Kurt rushes toward the cove at a break-neck speed in search of the flame to warm him, but he doesn't feel its fire reaching out for him. He calls to it with his mind, tries to picture it dancing happily on its branch, but for all his beckoning he hears nothing. If Kurt didn't know better, he would think the Eternal Flame had gone out. He looks up toward the horizon when he feels the coming dawn singing as it washes over the underside of the world.
He has to get back. He has to take over the flame from his sister and get Sebastian deep enough below the water to escape the daylight. Then he has to try and convince his mother that an army of water sprites is planning to attack – and try to persuade her not to destroy every living thing in the ocean to evade the battle.
If he can accomplish all of that in the limited hours he has left before the eclipse, then he really does deserve to be king.
The water sprite stops to get his bearings, glancing up at Kurt to see if the fairy is any better off than before. Kurt's skin is still snowy white – much paler than his normal pink pastel hue – and his lips look frighteningly blue. Kurt smiles down when he catches Sebastian's gaze, trying to show the sprite that he need not fear for Kurt's safety.
Kurt wouldn't fear, either, if he could just feel the Eternal Flame's warmth again. They aren't all that far from the cove now. Why is it not calling out to him?
"When we get back to shore, we need to go check on Rachel first," Kurt calls down to Sebastian, clenching his teeth to keep them from chattering. "I need to make sure she's okay."
"Don't worry," Sebastian yells back, giving Kurt a reassuring wink. "I'm sure she's fine. After all, she never lit the mulberry leaves to signal you."
"I know," Kurt agrees. "Still, I'll feel better knowing she's okay."
"Of course, my love," Sebastian says, diving beneath the swells and taking off toward land.
Kurt flies after him, not willing to let the water sprite get the upper hand. Kurt laughs and loop-de-loops in the air, daring a bob down toward the water and reaching in to tug at Sebastian's hair. Sebastian flips onto his back and laughs, enjoying Kurt's company.
He misses Trent. He misses his kingdom. To a degree, he misses his father.
But everything is careening out of control too fast, and Sebastian has no foreseeable future to savor with Kurt, so he makes sure to keep these moments close to his heart and remember them, come what may.
Sebastian sees Kurt hold his arms tight to his body, beating his fragile silvery wings against the ocean breeze, narrowed eyes fixed on the shoreline. He wants to stop again and tell Kurt everything is alright, but he knows Kurt won't be settled until they reach the flame. They're approaching the cove at quite a clip, and soon Kurt will have his reassurance – his sister back in his arms and the fire to warm his skin.
They reach the cove, and Kurt hurries to the branch, basking in the glow of the orange flame.
"Ahhh, thank goodness," Sebastian hears him mutter, rubbing his hands up and down his drenched skin, shaking off his wet wings and sighing as the water evaporates with the heat.
Sebastian jumps over the log and into the pool, and paddles cautiously over to Kurt. Something doesn't feel right in the cove, but Sebastian can't seem to put his finger on it.
"Kurt?" he calls when the fairy disappears behind the flame. "Where's Rachel?"
"I don't know," Kurt's voice comes back. "She should be here. But that's not the only weird thing."
"What?" Sebastian asks, climbing up onto the branch.
"The fire," Kurt says, walking into view, "it doesn't…feel the same."
"What do you mean?" Sebastian asks. "What doesn't feel the same?"
"It doesn't want to listen to me," Kurt says, reaching out a hand to call to the flame. It sputters stubbornly before complying, but not as enthusiastically as it has numerous times before. "I don't understand it."
"Is there a chance that this is a new flame?" Sebastian asks. He sits back, trailing his feet in the pool with his eyes to the sky when something beyond the cover of clouds catches his attention.
"I…I guess so," Kurt says, trying one more time to get the flame to behave. "But, I don't see how. No one's here. If my mother knew I was gone, she'd be here waiting for me."
"Kurt…" Sebastian says, green eyes peering off into the distance behind Kurt's head, "I think your mother knows..."
The clouds part and the cove fills with a sudden white light from above. Sebastian puts his arms up over his face to hide from its oppressive light. Fire fairies drop down from the sky and the trees all around. A swarm of fairies circle Sebastian, but Kurt reaches him before they do, and blocks him from the reach of their flaming spears.
"Don't touch him," Kurt commands. A few fairies back down. A few more conflicted fairies stand their ground with their weapons raised.
"My Queen!" he hears a cry go out. "He's here! We've found him!"
"Kurt!" he hears his mother's voice as she approaches the cove. "I'm so glad to see that you're safe! I thought for sure you had been kidnapped and dragged into the water."
Elizabeth shrinks her bodily form and lights down on the grass, pushing through the ring of guards surrounding the couple, thrilled to see her son back alive.
"After what happened to Rachel, I…"
She looks at the two standing before her. It takes her a moment to realize that the boy standing behind her son is wingless. She glares at him with volatile eyes.
"You!" she says, the smile dropping from her face. "You're the water sprite, aren't you? You attacked my daughter! You kidnapped my son!"
"No!" Kurt cries.
Elizabeth's eyes widen as she looks at her son.
"I didn't attack anyone," Sebastian says evenly. "Please, let me explain…"
Elizabeth isn't listening, her ears ringing as she looks them over, her eyes falling on their joined hands, on Kurt's body shielding the water sprite standing behind him.
"You…you were with him?" Elizabeth asks, her voice becoming dangerously quiet. "This is the boy you love?"
"Mother," Kurt says, "I can explain."
"You were with him," Elizabeth repeats, pointing an accusing finger in Kurt's face. "You left your post, and your sister, to go off with him?"
"You don't understand," Kurt says.
"Your majesty," Sebastian says, stepping to Kurt's side and bowing low. "I am Sebastian, and yes, I come from the kingdom beneath the sea, but I am here to deliver you a warning."
"Warn me?" Elizabeth asks, making herself larger, highly offended at being addressed by a lowly water creature.
"My father, King Malek, is planning to attack," Sebastian continues, hoping to make Elizabeth hear him before she does anything rash. "You must prepare. You must do what you can to protect your subjects."
Elizabeth's eyes snap from Sebastian's face to Kurt's face – Sebastian standing boldly in the face of his adversary, Kurt looking like he wants to dig a hole into the earth and hide. Elizabeth's overwhelming clash of emotions swells within her, and she's unsure what to with any of them. Does she admire Sebastian for his bravery? Does she detest her son for his show of cowardice? Does she kill them both where they stand for being traitors? She can't calm the tide within her long enough to decide.
"Lock them up!" Elizabeth yells, raising her arms and sending a storm of guards descending upon Sebastian and Kurt. "My son to his room, and this one…" Her mouth curls fiendishly as the idea comes to her, "to the bower in the meadow…"
"No!" Kurt screams, scrabbling through the guards to reach Sebastian, clawing at faces of fairies who once protected him, fighting against those who avowed their lives to him. "No, you can't! Mother! It's only a few hours till sunrise! If you leave him there, he'll die!"
Kurt catches Sebastian eyes, the brave sprite holding himself straight and tall with his arms barred behind his back, not struggling to be free or begging for mercy.
"Then that should make negotiations go that much smoother," Elizabeth says.
"Negotiations? Negotiations with whom?" Kurt asks. He watches with growing dread as the guards drag Sebastian to his prison in the meadow, in a spot where the trees form a cone directly to the sky, funneling the light into the cove when the sun reaches its apogee. "Negotiations with King Malek?"
"No," Elizabeth says, turning away from her son to return to the flame. "Negotiations with you."
The guards lead Kurt to the palace and for the first time in his life, his people jeer at him. They yell at him. They curse at him. The fairies are a collective, a hive, a single entity, following the direction of their queen, and Elizabeth has called out to her subjects with her mind and sent explicit instructions for those gathered who see her son to sneer at him.
"Traitor!" they call him. "Disgrace!"
"You are the reason our beloved princess is gone!" a voice cries out. "You are the reason Princess Rachel is dead!"
Kurt hears their words and his heart shatters.
"Rachel is…dead?" he whispers. He shakes his head. "No!" He turns to the guards around him. "Please!" he pleads. "Please, tell me it isn't true! She can't be dead! She can't be!"
But the guards don't talk to him. They don't offer him any comfort. They continue on, treating him coldly, disaffected, ignoring his cries. They bring him to his room and lock him in, a single guard staying behind to make sure he doesn't escape.
Kurt sinks to the floor behind the locked door and begins to weep.
Rachel is dead.
His favorite sister gone.
And in a few hours, the love of his life will be, too.
Kurt keeps vigil by the window when he feels the sunlight creeping closer. This shouldn't be happening. This isn't the way Sebastian is supposed to die, not when he tried so hard to do the noble thing. He deserves better than to burn to death, trapped in a cage without anyone there to comfort him.
Kurt has been trying to figure a way out of his own prison since he could calm himself enough to think, but there is no way. Little by little, more guards join the first. They station themselves by his door and outside his window till they are his only view every time he tries to look out.
The only out he can see is to rush the guards and hope for the best.
Just as he's about to do something desperate, his door unlocks and slides open.
"The queen wants to see you," the first guard says, stepping back and giving Kurt room to exit.
Kurt can see the ocean starting to turn golden with the promise of sunlight on the horizon, and he swallows hard.
Oh, please, he pleads in his head. Oh, please, gods who look after the creatures of the sea, keep him safe. Please, extend your reach to your son trapped on land. Don't let him die.
Slowly, they approach the cove. The first thing Kurt sees is his mother looming above, empowered by her rage, and Kurt begins to lose all hope.
Filled from head to toe with this much hate, she will be impossible to convince.
Kurt's heart begins to wither. He has already lost a sister. He can't stand to watch the love of his life die.
They enter the cove, and Kurt's eyes find Sebastian – cramped inside a prison made entirely of twisted roots springing from the earth. Guards armed with flaming spears surround him. They leer at the refugee sprite, taunt him, and on behalf of his own people, Kurt is deeply ashamed. Kurt lands on the grass, soft and damp beneath his feet. Water. Sebastian is lying on a bed of water, however sparse, and Kurt is grateful for that one small favor.
Kurt tries to make his way to Sebastian, but the guards rush to block his path, their faces impassive. Kurt looks into their indifferent eyes and knows that they won't be moved by any appeal from him. He has been stripped of his title and his dignity - his place of purpose among his people.
Kurt turns to his mother, ready to make a last-ditch attempt to stop this madness while knowing in his heart that arguing with his queen is futile.
"Let him go, Mother," Kurt says, speaking for once in a tone commanding and regal, one his mother had always hoped for but had yet to hear.
Elizabeth looks at her son, momentarily impressed.
"No," the queen says simply.
"There is a war coming!" Kurt implores. "He was only trying to help, to warn us, to save our people!"
Elizabeth rolls her mighty head on her shoulders and trains her eyes toward the sunrise.
The delight in her eyes at the rising sun sends a chill through Kurt's body.
Kurt knew his mother was a force to be reckoned with, but he never knew that she was a heartless killer.
"Why are you determined to see him dead, Mother?" Kurt asks, gritting his teeth, trying to keep panic at bay to think clearly. "Because he is our enemy, or because by falling in love with him, I hurt your pride?"
That gets her attention, and she turns fiercely on her son.
"What were you going to do, Kurt? Huh?" Elizabeth asks in a mocking tone. "Were you going to run away together? Where did you think you two could go that I wouldn't find you? Where on earth could you live out of the water and away from the sun?"
"There is a star," Kurt says, preparing to explain about the field of flowers that bloom only during the eclipse that would take them into the heavens, but somehow mentioning the star is all he needs to say. The way his mother's face blanches, Kurt knows it's true. The star exists, and his mother knows it.
"How?" Elizabeth asks, pausing to word her question carefully. "How do you think you know about such a star?"
"A sea turtle told us," Kurt admits, keeping the turtle's name a secret in case his mother goes searching for vengeance, "about a star where fire and water can exist together in peace. A star where Sebastian and I can start a new life, since you and his father seem dead set on destroying all life here."
His mother shrinks a bit, her skin returning to a cooler hue. The look in her eyes is unreadable, which frightens Kurt. He can hear the morning start its song. He's running out of time.
"The turtle is mistaken, you foolish child!" Elizabeth roars, her skin turning a deeper red than before. "There is no star, no place where you two can exist together in peace, so forget about all of that! You are not going anywhere with the water sprite! You are staying here and you will be king! You will defeat our enemy, and the fire fairies will rule over this world as they were meant to from the beginning!"
"I love him!" Kurt yells, reaching out a hand, longing for just a touch of Sebastian's hand.
"But he's one of them!" Elizabeth screams. "He's the enemy, and by siding with him, that makes you a traitor!"
"I love him!" Kurt repeats.
"You can't love him!" Elizabeth counters. "I forbid it!"
"You used to love one of them!" Kurt yells. "Or don't you remember?" Elizabeth furrows her brow, but then her face goes from red to pink as she starts to understand – the secret she had kept from her children for so many years, now known. "Malek?" Kurt says the name with sourness on his tongue. "Your brother? Your other half? " He shakes his head in despair at his mother. "Why did you not tell me?"
"Kurt," Elizabeth says, making herself bigger, "that is none of your affair."
"None of my affair?" Kurt asks, his body shaking with anger and confusion. "Soon, the armies of the water sprites will be on our shores, and it is none of my affair? Your brother has declared war on my people with his blind hatred – a hatred you share - and it's none of my affair? You are turning the mantle of king over to me on the eve of war, and it's none of my affair?"
"Kurt," she says, growing even larger, "this is the last time I warn you." Other fairies around them fly for cover, but her overwhelming size and booming voice no longer intimidate Kurt, who stares up at her with the desolate mask of one betrayed.
"No, Mother," Kurt says, pushing the guards aside as they back away from their terrifying queen. Kurt puts a hand on the roots of the bower that keeps Sebastian trammeled inside. "This is the last time I listen to your lies. I refuse to become king. Keep your rule and keep your hate. This ends with me…" Kurt looks at Sebastian, kneeling in his cage, "and him."
Sebastian reaches out a hand through the roots and laces their fingers together, smiling in a weak attempt at giving Kurt courage, but his green eyes speak of his feelings of hopelessness and regret. Elizabeth watches them, her fury igniting with each touch of her son's fingers of the water sprite's skin.
"You will go, son. You will meet the eclipse as you were meant to. You will become king and you will win this war," Elizabeth says, raising her hand and filling it with a ball of flame, "or I will not wait for the sun. I will burn your beloved myself."
"No!" Kurt cries, blocking the cage with his own body, but as small as the prison his, Kurt's body is so much smaller, and he is not sure he can control his mother's flame. "You can't!"
"Someone has yet to pay for what happened to your sister," Elizabeth growls, the flame that covers her hand growing red with her anger. "Shall it be him?"
Kurt looks from his mother's eyes, full of sinister rage such as he has never seen burning in them before, to the water sprite trembling in his cage – hands curled over the bars, pulling at them with all his strength, helpless and frightened. Kurt feels the sun cresting the horizon, feels his own rage turn into sorrow.
"No," Kurt says, returning his gaze to his mother's eyes, "it shall be me. Let him go, and I will do what you demand. I will not fight you."
"No!" Sebastian yells out from behind the twined bars. "No, Kurt! Don't!"
"Release him, then I will take my place as king," Kurt says over Sebastian's protests. "I will fight your war…and I will never see Sebastian again."
Elizabeth extinguishes the flame with a grim smile of triumph on her face.
"Done," she says. She snaps her fingers and the retreating guards re-appear.
"No, Kurt!" Sebastian cries. "No! Don't!"
Kurt takes a deep breath and looks back at Sebastian. The sprite shakes his head, reaching out an arm to touch his fairy prince.
"No," Sebastian pleads. "Don't." Sebastian's forlorn expression is an image that Kurt doesn't want to be left with - his love, his courageous prince, finally beginning to crumble. "Don't do this," Sebastian whispers. "Don't leave me."
"I'm sorry," Kurt says, biting his lip to keep from breaking down. "I love you too much," he sniffles. " I have no other choice."