HALIA'S POV
The woman was going to kill Phi! I watched the scene in horror. I pushed my way through the crowd, shoving aside the creatures that stood there watching, like statues.
"Let me through!" I shouted. But I was so far away.
I stopped my run short when Phi, with eyes redder than I had ever seen, lifted her hand and beckoned for the woman to stop.
"You can't kill me," she said plainly. "If you kill me, the evil that is inside of me will go to you."
Moisa's face still read anger and pain, but she knew Phi was right.
The green fairies approached. "We've all lost people we care about today," they said tentatively. "We lost our king, our husbands, our friends." They took the dagger from Moisa's hand and let it drop on the ground near her son. "Let's not lose any more."
I glanced at Phi. Her face was smeared with tears, although she appeared calm. Too calm. The calm before a storm.
"I lost my happiness," she muttered. "And I will never get it back." She then lifted her head and addressed Moisa and the crowd. "It is true that the shadow of death was following us when we came to this land, but it was without our knowledge or intention. We came to this land with the hope for a better future, one where we would be reunited with nature, our Mother. We are people that came from far away and we want no more war. We have met you and want peace; we have met you and fell in loveâif I have only one wish left is that once I am gone, my people will be well cared for."
She went silent for a moment, to observe the amassing crowd before her. A few applauded in agreement. I heard a few goblins murmur that she was King Siegfried's true daughter.
"It's a promise you people are making," Phi said. "And your promise is sealed."
She rose her hand and sigils appeared on her body. The markings crawled down her arms, her back, and extended in the air to reach the people's palms. Everyone who had nodded or applauded, who had also wished for peace. It was a powerful spell.
Phi reached for the dagger that lay on the pale yellow grass near her foot. She kneeled.
My heart raced. "Phi!" I screamed. "Please Phi, don't do this!"
Her eyes met mine. I felt the connection to her thought. She had to, she was telling me. She wanted peace for her people, but also herself. And that was the only way she felt she could get it. She was sorry.
"Please!" I told the others while frantically trying to get to her in time. "Don't let her do it!"
The Tisannieres and Moisa, the people closest to her, were too slow to respond. Already, Phi had jabbed the short knife into her abdomen and drew it from left to right. She didn't even hesitate.
She fell with her face resting on Feyn's chest. A gloomy embrace.
I arrived at her side. My eyes were so full of tears I could not see well. I only could distinguish her shape and the warm red liquid pouring out of her wound.
The blood stained my white dress. The dress Nixie had given me. In honour of my nymphic ways. I didn't care about my honour anymore. I wiped up my cheeks wet with tears, smearing my face even more with blood.
I screamed. I only kept screaming. It hurt so much I, too, thought I would die. Right there and then. No need for a knife. Only the pain.
Aras and the Tisannieres took me away. They said nothing. There was nothing to say. Nothing could have made me feel better.
*
Aras held me in her arms all night in a makeshift nest Domovoy helped prepare, with ferns and cherry and apple blossoms. I eventually stopped crying, and Aras fell asleep. I didn't. I felt as if something was crushing my chest. I could hardly breathe.
In the morning, when the hills on the horizons were rimmed with a faint line of pink and orange, an old woman entered the makeshift nest Aras and I shared. She said her name was Eskain and that she was also one of Phi's friends.
"I've convinced the others to let us lay Phi's body, as well as anyone who fell in the battle, on the sacred mounds," she said.
I sprang myself up on one elbow to look at her. She walked slowly with her back arched, a little like Grannie. Her teeth were the most shocking feature in her face; they were like those of a rodent.
She smiled. She seemed honest enough. "What is that place?" Aras asked the strange woman.
She was the one who spoke. I couldn't. My throat was swollen from yesterday's screams and cries. My chest still hurt so much every time I breathed I thought my lungs were collapsing.
"Before Agamet's time," the woman started, "the First Creatures were mound buildersâwe constructed flat-topped pyramids, platforms, rounded cones, ridges, or mounds of other forms. We used the mounds to bury our dead or for other ceremonial purposes."
"You don't anymore?" my godmother asked.
She shook her head. "Ever since Agamet became our leader we didn't go back there. The mounds follow cosmological rules, and he didn't believe in the stars anymore."
"I understand the mounds have some significance to you," Aras said again. "But why would you want us to bury our people there?"
Eskain showed me her hand and the sigil in the crease of her palm.
"I have always wanted peace between our people," she said. "Even before that sigil appeared. It is for that peace that I fought to have the dead of both parties buried together. It is the greatest honor I could think of, the best way to show you our desire of peace."
"We also want peace, and thank you for this honor," Aras said.
We left shortly after. The bodies had been prepared, washed, dressed in their most luxurious attire, and wrapped in fine tree barksâshrouds of silence.
I followed my friend's body in a macabre walk until the mysterious mounds. Several of them. Between twenty and thirty feet high, they were covered in green herbs and wild flowers.
The First Creatures and the dwarfs dug holes in a mound shaped like the crescent of a moon.
"I thought this mound was appropriate," Eskain said to Aras beside her. "Since you also call yourselves moon flowers."
Phi's body was lowered into one of the pits. They adorned her body with petals. I threw in the necklace she had given me, so that she would carry her promise with her in the afterlife.
Friends forever.
I stared as the First Creatures and the fair folk covered her body with soil. I still stood immobile as they sang incantations and blew smoke to the four cardinal points.
I did not cry. No matter how much I wanted to, I had no more tears to shed.
I looked over as Moisa approached. My chest tightened. I had never noticed it before, but in some ways, she looked like Phi. She was of a similar build, slender, with long dark hair. Even her high cheek bones reminded me of my lost love.
She pursed her lips and the magic was broken. I realized, once again, that Phi was gone. Plus, the coldness in her eyes had nothing to do with the way Phi looked at the world.
"I understand you want peace," Moisa said to Eskain. "But do we have to bury her here too?"
By her, she meant Phi. She still blamed Phi for what had happened to her son.
"Your aching heart blinds you," Eskain said. "Don't you remember the prophecy?"
"The story says that people buried on the mound will be revived," Moisa replied. "By the hands of a tormented spirit with red eyes." She paused. "I know what you are thinking. But it couldn't have been herâshe is dead."
Eskain smiled with all her rodent teeth. "Then we'd better hope she is not the only one with red eyes."
I strayed away from the crowd. I could not listen to Eskain and Moisa's conversation anymore. The hatred Moisa felt for my dear friend cut into my heart.
I followed the sound of the waves crashing onto the shore in the distance. I was attracted by it, as if the sea was calling me.
I approached the sea and stared at the inviting waters. I walked in. My flowing gown weighed me down and, when I had water to my hips, I dove in and swam away, tasting the water's saltiness on my lips.
The water filled the void inside me. Under water was a place Phi had never known, a world where Phi never existed. This was essential for my survival. That was the only place I knew I could be without her, without everything reminding me of her smiles, her eyes, her songs.
I took a long time before going back to the surface. I finally did when I saw the hull of a ship that looked familiar. I emerged from the water long enough to read the ship's name. La Petite Belette, the ship that had brought my people and me to the New Land, was leaving.
I turned around and squinted at the land behind me. On the shore, I saw the humans we cohabited with on the ships that brought us here, to the New Land. It had been only a few months, and so much had happened. I had not thought of the humans we feared so much during our time in the alley. I had almost forgotten they, also, were here. And they were now embarking on their ships again, ready to cross the ocean back to their homeland.
Before leaving, however, they had erected a thirty feet wooden cross. On it, the words, "Long Live the King of Bretonie" were carved.
They are claiming the land as theirs. They will return.
I looked over as the ship sailed away, its veils pulled by the wind. Something boiled in me. Anger. My eyes burned. I dove back in the water to hide in the depth of the dark sea. I didn't know it then, but my eyes had just turned red.
THE END