Chapter one
Once Upon a time there lived a king and queen who had ascended the thrown early. But, the king had been so intent upon fighting wars with neighbouring kingdoms, and the queen with holding royal banquets for the dignitaries of those kingdoms they weren't fighting that when the subject of royal succession was raised it was nigh on impossible for the queen to conceive, even though the King tried all of the suggested herbs and chants.
Medics examined the queen and declared her body far too old to be able to produce child, the queen being 53 seasons.
They suggested the king divorce her and take another wife (one physician even suggested his own daughter) but the king loved the queen to much so they considered bequeathing their thrown to the kingdom upon their northern border whose own queen had just given birth to a son.
The queen, whose name was Danica was not at all pleased with this idea and went walking in the palace rose gardens.
When she had married the king Danica had commissioned for a thousand rose bushes to be planted that bloomed each spring with poppy red petals and long, thin, vibrant green stems whose thorns where tiny and hardly sharp. Whenever she felt the pressures of courtly life Danica would walk in the gardens and admire how the flowers grow.
Walking along side the roses in full bloom Danica absentmindedly picked one and sniffed it, feeling relief wash over her as she smelt the familiar fragrance of the bloom, soft and delicate.
"Do you like the roses?" enquired a voice from behind her and Danica turned quickly coming nose to nose with a diminutive woman dressed all in green.
The queen knew all her household by sight and she had never seen this woman before in her life.
Her face was pointed and her eyes oval shapes with no pupil, only an iris of vivid green, her hair was cut short and golden brown, the colour of leaves in autumn from which sharp ears protruded. She was the size of a child but fully formed and her brilliant green dress was on closer inspection made of leaves sown together with creepers for stitching.
"Who are you?" Danica asked warily, stepping back slightly and tensing her body ready to run if she needed to.
The diminutive woman curtsied "I am Zea, your highness, a sprite of nature and I have been watching you and your husband. Why are you always so sad when you come to visit my roses?"
Danica's hand pressed against her stomach and she sighed, turning her head away from the strange person to study the castle wall as she spoke.
"I cannot produce an heir and our thrown will pass to the new born of our neighbours, who I care not for."
Zea nodded and reached her hand to pluck a flower from the nearest bush; it came away in her hand the petals silver and stem gold.
"Have your cook prepare this flower and eat it as your evening meal tonight, you shall bear child by the next full moon."
Danica took the rose in trembling hands and regarded it with awe; Zea turned from her, a smile upon her pointed face and began to walk away.
"Wait!" Danica called after her urgently "What can I give you in return?"
Zea looked over her shoulder, her smile wide "When the baby is born name it after a flower from my garden."
"I shall do."
As instructed the queen had the rose cooked and ate it as her supper that evening and by the next full moon she conceived a tiny child all made of petals and seeds and stem and thorns who was born 9 months later in the beginning months of spring - A minuscule girl born with her earth brown eyes open and her little mouth twisted tight like a rose bud; and the queen looked from her window and saw the red, red roses in the garden budding and remembered her promise.
In the summer they named the princess Rosalia Galiena Lavinia and invited the royalty and dignitaries of the other nations to bask in their happiness.
The kingdom whose son had been considered as an heir came, although begrudgingly but went away in the knowledge their son would still be king- for the little princess would be his betrothed.
Zea was as at the celebrations, at the back of the hall with four other women-like creatures, each as strange and fantastical as she was.
Danica greeted them lastly of all her guests, a mixture of anticipation and fear making her wait, The king was being advised upon which of the royal falconers birds would best suit his daughter when she grow older and the queen became easily bored with talk of sports.
The sprites looked interesting, so slowly she drifted towards them across the crowded hall, making small talk until she reached them.
Zea took the queen's hand and kissed it before curtsying and introducing her companions whom each in turn curtsied before the queen.
Helice - a sprite of music, Kasmira- a sprite of weather, Kefira – a sprite of animals and lastly Lyris who was not a sprite but a muse, a most difficult and tempestuous spirit said to taunt poets and artists with inspiration only to steal it away later.
"We have each brought a gift for your daughter." Zea said, ushering the littlest sprite, Helice, forward.
Form the sprite of music, a little creature dressed all in golden cobwebs with diminutive blue butterflies in her cornflower hair there was a tiny silver flute no bigger than the queens little finger.
"Play upon it when she is restless, it will lull her to sleep." Helice explained, seeing the queen's mystified expression.
From Kasmira, a sprite bedecked in a radiant blue that became upon closer look an ever swirling dress of clouds, there was a necklace upon which hung a single crystallised rain drop.
"So she may call for me and whatever weather she might wish." The fairy said.
From Kefira sprite of animals who wore peacock feathers in her hair and a dress all of animal hide in tans and browns came a coat of cream and tawny griffin feathers.
"When she is cold wrap her in it, she'll not feel the bite of the cold then."
Lastly from Lyris, who looked positively plain in a violet smock with a mantle of knitted words, there was a bejewelled quill.
"When she begins her lessons have her write with this." She whispered, pressing the quill into the queen's hand; Dorothea felt a tingle run up her arm as she closed her fingers around it.
Zea came forward now a little shyly and quiet unsure, the others crowding around her to see what gift she'd brought.
"Your majesty…" She began but got no further for the air was suddenly as cold as ice and the baby, who had been sleeping in her lacy cot awoke with a with a scream and began to cry.
Danica tried to move but found her feet rooted to the floor as if frozen there, she looked about wildly and saw her guests with the same wild frightened expressions. Only the sprites seemed to still be able to move and they clustered protectively around the cradle, Helice trying fretfully to quiet the baby's cries.
The air began to hum as if filled with hundreds of bees and a man, crippled and hunchbacked hobbled forward from within the midst of the guests, Danica was filled with pity seeing him but he turned to look at her and the smile of something purely evil split his face.
Zea saw the smile too and strode forward to meet him, a glare upon her ethereal features.
"Be gone form here."
"But I am just an old man," the man said "Come to pay my respects to the princess."
"And I am a sprite, I see through your glamour." Zea hissed, she raised her hand and in a flash the old man was gone and replaced by a youthful demon from whose black curled head sprouted horns, he towered over Zea like a giant but his eyes were the same as hers, a pupilless poisonous green.
He laughed unpleasantly and bowed to Danica but his eyes never left Zea.
"I am Scipio and I have a gift for the child."
He pushed Zea aside in what seemed like a gentle movement but she fell crying out in pain and from where he had touched her the flesh was burned.
He came to the cradle and Helice who was holding the child put out her hand warningly but he ignored it, smiling a charming smile and produced a rose from his sleeve but the rose was black and wilted, with the stem twisted and rotting.
"For my bride." he said, placing the rose into the cradle.
"Bride?" Helice gasped, stepping away and holding the baby as close to her as she could.
"She is made with fairy magic; I can lay a claim to her." Scipio said, reaching out to take the baby from Helice.
"She is human!" Zea cried from the floor, Scipio turned and regarded her with a look that would have frozen blood.
"You made her from roses Zea, and from roses I will take her when she is of age." he said, his lips turning upwards in a cruel smile, then in the blink of an eye he vanished with nothing to suggest he had been there save for the flower in the cot.
Danica, finding herself free from whatever had petrified her to the ground rushed forward to the cot and picked up the dead rose, screaming in furry she threw it to the ground and crushed it under her shoe, sobbing as she did so.
Zea was helped up, her face white as chalk.
"You will have to salt the garden," she said softly "and burn all the rose or she will never be safe, I have been such a fool!"
"Zea…" Kasmira said warningly but Zea waved her away and took Danica's hands in hers, avoiding the queen's eyes.
"Rosalia is a fay-child; I used magic to help you conceive her and as a fay Scipio has the right to claim her under magic law but I did not think he had seen her!"
"Magic law?" Danica asked coldly, pulling her hands free from Zea's and regarding her with a hostile glare.
"We are not supposed to grant gifts to mortals," Helice said, coming to Zea's side, she still had the baby in her arms that she rocked gently. "if we do then the High Ones can take away what we gave the mortal."
"High Ones?"
"Magic users made completely of evil or completely of good, they made the rules and they punish those who break them."
"And this is my punishment; he's using my roses against me, you have to destroy the roses and I cannot come back when they aren't here but neither can he."
"Zea…" Danica whispered, reaching out her hand but the sprite turned quickly, her breathing uneven.
"Do it now." she whispered angrily, her voice leaving no room for argument.