The Son of Night & Spring

Chapter Sixteen

If in another situation, Lotus would accept this win. He found the Harp- the one thing that would change everything, help him fix the past, make a new future; a better one then the one where he was weak and messed it up.

This was a chance at redemption. A restart.

But it didn't feel like one.

He didn't know how long he was there, sitting against the Throne of a once Queen of Prythian.

The stone cracked from years of time and vines winding. Lotus didn't feel comfortable sitting in it, it felt wrong in so many ways. Despite all his pain, his discomfort, he would not rest in it. So, he sat at its side.

Whatever laid ahead, whatever time frame he was kept in, a clock until his chance was over, Lotus simply held his eyes to the Harp.

He couldn't stop staring.

While his hands twitched to hold it in his palms, to feel the power of time itself and alternative realities- He couldn't bring himself to reach for it. He wants to say it was because of the monster inside of him, Or because of some moral right...But Lotus would be lying. He wasn't afraid, he wasn't nervous.

But he was deep in thought, lost in it. How could he do this?

Where would he even begin?

How would he know which string would bring him back to that night. What if he mistook one for the other and he erased something or... someone important.
He sighed, Resting his head against the throne, feeling defeated as though the ghost of Amarantha had clawed at his heart and tugged its strings until desire overcame him. Even in the grave she had power over him. Power over the nightmares that would creep in when no one was around.

Lotus imagined what he looked like at the moment.

Perhaps just like his father, beside the throne of Hyberns's Ex-General. Defeated and tired but that did not stop him from resting against it, practically siding with a woman of torture. A dead one that is but he could see his mother's memories flash in her eyes at the same scene his father once stood here. While she kneeled broken, bruised and human, at Amarantha's feet.

He glanced back at the Harp.
Maybe this reason alone was why Azriel hid the Harp here. Flashes or even the thought of getting near Amarantha's Mountain was enough to scare any soul away. But not Lotus.

Perhaps he lacked the soul his Mother always wanted him to have.

He might spend days, months even, debating over the right and wrong of the Harp. But he knew he was being hunted, so he couldn't wait.

Lotus stumbled over his feet, exhaustion pulling him down and he wobbled for a minute before collecting himself. And he tugged himself towards the Harp.

Gathering the details of gold and ethereal strings, How the Cauldron sculpted the frame with delicate hands like molding clay. It looked different then the one Nesta held, bigger, detailed, unworldly. As though it was changing its appearance just for him, what he wants, what he prefers, what he likes.

Lotus gently let his fingers run down its spine, hands craving to pull a shimmering string. The more contact he gave it, the more its strings glowed, some of starlight, day, or moonlight. Some silver, some white, some auburn. Each string shifting and changing for the worlds it held in it.

The Time.

He pulled away his eyes for a moment and glanced at the Throne behind him. The woman he always dreamed about sitting in the throne, destructive, dangerous. 

"Maybe you were right," she said. "Maybe I am just made up in your head."

Lotus turned away, leaving her. Leaving the walls and cold atmosphere. The haunting memories and the desire of power in his hands, standing at the edge of the cliff. The snow biting his skin, the breeze sinking in his bones. For a moment, he wondered what the Harp would do if he threw himself off. Would it save him? Would instinct play a string before he fell first hand into Death's waiting arms. The same ones that have been following him for a while.