Amarielle Everglimmer's Arc

Chapter 2 of 7

The ivy fairy vanished into the dark, carrying its tale to the elders. Veronica did not chase it. She turned back to the window, where the boy walked home with her butterfly riding his finger. By dawn, the elders would come. She wanted to give him something first. Something real. Something he would keep even if she lost everything. But she had nothing. A fairy owned starlight and glitter, not objects a mortal could hold. She searched her cottage. Dewdrops slipped through her fingers. Petals browned by morning. Nothing small enough for a butterfly to carry. Nothing that proved she was more than a dream he had on a stone wall. Sage still hovered by the door. "You're planning something foolish," she said. "I can see it in your glow." "He needs proof I'm real," Veronica said. "When the elders take my wings, he'll think he imagined me." Sage sighed. She reached into the pouch at her belt, the one she carried from her market stall. "I traded for this moons ago. I never knew why." She held out a ring. Gold band, crowded with pink stones that glowed like ice lit from within. It was tiny. Mortal-sized, almost. Small enough. Veronica stared. "You'd give it to me? Knowing what I'll do with it?" "I've warned you a hundred times," Sage said. "You never listen. So I'd rather you break the law with something that lasts." Her voice stayed sharp, but her hand did not pull back. Veronica took the ring. It was heavier than anything she owned. She whispered into the stones, pouring her light into them until the pink glow matched her own. Now it held a piece of her. When he wore it, he would feel her warmth. She called the butterfly back with a thought. It returned through the window and landed on her palm. She looped the ring onto its slender leg, close to the body where it would not slip. The butterfly dipped under the weight, then steadied. "Take this to him," Veronica told it. "Tell him it came from the light he wished on. Tell him it's true." The butterfly lifted off. It flew down the path, wings laboring, the ring swinging beneath it. The boy had nearly reached the stone bridge below the hill. He heard the flutter and stopped. The butterfly settled on his open hand. He saw the ring. He worked it free and held it to the moonlight. The pink glow lit his face. He did not laugh this time. He slid the ring onto his smallest finger and pressed his hand to his chest. Then he looked up the hill, straight toward Veronica's window, and mouthed a promise she could not hear but understood. Veronica sank onto the sill, heart full and terrified. He had her proof now. He would never doubt her. Behind her, the sky over the elders' grove began to glow a cold, waking green.