Lyrien Nightwalker's Arc

Chapter 1 of 6

King Lyrien Nightwalker wanted one woman in his hall, and forty had come instead. He stood on the dais of his throne room and counted the pretenders again. Each claimed to be the herb-girl who once handed him wild flowers in her garden. He was a boy then, muddy and laughing. He had never forgotten her brown eyes or the crown of purple blossoms she wore. Now he ruled a grey castle with dragon-scale walls and a moat that shimmered blue, and he ruled it alone. He wanted a queen who loved that boy, not this crown. The steward read the names aloud. Silk gowns rustled across the stone floor. One woman offered a chest of gold. Another wept and swore she had waited twenty years. A third pointed to her painted brown eyes and called them proof. Lyrien listened and believed none of them. They wanted his throne. He wanted the girl who gave things away for free. He rose and lifted a small painting from beside his chair. It showed a boy and a girl in an herb garden, her basket full, her hand offering a stem. "The girl I seek gave me a flower that day," he said. "Whoever names it may stay. The rest go home." The hall went quiet. Women whispered. "A rose," one guessed. "A lily," said another. "Lavender," a third tried. Each answer landed wrong. The purple spires in the painting were tall and hooded, elegant and half-wild. No one knew them. Then a pale blue creature drifted through the high window. It had a dragonfly's slim body and broad, glowing wings like a butterfly. It circled the throne room, drawn to something the crowd could not see. The pretenders shrank back from it. The creature settled on the frame of the painting and folded its shining wings. Lyrien watched it and understood. The girl's garden had been full of enchantment. This creature followed magic. It had found the one true thing in the room, and it was not any woman standing before him. "You are all dismissed," Lyrien said. His guards opened the great doors. The pretenders gathered their gold and their skirts and left in a slow, angry tide. The gowns swept out. The hall emptied. Soon only the king remained, the painting in his hands, the small winged creature at rest on its frame. He looked at the flowers in the painting again. Wolfsbane. He remembered now. She had warned him not to eat it, then laughed at his frightened face. No pretender had known that. The real girl had left no name and no address, only a memory and a poisonous, beautiful bloom. Lyrien touched the creature's wing. It stirred and lifted, drifting toward the open window, then paused, as if waiting. He set the painting down and reached for his cloak. The creature could sense magic. His garden girl lived somewhere in it. He would follow the wings and find her himself.