A low whine breaks my thoughts.
I stop and turn to the source of the noise. Hook is perched on a boulder. The darkness merges with his fur and all I can see are his eyes. But I know it’s him.
“Come here.” I crouch down and Hook bounds over. He looks at me sadly, as if he knows. As if he can smell the sorrow on me. “I have to,” I whisper to the first part of Eldas I ever loved, long before I even knew Hook was an extension of him in a strange yet beautiful way. “Please know, I have to do this. There’s no place for me in Midscape, not really. This is for both our worlds, and for all the young women who could come after me.”
Hook whines again and I hang my head. The wolf moves closer and my arms slip around his furry neck. The dam I’ve built against the tears breaks. I sob into Hook’s fur.
I mourn for the loss of time. I mourn for all that could’ve been. I mourn for the sweet memories I will never have a chance to make because the love I might dare say bloomed between us was doomed by circumstance before it could ever truly begin. I mourn his skin underneath the pads of my fingers, his silky hair brushing over me, the gravel that could rumble in his voice. I even find I already miss the view of Quinnar through the castle windows, and the festivals I never got to see.
I’m not sure how long I’m hunched in the Fade, crying. But I cry until there are no tears left. With my palms, I dry my cheeks and push my face back in place. My breaths are still ragged when I stand. I’ve cried out everything and all that’s left is my resolve.
“Let’s go, you and I, one last time.”
Hook walks with me through the Fade. The tendrils of mist that surround me begin to thin and a twilight forest begins to come into focus. The line between my world and his thins and the moment I cross over is like a crack to the back of my head.
The last of Eldas’s magic leaves me, vanishing on the wind, as though it had never been there to begin with. I’ve taken ten steps when a final whine alerts me to the fact that I am now walking alone. I stop and look back to Hook. He sits on the edge of the Fade, daring to go no further. His ears and tail are low and still, brow tilted with sorrow.
“Go back,” I command weakly. “And thank you, for everything.” Hook gives a bark, then another. “Take care, Hook,” I force myself to say.
A lonely howl echoes through the sun-dappled redwood forest as I make my way down the path and to the temple.
I don’t look back. I keep my eyes forward on the world I’ve been longing for. The air is as I remember—sweet with peat, the smell of redwood sap, and a tang of ocean spray. Late spring is in the woods and it fills me with a vitality that can’t be replicated on Midscape. It smooths over the pains of leaving, invigorating my steps. It is life, not just the illusion of it that reigned in Midscape.
A Keeper sweeping the area in front of the main temple is the first to see me. He scrunches his brow and tilts his head, as if trying to figure out why someone from Capton has ended up in the deep wood by the Fade.
“You…” His broom clatters against the stone walkway as his grip goes slack. The muscles in his jaw fail him as well. Words have failed him. “You— You— You’re—”
“I need to speak with the Head Keeper.” I look up at the sanctum in the shadow of the mountain rising above Capton. The mountain looks the same on the other side of the Fade, like a mirror. And where the castle is in Quinnar, the temple sits in Capton.
The man runs off without another word. He comes back not only with the Head Keeper, but the rest of the Keepers of the Fade as well. They stand in shock and awe, looking as if they’ve all just been struck on the head.
“Luella?” the Head Keeper whispers. “Is it truly you?”
“It is.” I nod. “I’m here on a mission for both our worlds.”
“A mission?” she whispers almost reverently. They stare at me like I’m some kind of goddess incarnate, walking among them. I suppose I am the first queen who’s returned outside of Midsummer. And returned without a host of elves surrounding her.
“May I walk the temple grounds freely?” I ask. I know there are some places relegated to the Keepers of the Fade only.
“Of course, Your Majesty.” The Head Keeper bows and I start into the sanctum, not bothering with the discussion of titles just yet. I don’t know what people in Capton will refer to me as. I don’t even know if I’m staying yet.
I pause at the altar that Eldas and I stood before nearly three months ago. It seems like a lifetime. A dull ache thrums through me like a low drum with every heartbeat until I can’t bear to stare at it any longer.
If my theory is correct, and balance must be restored, then the temple is a mirror for the castle of Quinnar, and what the Keepers refer to as the sanctum is merely the entry hall.
Turning, I walk as if I’m back in Midscape, just in reverse. I slowly progress, Keepers following me, until I arrive at a clearing in the center of the temple grounds. There before me is the largest redwood tree of the forest.
“The throne was the roots for this tree,” I whisper. A similar energy hums within its mighty trunk. It rains down from the leafy boughs soaring above me.
“Pardon?” The Head Keeper steps to my side.
“Sorry, I’ll explain soon.”
I cross the threshold of stone and grass and walk over to the tree.
Everything was meant to be in balance, for it to work. Lilian based her part of the first king’s and queen’s magic on ritumancy—the idea that the arrangement of items and actions in time can hold inherent magic. It’s not identical, as there is no equal to the queen’s magic. But it was close enough that Lilian could leave a piece out of place.
I walk over to the large tree—the mirror of the throne in the Natural World. At its base, I kneel down and set the heartroot on the ground next to me. I begin to dig with my hands.