Moon Flowers (Book 1 of the Flower Trilogy) #Wattys2016 #Featured

BOOK 2 - Chapter 2

TÖNX'S POV

Halia looked at me as if she wanted to behead me. Her eyes turned red.

"I was right!" I said. "Evil is inside of you!"

"That's really not a reason to rejoice," she snapped.

"Don't you get it?" I said. "There is a prophecy. The First Creatures believe a creature with red eyes will bring the dead buried in the mound back to life. I believe the prophecy is about you."

She stared at me blankly. "You can't be certain it's me," she said after a long silence.

"As I said," I repeated. "No one else but me knows you have Phi's powers -- no body else but you have Phi's powers. You're the most powerful fairy, the only royal..."

Just as I said that, her eyes returned to their lovely emerald colour.

"I can't."

She seemed heart broken. I can only imagine what she had felt if she needed to run away from all of us, from Haras, her godmother, whom she always loved so much.

"We are your people, your friends, your family," I said as softly as I could. I was almost begging. "You have to come back. We need your help to return to the Hidden Land."

"You're living out of the land?" she asked, surprised.

I nodded. "No one has the royal mark -- we can't find our way back."

A royal has to remain in the land of fairies to keep the gates open. When a royal leaves, the gates remain hidden and no soul, nor magical or non-magical, could find it. That's why the infamous Avalon hasn't been found since Arthur and the Ladies of the Lake lost their lives.

I didn't want our land to become like the lost city of Avalon.

"So you're living with the First Creatures."

"Yes," I said. "And if it weren't for the chieftain's hostility, we would be fine. Only she makes it impossible for us to live in peace, and we have to go back, we left the Vikings in the land.

"Frida?" she asked.

"The woman you and Phi saved? Yes, she is stuck in the Hidden Land. She is probably waiting for us to return. I don't know how long she's been waiting. Who knows how Time decided to run in our absence."

"Who's the First Creatures' chieftain now?" she asked again.

I smiled, feeling encouraged. If she was asking questions, it meant she was considering the idea of perhaps helping us. We needed her help desperately. I'm sure she knew that, or I wouldn't have risked my life out here. She knew I couldn't breath under water and I could drown if my small embarkation was turned over by a wave.

"Moisa," I replied. "Feyn's mother." Her face darkened. Probably at the memory of Moisa trying to kill Phi, and then Phi killing herself. I feared that she would back off again at the memory, so I had to insist. "You're the only one with royal powers -- you are our one true queen."

"A queen," she said. I could see she was rebuffed by the idea.

She looked at the horizon, at the ocean, the sun, a fire ball shining over the waves. 

"You should go," a voice said from the other side of the embarkation.

It was a girl, whose traits reminded me of the First Creatures. She had long dark hair, high cheek bones and almond-shaped eyes. I thought she was a human, but it was absurd -- a human wouldn't be so far without an embarkation. I looked at her more intently, she was not human, she had a fish tail instead of legs, and what surprised me most was that she had no hand.

"Who are you? I said to the strange girl listening on our conversation.

"That's Sedna," Halia told me, like if that explained anything. "This is Tönx," she then told Sedna.

Sedna paid little attention to me. "Your place is with them," she insisted. "I cannot go back to my people. They need me in the sea. But your people need you with them."

Halia sighed but eventually nodded before pulling herself up my canoe. She did so so swifly it almost didn't move. Only the waves flickered around us. Her long auburn hair were dripping wet, and so was her dress made out of seaweeds and shells.

I offered her a piece of clothing for her to dry herself, but she refused it. "I prefer the wind," she said.

She lifted her arms up in the air and almost instantly large clouds formed in the sky. A wind rose, creating large waves. The waves pushed the boat back towards the land, faster than I had come.

Sedna watched us leave and waved at us before diving into the sea. Whales and other marine animals surrounded us as if they wanted to wish us – or Halia – a safe return. I might be a water spirit, but I am a bad one. I can't even breathe under water. So whenever I am in water, I stay close to the land, which means I also had never seen such gigantic animals for this close before. I was smiling from ear to ear as I extended my hand in the cold water to gently touch their paper skin.

They left and silence grew between Halia and I. An uncomfortable silence. Halia had never been good with small talk.

"So..." I started. "Who's this Sedna?" I asked.

The creature had peaked my curiosity and her tenebrous eyes were haunting me. I also wanted to make sure Halia didn't think I still had a thing for her. I might have felt something, a while ago. But when she confessed she did not feel the same for me, I forgot about them. She was my friend and that was all I needed.

Halia smiled briefly, welcoming the question. My guess was that it also distracted her from the fear she felt of setting foot on the firm land again.

"Sedna," she said. "She was born human but fell in love with a bird spirit and moved on an island to live with him. Once the honeymoon phase passed, her husband changed. He became violent and evil towards her.

"One day, as he was fishing near her island, her father heard her scream. He managed to smuggle her on his boat and they attempted an escape. When the bird spirit realized his wife was gone, he entered in a rage and ordered the sea to unleash a storm.

"Seeing death was near, Sedna's father sacrificed her by throwing her into the cold water, hoping that this way, it could calm the sea. Sedna clung herself to the edge of the boat, thus putting it at risk of flipping over. Her father cut off her fingers to force her to let go.

"Her fingers became fish, seals and whales. Her children. Sedna then sank into the bottom of the water and grew a tail. She became one of the Oceanides."

I was hung to her lips, avidly drinking in every detail.

"What did she mean by 'I cannot go back to my people. They need me here in the sea,'" I finally asked.

"Because of her story, her people now consider her a goddess. The goddess of the sea. As long as she remains unseen by them, she continues the godly image of her and it deters people to treat women and the sea ."

She went silent again when the land materialized before us. She looked at the cross the humans had erected in other of the King of Bretonie before they left back to their mother land.

We didn't set foot there, however. We entered the gulf and sailed along the river.

"We now stay near a village the first creatures call Stadacona," I explained. "It facilitates the exchange between the bird spirits and the natives of the land."

"Is this the village where she lived with her son?"

"No, but it's near it. The other village is of humans. Moisa was worried when th humans captured two of the human chief's sons whey they sailed back to Bretonie."

"They took his sons? For what purpose?"