He hadn’t seen the stars since he had come to the Between. The shield prevented it. The light from the shield never faded, and it remained bright under the dome, even in the night. Elric had forgotten what the stars looked like, how they made him feel. As he stared out at the infinite sky, he wondered what else the fairies had sacrificed for their safety when they had closed the shield around their kingdom.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it,” Osmund said.
“Yes,” Elric said. “It really is.” He wondered if these woods were once beautiful in the time before the Grendel. As he stared up at the depths of the sky, large orbs of swirling colors rose on the horizon like great and beautiful moons. One had vast striped rings as it sailed through the endless sea of stars.
“On the night when I slipped through the shield, I did it to see the stars,” Osmund said, his voice soft, and less gruff than Elric had ever heard it. “The queen named her lost daughter after the stars, and I wanted to know what was so special about them. I didn’t get a chance to see them here, but when I got to the Otherworld, I finally understood. I’ve never seen the stars like this.”
Elric nodded. It was like they were both adrift in the heavens on a dark boat of leaves. “How did the queen’s daughter die?” he asked. “I thought fairies were immortal.”
“In a sense, they are. Experience ages them, not time. And they never die from growing old, but they aren’t born that way,” Osmund said, crossing his arms and resting his head in the crook of the branches. “When fairies are born, they are very much like us. They bleed, they scar, they can be killed if their magic has not come in yet. Sadly they are very fragile. Not many survive.”
Osmund gripped the branch over his shoulder and leaned back, peering up at the wonders above them. “The fairies’ magic wasn’t always as strong as it is now. The elves discovered a way to refine certain crystals to hone and amplify magic. They gifted a staff to the royal court. The Grendel took it for his own, and became obsessed with its power.”
Osmund looked out over the woods. “He wanted to rid the woods of the monsters from the Shadowfields, but the staff made him believe that power and strength gave him the right to rule. The fairy court didn’t agree, and they gave the crown to the queen.”
“And he didn’t take that well, did he?” Elric said. He had heard parts of this story.
“The queen wed a bold knight. He went to battle the Grendel to protect what was left of the fairy kingdom. He managed to steal the staff and give it to the queen, reducing the Grendel’s terrible power. The battle raged into the Shadowfields. He drove the Grendel off, but the Summer King, the queen’s one love, never returned.”
“That’s awful,” Elric said. The queen must have been heartbroken.
“She was, but then the queen realized she was going to have a baby. All the love she felt for the Summer King, she poured into the new child. The princess was born, and fairies and elves rejoiced. They vowed to fight the Grendel together, but the elves betrayed us.”
“What happened?” Elric asked.
“The Headmind of the elves, a woman named Reason, came to the queen to give the fairies a new crystal, infinitely more powerful than the one in the staff. It had the power to unite the magic of all good fairies and channel it as one force through the heart of the queen. It seemed like the perfect weapon to use against the Grendel to defeat him once and for all. But it was all a ruse. The elves were still loyal to the fairy who had once protected them from the monsters of the Shadowfields. In the night, Lord Raven saw Headmind Reason with the baby. She carried it into the Nightfell Wood.”
“Why would she do such a thing? It doesn’t make any sense.” Elric felt his stomach twisting.
“I don’t know.” Osmund shook his head. “Lord Raven believes that the elves knew the crystal had a weakness, that it was only as powerful as the strength of the queen’s heart. If the queen’s heart broke, so did the crystal. I don’t know why the elves wanted to destroy the fairies, but by linking all of the kingdom’s magic, the fairies became powerful, but fragile. For the first time, the magic of all the fairies could be used as one single force.”
“But that force is dependent on the strength of the queen,” Elric said.
“Exactly. The next day, the Grendel appeared in the Nightfell Wood carrying the baby’s blood-soaked blanket. He thanked the elves for their loyalty and said they would be rewarded. You know the rest. The queen used the crystal to create the shield, locking the Grendel out of the kingdom and the elves with him. The queen nearly diminished as the crystal bled for decades, but then she found me and some of the crystal’s power was restored, and now she has you.”
Elric tried to comprehend the tragedy of the entire situation. He didn’t blame the fairies for their hatred of the elves. The queen was right to shut them out from the shield. Why should she protect someone who hurt her? But one thing still confused him. “You mentioned that she had nearly diminished.
