Chapter 40: CHAPTER FORTY -- PHI (Edited)

PHI' POV

I was far away from the battle, I was in the thunder spirits' village, but I knew right away when my father died. His powers had left him and returned to me. Re-entering my body through the chest. It felt like if I had been gored by an ox.

His death was the only reason why his powers would come back to him. I doubted he had lost his hand again. I mourned him in silence. I also had to make peace with the idea I would never know what having a father meant. I never even had the chance to talk to him as such.

My mind shifted to Feyn. If my father was dead, what had become of him?

I feared he would die too. Along with our dream of running away together once my people were safe.

On the other hand, not having my father to protect them also made me reconsider that possibility

If I run away, Agamet might take his revenge on my people. With my father gone, who will be left to defend them?

Once again, I wasn't allowed to be free. I had to refuse my love—at the risk of him forever hating me.

The pogih flew into the village and circled Moisa. I and the other villagers—only women since the men had gone to war—rushed to meet them.

"Any news?" Moisa asked.

They spoke all at once, making it impossible for anyone to understand.

"You," the woman said, pointing at one of the little creatures, "tell me what happened."

I felt numb. I feared their answers and how many deaths I would have on my conscience.

"The Evil King is dead," the pogih said. "Agamet won."

"How is my son?" Moisa insisted.

"Unharmed," the creature replied. "Agamet wants all the women to join him in the Hidden Land—he fancies a banquet."

"Of course he does," Moisa sneered.

It was impossible to miss the contempt in her voice. One of the reasons I admired her.

I love her. She was a better version of me. She looked like me a little, with her eye cheek bones and frame. Her vivacity. If things had been different, I am sure we could have been good friends.

It might have been this new need to fill in the gaping hole I had in my chest, or another way to torture myself with unrequited love. My father had just died, I never knew my mother, and my grandmother was far away. Feyn's mother was there, only a few steps away. And I loved her.

I loved her although she hated me for tearing her family apart. I was in love with her son, engaged to be married to her ex- husband, and causing war between them and her people.

How could she love me?

*

We left in the late afternoon, as the sun began to set behind the line of coniferous trees. I did not fly. I walked behind the other women. We followed the river, the gigantic river that seemed to have no end. I heard bullfrogs croak and crickets sing their songs to the upcoming night.

Eskain walked by my side. My only companion. In Agamet's absence, all the women allied with the chief's first wife and gave me the cold shoulder.

Not that they were at all warm to me before, but now it was worse. They were giving me icy stares. They feared the evil in me and its effect on their leader. Although, as long as I stayed in the thunder spirits' village, it was dormant, I was well aware it was a part of me. And I have to admit I was afraid of what it might do to me, too.

"Thanks for staying with me," I told Eskain. "You've always been nice to me. But aren't you afraid the women will shun you too?"

"Don't worry about that," Eskain said. "I am an old woman and they will respect me no matter what."

Her eyes shone.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Tell me," she said. "Do you plan on having children?"

Her question shocked me. I almost lost my balance, tripping over a branch.

"I never gave it too much thought," I muttered. "A fairy only gets pregnant if she is with the person she loves and if she wants a child."

She pondered my words for an instant. "You mean to tell me that a loveless union can never be fruitful?" she asked.

"That's right," I said. "Grannie thinks that fairies evolved this way, or were transformed this way at some point in their lineage, to deter the horror of carrying the life of someone that did you harm. If it is impossible for a fairy to get pregnant by force, they are less inclined to be forced to share someone's bed." I paused. "This is only what Grannie thinks, though. It might be true, but there are other reasons why someone might force another to bed."

I bit my lip. I had said too much. I shouldn't accuse her chieftain of forcing me into anything, even if it was true.

Damn. Speaking too fast before my brain even had the chance to censure.

"Are you telling me you do not love Agamet or how he treats you?" Eskain asked, too directly to my liking.

"I care about him," I said, prudently.

"But you are not in love with him," she completed.

I laughed a little to shake it off. I was not going to answer that.

"I know you love someone else," Eskain murmured so that only I would hear. "It's obvious."

I turned my head to look at her so quickly a sharp pain crawled up my neck. I forgot to breathe.

"What . . . what do you mean?"

"I saw how you two look at each other."

"Who?" I gasped.

"You and Feyn," she said. "Don't worry. It doesn't seem to be that obvious to the others yet. I wonder why that is—maybe I've had more experience in the matter. I am old, you know."

I was floored. Will she tell Agamet? Ruin my chances at keeping my people safe, when I was so close to succeeding?

"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone," she said.

*

At last, we arrived to a place that looked familiar. I wasn't sure at first, having only seen the Hidden Land from the sky, but my suspicions were confirmed when Eskain insisted that I continue by flying.

"Go find Feyn," she said.

She was reading me like an open book.

"Are you sure?" I asked. "I don't want to leave you alone . . ."

She was old and someone needed to hold her arm. Like I had been doing for years with my grandmother.

"Yes," she said. "We are not so far off. We will be right behind you."

"I can carry you," I offered.

"Don't be silly. My bones are too old for that. I will just ask someone else to keep me company. Go!"

No need to insist any more. I spread my wings. It had been so long since I flew. It was a fresh breath of freedom. However fleeting a freedom it was.

From the sky, I could see Wotan's ship. Instead of being anchored where I had last seen it, the little people had let it drift free into the gulf, where it still sails nowadays as the ghost ship of the Ardor Bay.

The fortress was still there with surrounded by its circular wooden walls and its turf-roofed houses. It was inhabited by people, who worked about in it and moved in a way that no longer seemed mindless.

For an instant, I was happy for them. At least they are now free. But my happiness was short lived. What they were doing—working on—was not a reason to rejoice.

They were digging graves in the belly of the Mother. That immediately reminded me of how many lives I had on my conscience.

Tears filled my eyes but the wind that blew on my face dried them. It soothed me. I scrutinized the land in search of the man I loved, until I finally noticed him at his father's side. They were cleaning off the blood of war that caked their bodies in the river that ran near my late father's settlement.

"My dearest," said Agamet when he saw me land near him. "You have nothing to fear anymore. Your enemy is dead. We can marry soon."

He embraced me. I stiffened and my eyes met Feyn's. I sighed, relieved that he was still alive and well. The pogih had said so, but I needed to see it with my own eyes. He smiled at me, exposing his pearly teeth. My knees weakened.

"Phi!" I heard a familiar voice say. I broke off from Agamet's hug and turned around to see Halia running towards me. She reached me in only a few strides. "Phi!" she said again. "I am so glad to see you! I couldn't feel you in the thunder spirits' village. I worried some harm had come to you . . . then Tönx said you had convinced them to come . . ."

She spoke so fast and her eyes still glowed with love.

"I'm happy to see you too," I said while embracing her with all the warmth my heart felt for her. Still, I was sad for her—I couldn't feel what she did.

I truly hoped she would not end up a fairy unlucky in love. Because heartbroken fairies always end up bitter.

Maybe I will become bitter, too, after marrying Agamet.

I still had to tell Feyn I could not leave. It didn't matter how much I wanted to. My running away with him would only save one life. Mine. One life against many others. I couldn't be this selfish.

"Halia is the one who killed the Evil King," Feyn said. "I'd never seen someone so brave."

"Is that true?" I asked Halia. If that was, my friend was no longer the innocent little girl I had known. She had killed someone, perhaps many. I wondered how she managed the burden.

The nymph shrugged. "If it hadn't been me, someone else would have killed him."

"Enough said," Agamet said, interrupting the reunion. "We will celebrate our victory tonight."

*

While the men continued to clean themselves and their war tools, and rested by the river, laughing in the sun that never seemed to go down, the women and I lit up a fire on the beach to start cooking the food for the the banquet.

The idea of a festivity highly disturbed some of the fairies. Frida and Mrs. Merrow, who had grown close despite the circumstances of their husbands' deaths, for instance, thought celebrating a victory before properly burying the dead was a sacrilege.

"They need to be reunited with the Mother," Mrs. Merrow explained, while peeling wild carrots before dropping them in a pot of boiling water. "Can't the thunder spirits see that?"

"And we also have to crown Phi as our queen," the Tisannieres added, pointing at Mrs. Merrow with their spatula as if that were a way to emphasize their statement.

I was kneading the dough and their words had taken me by surprise. I wanted to delay my crowning as much as I could; and delay my wedding to Agamet, too, for that matter.

"She might not be queen for a long time," Moisa hissed before I could say anything. "As soon as Agamet makes her his wife, he will take on her powers and she will be forced to see him reign for her."

I grimaced. This was not the way I wanted my people to learn of my upcoming marriage.

"You're getting married?" Grandmother asked. "Again?"

"She had to agree to another marriage," Halia defended. "For our sake. Agamet wouldn't have helped otherwise."

"But do you want to marry him?" Grandmother insisted.

"Not really," I admitted. "But what other choice do I have?"

I hoped that my answer would make Moisa understand the position I was in. I just wanted what was best for my people. I glanced at Feyn's mother from the corner of my eyes, but the bitter expression on her face did not soften.

And so when my people kept propping me with questions, I remained silent. I no longer wanted to answer – it would have made them feel sorry for me and try to tell me there is another way when they knew there wasn't. And I didn't want to lie.

Luckily, the task of the banquet made them forget about my upcoming sacrifice. Smiles were even cast between the First Creatures and the fair folk when they shared their recipes. The way I wanted it.

The magic of food.

The thunder spirit women made squash and corn bake on the beach by building an earth oven and dropping heated rocks in it. The ingenuity of the invention impressed the fairies.

In return, Dugnai, the house fairy with a knack for pastries, shared her recipe for elfic breads, called lembas. Flora and Ryn then brought Moisa see the forty-kind-of-fruit-tree. Together, they collected its fruits and made acacia lemonade and aperitive figs. Nixie and Fossegrim made their very own version of what would nowadays be called a panna cotta, with almond milk and algae. The goblins and the pillywiggins made their infamous spicy apple cider. And I, along with Halia, my grandmother, Aras, Mrs. Merrow, and Frida prepared rice pudding with violets.

"So when is the baby due?" I asked Mrs. Merrow, refusing to let the conversation return to my wedding.

"Maybe three or four more years," she replied.

"Do you know if it's a boy or a girl?" Halia went on.

She shook her head. "I don't know but I hope it's a boy—so that he would have green teeth and a red nose like my late husband."

Her eyes filled with tears. Halia embraced her. "We'll find a way to make everything work out," she said.

It might have been an unfounded promise, but I wanted to believe her. I wanted everything to fall in its place as it should be, as fair as it could be.

*

Once everybody had eaten until satisfied and when the moon came out of hiding and shone brightly on the black night sky, Fossegrim took out his violin and played languishing sounds in honor of the people we had lost and our ancestors.

I rose from my seat beside Agamet and joined the fairies in a dance. Our movements, light as a whisper, filled us with lunar energy and lulled the First Creatures.

"That was beautiful," Feyn whispered to me after the dance was over.

I smiled weakly at him. I still hadn't told him I could not run away with him.

I'll have to find the courage soon enough, I thought.

I reached for his hands and held them tight in mine. My subconscious was hungry for his touch.

As soon as I realized what I was doing, I let his hand go and looked over at Agamet, fearing he had witnessed it.

He had. His eyes narrowed. His lips pursed.

Feyn put a reassuring hand on my shoulder, as if to say he was going to deal with that. "Father," he said. "I have to talk to you about something."

I feared he was going to tell him about our plan to leave together, or insult him in some way, but his tone was light. He was not going to harm my precarious relationship with his father.

"What is it?" Agamet said with distrust in his eyes. He was not buying his son's nonchalance.

"I wanted to warn you about words of conspiracy among our people," the young thunder spirit said.

"Conspiracy," Agamet repeated. "The only conspiracy I see is your sudden interest in my soon-to-be wife."

Feyn ignored his father's comment. "I think you should take the threat of this conspiracy seriously," he went on.

"If a threat exists, my people will counteract the attack," he said. "I am the leader of the great thunder spirits—the most powerful creatures of the land." He then turned to me and added, "When I first met you, you danced and sang for me the story of your ancestor. Let me do the same for you."

He brought Feyn along with the other thunder spirits and danced by the fire. A display of colors and feathers, and the humming sound of drums and their voices.

I contemplated the burst of gold and red of the fire light reflecting on the dancers' skin, and tried to stir my eyes away from the man I loved to avoid even more suspicion.

"There was once a man who ventured at the end of the earth, where stood a mountain with great power. The mountain constantly changed its shape, creating crevasses and new peaks and tops, so that no weak-hearted men would cross.

"The man was courageous, however, and he decided to climb the mountain. Seeing his bravery, the mountain decided not to close on him and let him climb to his highest summit.

"There, he saw a large plain where lived magnificent creatures. Thunder spirits. They lived in huts and when they blinked, lightning formed. They had wings and when they flew, the flapping of their wings sounded like thunder. It was the kind of power the man wanted for himself. And so, when the thunder spirits left for a hunt, the man walked toward their village where only the ancient thunder spirits had stayed, being too old to hunt.

"The old thunder spirits saw the man approach and asked him who he was and where he had come from. When the man explained how he was as simple man who had climbed the mountain that led him there, the old spirits where surprised. 'No man has ever come this far,' they said. 'We can make you one of ours but you must still endure and unimaginable amount of pain'

"They put him into a large mortar and pounded him until all his bones were broken, and then moulded him into a new body with wings. They made him a thunder spirit.

"The new thunder spirit was offered to live among them, but he decided to go back to his wife and his people. His new powers turned him into a great warrior and were passed down to his sons and daughters for generations.

"That was the first thunder spirit to live among humans, our ancestor."

The dance finished. I applauded. "It was a beautiful dance and story," I told him.

"I can't believe he is sharing the secret legends of our kind with her instead of caring for Geh-Ah's last rites," a woman hissed.

Agamet looked at her with anger in his eyes. Moisa also looked at her. I thought she, too, was angry with the woman's words, which surprised me. I thought she was right.

But it was not anger that I read in her eyes. It was horror. Just like I was reluctant about telling Feyn I could not run with him, the First Creatures were still debating how to tell Yu-a-geh about his master's death.

The great bear spirit was only a few steps away. He had walked in closer to enjoy the food and the show.

Upon hearing his master's name, the bear lifted his head.

"We've been meaning to tell you," said Moisa slowly, weighting her words. "The Evil King had him killed even before the battle started."

The great spirit stood on his two rear legs and roared a long and heartfelt lament.

"He hoped that his death would be a peace offering to sway Agamet to his side," she went on.

I wanted to tell him how sorry I was but the creature scared me.

Yu-a-geh showed his teeth and rose imposingly on his two feet. "It's Agamet's fault," he roared.

On the other side of the fire, almost unnoticed, sat Banshee. With her long hair that covered his shoulders and a part of her face, she began to scream. A warning that came a little too late. Before anyone could stop him, the great bear spirit rushed to the chief of the thunder spirits, standing beside me. He swatted him and opened Agamet's chest.

Agamet tried to defend himself. He hit the beast several times, but Yu-a-geh's fur was so thick he seemed to barely even notice. Instead, the bear opened his jaw and went for the thunder spirit's head.

Feelings of fear and horror made me step away and reach for Feyn's side. Not because I thought he would protect me, but because if I died, I wanted to be with him.

I also felt contempt. I did nothing to defend Agamet. I didn't want to. If he died, my problems were solved. I could be with Feyn, as well as my grandmother and the people I cared for. I no longer needed to run away.

Only the evil inside me can make me wish for someone's death. I didn't let it affect me. No one else around me was helping him either. He was no prize king.

At last, the bear withdrew from his victim. Agamet was disfigured in such a way he was unrecognizable. An icy silence reigned over the people present. It was not the kind of silence filled with regrets or horror. Instead, most of the First Creatures seemed to believe their leader had what he deserved. As soon as the deed was done, their leader dead, the creatures burst into cheers.

Only Feyn let go of my hand to kneel at his father's side. He tried to press his father's wounds, not wanting to believe he was dead.

I put my hand on his shoulder. "It's too late," I said in a voice that I hoped was understanding. "He's gone."

Rage drew him back to his feet and he yelled at the bear spirit. "What have you done? You just killed one of your own. That is a crime punishable by banishment!"

Others argued in favour of the beast. "Your father was blind with power and intended to marry this girl—she has evil inside her."

They pointed at me as if I were an object. Excuse me, I'm standing right here! I'm human!

"They are right, son," Moisa said. "Their union would have killed the First Creatures. It was him or us. In a way, Yu-a-geh did us a favour."

"The new comers only bring death, wherever they go," a woman I recognized as Nonos' mother continued. "We should kill them all, once and for all."

Yu-a-geh roared again, his eyes set on me. He seemed to blame me for all of this.

This time, only one emotion remained. Fear. My eyes widened, yet I was unable to move. I was frozen in place.

Feyn pushed me aside. I fell to the ground. He only wanted to protect me, but instead, it was him who received the bear's fatal clash.

"Feyn!" I screamed.

A storm of wind followed me as I dove to stop Feyn's head from hitting the ground. The wind pushed the bear away. My eyes burned. I was filled with rage.

Yu-a-geh paused an instant, all anger wiped off his face.

It was me he'd been aiming for. He loped into the woods as fast as he could. As if that could somehow erase what he had just done.

I took Feyn in my arms and rocked his body.

"I love you," he managed to whisper.

"Move away from him," Moisa demanded before I could even profess my love back.

"Mother, no . . . ," Feyn croaked, grasping for air.

He wrapped his hand around mine and closed his eyes. I brushed through Feyn's hair and rested his head on a bed of withered grass. Golden hues of pastures formed a halo around us. Under me, the earth was dying. That was because it was death I felt inside.

Feyn was so solemnly still, so calm. He looked at peace.

I too want to have this peace.

"I said move away from him!" Moisa repeated. "Haven't you done enough? Because of you I have lost my son."

I didn't pay attention to her at first. Not until she drew a dagger from Agamet's bloody tunic and charged at me.

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