be tearful.

"Who I was isn't coming back." They couldn't be who they once were.

"You shouldn't think that way." Laelansa should have defied her gods, not repented to them.

"I'll never be the same."

"I don't care." Laelansa took a step toward her.

"I know who you are; I know you better than I know myself…" No, no, no!

"…I love you the same way. I love you, Saphienne. Whatever you become, I'll always love you." This wasn't how– "I love you too." Their teacups shattered on the floor. * Had the warden seen them stumbling into the pantry? Sundamar hadn't interrupted. The thought that they might have been overheard made Saphienne feel sick as she pulled her clothes back into place, adding to the fluttering that filled her belly as she watched Laelansa redressing. This was a mess.

"I don't believe I'll be allowed to stay," the novice said.

"I wish I could."

"We'll see each other tomorrow…" If she didn't call for Hyacinth.

"…But I have things to do early on. I'm reading to the little children in the late morning." Laelansa smoothed down her hem.

"I'll find you. If you want to see me?" Absolutely no– "Yes." They kissed; their exit into the kitchen was thus supremely delayed. * Night fell. Washed and swathed in a white silk robe borrowed from her mother, Saphienne sat on the sill in her bedroom and studied the full moon, illuminated silver in the imperfect dark of high summer. She couldn't sleep. Through the open window she could hear celebration in the forest. An hour hence, there were no sounds but the rustling of the trees. …

Temptation; that was what she experienced. She was tempted to submit, to let her scales fall away, to succumb to the simple seduction that friendship and romance posed. Not in cowardice: she wasn't afraid. Tiredness wasn't the cause, either. Two paths diverged from where she sat. One led to fire and ruin, strife unto the bitterest of ends, ignominy surpassing even apostasy. What good might come forth in the aftermath was unknowable and dependent upon people she had never met.

The greatest probability was they would do nothing differently, and any scant improvement would be begrudged by the Luminary Vale in service to maintaining dominion. And the other? She could persist like Gaeleath, honing her craft in secret, enjoying simple pleasures while awaiting the inevitable decline of the woodlands. Centuries would subside, millennia would topple, and at last the contradictions would amass to bring crashing down the vast dragon that oppressed all it surveyed.

She would be surrounded throughout by her loved ones; cherished by her mother and adored by Laelansa; with sufficient guile and patience she could even rehabilitate Hyacinth, for the sisters of the spirit were sympathetic. Couldn't she? Saphienne shut her eyes. Kylantha was dead. Audacity was dead. Kob would go into the ground, if he wasn't rotting there already. Cosme was ushered swiftly after them, and Felipe trod confidently in the footsteps of his father. Suffering was inevitable, as was its end.

Hadn't she suffered enough? Hadn't she given everything? Couldn't she stop? She didn't have answers. She didn't know, couldn't know anything. Almon was vindicated in his indefinite view of the world. She'd be as well tossing a coin. Therefore, why fight? * Years prior, Saphienne had spent an afternoon revising with Iolas and Celaena. She was unclear as to precisely when.

Prior to leaving the Eastern Vale with Filaurel and Faylar, to be introduced to Cosme and Felipe; after the initial lessons on each of the magical disciplines. Her firming supposition was that it had been during the two weeks that Almon taught them about practical spellcraft, and how the woodlands flourished from its application. Certainly, they had spoken before Iolas had learned the substance of the ancient ways. Whenever the exact hour, she couldn't tell.

Even were a divination safe to perform, the apprentices had been gathered in Celaena's study within her father's warded house. No matter. Nothing about the study session had been remarkable. Yet she remembered anyway.

"Can we stop for now?" Iolas had pleaded.

"I'll be sick if we keep going."

"Me too." Celaena was as grey as her pale robes.

"Let me open the window." Saphienne had tossed her notes aside with performative scorn.

"You don't have to picture what our master described. They're just words." Iolas was friendly yet superior.

"Of course you see it like that. We're not choosing to imagine it, Saphienne."

"Gods no." Celaena breathed in deeply through the open pane.

"Who in their right mind would want to evoke that squalor? Tossing their refuse into the groves…"

"They don't have groves." Saphienne lifted her page.

"…But he didn't say what humans call the spaces between their dwellings."

"That's not the point…" Iolas stood from the long table and paced.

"I feel sorry for them. I'm not convinced we can't do more to help."

"They're mad," Celaena countered.

"Knowing they'll die makes them inconstant."

"Doesn't your father respect many people like that?" Saphienne challenged her.

"Like that dwarf you talked about — the one who gave history books to teachers? Why would he respect her for that, if she was wasting her time?" The lover of birds wavered.

"For trying her best?" Iolas hummed.

"I don't think you believe that. You're rationalising."

"Don't tell me what I believe! You don't know me as well as you think."

"I might not know anything," he quipped, "if our master is right. But I know you feed the birds whenever you see them — and it's not as though they're going to start farming." Celaena sat on the cushioned windowsill in a huff.

"Birds aren't people." Saphienne laughed.

"But people are birds! You said Iolas is an owl." The boy halted.

"She did? Why an owl?" He grinned at his blushing friend.

"Do you think I'm wise, Celaena?" She crossed her arms.

"More like you think you are, until you crash into something obvious to everyone else."

"Ouch." He was still smiling.

"You're a magpie, I take it?" Celaena's eyes widened.

"…How did you know?"

"Easy: the flock you feed from that window are all magpies. You want to belong." Saphienne giggled as she saw Celaena struck by the simplicity.

"She told me that she's some kind of crow, but she stands out."

"They're clever birds," he conceded as he sat on Celaena's desk.

"What about Saphienne? What kind of bird do you think she is, Celaena?" The daughter of a wizard coughed.

"I don't know. Saphienne's hard to place. She has big wings, and talons…"

"Covers a lot of ground, and is prickly," Iolas nodded. Saphienne narrowed her eyes.

"Prick!"

"If people can be birds, and if you feed birds for the sake of their happiness, then everything else is just tying yourself in knots." He canted his head.

"We could do more. Even if it wouldn't work out… isn't it better to try? You might be right, Celaena: I can respect someone who tries their best."

"But," Celaena noted, "what if our best isn't enough? What if it just makes everything worse in the end? Don't consequences matter more than intentions?" He chewed on his lip as he considered her point.

"Even with augury, we can't know without doing…"

"He's going to say something like, 'That's why we must be kind when people fail.'" Celaena dismissed him to Saphienne.

"He's terribly trite when he gets like this." Iolas merely smiled.

"What's the phrase?

'Truth comes out of the mouths of fools?' Something like that." Saphienne grinned as their bickering intensified. Iolas was right, in a way: all the arguments were just a distraction. She thought then of Taerelle and Rydel, choosing to imagine herself wearing black with Iolas and Celaena, older but much the same as they were that day, pricking each other to provoke a response, distracting themselves from their queasiness and frustrations. Would that be their eternity?

Iolas and Celaena called a truce to ask her what she found so funny. In the moonlight, Saphienne smiled wistfully. She'd been happy. Like Celaena, she hadn't known her own feelings. She hadn't known how Iolas had felt, either. Had he, before he wrote his poem? Guided by his example, she fetched out her writing kit. By the time the ink dried she was no longer in doubt as to whether the moon that shone for her waxed or waned. Reconcilèd In the near dark the birds are nesting, Hushed before the coming dawn.

I hear their songs in the unbroken silence Repeating, repeating, Patterns that have passed beyond sound, Become now the stillness before which all fury Plays out. An icon, dressed and addressed within His shrine, Smiles without feeling; To touch Her face is to hold cold stone And to meet Their gaze is no meeting at all… But the dances and songs are heard by the birds Whose imitations become divine. Gods and goddesses are birdsong. Life is tension, not strife; We were not born to struggle — No night need be endless!

I behold human faces in the distant dark That I yearn to know and delight in Through sharing all I have to give: My light. My dawn will not transfix the daytime. The sun that sets will not rise anew. There is no petition, so it is said, The world turns and we turn also, the birds Singing, ever singing. To appeal to the gods is folly… For with what would I bargain? Myself. I am what I make of the world; The world is what it makes of me. End of Chapter 148