The River's Promise

'The river ran backwards on the day the Queen vanished.'

The denizens of the kingdom of Ellowyn watched with wide unblinking eyes as the broad untroubled river against its unspoken will wrestled trying to move toward the mountains it once fled centuries ago. Fishermen just dropped their fishing gears into the water as they saw silvery fish swimming toward the opposite way. Farmers pointed to the area scratching their heads, and thinking that the reflections of the sun confused the waters. Kids raced along the shoreline giggling hysterically while grown-ups convened and huddled about portents.

In the Castle of Ellowyn, the overwhelming feeling of foreboding of the room envloes the compartment. Waking up, the people found Seraphine, the queen they loved and protected, and feared as no other for she would defend them; gone, only to leave behind her cloak of midnight feathers, a silver circlet for her hair, and one purple lotus, a symbol that had been used in the kingdom since the old days the symbol of protection. She was missing and all the doors to her chambers were tightly locked from inside. Most mysteriously, white owl Azran began flying around the towers and when one tries to approach her, the owl would hiss like a human.

In the great hall, the court mage, Marcellus, frowned deeply over the reading of the artifacts they found behind, leaving his stately home. The wizened man of many years had traveled with Seraphine in her youth, chasing shadows when the realm was plagued by them, along with her. He had known the queen better than anyone, the symbols left behind could not have been the queen’s disappearance, they were a message — something he figured out better than anyone else could, perhaps if only he had the time.

Turning to Captain Eleanor of the Queen’s Guard, a woman of astute mind and even sharper by instinct, “Marcellus” murmured “Are the Shadow Weavers at work?”

Marcellus's eyes darkened. I fear something worse has perhaps awakened, or perhaps; Look to the river, Captain. The balance can be kept by nature. That was an ancient power… before the Weavers, maybe even an even older power; the river would have to reverse itself… this is the mark of an ancient power.

News reached the villages also that the Queen’s Champion had returned to Ellowyn after years seeing if he could find an artifact said to be an object of such power as to change fate itself – the Crystal of Alestri. His armor dull and battered, his armor dulled and battered, his heart heavy with despair, many believed he had failed, returned empty handed and worn from his journey. At the news of the Queen's disappearance, a fire rekindled there.

Sir Thorne immediately rode to the castle, pushing himself through the gates with more speed than urgency. He stopped, his eyes locking on Marcellus, as he strode into the hall. The river... the river runs backward." What does it mean?"

It meant, he told Marcellus, that the fabric of our world was unraveling. It is connected to our Queen." He glanced down at the purple lotus, the ancient symbol of protection—for themselves? Hum … but the price may have been herself?

Sir Thorne clenched his fists, and fell into a silence in the room. He was her Champion, her sworn protector, failed her. "Tell me what must be done."

She has vanished into the Mistwood, so we must go into the heart of Ellowyn, Marcellus said. "The river spirit Avelara was last known to live there, it is the oldest, the most enchanted place in the kingdom." She would be the one to tell us if someone can tell us what caused the river to turn, if anyone."

Prepared a small party Eleanor was to let the Queen’s Champion go alone. Under branches thick with shadows and shrouded in an unnatural fog, they left when night came. An hour before midnight they reached the source of the river, a lake buried so deep within the forest that the water spun in a stream not of water, but of strange, impossible patterns.

They heard over the lake, a soft voice like tinkling of bells as they approached. The waters parted a figure, tall and gleaming, hair of river grass green and eyes eyes as moonlit waters.

Marcellus bowed his head and called, 'Avelara.' "We seek the Queen. She has vanished, the river says. What do you know?"

The spirit’s eyes grew small and sorrow filled. I found myself in a cell, Queen Seraphine had come to me bearing the Crystal of Alestri. As curious about it as she was, she wanted a way to break the Shadow Weavers curse, a spell that had cast over Ellowyn for a long while. Had she been holding the crystal, she’d have had power to end them forever, but at a cost. In order to wield it, it needed someone that wanted to be erased from memory and bound to the crystal for eternity.

Sir Thorne slipped backward, as he found it out. "She… she gave up everything?"

Avelara nodded. "She knew someday the darkness would take Ellowyn and consumed her.’ What she believed, was that by fusing her spirit into the crystal, she could bottle the Shadow Weavers. However, in doing so she joined the crystal. She is no longer of this world."

"But… the river? Why does it run backward?" Her voice trembled as she asked.

'Avelara said the river carried her spirit, flowing against time, itself, in the search for she had left behind something to anchor her.' She looked to Sir Thorne. “There is a soul’s bond.”

At that same moment, he felt a warmth in his chest, a gentle tug signifying that he was being tugged from past a great wall. "What must I do?" His voice was just a whisper, he asked.

She held her hand out, forming a bridge of shimmering water from Avelara to the middle of the lake and a faint glow plumed beneath and the surface. "Come, step on to the water, Champion, and_challenge_ her name." But know this: if you hold onto her soul she'll be with you forever. And you will share her fate, and your mortal life shall pass yet the river’s flow."

For a moment Thorne hesitated to step onto the watery bridge, but without thought, he stepped into the wave of lake power that surrounded him. "Seraphine," he whispered. "I am here."

A pulse rippled through the water and for an instant, a face tried to form before him, though it remained uncomfortably familiar, the Queen’s face delicate and fierce, her eyes alight with gratitude and remorse.

Her voice was a distant song, 'Thorne.' “You… shouldn’t have come.”

His voice choked, “I would cross a thousand rivers in order to find you.” "I failed you once. I won’t do it again."

With those words, he stretched his hand to her spirit and with those words he offered it to her. When their fingers touched a blinding light enshrouded the lake and the waters stilled, and their true flow returned.

Thorne was standing there on the shore, the crystal in his hand, highlighting faintly with a purple light, when the light faded. He knew he would never see her again like before, but she would never leave him. The Queen’s spirit could now be found running through every drop of the river, bound to every drop of Ellowyn, forever.

In a place no eye can see, there the two souls drifted, united as water unto water.