Despite the strangeness of the situation, Corlas could not help being curious. ‘You know of Bel’s other ?’ he ventured. ‘The one called Losara?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He is strong in the shadow. I suspect he took all of that side from the original Sprite self – yet it is hard to know. Are there traits inherently tied to light or dark? I think not, for there are cowards and heroes on both sides. There are bakers and tinkers and murderers too, for that matter. One thing is certain – Losara got the shadow power.’
The answer wasn’t what Corlas was after – he wanted details of his lost son’s life – but she went on too quickly for him to ask more.
‘You would not know this,’ she said, ‘but shortly after your departure from the Halls, Arkus himself spoke to Bel.’
That caught him by surprise.
‘He has a plan to reunite the two halves, as it were. To bring Losara and Bel back into alignment as one soul, one entity.’
Although Corlas did not understand how such a thing could happen, hope rose in him. Always he had viewed the division of his original son as a travesty, but something he’d been powerless to undo. However, if Arkus himself thought there was a way, perhaps his boys – his boy – would finally be healed.
‘That is welcome news indeed,’ he said.
‘Perhaps,’ said Vyasinth. ‘Arkus claims that such a realignment would create a champion of the light.
Of course , thought Corlas bitterly. His motivation would not be simply to undo a wrong .
‘He says that Bel is the governing personality, that Losara lacks substance. I’m not sure if he lies deliberately, or lies to himself as well as to others.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The gods are not in charge of fate. The truth is no one knows absolutely what’s supposed to happen. What Arkus does know is that while Bel and Losara remain separate, balance persists. If Arkus is to win the war, he must believe there is a way to create for himself a single champion, thus leaving the other side with nothing. If he cannot do this, at best things will go on as they are, and he cares not for such an eventuality. In his arrogance he believes he is supposed to be victor.’
The head of an earthworm poked from her neck and waved around, sensing the fresh air. Corlas avoided staring at it – he was out of his depth, he knew that for certain. He was used to hiding his anger that his boy was being used in this battle not of his making, but Vyasinth’s words were bringing it to the fore. But could it be that in her, he had a sympathiser?
‘Yet,’ she continued, ‘you are right when you say it is welcome news. If Bel and Losara are made whole again, the soul that emerges will be what it was before those fools tore him apart – a Sprite who possesses an internal balance of shadow and light. Corlas, I ask you to imagine what no other has …that your son could be a champion for us. ’
‘For …us, my Lady?’ Corlas was not sure he understood, but he suddenly felt nasty prickles along his arms and down his spine.
‘It was an unnatural thing that the world was ever separated into shadow and light. That is why I never chose a side and thus was banished here, to this sanctuary where Old Magic can still exist – true magic, both sides, in balance. But what if Bel is supposed to end the war by restoring the natural order? Why else would he be born a Sprite?’ Her voice grew hard. ‘That is why we must see that he is reunited with his other half for our cause, no other!’
As Corlas realised what she was saying, his stomach took a slow roll. Already the two great forces of the world tugged at his child, but now a third was entering into play. He found it hard to disguise his anger. He knew it burned clearly in his eyes.
‘You are doubtful,’ said Vyasinth. ‘Allow me then to do something for you. Allow me to awaken your Sprite blood.’
Without waiting for permission she reached out a hand and splayed it on his breast. For a moment Corlas felt nothing but her hard touch. ‘What –’ he began, but there was no time for more. Something deep inside him shook loose, something small and dormant, waking like a seed after winter. His skin tingled as he suddenly felt the breeze, sharp and electric, more intensely than he’d ever felt it before. He could hear the rustling of each individual leaf in the trees, differentiate the thousand smells in the air, feel each crumb of dirt between his toes. His eyes went blank as blood memory overcame him. He saw the wood as it had been generations ago, full of Sprites, practising magic that connected them to the land. Further back, when the land had been whole, his people had been elsewhere, everywhere, free to wander where they pleased, revered as healers and mystics. They had shaped trees into homes, and lived in harmony with nature. How great the cost to the world when their numbers had dwindled! How agonising to be awakened to all that had been lost.
As his eyes refocused, his gaze came to rest on a deer running through the trees. What had once been a simple sight was now a vivid exclamation of beauty. Corlas felt a long life stretching out before him – not the short span of a Varenkai, but a journey only just begun. He was not old, not merely a man of fifty-something years – he was a Sprite, with many more years than that ahead of him.
‘Is this how Mirrow saw the world?’ he asked in wonder.
‘Yes,’ said Vyasinth.
‘No wonder she was so happy.’
‘And remember, you were in her world.’
Corlas understood what she meant – to be with someone loved, with senses alive like this, might make one’s heart explode with joy. The understanding did not bring him joy, however, and Vyasinth seemed to notice this.
‘Keep walking, Corlas,’ she said. ‘There is something I want to show you.’
He fell into step again, but this time he was not just an observer of the environment around him. Now he was a part of it, moving through it like an eddy in a stream.
‘I made you a promise as you left,’ said Vyasinth, ‘though you did not know it. I swore that if you returned, you would not find the wood so sparsely defended as it was before. I have held true to my promise, Corlas. There are many souls in the wood, souls of our people long dead, who do not belong in the Wells of Assedrynn or Arkus – and it is time to see them born again. Thus I have been calling to any alive who still possess the blood. Many have returned, and in the years since you left, many new have been grown from them. And look, Corlas, look.’
They passed a tree in which a hut was not so much built as fashioned, with no ladder but many knots protruding from the trunk. Then another, and another, and Corlas saw curious pairs of eyes staring down. So upturned was his gaze, he did not notice they had arrived at the coiled root at the edge of the clearing where he and Mirrow had built their home. When he lowered his eyes, he saw that their old hut, and beside it the flower garden where he had buried her, had been restored. The last time he’d seen it, the garden had been churned up by magic and battle in the storm, the flowers smashed and trampled …and later disturbed again, when soldiers from the Halls had come searching for Mirrow’s pendant. It took him a moment to reconcile this memory with the eruption of colour that now greeted his eyes. Flowers jostled for position, reaching high to capture the light, twisting around one another to form a vibrant mound of rampant growth. Looking upon it with his newly heightened senses, it almost seemed to pulse.
‘In honour of her,’ said Vyasinth. ‘And of you.’
After a time, he turned to her, all his doubts fallen away. ‘What must we do, my Lady?’
‘Let Arkus do our work for us,’ she said. ‘He has set Bel a task, to find the Stone of Evenings Mild, an artefact that will allow him to recombine with Losara. You might remember it, Corlas – I gave it to Mirrow, and when she died you gave it to your boy.’