Victor

It’s been a busy morning. Mirantha left Dors Grobeez in charge when she took half of her forces south in a display of strength, but the powerful half-wit Ekrek held more sway over the troops, and ran the castle on his whim. Security has become lax in her absence, stores have been depleted and weapon production has ground to a halt.

After a long six months spent away on an errand, rather than a welcome back, I’m tasked with the job of cleaning up this mess before Mirantha returns, else I will be the one to face her wrath.

I work my way through these tasks in methodical order, all the while keeping in mind my promise to visit Fion. I don’t know why I should even consider it. That girl is not my mistress; I owe her no allegiance nor do I answer to her whims. And yet, it nags at the back of my mind.

I promised.

It eats at me, making me increasingly irritable as the morning stretches on, till finally at noon, rather than sit down to lunch, I take myself up the stairwell in the western tower in a proper mood, thinking I’ll pay Fion the sort of visit that will make it so she never requests my presence again.

That’s right, I think with mounting frustration. It’s high time someone showed that girl the way of this new era. It’s time she learned just how powerful, and how cruel, Mirantha’s reign can be.

I crest the stairs the same moment I hear it— the sharp sound of splintering wood. Her door explodes outward by the hand of a twisting, living vine that comes out of Fion’s room. I stand in shock as she steps out and looks around, gripping a staff made of fresh saplings twisted around one another. Behind her, within her room, I glimpse not dusty, grim chambers, but a veritable forest.

What on earth?

She stops short when she sees me, her stately form tall and unapologetic, her face as impassive as ever.

“Victor.”

“What have you done?”

“You didn’t keep your promise, so I came to find you.”

I mess my hair with a hand of disbelief, not quite sure what to say to that. “What sorcery is this?” I ask at last, gesturing to her staff.

“It is my power.”

She was this powerful? Till now, I’d assumed her ability was latent, that life and healing simply followed where she went at an accelerated rate. That in itself was miraculous to me, but to think she could harness nature to destroy a thing like a solid wood door so completely…

Guessing my thoughts, she answers evenly. “You are surprised because of this? I was prepared to uproot this entire castle stone by stone until I found you.”

“Don’t bluff,” I say, shaking a little with anger, with frustration at my own oversight and ineptitude. “You are my prisoner. I’d know if you possessed such power.”

In reply to my accusation, vines shoot out from her staff. They wrap themselves around the bars over her window, bending steel with ease. The metal bars groan under the pressure, then come flying out of their sockets as she rips them from the window without so much as lifting a finger.  

“I came here in good faith, Victor Crusoe,” she replies in an astoundingly even tone considering the feat she’s just shown. “I was never your prisoner, but your guest only. If you will not keep your end of the bargain to spend time with me, then there is no point to my being here, and no reason for me to let this foul castle stand a minute longer.”

Vines fly out from her staff once again, shooting in all directions directly into the stone walls of her room. I feel the whole tower shake as she starts to pull the stone, and I cry out in protest.

“Alright, enough! I’m sorry I didn’t visit sooner, don’t destroy the castle!”

Fion tilts her chin ever so slightly, and the vines recede back into her staff. I gasp with relief to see it, but I don’t let my guard down.

“Such a powerful artifact. Where did you get that thing? An heirloom, perhaps? The stories say your mother was a powerful druid.”

“Mother,” she says, and her gaze falters, falls away to the floor. “Yes, Mother was the highest of her order. But this is no relic,” she says, tapping the staff into the floor. “I made this myself.”

“You made it? When?” I ask, flabbergasted.

“Just now. I had some tree seeds reserved so I could grow it. My power is more effective if I am able to carry a bit of nature with me. Otherwise without this source, it would take me longer to summon the vines.”

“Then, could you have also summoned vines around the base of the castle to crumble it, even from the tower?”

“That’s right,” she answers with chilling ease. “Wherever there is seed and a speck of earth, my power will always call it forth, from any distance.”

Fion is right— she was never my prisoner at all. Then, the only reason she’s cooperated this long is because— ah, yes. The prophecy. She still believes I’m her one true love. Then, perhaps I still hold some sway over her. Enough to keep her in check, or even to wield her power as my own.

Why, the thought occurs to me in a sudden flash of impossible hope, with her power on my side, I might easily topple even Mirantha’s regime. I could return home with her, and save my people!

But no, reality quickly grounds me. I look down at my wrist ringed in red, I feel the witch’s brand in my neck even now. I am a slave to Mirantha. Even if I could summon the will to defy her, her power is too great. Fion has the ability to make things grow, but Mirantha would turn her vines to ash in an instant. She could never grow more than the witch could destroy.

 Do not hope, Victor. You have hoped before, so you know. Nothing hurts more than watching hope die.

“I said I’d come to see you, and I did,” I say, forgetting this foolishness to turn my glower at her. “If you’d been patient a few seconds longer—”

“I have been patient for more than four hundred years. How much longer do you expect me to wait for you?” she says, piercing me with the directness of her question.

“This again?” I flush. “I told you I wasn’t your true love.”

Fion looks at me a long time. She eyes me up and down, and I become self-conscious. I wonder how I look to her, dressed more like a human being now in my worn tunic and breeches. I wear a long wicked sword at my hip, my spurs are polished, set on the heels of oiled leather boots that reach up to my knees.

“To be honest,” she says at last, “you’re not what I pictured, either.”

I bristle. “Then why do you stay? Clearly, you have the power to walk out when you will.”

“I stay because I hope.”

That word again. Just hearing it makes me cringe with shame. Face the facts, I’d like to scream in her face. Just give up already!

But in the end, I say no such thing. I can only give into her stubborn persistence with a sigh. After all, even if she stays only for the hope that I might be her true love, at least she’s still here. If I can keep her in the castle until Mirantha returns, then I’ll have fulfilled my mission, and earned the favor of my mistress. In the meantime though, now that I know how powerful she is, I must give into Fion’s demands to keep her by my side.  

“Alright,” I say. “You wanted to see me, is that it? Spend time with me?”

She looks at me a measured second, then nods once.

“Fine, if you promise not to cause any trouble for me—”

“I will be no trouble.”

I tip my head back doubtfully and glare at her through the narrow slits of my eyes. “You’ll leave that staff of yours behind.”

“It is for my own protection.”

“I will be your protection.”

We neither move nor speak, though our wills clash powerfully over this short distance. At last, Fion relents, and sends the staff back into her room. Then she weaves a thick curtain of green vines over her ruined door and steps towards me.

“Very well. I shall trust myself to your capable hands.”

I turn from her, doing my best to pretend— to lie to my own heart, even— that the notion doesn’t ignite the faintest spark of pride and sense of responsibility in me.  

“We’ll eat first. I’m famished.”