Once they had arrived at the hearthglade that housed the Grotto of Trust, Jethran paused, his gaze falling upon two oblong stones that rested in the yellow grass a few yards from the entrance. He walked toward them, leaving Saga standing awkwardly by the path.
From her position, Saga watched as he knelt. As a Silvarii, she was attuned to the emotional resonance of the world, and the wave of pure grief that rolled off him was a physical force. It was a sharp ache that echoed the emptiness in her own heart.
She had expected the arrogance of a king, the destructive energy of a plague-brought. She had not expected this. His sorrow was a pure thing, but beneath it, she felt another, more tangled thread of guilt. It confused her. The grief was a familiar song, but the guilt was a note she couldn’t place, a question that pricked at the edges of her empathy.
He placed his Heartwood hand on the moss-covered surface of the first stone. The living warmth of the lilac wood was a stark contrast to the cold stone beneath.
“Mother,” he whispered, the sound swallowed by the vast quiet of the glade. “I don’t know if I’m strong enough for this. They say I’m a king, but I still feel like the boy you had to hide. I had to let Fable go with Martier. I had to trust that the hereman who hurt us would protect the person I love most. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
He remembered her humming a forbidden lullaby in their small gray room, a tiny act of rebellion that had planted the first seed of defiance in his own heart. “I’m trying to be brave, like you were. I hope I’m making you proud.”
He then moved to the second stone, his fingers tracing the sharp, carved letters of Winley’s name.
“Winley. You told me to have faith in the Pattern. It’s… tangled. It feels like the threads are pulling in a thousand different directions at once. Fable’s people are dying, and they think I’m the cause. How can I lead a world that sees me as a curse?”
He remembered the words that she had once said to Fable, a charge she had unknowingly passed to him as well: You are his Anchor Thread.
“Winley, I don’t know how to be an anchor when I feel like I’m lost at sea. I’m trying to see the Pattern. I hope you can see it, wherever you are.”
He stayed there for a long time, drawing a quiet strength from the memory of the wem and rista who had, in their own ways, given him his crown.
Saga’s own grief for her parens rose in her throat, a familiar pain. The clean lines of her hatred began to blur. It was easy to hate a monster, a symbol, the source of a plague. It was much harder to hate someone whose pain was a mirror of her own.
For the first time, she saw not the king, not the blight on her world, but just Jethran. A boy who had lost everything, now tasked with saving everyone. It was an impossible burden, and seeing him bear it with such quiet vulnerability was the first true crack in the armor of her prejudice.
Finally, Jethran rose and walked back to her, his expression softening as he gestured towards the entrance.
“Welcome to our home. Make yourself comfortable.”
Saga followed him inside. As she passed the threshold, he stopped in the center of the cave. With a quiet snap of his fingers, the embers in the central fire pit, circled by six smooth stones, glowed to life, sprouting warm, blue flames that cast away the gloom.
Then, he waved his hand in a graceful arc. A half-dozen identical blue flames bloomed into existence around the upper curve of the grotto, each cradled in a nest of glowing yellow threads that created a slight green hue in between the two. The flames filled the entire space with a magical light. Although she said nothing, he could tell that she was both surprised and impressed.
However, it was another sight that met Saga’s eyes that stopped her in her tracks. She had expected to find a survivor's den. Instead, the Grotto was a home.
The air smelled of warm stone and brewing tea. Against the far wall sat a proper bed, beautifully crafted from the swirling wood of the Tree of Hope, its mattress a thick cushion stuffed with yellow moss. Shelves, carved from the same wood, lined another wall. They were filled with the trinkets of a life lived. A collection of colorful river stones, the small, red teacup that had belonged to his mother, and several framed pictures.
Her breath caught. One was a simple portrait of a grayskinned Jethran with only the pink on his cheeks, eyes and hair. He was with a wem whose loving eyes were unmistakable. Clearly, this was his mother. Beside it was another, a faded, silver-framed photo of a younger, portlier Fable, his arm slung around their gamra, both of them beaming.
A small desk, also made from the Tree of Hope, sat near a bubbling spring, a leather-bound journal lying open upon it. This place held more of her broven’s heart than their own childhood home ever had. It was a testament to four years of shared peace, of partnership, of love.
Jethran seemed to follow her gaze. He walked over to a large, wooden trunk in the corner and lifted the heavy lid. Inside, nestled amongst folded blankets and a collection of Fable’s more garish tunics, was his old satchel. He lifted it out, the material now a soft pink, the lilac stitching shimmering in the blue light.
He held it for a moment, a wave of memory washing over him of the terrified boy who had clutched this bag as his only link to a life he was forced to flee. He ran a thumb over the transformed fabric and placed it reverently on an empty hook on the wall. He could not set out on another world saving adventure without this trusted companion.
As he closed the trunk, a flash of movement at the entrance made Saga jump. A fox with a coat of deep azure stood at the threshold, her intelligent eyes curious. Jethran’s face broke into a genuine smile.
“Look at you! And you brought your family!! Your sons are so handsome.”
Behind the mother fox, two smaller cubs tumbled into view, their own fur a paler shade of cyan. She looked from Jethran to the empty space where Fable usually sat, a questioning chuff escaping her.
Jethran walked over to the flat stone table and reached underneath, pulling out a small, leather-wrapped pouch.
“He’ll be back soon,” he promised her softly. “Thank you for watching over our home.”
He unwrapped the pouch, revealing several strips of dried blue fish, and tossed one to the mother fox. She caught it deftly, a sign of their familiar trust. She was teaching her sons that this place, and this person, were safe.
As the mother ate, one of the cubs, bolder than its sibling, trotted past her. It stopped directly in front of Saga, tilting its head and looking up at her with innocent eyes.
All the hardness in Saga’s expression melted away. As a Silvarii, her connection to the woodland creatures was a joyful thing. The cub, seeing no threat in her, took a hesitant step forward and nudged her boot with his nose.
Without thinking, Saga slowly knelt down, her movements gentle, and extended a hand. The cub sniffed her fingers curiously before licking her palm with a rough tongue. An involuntary smile touched Saga’s lips.
Jethran watched the silent exchange, a knowing softness in his eyes. He noticed Saga, who looked exhausted and out of place.
“You can take the bed,” he said, his voice quiet. “I’ll sleep on the moss by the fire. You need your rest. Tomorrow will be a long day.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” she curtsied sarcastically.
As the peach sky deepened outside, they sat on opposite sides of the quiet fire. The weight of the coming quest settled between them.
Saga found herself thinking about the two graves that stood just outside. The empathy she’d felt earlier returned, mingled with a Silvarii’s deep-seated need for stories to have their proper shape.
“The stones outside,” she began, her voice quiet, testing the air. “Who were they?”
Jethran looked up from the fire, his rainbow eyes reflecting the cerulean flames. He took a slow breath, the memories rising like smoke. The quiet trust in her eyes called for the truth.
“The first stone is for my mother, Regale,” he started, his voice a low murmur. “She was… everything. In a world that told me I was a mistake, she was the only one who told me I was beautiful. We lived in a tiny apartment, and every night she would hold me up to a cracked mirror and trace the Blush on my cheeks and tell me it was a gift. She was a quiet person, but her love was the loudest thing in my life.”
He stared into the fire, the flames dancing like memories.
“The Uncrowned One… he used people’s hope against them. He offered me a contract. He had my mother brought into the throne room, and he told me that if I signed it, if I agreed to be ‘cured’ and accept his Order, he would spare my life. I was a fool. I thought… I thought the deal was for both of us. That if I complied, he’d let her go.”
His voice broke. “He executed her in front of me. In front of the whole kingdom, on a broadcast. He wanted everyone to see the Flaw, the son, choose his own life over his mother’s. He wanted to make an example of her, to show what happens to the source of any disruption.”
Saga gasped, a hand flying to her mouth. The cold cruelty of it was beyond anything she had imagined. She felt the echo of his agony, a sharp pain that made her own loss feel fresh again.
“The second stone,” Jethran continued, his voice regaining its strength. “Eldress Winley Knowles. She was a Colorista, one of the last guardians of the old stories. She was also the Uncrowned One’s sister.”
He looked towards the door and remembered the night when he cooked dinner for Fable and Winley.
“When my mother was executed, I couldn’t do anything to stop it,” his expression hardened. “Winley died in the final battle, but Fable… Fable died immediately afterwards. I only had the power to bring one of them back.”
Saga’s world tilted. The air left her lungs in a silent, sickening rush.
Fable… died?
The words didn’t make sense. Her broven, her infuriating, vibrant, unkillable broven, was dead? But she had just seen him. Her mind scrambled for purchase on a reality that was suddenly made of sand.
“I took his Wing FADES from him into myself,” Jethran’s voice was a low rasp, pulling her back. “It was the only way to bring him back. When he came back… when he found out what I did, he was furious at me. But I couldn’t live without him. It would have made everything that we had done hollow.”
The truth landed with a devastating finality. Her broven had died. And Jethran, the outsider she had blamed for accelerating Fable’s sickness, had not only resurrected him but had willingly taken the FADES into his own body to do so.
The Wing FADES that Jethran now carried, the very thing she had held against him, wasn't a contagion he'd caught. It was a sacrifice he had made. For Fable. For her.
She stared at him, the truth a sickening fact. He took it. He took the FADES... for Fable.
But her fathru's words, the warnings of the eldrus, screamed in her head. Her mind reeled, desperately trying to find a new pattern that held both truths.
What if... what if that was the problem? What if the FADES was a simple sickness until it met his powerful magic? Maybe his sacrifice hadn't been a cure, but an amplification.
The thought was a necessary comfort. He could be a hero... and still be the cause of it all.
The weight of her own misplaced hatred was a crushing shame.
“They died because of me. I live with that truth everyday,” Jethran said as he stared into the flames. "I've accepted the life that I've been given. I've seen the alternatives and I know that this is the life I was supposed to live. But knowing that means that because I live, my mother and Winley don't…"
"Jethran," Saga finally spoke with an almost involuntary insistence. "They did not die because of you. They died because of politics. Because of a weak person who saw the threat that you represented. It was not your fault."
She stared at him as his expression melted from one of authority and kingship to one of a hurt boy.
Jethran looked up. It was the first time that he had ever heard Saga use his name. "Thank you, Saga."
She fell silent, the weight of their sacrifice heavy in the small cave. Saga watched him, her heart aching. The stories were open wounds. She saw the guilt he carried, the terrible burden of a survivor. She knew she had to offer something in return, a piece of her own story to place on the scales, to balance the weight of his trust.
“My parens,” she began, her own voice trembling slightly. “They didn’t die in a battle. There was no villain to fight. There was a quiet fading.”
She described the FADES, the way it had crept through Silvarii Hollow like a colorless fog.
“My mothra was always so full of life, her laugh was like a handful of wind chimes. Then one day, the shine on her skin started to dull. Her wings, which were always a bright sparkle, began to look… tarnished. She grew tired. Her magic weakened.”
She hugged her knees to her chest, the memory a cold presence.
“My fathru, Lore. He’s a varii of tradition, of order. He tried to fight it with rules, with proclamations. He insisted it was a passing malady. But denial is a poor shield against a plague.”
A tear slipped down her cheek. “My fathru… he tried to hold on until she was gone. He was so stoic, so rigid. I think the only thing holding him together was his duty to her. But he couldn't do it. He knew he was about to go. He sent my mother into the other room to bring him some water. As soon as she stepped away, it was like the last string holding him to the world was cut. He gave me his final command and then he just… let go.”
“My momra was a whisper of who she used to be.” Saga looked towards the floor. “The last thing she told me was to trust myself, that I was strong enough to save our home. She faded within minutes of him being gone. Neither one of them wanted to leave without the other one.”
She looked at Jethran, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “They didn’t die for anything. They just… stopped. There’s no glory in it. There’s no story there. There’s just an empty house.”
Jethran listened, his own grief making space for hers. He saw the truth of her pain was agonizing helplessness. He reached across the small fire and placed his Heartwood hand gently on her arm.
“They died because they were sick, Saga. And they were sick because something is poisoning your people. That is not a pointless death. It’s the reason we’re on this quest. Their story isn’t over yet.”
He paused, remembering the first night he had spent in this very Grotto, lost and terrified, and the comfort Fable had offered him.
“Fable told me something when we first came here. He said this place was safe, that you can talk about anything here. That’s why it’s called the Grotto of Trust,” he said with an earnest expression. “Anything that you feel, that you need to release, you can trust that you will be safe to say it here.”
Saga looked at him, at the genuine empathy in his eyes, and a profound shift settled in her heart. He was right. Her parens' song wasn’t over. It was now part of a larger one, a shared one.
They fell into a comfortable silence after that, the shared stories creating a fragile bridge between them. Eventually, exhaustion claimed them both. Saga took the bed, the yellow moss a surprising comfort, and Jethran made a simple pallet for himself on the floor near the dying embers of the fire.
The first rays of the emerald sun were just beginning to filter into the Grotto when Jethran awoke. He moved silently, his years in the wilderness having taught him a quiet grace. He saw Saga was still sleeping. He noticed that nestled in her arms was the fox cub. Her face, for the first time since she arrived, peaceful and free of its guarded tension. A wave of empathy washed over him. He knew the path ahead was hers as much as his, and a kind impulse took hold.
He went to the shelves and took down a small pouch. Fable had insisted he keep it stocked. Inside was a blend of herbs: dried crimson lavender for calm, crushed viridian sun-petal for warmth, and a sliver of azure whisper-root for clarity. It was Fable’s favorite, a concoction he swore could solve anything from a sour mood to a diplomatic incident.
Jethran remembered the countless times Fable had taught him the precise ritual. He knew the spring water had to be warmed but never boiled, how the herbs had to be steeped for the length of one happy hum, and when it was made it had to be topped with a simple breath of respect. He set the kettle over a flame and began the familiar process, his movements a quiet meditation.
The calming aroma that filled the Grotto was sweet, a scent of home and gentle memories. He poured the steaming liquid into two mugs, one of which was his mother’s red teacup. He was just placing it on the small table when Saga began to stir.
She sat up, blinking in the gentle light, her senses slowly coming awake. The first thing she registered was the scent. Her eyes shot open. It was impossible. It was the exact, unmistakable aroma of the tea her momra used to make for her after a bad dream, the one that always smelled of safety and unconditional love.
“I made tea,” Jethran turned, offering her the red teacup. “I thought you might like some.”
She took the cup, her hands trembling slightly. She raised it to her lips and took a sip. Her breath hitched, and a single, silent tear traced a path down her cheek.
“This is my momra’s tea,” she whispered, her voice thick with disbelief and a flood of raw emotion. “How did you…?”
Jethran looked at her, completely bewildered. “I… I don’t know. This was Fable’s favorite. He said Myth made it for him. He taught me how. If it's not good, or I didn't make it the right way...”
“No, no,” Saga interrupted. “You made it perfectly.” She inhaled the aroma. It almost made it feel like Myth was with her again. “Thank you.”
Jethran nodded, as they stared at each other across the quiet space, the unspoken truth hanging in the air between them.
It was a melody of memory, a thread of connection. A piece of her momra’s love, passed from Fable to Jethran, and now, a comforting gift offered back to her. It was something smaller, quieter, and immeasurably more profound. It was the unassuming magic of a shared home.
They would face the first trial no longer as enemies, or even as reluctant allies, but as two souls bound by a shared, and surprising, cup of tea.
The Grotto of Trust had served its purpose again. It was a place that mended not just with poultices and lullabies, but with the simple, powerful magic of a shared story. He needed his satchel, but he could have survived without that. It was this moment that he had come to retrieve.