Three Graves

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. There weren’t any elves, either. But as she stood face-to-face with a sapphire-blue beast and its pointy-eared caretaker, Atlas learned the depth of the kingdom’s ignorance. The dragon’s dark scales glowed with a captivating iridescence in the early morning sunlight. She thought that it was a delicate, beautiful sight. A far cry from the winged killer beneath.

“What are you doing here?” The elf’s question shook her from her trance, and her eyes moved to the tall, ageless being on the dragon’s left.

“What am I doing here? What are you doing here? Better yet, what is that doing here?” She pointed at the dragon. Atlas knew she was rambling, but her brain couldn’t quite make sense of what her eyes were seeing.

The elf knitted his brows together as he glared at Atlas. “That?” He scoffed and turned to his companion. “Don’t listen to her, Pip. We’ll just send the mean lady on her way and pretend none of this happened.”

Atlas stared blankly at the odd duo, waiting for some sort of…introduction? She wondered, did elves do introductions?

“Hey!” she shouted, louder than she’d intended. “Could you please explain? Dragons are extinct. And elves don’t live in this part of the kingdom.”

“Well, I’m Wren, and this is Peregrine.” He pointed at the dragon. “But you can call her Pip. I’m the only one allowed to call her by her full name. And I don’t know how you got here, but you certainly can’t leave now. So come with us.” Wren gestured behind him, deeper into the forest, and Atlas wondered if despite all she’d just been through, perhaps this was only the beginning of far more trouble than she was up for.

She weighed her options and found none better than the one in front of her. She took a deep breath and turned to follow the only living elf she’d ever met into the unforgiving Brinneau Wood.

Seven Days Earlier

“How late will you be working with your parents?” Atlas asked Jo as they walked down the castle halls. “Did you hear about Mars’ party? They made very elaborate plans to celebrate the solstice with everyone. I’m not going without you. You know how over the top Mars gets.”

“I’m supposed to spend the entire afternoon and evening with mom and dad for the ceremonies,” Jo said.

“No fucking way,” Atlas replied.

Jo laughed. “I’ll tell them you guys need me. Any excuse to get out of the ceremonies early. I’m not missing a summer solstice party, especially not one planned by Mars.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to take you away from important Lady-of-Ellory training duties. You’ll look so regal in your dress!” Atlas tossed her hair behind her shoulder and laughed.

Jo was growing tired of her time in the capital, studying under her parents, the Lord and Lady of Ellory. Atlas’ hometown sat on the eastern coast of their territory, and the two of them had been inseparable since the Fausta family had visited Fairwood on a tour of their coastal cities years ago.

“Oh my gods, fuck the dress!” Jo shouted. “That’s actually the only reason I’m leaving early. To take off the stupid dress. The party and my friends are just added benefits. And the ale.”

“I knew it. You lush.” Atlas laughed again.

They approached the door to Jo’s chambers and said their goodbyes.

“I’ll see you later, don’t let Grey drink all the ale before I get there,” Jo said as she pulled open the door to her rooms.

“He won’t, he’s working too, he’ll probably get there just as late as you.” Atlas watched Jo close herself into her room and heard the door lock, so she turned to leave.

Perhaps August is still working, Atlas thought. But she knew better. August was definitely still working. She walked further from Jo’s room, plotting her path to the council rooms where she knew her sister would likely be poring over the latest reports on elven conflict across the kingdom.

*****

August Graves left their small hometown six years ago to work for Queen Ivy on the Elven Ambassadorial Council. Lady Fausta pulled a few strings to get her the job, having heard about August’s passion for mending the chasm between humans and elves. August was beside herself with joy. She left the very next day.

Atlas and their parents thought August worked too much and too hard, but she frequently reminded them how much she loved the work and that she didn’t mind the long hours.

“I have the chance to make a difference here,” she had said once. “I can sleep when I’m dead.”

Their parents had admired her passion, and were thrilled for her despite their own sadness at watching their daughter leave on the week-long journey. Atlas and August’s older brother Sebastian thought she was something of a fool for leaving, but he begrudgingly held her tightly as she hugged him goodbye. He didn’t leave his shop or speak to anyone for the rest of the day.

Atlas knew she might only be able to see August briefly due to solstice preparations on top of her usual workload, but she just wanted to see her favorite sister. To remind her that she has friends and family who would love a reminder that she was still alive once in a while. She wanted to see if August had any plans for the solstice, and invite her to Mars’ party, though she knew she wouldn’t go.

She approached the council room and knocked once on the large wooden door before entering. As she shut it quietly behind her, the strong scent of kerryleaf tea assaulted her senses. It immediately transported her to so many childhood nights, her mother sipping from a steaming mug as she told Atlas countless stories of magical potions and unthinkable adventure.

The kerryleaf plant produced an aromatic flower once a year, sprouting baby blue buds that darkened into a deep purple as the flowers grew. Only when the deep purple flowers had an almost intolerably strong scent were they ready to be dried and ground into tea leaves. It was a Fairwood specialty – no town could grow the plant so successfully. Their mother loved that tea, and August was the only of her children to inherit her taste for it.

Atlas turned around to find August face down in a large tome, completely unsurprised that her work had put her to sleep after the week they’d had. She was glad her sister even slept at all, and she spent a moment admiring August’s relaxed face, lips slightly parted in sleep, dark brown hair falling around her onto the table. She slowly made her way over to August, careful not to wake her. But as she approached, her eyes scanned the room and every hair on her body rose.

Across the room she spotted the council leader, Eli, sprawled across a settee. A broken teacup lay in pieces on the floor just below the limp hand that had dropped it. Atlas studied his body as panic flooded her system. What were the chances that both he and August had fallen asleep while working?

As she stepped forward to wake her sister – no longer caring about disturbing a nap – the scene descended even further into horror. Jack, Eli’s apprentice, lay on the floor behind August’s table. It was then, as she noticed his wide-open eyes, vacant and unseeing, that she allowed herself to consider what kind of nightmare she had just stepped into.

She examined the full scene in a matter of seconds, and was moving before she could process anything.

“August? Aug!” she shouted. She was yelling far louder than most would dare in the castle. She reached her sister and shook her shoulders in an attempt to wake her up. As that proved futile, she grabbed August’s hands, pulling her away from the book that had put her to sleep.

“AUGUST!” she screamed. Atlas’ knees buckled as her sister began to fall out of the chair she’d been sleeping in, forcing Atlas to slide to the floor with her. For all of her efforts, August just wouldn’t wake up. Why wouldn’t she wake up?

“Wha- what the fuck is going on?!” she said. Atlas realized as she held her sister’s body in her arms, that tears were falling down her face. She didn’t know when they’d begun, but they were unending now. Her vision blurred as she held her sister’s body close to her own, rocking back and forth on the council chamber floor. Atlas sobbed as she placed a hand on August’s cold face, mind racing with childhood memories and replaying every moment she’d spent with the older sister that she loved more than anyone in the world.

This was the sister who never left Atlas behind. August’s friends knew that wherever she went, her little sister followed. Who would Atlas follow now? Where would she go? How could you live twenty-two years with someone lighting your path and loving you unconditionally, just for it to end…like this? Cold and quiet in a council chamber. As the crack in Atlas’ heart split into a bottomless chasm, she sobbed.

Atlas cried for all the love her sister had shown her, despite their differences. She cried for every moment they’d spent together in Fairwood. Atlas would never again see the sun shine upon August’s dark hair, her smile hypnotizing every eligible boy in town as she laughed at Atlas’ jokes. What was she supposed to do now? This was the person that knew her better than she knew herself. In her worst moments, August had the answers and she had never let Atlas down. Atlas’ cold heart had stopped beating the moment she felt the stillness of her sister’s, and she knew it would never recover.

*****

August was dead. This much Atlas knew. Who had done it, and why, were still unknowns to her. She had no clue how long she’d sat on the floor cradling her sister’s body to her own, sobbing, breaking, dying a little bit herself.

It was over an hour before she decided to move. She knew the rest of the castle and capital would be starting their solstice celebrations, guards would be patrolling the castle halls, and the people would be drinking. But she would not. Nor would August.

Atlas wasn’t well-connected in the capital aside from August and what little pull Jo had. She was also somewhat certain that August wasn’t Queen Ivy’s favorite advisor. But she knew that if her sister was killed inside of the castle, it was at the hand of someone powerful.

In the silence of the council chamber shrouded in death, Atlas laid her sister down on the floor and tucked a cloak behind her head. In the low candlelight, August could have been sleeping. Atlas gently ran the back of her hand along the side of her sister’s face, and smoothed her silky dark hair out of the way. As she stood up and stared at the closest person to her in this world, her heart somehow broke even more. She felt it shattering with every second that she breathed and August didn’t.

Looking away, Atlas shut her eyes. This was it, she’d decided. She would find out who did this. She would tuck away the part of her that loved and smiled and laughed, and she would lock it up until she had watched the light leave the eyes of whoever had taken August from her. There was no being in this world or the next that could stop her from avenging her sister.

She opened her eyes. The scene in front of her transformed. It was now full of information that she needed to achieve her vengeance – nothing more. She stepped over to the table holding the teapot and picked it up. Thanks to her mother’s lessons, she understood what had happened as soon as she lifted the kettle to her nose. It was Reaper’s Lock.

*****

“Don’t touch those ones, honey. They only grow in a few places along the east coast, and they’re deadly.” Mayven reached over and lightly grasped her daughter’s arm so as to keep her on their path through the forest.

“But moooooom, I wanna pick one!” Atlas’ tiny hands reached toward the midnight-black flower filled with deadly, blood-red stamens. The plant’s leaves were as black as the petals, accenting the deep green stalk that was rooted into the forest floor. The flowers grew in patches, in soil that could not support the life of any other flora.

“If you pick that flower, it’ll be your last,” Mayven said with a stern look in Atlas’ direction. “If you only ever listen to one thing I teach you, let it be this. Reaper’s Lock is among the most lethal plants known to us. There is no antidote. Just grazing it with your bare hands would leave you bedridden for weeks. Consuming it will kill you in moments. We leave it be and it lets us live.”

Atlas stuck out her bottom lip as tears lined her eyes. Some may have thought that six was a bit too young to be learning such dark things, but Mayven knew that for her girls, knowledge was power. August was far more resistant to her mother’s ramblings, but Atlas was a sponge.

“Mama, I don’ wanna be dead-written,” Atlas said with a sad frown.

“‘Bedridden,’ Atlas. I said ‘bedridden.’ And you have nothing to worry about so long as you heed my warning. I promise.” Mayven knelt next to her youngest child and grabbed one of her small hands. “Listen to me, little bird. There’s only one reason anyone would dare pull Reaper’s Lock from the forest floor. Poison. Liquids infused with Reaper’s Lock may try to hide the plant’s smoky aroma, but it’s very difficult to overpower it entirely. Like burning cedar in a summer fire. Remember that.”

*****

Like fire set to a cedar grove. Atlas could smell the Reaper’s Lock beneath the floral scent of her sister’s kerryleaf tea. It was barely there, but Mayven Graves’ youngest daughter would know it anywhere. Her eldest daughter would not.

She could not concern herself with the what-ifs of her mother’s teachings. If only August had known…

No.

As for the evidence, Atlas took closer looks at Eli and Jack’s bodies, finding nothing but the faint, singed scent lightly veiling the scene. Jack’s teacup was on the table near where his body fell, Eli’s still lay broken beneath him.

As she decided there was nothing left for her in this room, Atlas stalked towards the door to leave. She turned around to face the room, and allowed herself to look at her sister’s body for the last time.

She tried to conjure her last memory of August. When had it been? Was it a brief smile in the castle hall as she rushed by Atlas and Jo on her way to a meeting? Was it when they’d had a cup of tea at their favorite bakery in the capital? Atlas knew it had been a couple of weeks. Time seemed to fly by since they had both moved to Livia. Now, she regretted every second of it for the both of them.

As the flood of emotions threatened to paralyze her on the spot, she shut it down. The plan must move forward. If she didn’t leave now, she might just lay down on the floor next to her sister and beg the gods to take her, too.

She grasped the door handle and pulled, calling upon the last bit of life within her to get her out of that room.

“I love you, Aug,” she whispered, as one final tear – the last one she would allow – snaked a trail down her cheek. She stepped into the hallway, cedar-fueled flames filling her veins, knowing what may be required of her in the coming journey. Mind, body, soul. She’d risk it all to right the wrong that was done when her sister was taken from this cruel world.