❛in which they grow to love and learn❜
Briar Desilva hated. She hated the Cursebreaker and the High Lord of Spring. She hated her mind and she hated her body. She hated the memories that danced beyond her reach and the past that was and always has b...
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"though the wound is healed, a scar remains."
❀❀❀
BRIAR WAS STARING AT a bird and the bird was staring back. It had beady little eyes and puffed grey feathers, a white belly and a black-capped head. It was staring at her, a wriggling worm dangling from its beak. The faint sounds of chirping echoed out from a hollow in the maple tree it was perched on.
Her blink broke the bird's trance; it hopped around, wings fluttering as it picked its way through the leaves and into the hollow of the maple. As it entered, the chirps grew more incessant. So did the wriggling of the worm.
It was these things - these simultaneous endings and beginnings - that made her ponder her life and the world and birth and death and when this all would end. If it would be soon. If she even cared.
The little hatchlings would be fed, their tummies full and hunger satiated while the worm would meet an abrupt end. And as the chirps died down and gave way to the near silence of a light breeze, she knew that cycle had been completed. Wondered where she fit in that cycle.
The crumpled parchment in her hands crinkled as she unfurled it, eyes still trained on the crisp outdoors, the green that was slowly taking over more and more every day.
Black ink had long since smudged her palms and fingertips, creating streaks of darkness along her brown skin. It had smudged on the paper, too, elegant loops giving way to inky blotches that left the written words just on the edge of unreadable.
They were the words of the redhead - the ones she had asked him to write down in a panic after he had finished his explanation for her broken memory. The ones she had read a thousand times already, the ones she had copied on parchment upon parchment until her joints ached and popped when she stretched. The ones that still seemed blurry when she tried to recollect the details. The ones she had woken up this morning and found she had completely forgot.
She did not doubt that soon, she would forget again. Briar read them again for her own peace of mind.
You are Briar Rose Desilva and you are of the Spring Court. Your mother was a dryad, your father High Fae. You served the High Lord Tamlin as the Head of Sentries for over a century. You served the Fae of the Spring Court loyally and were treated with high regards and respect by both myself and Tamlin for your talent.
Fifty years ago a general from Hybern came to Prythian. Amarantha. She trapped our High Lords Under the Mountain and tricked them, took away their powers. But she was fond of Tamlin for his looks and grew jealous that you seemed so close to him.
