Song of dawn and thorns
Song to listen to: Indila - Ainsi bas la vida ( tiktok version)
PROLOGUE
Note: Maebh is pronounced as Mab as in map but with a b.
Ixone is pronounced: Eexonee
She shuddered as she beheld the crying child in the fairies arms. The tears rolled over his bark skin, as his mother tried to shush him. The intensity of her gaze must have scared him, but Maebh asked him again.
-" What did you say?"
-" Lady Thorn is under the mountain, the guards caught her helping us out of the caves. " The boy whispered in a small voice. Her heart thudded in her chest, ugly flickering flame starting in her brown eyes until they reflected a combination of cold silver, blue and green.
She blinked, realizing he did not see her but the old lady she had taken on as form. Panic rose in her throat as she realized Aurora once again was in near hands of Hybern. If the king discovered, if Amarantha discovered, the protection and salvation she had offered her friend would be for nought.
There was too much danger. She watched the soldiers of the summer court that had come to retrieve them. - "I will sent you to the borders of your courts, be ready."
It took so much to concentrate, to winnow so much in different directions. When each had put themselves in sections, she felt the magic, her magic, rise in her blood before she threw her hands up. She could only see the stunned look in the boys eyes before she winnowed them home.
The tethers on her power strained. Amarantha's spell had even affected her, when she had been to close to the border of the Winter court. She could not access her unlimited power, had never been able to but now, with the seal on it, she could only do so much.
-" Stupid stupid girl." She murmured, throwing of the green ring on her finger before a long gnarled wand with green stones appeared. Much like siphons, this now regulated her magic ever since the land had become bound.
Anger and fear boiled in Maebh's gut but she stomped it down. She was a creature more ancient than Amarantha. The Maleficent, the sorceress that killed and maimed children, or so Ixone had told her. The jealous sorceress that had cursed a beautiful golden haired princess to death and surrounded her castle with thorns.
None of it was true. She had not killed the human princess, she had saved her. The brother of the king of hybern had married Aurora's mother and started experimenting with spells and what remained of the cauldron.
His wife had suffered and been tortured, barely surviving his experiments. And part of the cauldron's power had been given to the suffering woman. Not to her, but to the babe in her womb.
The Cauldron might have given some of his essence and power, but it was clear the power was all the child's own. She was beautiful and lovely as a morning sun, sweet as chocolate on your lips.
But the queen's joy that her daughter had survived did not last long. Had one of the scholar's in the castle had pity on the princess when he told her that the experiments had yielded a curse? That she would die at the age of sixteen?
It broke the queen, the poor woman. And she started to search for a solution.
Somehow she was abe to summon Maebh. How was not clear. Maebh was a creature old and ancient znd knowlegde of evoking her, let alone summoning her had long been lost or so she thought. So they had thought of the Cauldron as well, and the Hybern had been able to retrieve it.
The queen had searched among it's libraries for a solution, and her quest had been successful. The only existing book of how to summon her kind had been laying in Dormant in Hybern. Once summoned, the queen begged help. She struck a bargain with Maebh. Maebh would get back the book with it's knowledge if she found a way to protect the princess.
All this time the queen had kept the powers of her daughter secret. No one could know what exactly lay dormant in the princess.
The summoning of the Maleficent had taken everything from the queen, the last of her life and her will. She fell ill, and died when Aurora was 10.
It had crushed her.
Years passed and Maebh installed wards, as her ancient mother had once taught her, to nullify the curse. Sixteen came, and Aurora did not die. Three years later however,the curse came true. Maebh suspected that it had to do with the king of Hybern. Just as she was going to renew the wards, as she did every few years, the curse took effect.
She could not undo it, so instead she changed it and had Aurora prick her finger on a spindle and she fell asleep, as long as needed until she was safe. Thought to be dead, Hybern had her buried. Maebh took the princess with her once the burial was over, and had her staying in a remote old castle. The years turned to centuries as Aurora's story was forgotten and all the while Maebh remained, protecting her charge. As the years passed and the world became relatively safe again, Aurora woke herself. The war had passed and the wall was build and while she lived with the sorceress, growing close as sisters, her desire to see the world won out. So warded and protected by the Fae lady she called her sister, she set out. A few decades passed and then Amarantha took over Prythian.
She had willed Aurora to come back, and at first she did. However, as humans starved over the wall, and more and more younglings died, one day Aurora snuck in the mountain, using the wards for her protection to take out the guards.
Taking the name of Lady Thorn or the name " Rose", she remained years, mapping out the caves and routes, dressing and working as servant. But Amarantha was so cruel to all those in the mountain, that she, along with others in resistance, and had started to sneak out lesser faeries and prisoners here and there.
At first it didn't really matter, or rather, the high fae who saw said nothing. But when children small were brought in as bargain, aurora had made a mistake.
The dozen of children from the summer and day court, as well as a few from winter had been locked up and Aurora, urgent and scared for their fate, had taken contact with soldiers from different courts willing to help her get them out. She had snuggled them out in droves in a few days but had not been careful enough.
As the last ones were sent out, and Aurora had evoked Maebh to help, she had been trapped. And now, now Maebh has to get her out.
Going into the mountain was not difficult. Her illusion of old lady still in place she held onto her staff and scrambled down the caverns, deeper and deeper.
Voices.
-" Let go !" She screeched. Long golden hair falls over her shoulder as she fights the guards trying to hold a winged soldier down. They didn't know she was helping the soldier than. Not yet.
The winged soldier in question though... Summer court? Dawn court? She isn't sure. She does know how Amarantha delights to hurt them , take away their wings.
As they are brought away, the fae sorceress follows in their wake, hidden, cloaked.
hTe throne room is as cold and ugly as she had thought and the woman on that throne. That cruel woman, is staring down at them.
-" Well well, what do we have here?" The Attor grins as he pulls up the soldier, his wings bloodied. Aurora is nowhere to be seen.
A glimpse and she sees the masked face of Aurora in the corner.
-" Traitors?" - " It would seem so, my queen." Drawls Rhysand, the high lord of night. He sees a flicker, she is sure, but ignores it. Giving a chance to strike.
Turning her attention to the soldier, Maebh realizes he is not alone. Two children, a boy and girl stand beside him. They are barely enough to stand on their two feet. Dawn court and autumn court. Remaining children from the escape.
A gasp resounds among the gathered people. And Amarantha's face grows cruel, a long evil smile on her face. She stands and then swaggers down the stairs.
Two of her minions grasp the soldier by his arms, away from the children and stab arrows in his wings. He screams himself hoarse as he slumps into a heap, a flinch going through the crowd.
The children start crying. Amarantha is still advancing, with the knife, nearly dancing to the sound of the screams and crying.
They know what she will do, and they can't stop it.
Her cold eyes flit towards the gathered people, her eyes searching the eyes of the lord and lady of autumn court and lord of the dawn court.
The knife glitters in her hand, catching the light in the chandelier and Maebh knows she cannot risk being seen. But the children, those younglings' eyes...
Dagger in hand, the high queen of Prythian hefts her arm only to groan and be thrown back. The fae holding the soldier are blasted away and the swords they hold and the arrows turned on their throats.
Amarantha collides with her throne, cracking the stone as the dagger in her hand slices below her ribs. She yelps and tries to scramble up but cannot move as she gapes like a fish and starts rising in the air.
-" You filthy harlot."Maebh's voice booms as she, disguised as the old and weathered lady, steps forward, a gnarled hand clenched together to keep her there.
-" I will break your bones! " Maebh sneers.
Her anger rises as the gnarled hand starts to melt away revealing smooth skin and long nails. Her weathered skin starts to turn and for a moment the can glimpse her. Not a crone, but a beautiful black haired woman, horns growing from her head and skin turning green as her power and anger rises.
She throws the high queen down, the red hair smearing across the stairs like blood.
But Amarantha was not one of Hybern's commander for nothing. Had Maebh had her full powers and had she not been exhausted, she could have won.
The spell book Amrantha has stolen from the king holds great power and magic as well, and in her weakened state, the Maleficent is not unstoppable now.
Amarantha cannot kill her or terribly wound her, but strong enough to forbid her access from the mountain. A flash and Maebh feels her power wain, she can just yet throw a shield around aurora, install new protection, an appearance changing glamour, taking hold of the children and the soldier before they are thrown out.
The spell skates along her skin, grating, as they are teleported out in open sky and start falling down in open air.
It takes all her remaining power to bring them down safely.
The sorceress turns to the mountain meters away, her power slamming against the shields erected.
-" AMARANTHA!" She roars and it turns bestial as the ground and the very mountain shakes, their grand chandelier in the throne room falling from the ceiling and nearly splattering Amarantha beneath.
At least Aurora is safe for now, as are the children and the soldier. She turns her face to the mountain once more before taking the children by hand. Ixone, her lady in waiting, arrives with healing potions for the soldier.
Taking them with them to heal and hide, Maebh tries again and again to break the mountain apart. She does so several times for the following years.
Amarantha carries a wound on her side that never quite fully could have killed her, had she not been able to heal herself immediately. Yet, she keeps having trouble with it. The scar stays red and sometimes becomes infected, and hurts sometimes while she breathes. And each time the mountain roars and trembles around them when Maebh returns to break in, it hurts, like a thorn in her side, that grows in size until she feels like an arrow is stuck in her gut.
It dissapears, but always comes back.
The protection of the mountain holds, and it is only when a young girl by the name of Feyre Archeron comes to fight for the love of a high lord, that Amarantha is defeated. And Maebh gets to see Aurora again.
She is grateful to the young woman, now made Fae and decides to help wherever she can. Help they will need desperately.