The Faeries' Harp

22: Awakening

The warm glow of a sunset meets Rhys’s eyes as he awakens, completely disoriented. Am I…dead? Is this the afterlife? he wonders. All he can see is an expanse of red-gold but gradually darkening sky overhead. He seems to be in motion, though not of his own volition. He tries to sit up, but immediately a hand restrains each of his wrists.

“Easy there. You try anything rash, you’ll fall, and you’ve been through enough for one day,” Seamus cautions Rhys.

“Fall?” Rhys questions, still quite confused. “What happened? Where am I?”

“A little at a time, lad. You’re on Bergljot’s back, to start. Kyrie and I can help you down, if you feel well enough to fly.”

“Fly? I can’t…. What?”

“Ach, Seamus, he’s totally out of it,” Kyrie points out. “Let’s not try to move him yet. Relax, Rhys. What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I….” His memories are muddled, foggy. “There was an angel…and pain, so much pain. My arm—”

“Completely healed. Saoirse played the harp again, a different song than before. Fixed you right up.”

Saoirse, Rhys remembers, and everything that happened since he first met her by the lake comes flooding back to his mind all at once.

“How is she? Is she here?”

“Next to you, lad,” Seamus tells him. “She’s still out, though. Best not disturb her. She’s done a lot of spell-casting today, which would make anyone tired, but for someone with no training…. She needs all the rest she can get, before her time for it runs out.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re on our way to meet the Faerie Queen. Almost there, in fact,” Aeowyn informs him somewhat haughtily. “It’s a sight worth seeing, if you feel like you can sit up.”

“I can…try flying. I guess. If one of you will teach me.”

“Certainly,” Seamus agrees. He and Kyrie help Rhys off Bergljot’s back, instructing him all the while on using his wings. Aeowyn ignores them, returning to her conversation with Myghal and Elowen, while Alastair just looks on contemptuously. He still would have preferred if Rhys had not survived his encounter with the tainted silver. What does Saoirse see in him? he wonders, studying Saoirse’s inert form. She is still draped over Bergljot’s back, limp as wilting flowers.

“Are we sure she’s going to be all right?” Alastair asks whichever of his comrades might be listening.

“Relatively,” Aeowyn replies, rolling her eyes at him. Kyrie and Seamus are still coaching Rhys through the basics of flight, and she doesn’t want them to have to deal with Alastair at the moment. “Like Kyrie and Seamus have said, she’s done some major, heavy-duty magic today. Far more than such a fledgling ought to be capable of, if you ask me. It’s only natural that she’d need some major, heavy-duty rest afterward. She’s probably just worn out.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“Patience, lover-boy. You’ll have time to learn whether or not she’ll have you at some point, more than likely.”

Rhys, meanwhile, has gained enough control over his wings that he can keep up with the other fae and Bergljot without too much difficulty and start to pay some attention to their surroundings. They are following a trail lined with well-groomed, flowering plants of all shapes and sizes. The air is fragrant with jasmine, lilac, and lavender, giving him a heady but soothed feeling. Up ahead, a magnificent structure seeming to be carved from enormous pearls rises, with many elegant, spired domes and fantastical features. He’s never seen anything like it. Perhaps Saoirse could describe it better, if she ever gets a chance to see it like this, he wonders, casting an unsettled glance at his companion’s slackened form. Awake, she was all focused energy, determination, tension. Now she seems like a rag doll, and he feels guilty about it.

“She’ll be fine,” Seamus assures him. “Look ahead. There’s nothing quite like this palace.” As they’ve gotten closer, shimmering pearlescent gates have become visible in the greenery up ahead, and Rhys can see that flowering vines seem to connect all the parts of the palace into a cohesive whole.

Myghal and Elowen exchange a few words with the sentries at the gates, and the gates open readily to the motley group. They enter a small courtyard and then proceed through another gate, which has already been opened for them, into something like a long hallway with a shimmering stone floor littered with flower petals and lit by large, rounded windows on both sides. A massive pair of doors that seem to be wrought out of rose gold loom to their left, and it is to these doors that Myghal and Elowen lead the rest of the group.

“Back again, eh? The two of you have had quite a day,” the door guard addresses them.

“Aye, but this time we bring what the Queen seeks. Might we see her?”

“You’ve had more than the typical number of audiences with her today, but she is waiting for you all. You may enter.”

With no further preamble, the immense metallic doors swing open, and the group enters the Throne Room of the Faerie Queen.