The Faeries' Harp

19: The Law

Aeowyn’s scrying pool works perfectly. Saoirse and the Flower Guard can see and hear Rhys from the moment he enters Evelyn’s cottage onward.

“Why is he speaking in rhymes to her?” Saoirse wonders aloud.

“It comes naturally, when faeries interact with humans. Some are better at it than others,” Seamus explains. “Your friend here seems to be very good at it.”

“Wouldn’t it be better for him not to speak that way, in this case? She’s known him his whole life.”

“Maybe, but it’s not something we can help,” Aeowyn replies coolly. “And anyway, she doesn’t seem to be particularly bothered by it.”

“No. She’s much more concerned about the idea that he’s leaving her forever, as well she might be.”

“She’s a human. She’ll get over it. Their lives are so short and fraught with peril,” Alastair remarks airily. He means it to be reassuring, but Saoirse shoots him a venomous glare. Then the group collectively gasps when Rhys jerks out of Evelyn’s grasp at the front door of the cottage, the burn mark from the coin clearly visible on his palm.

“Well, that’s it, then. He cannot return,” Alastair declares, secretly glad about it. She cares for him too much. If he is away, perhaps I will have more of a chance, he plots silently.

“What? Why? He’s hurt,” Saoirse argues.

“He’s been discovered,” Aeowyn says, as though this should be completely obvious and trump any other arguments.

“You’ve all said that fae cannot survive in the mortal realm. To trap him there is to condemn him to death. It was an accident. Should he be condemned to die over an accident?”

“It is the law,” Kyrie tells Saoirse apologetically.

“Neither of us have any knowledge of the laws of the fae. It’s not our fault we weren’t raised here. Neither of us chose to spend our formative years in the human realm!”

“That doesn’t matter. It’s for the good of all the fae that the realms remain separate, that we are just characters in storybooks to humans,” Seamus explains gently. “For them to know that we are real would be the beginning of the end for us.”

Before Saoirse can make any further arguments, Aeowyn and Alastair begin pulling vines away from the opening around the mist. As soon as the first vine is wrenched out of place, the mist in the opening stops swirling, and the opening becomes a pool of inky blackness. Saoirse runs to investigate the opening. When her fingertips touch the blackness, she jolts backward and falls to the ground, as though she was struck by lightning from the solid black wall where the portal used to be.

“You know you have wings, right?” Aeowyn mocks. “So like a human, to be using your legs like that.”

“Are you all right?” Kyrie asks Saoirse, coming to her side.

“We can’t do this to him!” Saoirse cries, struggling to sit up. “He has no idea what you’ve decided! He’ll be left on the other side of the portal, scared and alone and probably in pain. We don’t even know how long it might take….” To the surprise of the faeries around her, tears start to fall from Saoirse’s eyes.

“I know it’s not what you want to hear, but the law is the law,” Kyrie tells Saoirse. “It’s not a personal decision.”

“If you won’t let him come back, let me go to him. He doesn’t deserve to die alone,” Saoirse demands.

***~O~***

Rhys is panting more than he thinks he should be as he runs through the forest, away from the life he once knew and back towards the portal to the fae realm. His entire left arm is throbbing with pain that radiates from the burn on his palm. Reluctantly, he slows to a walk and examines his injury. The burn mark itself has turned jet black, and tendrils of black are starting to spread like vines up his arm. He pulls back his sleeve to see how far they’ve reached, and the longest one is nearly to his shoulder. He mutters a curse under his breath; he has no idea how bad this might actually be, but he has a sinking feeling that it might be more fatal than the mortal realm itself.

“The portal should be right around here somewhere,” he mutters to himself. He’d marked it by arranging branches to create a crude star on the forest floor in front of the two trees that framed the opening to the fae realm, and he tried to leave something of a trail for himself. He hadn’t had any intention of wasting any time or breaking any rules. Just go in, give her the money, go back. How did it go so wrong?

A moment later, he finds the rough star made of branches in front of two trees, but when he passes between the trees, there’s no mist, no torn ribbons, no fae beings chastising him for his foolishness. He’s still in the mortal realm. He tries a few more times, but to no avail.

I’m trapped here, he realizes, and slumps against one of the portal trees, feeling utterly defeated. I wonder whether the burn from the silver or the mortal realm will kill me first.

***~O~***

“I’m afraid we cannot allow that,” Alastair tells Saoirse.

“The law is the law,” Aeowyn adds. “We cannot violate it.”

“He doesn’t deserve to die for this! We have to fix the gate. Now,” Saoirse orders, getting more and more frantic. She’s gotten off the ground and is flying back and forth somewhat erratically, hardly even aware that she’s flying.

“Seamus, maybe she has a point,” Kyrie muses hesitantly. “He hasn’t been his true self for very long. Maybe he had no idea that touching silver would affect him that way…”

“I hear what you’re saying, but what will the Queen and the Council think?” Seamus counters sadly.

“I cannot believe the two of you are even considering this!” Alastair snaps, more than a little offended, starting something of an argument among the Flower Guard. Saoirse flies to Bergljot and closes her eyes, trying to listen to the trees again.

There has to be something we can do. There has to be a way to fix this, she repeats over and over again in her mind.

“I know of something,” a familiar voice Saoirse’s never heard before echoes inside her head. Her eyes snap open to see one of Bergljot’s eyes, projecting a calm that Saoirse finds unfathomable under the circumstances.

“You do?” Saoirse whispers hesitantly.

“Yes. Unlike you, I have always known I was in the wrong world. I came to keep watch over the lost fae children. I know how to fix the portal.”

“Have you always been able to talk?”

“Yes, but revealing myself to you in the mortal realm would have undone the charm on you, and this portal is often not in service. We can discuss this more later. For now, we are wasting time, and I fear Rhys may not have much time left.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Listen to the trees. They will give you the words to say.”

With that, Bergljot approaches the defunct portal and touches the darkness with her horn.