Pyralis Crystarla's Arc

Chapter 6 of 4

Pyralis followed Thrakul's pointing staff to the tree line. The follower was no spy. It was a giant ducktroll, wide as three wagons, stomping toward the sanctuary. Its feet cracked low branches. Faeries screamed in their bloom-homes. The trail had led the wrong thing straight to her door. "It will flatten the tree," Pyralis said. "Everyone out. Everyone who can fight, fight now." The crew came fast. Tom Whisperwind sprinted in with a lean cat at his heels, his eyes gold as coins. He threw one hand forward and the air screamed with unseen claws that raked the ducktroll's leg. "It bleeds," he said. "Hit the same spot." Christian dior hopped up beside him, hood back, and spat a cold ghost-fire that froze the wound. The ducktroll howled and swung a webbed foot that missed them by a breath. La'Gaia Bloom dropped from the sky, her petal wings wide. She was the whale who had carried the lost faeries here. Now she slammed her bulk against the ducktroll's chest and knocked it stumbling. "Hold it," she said. "I pull the thread." But this thread would not pull. The beast only grew angrier. Erosyne drifted at the edge, pink smoke thin and shaking. The dementor of love had given too much building this tree already. Pyralis saw them tremble. "Stay back," she called. But Erosyne pushed forward anyway. They poured out the last of their stored love as pink light, flooding the crew's limbs with strength. Tom struck harder. Christian's frost bit deeper. La'Gaia shoved with the force of a landslide. Then help came that Pyralis did not expect. A frail orc faerie climbed down from the middle boughs, thin arms raised, and cast a weak thread of white light at the ducktroll's eyes. A tiny shadow faerie slipped from the high limbs and joined its small light to hers. The least of them, the ones she had saved, fought for the tree that sheltered them. The ducktroll staggered, blind and bleeding. Pyralis made her choice. She called the grove itself. Roots burst up and seized the ducktroll's legs. The forest she had taught to hide now learned to hold. "Now," she shouted. Every fighter struck at once. Tom's claws, Christian's fire, La'Gaia's whole weight, two small faerie lights, and the pink flood from Erosyne. The ducktroll crashed down. The ground shook. It did not rise. But Erosyne crumpled too. The dementor fell flat, smoke gone gray, eyes dim. They had spent everything. Pyralis dropped beside them, the old fear back in her chest. She could not lose them again, not after all they had built. Then Grand Queen Willow came. The ancient willow tree walked slow into the clearing, the gold heart on her chest glowing. Faeries parted for her. "Death I cannot mend," she said. "This is not death yet." She peeled a strip of her own bark and pressed it to Erosyne's chest. La'Gaia lowered her petals over the whole crew. Warm healing soaked into every bruise and cut, like rain into cracked dirt. Tom's torn arm closed. Christian's scorched hands smoothed. The two small faeries who had fought stood taller than before. La'Gaia saved the deepest work for Erosyne, who needed it most. Her petals and Willow's bark worked together. Pink light crept back into the dementor's smoke, not borrowed, but given freely so all she has to do to be alive is live and breath freely. Erosyne's eyes brightened past their old glow. "Forty-three days was my record," they murmured. "I think I can beat it now." The crew dragged the fallen ducktroll to the edge of the grove. For days they roasted its meat over wide fires. The water faeries, snow faeries, and orc faeries all came down from their bloom-homes to eat together. The smell of cooking drifted through branches that no longer trembled. Pyralis watched a hundred warm windows glow above the feast, every one full. The grove was safe, hidden, and alive. Pyralis had built what she set out to build. A shelter where every scattered faerie of the tropics could rest and grow. The frail and the small had fought for it, which meant it was truly theirs now, not just hers. She sat with Erosyne under the great tree, both of them tired, both of them whole. The paths of her grove settled quiet around her, and for the first time she was not lost in them. She was home, and so was everyone she had gathered and the small orcfairy stayed with Pryalis and the shadowfairy stayed with eroysen as there life long familiars for eternity