Everything burned and smothered, though now and then a soothing, cool breeze broke through the heat. Felix drifted in and out of consciousness, mostly alone. He felt trapped in a constant dream of fire. Sometimes the woman with the gentle hands was present, and her voice comforted him through the haze.
One night he woke fully for the first time, though the heat of fever still seared inside him. It was late; he could see stars shining through the gently moving leaves above his head. He sat up and looked around the strange room, which seemed no more than a clearing in the Wood. The bed on which he lay grew up out of the ground, rooted like a tree, and the sheets were soft petals and leaves held together by invisible threads. He pushed them back and swung his legs over the side.
On unsteady feet Felix crossed the room, following a trail of moonlight. There were neither walls nor doors nor windows, only trees growing all around, yet ivy draped these so thickly that he seemed as enclosed as he’d ever been in his own rooms in the palace. He felt around in the ivy until he found a thinner place, then pushed through, out of the clearing.
Trees stood on either side like walls in a corridor, and moonlight shone on the path like a carpet unrolling at his feet. Felix followed it. Tiny pricks touched his arms and face like biting bugs. He slapped at empty air, and the little pricks stopped. He followed the moonlight, his fevered eyes scanning the trees and the arch of branches over his head. Stars glimmered between the branches like candles in sconces. He could not tell whether he walked in a forest or in a grand manor house.
Something gleamed before him. The moonlight seemed to flow down the path to this one spot and stop there, pooling into a small pond of light around an object suspended between the branches of two young birch trees. Felix, stumbling a little, made his way to the end of the corridor and looked upon the object.
It was a sword.
Silver and moonlight and strength, all forged into a weapon.
It filled Felix’s gaze. In his fevered state he felt a tremble of cold fear rush through him as he looked upon it, yet it was beautiful. He longed to touch it but could not move his hands.
“It belongs to my lord, the Prince.”
The soft voice he knew spoke behind him. Felix turned slowly and met the gaze of a young woman. Her face was full of moonlight. She smiled. “Go back to bed, young Felix.”
Felix looked back at the sword, frowning. “Why does he not carry this sword?” he whispered. “It is so beautiful. . . . A sword such as this, it could kill the Dragon.”
A gentle hand touched his arm. “He will take it up when the time is right,” Dame Imraldera said. “Come, Felix. Come away.”
He resisted her urging. But a sudden roar just beyond the wall of trees filled his ears. He jumped back in terror and clung to the woman, who put her arms around him. “Don’t be afraid,” she said. “It cannot come inside.”
Felix’s breath came in short, panting gasps. “What is out there?”
“The world of Faerie,” she said.
The roar, deep and harsh, inhuman yet not quite animal, filled the air again, and something scuffled on the other side of the trees. Felix trembled, but Imraldera remained calm. “It cannot come inside,” she said. “You are in the Prince’s Haven. Nothing may come inside without his permission.”
Felix leaned heavily in her arms, sick with fever and fear. “Come,” she said. “Let’s get you back to bed.” She led him back down the hall, and Felix felt more peaceful, though the strange creature still snuffled and roared just beyond the trees. When they stepped back into the clearing-bedchamber, all sounds from the other side were silenced. Felix let the woman cover him in the soft sheets. Sleep descended upon him.
“Why does he not use the sword?” Felix whispered before he slipped away.
“He will at the proper time,” the young woman replied. “Sleep, Felix.”
–––––––
From Shippening, Una flew across the Chiara Bay and the thin isthmus that attached Southlands to the Continent, then on over the ring of mountains that encircled most of the country. She beheld Southlands for the first time.
It was a strange country, far stranger than Una had expected. Beneath her lay a flatland scored by deep gorges filled with dark forest. Like green-black rivers, these gorges cut the stretches of tableland into vast islands. Connecting these islands, bridges stained by dragon smoke yet still white and beautiful soared in elegant arches.