Threads of Emerald

Ropes of Fate: Chapter 40

Orion

Bluebell Cottage lay as a crumpled pile of wood in the rain-soaked earth. I sat beside it, my leathers sinking into the muddy expanse of where her home had once stood.

Seraphina sat there beside it for a few moments in silence, as if slowly mourning its death, then a ground-breaking cry erupted from her chest as she gripped lone wooden planks and tossed them into the small lake that had filled a deep bowel of earth at the back of the cottage, a plunk inaudible as her cries ripped through the silence of the burning sun and soaked earth and soft smells of nature.

As she picked up another piece, I watched as she sat stationary, as if in shock. Until she was on her knees, frantically scrambling for something lodged under the small pile of wood in front of her.

A midnight black book with a soft leather casing and thin pages flopped as she gripped the spine, a gold star shimmering under the dying sun. The sun cast a vaguely orange glow over the wreckage, as if the sight had made it too lose hope and light.

"It's here", Seraphina sobbed harder, her shoulders sagging as she frantically opened the cover and her face paled for a second.

I stepped closer to her, knees sinking slightly into the mud as I peered over her slightly shaky shoulder. There, in inky black was a map. A map that spread across the two front pages, gold whorls and swirls ornately forming a trim around the plush paper.

Several names stood out on the map, as if painted in a thick ink as shimmery and bright as the stars on a chill winter night.

Plutus Forest. Tritonia. Chrysaris. Visha.

It was a map of the Emerald Kingdom. As my eyes travelled the page, I noted the familiar crest. A jutting sword in the centre of a shield, an owl spreading it's wings at the top of the blade.

A crest of harmony and peace. A hope of a better world. A fickle hope. As tenuous and precarious as the wooden planks that had held Bluebell Cottage together under the star-flecked sky, as the constellations peppered the inky black, dragged helplessly by the chains of fate into an abyss of darkness that gnawed at the blue streaked sky until it finally relented.

The only part of the page that wasn't a flat smearing of ink was a blob of glistening gold moulded into a sharp five-pointed star that sat atop a part of the map.

The location we needed, I thought, as Seraphina slammed the book shut and turned to face me.

"I'm going to read the book before I go wherever this is", her delicate fingers jabbed at the star.

"I'll be here", I leaned over to kiss her forehead gently. A final kiss before things changed.

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Seraphina sat in the wreckage for a few hours, reading through the book. Her face was a blank canvas, as if she'd erased any and all of her emotions, stoic and unmoving as she finally got to her feet and started walking.

I followed at a close distance, not wanting to lose her in the dense foliage and knotted branches that seemed to be trying to trip me over with every step we took towards an unnervingly still part of the forest.

A small grey bridge connected two pathways, the one my boots crunched against was trodden and dirty, branches and roots and leaves strewn across the floor haphazardly, the one on the other side as clean as the marble floors of Nefta's Diamond Palace, as if a boot had never connected with the crunchy gravel.

Clear, sapphire water tumbled down a thick crack in the Earth, wide and imposing as Seraphina reached the bridge and waited.

Her hands were on her hips, attempting to feign boredom, her straight spine and set shoulders giving her away.

I heard her whisper something and the bridge receded, leaving a gushing stream of river between us and the other side.

By the time I'd caught up, Seraphina was on her hands and knees, climbing into the deep drop.

"What are you doing?", my voice came out panicked as her boot connected with a dip in the stone walls, a faint crunch echoing through the taut silence as she ignored me and clambered down further.

I watched as she waded through the depths, fighting against the current as she gripped the side of the crumbling rocks and dug her feet into the gashes in the roughly formed stone, hewn over time into a labyrinthine of smooth surfaces and sharp edges. She reached an archway of smooth stone pressed into the dirty grey rock, set a few foot into the side of the river, the water not daring to tread any closer to the archway, as if spelled away from it.

She leaned over, placing two feet on the flat plain of sparkling black stone and placed her palm flat against the doorway.

She vanished.

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Seraphina emerged from the doorway a few hours later. The icy water lashed at Wren and I's thighs as we waited outside the door. Every step we took closer to the flat slab of onyx stone was mirrored by the vigorous waves of water, stopping us from entering.

A faint click sounded, and the door swung open smoothly, Seraphina's silhouette in the doorway as she stepped into the fading light of day. Golden rays of sunlight cast her in shadow as she stepped out with her hands raised, as the weak and watery light of day finally cast a faint glow over her face, tears trickled down her face as she locked eye contact with me.

She knew.

Stone cold rage settled into her features as she stared into my eyes, green and silver dancing in a fit of rage as her eyes pooled with tears, she made her way over to us, until she too was submerged in the water.

"I'm sorry", I whispered into the frigid air as I snapped my fingers and bindings wrapped around her wrists, another snap of my fingers and she tumbled forward into my awaiting arms.

Even in unconsciousness simmering rage threatened to brim over as Wren and I hauled her up to Nefta's awaiting carriage.