For Every Light, A Shadow – Sheryl, the Fae-Touched – 23.09

---

“I do have other commitments, plans. I’m waiting for my sparring partner. Usually, the Green Knight and I spar at this time of the day but he seems to be delayed. Duties elsewhere I presume?”

The the way Arvel’s smile lights his eyes makes Merla think he is hiding something. She does not doubt the eladrin commander knows the Green Knight and he isn’t lying about having an appointment. But she came here to question him so her instincts are on high alert. He is trying to conceal something and is mixing in truth with the lies.

As any great liar does.

In her mind she hears Faye’s voice speak to her.

“The soldiers said his appointment today was probably cancelled.”

Merla’s lips lift into a sweet smile.

“Now you see Arvel,” she starts, taking a measured step forward, “before my time in the Dawnlands I would have believed you without question. But I have been through a few things over the last few months,” she gestures to her friends with one hand whilst the other takes out a shiny copper coin as she locks eyes with Arkadius, “and forgive me if I do not believe a word that comes out of your mouth as being the entire truth.”

She gives the tiefling an imperceptible nod before continuing.

“I heard your appointment was cancelled,” Merla states. She looks around at the cavernous space around them whilst Arkadius subtly casts a Zone of Truth on him. There’s a split second where she holds her breath hoping it will work, but Arkadius’ brow furrows and his eyes dart to her. A slight shake of his head and Merla knows it’s up to her to get the truth.

The copper coin dances across her fingers and her eyes glow a little brighter as she looks back to Commander Arvel. It’s hardly noticeable – Merla is already a beacon of summer radiance, has been since she and her friends arrived in the Summer Court. She has masked her true form though with the power of a Seeming glamour, even going so far as to make it look like she still wears the cloak of many feathers that Arvel gave her. He does not seem to have noticed that it is an illusion though when she starts to read his thoughts. When she listens further it is an uncomfortable surprise what she hears and feels.

A deep well of pride is bubbling just beneath the surface… what an arrogant little brat… A wave of annoyance and surprisingly hunger… no sense for the greater things…

The look Arvel gives her is all politeness. Merla is unimpressed.

“Well, I don’t know if the Green Knight is still going to come for our regular practice. But as you are full of questions I will offer you this.”

Arvel unfolds his legs from his meditative sitting position and stands up.

“We shall duel. Your friends may cast their spells to assist you and for every touch that you manage to score I will answer a question – and so will you.”

From behind her BB let out a soft sound of surprise at Arvel’s offer. Merla was instantly suspicious. What sorts of questions would he ask of her? Can she afford to pass up this opportunity?

“You will answer them truthfully,” Merla states, defining the terms. The sweet tone is gone from her voice.

“Yes, of course. Upon my honour as a warrior of the Summer Queen,” Arvel pronounced, inclining his head. Merla reads his thoughts once more and the hunger is replaced by an eagerness. A line appears between her brows as they draw together and sharpening her features.

“And you say every hit you will answer a question?” Arkadius starts but Arvel holds up a hand stopping him.

“Here are my terms: The Lady Merla and I shall duel. You,” Arvel gestures to Arkadius and the others, “may assist her from the sidelines but for this to be an honour duel it will be one-on-one. For every touch she scores I will answer a question, and visa versa.”

He opens his arms wide, taking in the crown of the apple tree they are in. “This is a training ground and I do not kill my sparring partners. I am not here to kill you as I have no wish to anger the Queen.”

Arvel goes over to a small wooden table made from branches of the very tree they are in and picks up two small, gold pins with sunbursts on them. He comes over and holds one out to Merla.

“For the duration of our duel there will be no lethal blows. You will still feel the pain,” he explains, “because pain is the greatest teacher. But you will not die.”

Merla does not need to read his thoughts. She sees the hunger and eagerness dancing together in his leaf-green eyes as he looks down at her. She doesn’t like it. Her eyes fall to the pin he holds out to her whilst the magic allowing Merla to read his mind tells her he is being truthful: they will protect them both from any fatal blow.

The Daughter of Summer looks up to the Commander of the Glorious Company, the crown of lavender from the Summer Queen, a beautiful contrast to his eyes. She feels something closing in, but is not sure what or whom.

Yet she must get answers.

“Agreed and marked.”

He grins. “Excellent.”

---

“I want to cast a spell on this cloak to try to find out something, anything about it,” Sheryl says carefully, looking at her friends. “And I wanted you all to be here to watch me. To make sure nothing happens.” Sheryl’s eyes linger on Ghesh, BB and Arkadius knowing they understand her meaning.

“Before you do anything Sheryl, tell us what spell,” Arkadius pipes up, a cautious expression on his face.

“Legend Lore.”

Arkadius nods. “Okay…”

“I do love a good story,” BB says, softly tapping her fingers together excitedly.

With no further objections, Sheryl starts preparing her spell. The cloak is already laid out before her on the table in the private room of the Four Fair Winds, it’s magnificent feathers dazzling, trying to catch her eye. Sheryl’s jaw is set to sharp edges as she concentrates on bringing out the spell’s components from her handy satchel not letting her gaze linger too long on it’s myriad feathers.

Setting down four strips of pure ivory around the cloak to match the four points of a compass, Sheryl then arrays branches of incense around both herself and the cursed clock, creating an infinity symbol which she carefully steps into to sit seiza on the table’s polished top. Closing her eyes, she waves her hand and sparks light the incense all at once. Smells of summer – bergamot, pine, citrus and basil – start to fill the closed room and Sheryl can almost see the Enchanted Forests of the Summer Lands in her mind.

Keeping her eyes closed she brings her harp to her lap and softly starts to pluck on it’s strings, searching for the right melody that would match the frequency of the cloak she is casting this spell on.

To BB, what she sees is not new, but it surprises her to see this side of her friend on the Material Plane come through. For the others, they get a glimpse of what Sheryl truly looks like. Arkadius has seen his friend in her homelands but this vision sitting before him is more. A golden light shines from within her, the tresses of her hair ripple as if underwater, and the undeniable etherealness of her makes them lose track of their continued conversation so they sit and watch.

The music she plays is constantly shifting as she casts the spell, not ever quite finding the right melody, the right tempo. The spell becomes difficult for Sheryl to do with each passing minute but she pushes onwards, her fingers never stopping. There is something there. She can feel it in the magic, in the coaxing notes of music she is playing. It flits from half-note to quarter, from rest to crescendo. Sheryl chases it, reaching for it, calling to it, but each time she gets close, it slips through her fingers. She begins to dread she has lost it.

Then a sound, an answer, a voice from very far away narrates, as the thread? feather? bird? melody? she has been chasing through the spell lands in her outstretched hands.

        A shiny trinket
        to trap a bird – to teach and
        sing another’s song.

It comes to Sheryl then that this cloak is no legendary thing but there is something exceedingly clever about it. The connection through her spell is still there but what she holds in her hands is fading away rapidly. She senses there is more but the harder she tries to hold on, the faster the thread unravels to her touch.

I will get my answers!

Sheryl lets it go only to dive down after it, following the trail it marks to the very Weave itself. Without hesitation she calls with her voice, reaches with her hands, and pushes with her mind to where the thread is already starting to disappear, grabs it and pulls.

What comes away is a realisation: The magic the cloak emits is not it’s own, it is not even a curse. The cloak is a focal point, used to draw the attention of the Raven Queen to her and the effect her friends observed was just a side effect, a lesser manifestation of the Raven Queen’s power, the thing it was trying to attract in the first place.

---

Arvel draws his two sabres from his side, both coming to life, one with a hum, the other in a crackle of energy. He then calls out, one single sustained note, the beginning of a song, which sets the entire coppola of the apple tree in motion.

The branches and leaves come to life, swinging down towards Merla and Arvel standing in the centre of the ring. Petals of the giant apple blossoms shake loose and begin to rain down but they never quite touch the ground. Direction and gravity as it seems are not bound by the same laws here. Merla grips the hilt of her dancing rapier tighter.

“Swift as the wind, Merla,” Astra encourages.

Arvel smiles at her.

“Well then, my lady, shall we dance?” he asks her in High Sylvan.

Merla flourishes her sword, stepping into a fighting stance, her rapier humming in her hand.

“Yes, let’s,” she replies in kind.

---

The buzz of the crowd around them makes it easy to pick up the reason the whole Summer Court has gathered at Mount Karrvarzt. Before them marches a bright column, warriors in golden armour, line after line, through the huge archway of the settlement at the base of the mountain. Merla knows this is a place of power for her Queen Mother, but it is also a site of one of Queen Titania’s rare defeats – a place where she has been humbled in the past. Today must be an important day to have a Triumph in such a location.

“The Glorious Company has returned from their campaign!”

“Look at how fierce they are…”

“I heard the skirmishes were against the Winter Court!”

“Commander Arvel is so brave.”

“A true fey of the Summer Court.”

It is easy to spot him as he stands on a chariot being pulled by eight unicorns. Astra scoffs, but Merla’s brow draws together. Commander Arvel is resplendent as he waves to the adoring crowds, smiling, all the while moving towards where Queen Titania stands, waiting to bestow her favour upon him.

---

Arvel is very quick but he is thrown by the curveball of Merla disappearing between one step and the next, so he is unprepared for her blade’s biting attacks. The gold shielding of the sunburst pin he wears holds fast though and no blood is drawn.

“Ah!” he cries out in surprise as well as pain. “First touch to you. Ask your question.”

“Where did you get this cloak?” Merla asks, words as quick as the blade she wields. She keeps moving, but listens and watches Arvel intently.

“It was given to me by a friend who deals in such specialties.”

He rolls his shoulders and then goes back into a fighting crouch.

“I have five hundred years of combat experience,” Arvel says with a sneer. “This trick is not going to throw me.” He twirls both of his sabres, energy falling off of them in waves before he lunges towards her somehow knowing where she is.

Merla tries to be quick, to use the invisibility she’s been gifted by BB to her advantage, even taking Faye’s words into her mind to guide her blade through the air as the direction of the crown shifts. But it is not enough. Arvel twists and spins through the air, darting past her, only to double back and with the momentum of the turning branches, his blades swinging back to strike at her.

They bite deep. She can feel the blade coming in, hitting her sword arm, wanting to sink into her flesh but they are repelled back. There’s a shimmer of gold as the pin’s protection holds. The pain is excruciating and Merla tries to hold back the scream of agony that wants to come out. Moving away from Arvel as quietly as she can, a soft groan still escapes her though as tears spring to her eyes.

If I didn’t have the pin, if that had connected, I would have lost my arm!

Arvel doesn’t pursue her, choosing to leap back with another twirl of his sabres.

“Well, I see you take as well as you give. My question for you…” He drops his fighting stance and begins to strut around, the pride Merla had read from him earlier coming forth.

“You are a stranger in this court. What do you hope to achieve? Fame as a bard, one simple voice among the glorious chorus of the many?” He pauses and looks across the empty space where she could be, a light to his eyes that Merla doesn’t like. “Power among the Fey? Do you hope in your vanity to succeed the Queen yourself some day?”

Merla goes very still. These were not the sorts of questions she thought he would ask. But she is well versed in word games. She will answer just as honestly as he did.

“I hope to one day be worthy enough of all of Queen Titania’s blessings, to rise above and still be beside her,” Merla says.

Arvel spins around to face in the direction her voice came from and laughs.

“You have the lifespan of a summer fly. You are a distraction, a pleasant one,” Arvel mocks her, going back into a fighting crouch, “but you will not last.”

Merla is not where he thinks she is, already moving to a blind spot she hopes to take advantage of. She leaps and quicker than lightning, Arvel spins and parries her attacks. As she retreats, he runs in half a circle, jumping up to the wall, to dashes across and then steps into the air, disappearing, only to suddenly appear behind her.

His blade sinks into her shoulder and this time she cannot hold it back as a cry of excruciating pain tears from her throat. The shielding from the pin activates, saving her from the fatal blow, but Merla collapses down to one knee from the force and the pain of it. A split second later, she tucks and rolls away from him, leaping back once, twice, but he does not pursue. Arvel has won another round.

He smiles. “They did tell great stories about you but in the end you are just a mortal, aren’t you.” Arvel sighs, shaking his head in feigned remorse. “Tell me, what do you remember of your time before you joined the Summer Court? Does the sound of breaking earthenware still ring with the echoes of childhood?”

Merla freezes. “I… How do-…” Flashes of a slain halfling family at her feet fill her mind and her hands go numb. Then Astra calls out to her across their bond and she comes back to herself.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Merla practically growls. “I have always been here!”

“All things have a beginning and all things have an end. Some things end in order to have a beginning. But your story did not start in the Summer Court. Maybe it will end there though.

Arvel’s smile is a taunt just as much as his words. It is clear he has gotten more out of her than she from him in this duel. But Merla is not going to give up yet. When he comes at her she perries his various strikes, somehow getting quicker, adapting, giving as much back to Arvel as she gets from him. Now she knows the trick when he comes from behind her as he runs past on the wall.

But he has five hundred years experience on her and when it’s clear her sword arm is weakening, Arvel is done playing with her. He comes at her, the smile of victory on his face.

When, suddenly, it freezes.

Merla is already lunging forward, not registering the change in Arvel. Calling out to BB to drop the invisibility spell, she pulls on the very essence of the Summer Court she feels in the air around her. As her form emerges from the concealing magics, it is like a butterfly emerging not once but twice from the cocoon. The glamoured cloak of many feathers falls from her shoulders in petals of light as Merla reveals what she truly looks like to the eladrin commander – free of the cloak, a vision of a true Daughter of the Great Seelie Queen, Titania.

The hit connects, her rapier piercing into the golden mist protecting the commander. But it does not stop. There’s a moment of surprise and confusion, and then her mind catches up with what she is seeing. The mist evaporates and Merla’s blade goes right through him, appearing on the other side, drenched in his blood.

Arvel gives a surprised squawk and falls into her arms. Merla does her best to catch him but she does not have the strength to hold him, so they both collapse down to the ground. A trickle of blood falls from the corner of his mouth as he looks at her.

“Arvel… Arvel!”

Her friends rush over as Merla tries to prop him up.

“Arvel, please, stay with me-”

There is a little something in his eyes that draws her in before their light starts to dim. She’s not sure if it is surprise or bewilderment. Then a small sound escapes past his softly parted lips as Arvel Morningdew breathes his last and collapses into Merla’s arms, dead.

Arkadius calls out, drawing everyone else’s attention up to the canopy of branches above. Faye teleports up there as a portal appears, a figure darting towards it. They are not quick enough to catch whoever it is though before the portal closes.

Panic starts to creep into Merla’s mind as she frantically starts looking over his body for where his protective pin could be. She finds it and the moment she touches it the slight illusion held in place collapses to reveal a black obsidian talisman with a raven feather attached to it.

Merla slowly looks from the talisman down to the body of Arvel, a familiar dread creeping in. Then her expression changes and her brow cuts a sharp line across her face.

“I can fix this.”

As she gently starts to set the body of the Commander of the Glorious Company down, a familiar voice calls out to her.

“Merla… What have you done?”

She looks up. Filling the entranceway is the familiar shape of the Green Knight, his sword raised and pointing at her. There is an uncharacteristic quiver to his voice.

“I did not save you for this.”

There is a feeling of pieces moving, of a string being pulled and Merla realises why this moment is so familiar – the third vision she had in the temple of the Raven Queen.

“I did not intend to kill him, we were sparring!” Merla calls out to him, trying to hold herself together whilst everything else starts to unravel. “Please, please believe me, Green Knight. I did not intend to kill him!”

The point of his sword lowers slowly, until it is pointing to the ground.

“I do not know what happened here but the murder of Arvel Morningdew on the day of his Triumph is a terrible crime,” the Green Knight says with a shake of his head. “Did you know he was the Queen’s favourite? There have been so many stories and rumours about you recently, I don’t know what to believe anymore. You sound sincere but…”

Her friends speak up for her, try to defend her, but it's white noise to Merla. She holds onto Arvel and does not take her eyes from the Green Knight as he comes over, looking down at her. He hears her friends speak yet does not respond to their words.

“I would not harm Her like this,” she says softly in Sylvan to him, tears coming to her eyes. “I love Her. I would not do this to Her. You know that.”

The fey shakes his head in sadness and confusion.

“I have known Arvel for a very long time. I don’t rightly know what happened here but the Queen will have to know.” Merla nods, a numbness settling into her bones. “If you leave me the talisman I can relay the story you told, we will look into this. But I will have to report this and what I have seen to the Queen.”

“I saw someone,” Faye says. Merla looks at them in surprise as they begin to describe what they saw. “If Titania has any ability to glean the truth out of me she can interrogate me in any way she deems fit.” Faye turns to her. “I can help you prove it.”

Merla nods her thanks, thinking for a moment. When she looks back to the Green Knight there is a calmness to her that only belongs to those who know how bad the storm is they are about to face.

“I am not going to go anywhere. I will face the Queen myself and her judgement for this. My friends though must be allowed to return to the Material Plane,” Merla says, nodding to them. They all look at her, stunned, but none so strongly as Arkadius. She holds his gaze a bit longer before looking back to the Green Knight.

“I would appreciate your impartiality in explaining what you saw and trust you to be true,” Merla says and offers him the obsidian talisman. He carefully takes it in his gauntleted hand, inclining his head in assent.

“I promise you a fair hearing and I am sure the Queen will judge you wisely and fairly based on all the evidence we can bring to her. More, I cannot say.”

In the crown of the tree above them a raven gives a single cry before flying away.


Continued in ‘Summer Court Rhapsody’ ​​🌻