CHAPTER 37 – A Field With the Sun in Her Eyes

At the boundary between Saphienne and the spirit, where Saphienne stood on the steps of her mind’s library and the spirit upon a field of flowers beneath flurrying snow, what had began as parlay became a confrontation.

Saphienne narrowed her eyes. “You’re lying to me.”

No sooner had she made the accusation than the spirit threw up her arms.

“Why would I lie to you? And I swore–”

“To answer my questions,” Saphienne said, shaking her head. “Only to answer them. You didn’t lie when you possessed Celaena, and you came to our defence at risk to yourself — so I didn’t think to insist that your answers be true.” She smiled at her own foolishness. “My mistake.”

The spirit lowered her arms. “What reason have you, to profane my character so?”

“The apostate didn’t fascinate me.” Saphienne pursed her lips. “I wasn’t sure; the Fascination spell over the briars was invisible at first, so maybe I hadn’t noticed her doing the same. But the insistence of the other spirits that she couldn’t have touched me through the binding, together with how you suggested what I did was divine intervention…”

“Then what, Saphienne?” Head tilted, the spirit mirrored her expression. “What do you think actually happened?”

“You used me.” She clenched her fists. “You used all of us. You’re the one who made the spirit go free. And I think your sylvan sisters know it, but they’re glad you succeeded — and also furious with you. Which is why they’ve forsaken me,” she realised, laughing through her words, “and made you responsible for me! I’m not being punished alone: I’m your punishment.”

“Your words are baseless.”

“But they’re not,” Saphienne argued, descending closer to her. “The pieces fit together too well. Iolas’ father entered the clearing years ago — how did he see through the brambles, when even Wardens of the Wilds are fooled? And Celaena said the spirit remembered a moment when she thought someone might free her — only to despair when they withdrew.” Stopping, Saphienne lifted her hands, steepling her fingers as she pressed them together. “The clearing was surrounded by windchimes — alarms. They rang when the spirit fled, and when your sisters arrived…”

She descended to the precipice of the field. “…But not when Iolas carried you in, hidden in the stiches of his robes. Which prompts two questions: why did you go to the trouble of hiding your flowers there, when you could have watched us without them? Because you knew we would be going through the chimes. And how did you know that being carried in like that wouldn’t raise the alarm?”

Now the spirit was smiling, and she didn’t answer.

Saphienne took another, calming breath. “And you were watching us. You told us as much, when you were first invoked by Almon. Were you watching Faylar, too? Laewyn? Or did you just discover them because of us?”

“The latter.” The spirit shrugged. “And watching you was appropriate: the moment you were accepted for apprenticeship as wizards, our meeting was decided. My proving was to be your lesson, and so I was obliged to study the three of you.” She folded her arms, head cocked. “Your conjecture has no substance. What proof do you have?”

They stared each other down.

“…Nothing. I have no proof.”

Mollified, the spirit relaxed. “Then, give your apology and I will–”

Saphienne leapt from the steps — and plunged into the flowers.

 

* * *

 

Vanishing snow; the stirring roots of spring; things long thought dead, brought back to life by the thaw.

Slithering leaves, wet with meltwater, were forced aside — and the blooms closed to deny her entry. Saphienne struggled on. Snow flurried against her face, the scent of flowers dizzying in every breath. She did not relent. A storm of her traumas was loosed to bite at her heels. She outraced it, as she always did.

Glimpsed beyond the stems, whispers among red petals; a figure falling; a bulb, carefully unearthed and replanted; the shock of a sunflower, beholding a visitor–

 

* * *

 

With all her might, the spirit expelled Saphienne back onto the steps, struggling to hold her at bay as the clouds overhead crackled with shared horror. “You– you are no ordinary elf! Your will burns, like wildfire. How did you do that?”

Saphienne shuddered, but the steps gave her purchase on herself, and she withstood the sleet of her own dark feelings that poured down around them. “You’re the second spirit to embrace me,” she hissed, “and your predecessor didn’t hold back. She had nothing to hide.”

“Saphienne, be careful what–”

“Tell me, spirit: did you really need to possess Celaena, to heal me?” She struggled onto her hands and knees. “I watched you tend the welt on her cheek from within, like the spirit healed the boy. Was that the true limit of your ability? Or did you contrive an excuse for her to invite you in, and so gain the chance to ‘heal’ her by removing those memories…” She bared her teeth. “…Memories you could only have received from the spirit after she was imprisoned?”

Gathering up her composure like sweeping together fallen leaves, the spirit drove back the storm.

“You needed to remove the evidence.” Saphienne reclaimed her footing, stood on the rapidly drying steps. “Everything else was circumstantial at best, but those memories would have exposed you, one day.”

“Perhaps of equal depth,” the spirit murmured, glancing at the library.

“How long did you plan this?”

“Plan what?” Her smile had deepened.

“Don’t feign innocence.”

“I will admit something about Iolas’ father,” the spirit allowed. “When I was first arisen, I used to follow him for joy — delighting in his adventures. Eventually, I was told about the apostate, and my curiosity made me yearn to cross beyond the circle… not that I ever did.” She studied the hyacinths. “Do not think for a moment that I had a hand in Iolas’ seeking the path of wizardry.”

His father’s accident. “His father was climbing… the wind… and then a priest…”

“Priests are often instruments of divine providence.”

“And Celaena?”

“She, I did not expect to present herself. Nor you. Even less so, you.” Her smile was gentle. “You really were the answer to my prayers, Saphienne. So many pieces came together… no one could have planned for them all. If I had been forced to walk with meek Iolas, or if you had not been all that I hoped, or if my words had not reached under your skin… none of this would have come to pass. Surely, the gods willed her freedom.”

The magnificence of the bloomkith’s achievement towered over them both, eclipsing even the library.

“One thing I don’t understand,” Saphienne wondered, “is how you fascinated me–”

“I did not.”

Saphienne blinked. “No, you made me–”

“I did not.” The spirit’s smile grew dark, yet remained eerily friendly. “In your fevered imagining of my villainy, would that not be the whole point? Had I walked in your flesh, had you been made to do what you did, then the act would have been too blatant to be ignored. No, Saphienne,” the spirit went on, leaning close enough to whisper in her ear, “if you had been compelled, or had carried me, then I would have looked responsible. Which, of course, I was not.”

“Then… how…”

“You know how.” She laughed, and the wind stirred the stormfront closer. “Faylar and Iolas pronounced the truth on you. Do you think the boundary between sanity and madness is sharp? That to go mad is to be aware of it? That losing your mind feels so very different from being sane?”

Intensifying rain veiled the library, stopping short of the steps.

“No, Saphienne. To slip into madness is to lose control — to be overwhelmed by yourself, the outer world eclipsed by the inner.” Her eyes softened. “For the second time in your life, you saw a friend come to harm because you did not act, and it brought back all the feelings that–”

“Shut up.” Within her chest, Saphienne felt her heart racing.

“No.” The spirit’s voice took on a new, urgent intimacy. “No, you will hear this. I did test you, but my test was not the test set by the wizard. I needed to be sure you were the girl I thought you were. I needed to know that you believed in right and wrong, that you were willing to put yourself in danger, that you were intelligent enough – and foolish enough – to interpret the signs and commit to action.”

“I did what–”

“‘–Was right, for its own sake.’” She giggled, placing a hand upon Saphienne’s shoulder. “Faylar told you there were other ways to interpret what my sister said, but you ignored them, because you wanted to believe. You lifted the scant threads and wove them into a story to clothe your grievance, and what you learned – along with what you saw happen to Celaena – drove you over the edge.”

“No, you–” Saphienne felt cold water lashing her back. “You manipulated–”

“You accuse me of your own behaviour!” The spirit sprang away, spun around, her arms wide, face turned up to the sunlit sky above the flowers. “The moment you knew something was wrong with Celaena, you did everything in your power to keep Iolas from fetching help.”

“I wanted her to be safe–”

“No, you wanted to be the one to save her.” The spirit stopped, placing her hands on her hips. “All was well while you had defeated me — had saved her from me. You had atoned. But when that redemption did not hold? You began to panic, Saphienne. You descended into terror, and the only response you know to feeling powerless is to try to understand–”

“No…” The rain rolled down her cheeks.

“Then why did you tell Faylar about me, Saphienne?”

But Saphienne couldn’t answer.

Slowly, achingly, she collapsed on the steps, pulling her legs to her chest as the awfulness of the day drenched her.

Approaching lightly, the spirit floated down, crouching before her. “You were not in control. The moment you solved the last poem, you were ready to catch aflame.”

“…Who else but I will run through all thy years…”

“Your grief endures.” The spirit fondly stroked her sodden hair. “And that is what you fear, Saphienne. Not pain, or even death: that what happened before will happen again. That it will always happen — that it is inescapable.”

Feeling very small, she closed her eyes. “But why? Why did you free her? Who was she to you?

“She was just a cautionary tale… at least at first.” The flowers over the bloomkith beaded with dew as she spoke. “But surely you know better than I what she is — since you have spoken with her. She is a good person, Saphienne. And her suffering should never have been decreed, nor forgotten.”

“And the pain caused? The hurt done to Iolas, to Celaena, to Faylar, to Laewyn?”

“And to you?” The spirit asked the question thoughtfully, lifting Saphienne’s chin. “Does your suffering matter so little, compared to theirs?”

The memory of the fleeting embrace of sunlight remained. “…I would have chosen to do it, if what you have told me about her is true. Even if you’ve lied… no one deserves that…”

“Then you know the answer.” The bloomkith released her as she rose. “What is a little suffering, fleeting as winter snow, when compared to the glacier now melted? I will carry my– sorrow, for all that has happened. But not regret. Never regret.”

Too overcome to feel anger, Saphienne hung her head. “This cost me my only friends.”

Giggling, then breaking into laughter, the spirit clasped Saphienne’s hands. “Such a foolish thing to say! You think so little of your friends? Why do you think I wish to speak with them, Saphienne?”

She looked up. “Nothing you say–”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“On the contrary: you now understand the power of mere words.” The spirit laughed again, and the daytime in their entwined minds brightened and subdued the storm, the light dazzling Saphienne. “So long as you never contradict what I tell them, my lie to them will put all to right.”

Gazing up at the spirit’s silhouette, Saphienne doubted — and yet, emerging once more into tranquillity, she still hoped. The spirit had boundless confidence, and what she had so deftly achieved left the child shaken to her depths, feeling stripped bare in the daytime, completely outmatched. “Are the other spirits like you?”

“They ought desire it so — but they are not.”

Then, Saphienne caught a glimpse of herself as others had seen her, or as she might be becoming — and the horror of her thriving reflection taught her what Almon so intensely disliked. “What is your name, spirit?”

“Now, Saphienne,” the spirit murmured, playful as she helped her to stand, “I shall not answer that. My newly chosen name is known only to myself, for the names of spirits are the truth of our being. But you may call me by another.” There, she dipped, and uprooted a single, blue bloom. “…Take this, as my namesake. Then, dearest of elves, permit me the use of your body, that I may restore you to the bosom of your friends.”

Trembling, Saphienne accepted the flower from her hand, which at once took root across her arm, and conveyed the name – and only the name – wordlessly, which was enough to make her laugh through her tears.

That was how Saphienne was introduced to Hyacinth.

Much, much later, she would learn that they had a great deal in common.

 

* * *

 

“–And I hope you go into the ground and rot!”

Returning her awareness to the world around her, Saphienne was surprised to find that she wasn’t crying, and had in fact been standing politely and attentively throughout Celaena’s abusive tirade toward Hyacinth. Now Celaena was deeply flushed, breathing quickly and deeply as her rage subsided, Laewyn anxiously hovering behind her in wariness of the spirit whose golden light was in Saphienne’s eyes.

Politely, Hyacinth conveyed that she could keep Saphienne composed, should she wish so — and also requested her consent to speak. Accepting her offer, Saphienne bid her wait as she quietly asked, “Are you all right, Celaena?”

Glaring, Celaena drew a halting breath. “Is that you, Saphienne?”

“Yes. She sat through it all; she got the message.”

“Then yes. Yes, I feel better.” She stepped away, and Laewyn took her hand.

With a small bow, Saphienne addressed her friends, turning so that she faced Faylar and Iolas as well. “The spirit wants to talk with you. She has… there are many things I didn’t understand. She’s not our enemy.”

Iolas bristled. “I’m not going to take your word for that, Saphienne.”