A forbidden love

Chapter 15: Crescere

I found myself grabbing onto the bedsheets gasping for air. Without a second’s thought my bedroom door swung open, and my mother and sister came pooling into the room. “Arya! You’re finally awake!” Evelyn threw herself onto my bed pulling me into a suffocating hug, my mother grabbing onto me for dear life as well. “I thought we were going to lose you! Don’t ever do something so stupid and reckless like that ever again!”

Evelyn began crying on my shoulder, her warms tears trickling down my shoulder. I gently placed my hand on her back, giving her light calming pats on the back. “I’m sorry for worrying you.” My mother was the first to sit up and soon her troubled expression was exchanged with a serious look. “That’s all you have to say? You could have been severely hurt Arya, and all you have to say is ‘I’m sorry’?”

“Mother’s right sister, what were you thinking?”

“I…” They both looked at me expectantly. “I hated seeing that fae flogged like that, and for what? There was no valid reason to do so, you just wanted to appease the nobles, mother. That was cruel and goes against the nature of the elves.”

“There are other ways to get your message across dear, you didn’t have to do it that way.” I turned away barely able to face the two people I trusted most in this world. However, I just couldn’t bear to look at the faces I’ve been lying to for the past month. “How fares the fae?”

“The physicians have been tending to him. He’s still in pretty bad shape, but he’ll be back to normal within the next week or two.”

I was relieved to hear that Aanan was going to be ok, but I wasn’t going to believe it unless I saw it myself. “What happened? How long was I out?”

“Oh, I wish you could have seen it for yourself sister! The moment you grabbed onto the fae prince, and the torturer flung his whip at you, a flash of light repulsed from your body sending a massive wave of energy through the entire amphitheatre. It was so strong it sent the guards flying across the arena!” Evelyn flung her hands to either side of her body exaggerating the incident, she seemed to have been in more awe of what happened than my mother. She looked displeased, “well after that, you fainted, and we took you to the royal physicians. Then this weird thing started spreading across your back, look.”

Evelyn pulled me out of bed and in the direction of the full body mirror against one of my walls. She sharply spun me around and lifted my shirt to point at my bear back where an unusual mark had seemed to have sprouted out of nowhere. A green vine spread from my lower back, over my spine and up to my right shoulder, the stem twisting and turning in graceful twirls and leaves sprouting from it in all directions. “What is that?” My fingertips grazed over the faint mark. “No one knows. The physicians think that you were somehow connected to our ancient magic, and this is what connects you to it.”

“What does that mean?”

“We’re not entirely sure, but the sorcerers said that when that light radiated off of you that day, they felt a strong wave of energy surge through the forests. It was almost impossible to miss, they’ve never felt magic this strong before!”

It was all very shocking. Elves have always had some sort of connection to the magic in our forests, obviously, the more our species aged the harder it became for us to harness our full magical potentials. There were of course those of us who were more gifted in our abilities than others. Those elves were given the option to become trained sorcerers. However, our numbers of sorcerers have been depleting over the past hundred years.  

“We’ve arranged for you to meet with some of our best sorcerers to see if they can figure out what this mark on your back means, and if possible, we want to correctly train you in the arts of magic.” My mother stated blankly. It’s not like I really minded, I myself wasn’t too sure what was going on, although it would have been nice for me to have had a say in the matter.

“When is this meeting mother?”

“The masters are sojourning with the werewolves at the moment. We’ve made sure to send word of the recent events, they should have received my letter two days ago, so they should be back within the next three days. When they are safely back home, we’ll meet them. In the meantime, I expect you to use your time sparingly by recovering Arya, so stay in bed.” I felt guilty for having troubled my family so, especially my mother.

“I’m completely fine mother. You heard what the physicians said, I suffered no injury.”

“Arya now is not the time to argue with me! Have you any idea how worried I’ve been? What if I were to pass two days after the incident? The nobles would deem you unfit for rulership! They would kick our family to the side and elect a new leader. Our family has been in rule for centuries, you’d tarnish our lineage with that foul blood!”

“Is that all you care about mother? The throne, who rules after you? What about me?”

There was a thick silence in the room. I knew then and there that it wasn’t actually me my mother was worried about. She just cared about keeping our family in line to the throne. “Is the throne all you care about?”

“It is not the throne I care about Ary--”

“Then what is it mother?”

“You are the only person I can entrust the throne to once I’m gone. I’ve raised you, groomed you ready for leadership. The nobles can’t rule, they’d blindly lead our empire to its grave.”

“Leave.” I pointed to the door. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I just wanted to be left alone. The two of them just blankly stared back at me with koi expressions. “I said leave! Both of you!” In the cracks of the bricks in the walls, ferns started sprouting. Soon plants of all species started flowing out of the cracks like green waterfalls. “Arya control yourself.” I turned to look at the newly found lushes greenery in my room. “Just leave mother, please, both of you.”

The two of them let themselves out leaving me to myself and the plants all over my room. I sat on my bed against the wall with my legs raised to my chest and buried my head in between my legs as I began to sob softly…

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“Uncle, why can’t you teach me magic?”

“You don’t have a strong enough connection to the forest my Sunshine.”

“But uncle, I play in the forest every day. I even talk to the birds and the dear like you do.”

“How do you know I talk to the animals? Do you follow me around in the forest?”

“No…”

“Oh, you sneaky minx!”

 My uncle picked me up and spun me around in the air. I used to love following my uncle around. I was so fascinated in the way he used magic. He used to sit in the forests and whisper soft words to himself. His secrecy always pricked my interests. “Crescere.” He would whisper, and out of nowhere small plants grew out of the ground. I used to laugh at his silly little games. “Do that thing again uncle! Make it rain.”

He laughed at my curiosity, “shh, listen.” He would make me sit on my legs in the moist dirt and held his hand over my eyes to close them and quietly whispered secret words, “Alatur aquis herbae.” I listened to the sounds of water droplets, and then he’d move his gruff hand away from me to see the plant completely watered and growing at an inhumane speed. “Uncle, why won’t you let me see?” My uncle always set me on his lap and told me over and over again, “One day, my little sunshine, one day.”

I often found him reading withered scrolls in the forest. I took the liberty the skim over some of the foreign words, “uncle, what do those words mean?”

“What are you doing? You know you’re not allowed to read those,” he snapped. He was someone who always respected privacy, he hated it when people were caught snooping in his belongings.

“But why uncle? You said I can’t do magic, so what’s wrong?”

“One day you’ll learn.” Sometimes I wonder if there was ever meaning to what he said.

A day before he died, I went to go visit him again. He sat in front of a huge pine tree, it stretched to the heavens. “Shh! Arya, come here.” He held out his hand for me to take and pulled me closer to sit next to him. “What’s that uncle?” I poked at a heap of dirt on the ground, “stop touching it.”

“Why, what is it uncle? A worm?” He used to laugh at my curiosity.

“It’s a little bird.”

“But uncle, you can’t bury a bird! He can’t breathe uncle.”

“He’s dead little one.” I used to be scared of the thought of death, until that day. “Help me say goodbye to him, will you?” I didn’t understand the concept of death entirely, except for the fact that you’d never see the dead again, that’s what scared me. “Uncle, are you scared of dying?” He looked at me, not sure how to answer my question. I was still young and naïve, how was he going to explain something like death to me? “You should never be scared of death. When we die, we go to a better place.”

“But uncle, what is a better place? It’s nice here.”

“This world is not a good place, wherever we go there is bad things, but when we die, we turn into stars and watch over our loved ones on the ground and make sure that they are safe.”

“Will you keep me safe uncle?”

“Of course, sunshine. I’ll make sure only good things happen to you.”

Of course, that was a lie, he just tried to make me feel better about it. We said goodbye to the little bird and went back to his secret cabin, hidden deep in the forest.

“Arya,” he knelt down in front of me, holding both my hands in his, “in case anything ever happens to me please come here. Now remember this carefully, you are special, mother nature smiled upon you the day you were born. A true blessing, this will all make sense in the future.” He handed me a key, and told me to keep it safe, “when the time comes, use what is here and learn Arya. One day you will be very powerful, it is important that you never use your gifts the wrong way, do you understand me?”

“What are you talking about uncle?”

“Just promise me little one, use your gifts for good. And don’t ever tell anyone about any of this. What I told you must remain a secret. Promise me.”

“Yes uncle.”

He patted me on the back and sent me off back to the palace. That was the last day I saw him. The events that followed soon after were tragic. My mother came to me the following morning, tear soaked, she could barely get a word out. She told me my uncle died in a fire. Of course, I was naïve, and I believed he went to a better place, “It’s ok mother,” a smile of all innocence rested on my cheeks, “uncle said he’s going to watch over us when he dies.”

My mother was relieved that the death of my beloved uncle didn’t affect me as she thought if would, however there was still a sense of sorrow knowing that I’d never have the opportunity to talk to him again.

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“Crescere.” I whispered to myself. I watched as a small flower sprouted in the moss-covered cracks on my floor. Teardrops trickled down my cheeks as I sat there on the floor thinking about my uncle. If anything, he would be able to understand the predicament I’ve found myself in. Things slowly started making sense. I could use magic, just like my uncle had predicted. However, strong, I was not.

Standing up, I whipped the tears off my face and got changed into something more presentable. If my uncle were here, he’d say, ‘it’s time to face the real world now little one, put on a brave face.’ So that’s what I did.