Page 5 of The Blight of Hollowmire

Gingerly, I untangle my white hair and massage my scalp with spicy, earth-scented soap and the effect calms some of my sobs and grounds me a fraction. When I open my eyes, I’m not surprised to see a small row of wood ear mushrooms growing up around the rim of the tub. I suck in a deep breath and exhale shakily, collecting the delicate, rubbery frills and placing them to the side for Nibblebones to snack on later.

It would be a common occurrence—this burgeoning growth of rot-hungry life—except for the fact that I drank a full pot of leywort tea this morning. As such, I’m forced to hide the fungi along with my months-long secret… my powers are growing. The leywort tea has had less and less of an impact on my decay magic, a fact which initially delighted me, but has more recently begun to worry me.

I’ve long struggled to control the more destructive aspects of my so-called “gifts” and if I can’t rely on the one thing that’s been effective, well, it bodes ill for everyone around me. An ill omen, you might say. I know I’ll need to confess the matter to my family soon, since at this rate, the leywort tea might have no effect at all in days to come. Yet the thought of the disgusted looks and disappointed grimaces upon their faces makes me want to avoid the subject as long as possible. Certainly not today—I dare not ruin sweet Sephia’s bloomday.

My outpouring of emotions now run dry, I briskly finish washing and drain the water away. I’m sitting at the looking glass in my bedchamber, combing out the tangles in my hair when Sephia knocks. I can always tell it’s her from the timid way she raps on the old wood, as if she’s afraid of making any noise that isn’t as soft as a breeze on a flower petal or the first trill of morning birdsong.

I swallow the bile that threatens to rise from the deep place of envy in my gut.

“Shouldn’t you be helping Mother?” I call out. “I’m getting ready, Sephy. I’ll see you this evening.”

There’s a pause and the soft shuffle of her slippered foot upon the stones of the hall.

“Please, Vireth,” she calls softly. “May I enter?”

“Fine,” I drawl. “But if I’m late because of you, I’m absolutely blaming you for it.”

Sephia enters with slumped shoulders and hands behind her back, her expression on the pitiful side of forlorn. Aside from her curious manner—she should be floating, after all—she is everything every one of my family members wishes I was. Her long wavy hair is the color of new spring grass, her skin glowing like burnished copper, her eyes overlarge limpid pools of warm brown. She’s ever been the soft-spoken, demure sweetling who excels at verdant growth magic and delights in fertility blessings. All in all, she’s the ideal fae princess to unite some high kingdom with our own wild land and bless some empty-headed noble family with dozens of magical younglings for as long as her teats stay up.

Once, when she was but a babe and I was a mere slip of a child, I hid out in the bog for a day weaving moss in my hair to try and look like her—to try and be like her—but all it earned me was a sharp scolding and a punishingly hot bath. After that, I gave up on being favored and made peace with being unobtrusive.

She grew into an even more adored child and then a lovable youth, while I simply grew more unsettling as time passed. Yet now, fully into my womanhood, her perfection is little more than an annoyance. She’s too quiet for me, as I cannot bring myself to trust anyone who won’t say what’s on their mind. Still, her sweetness raises a fierce protectiveness in me—one I despise, but accept. If any of the delegates this evening attempt something untoward, I’d be only too happy to rust their blades and send a plague of wasting diseases through their households.

That would be more for my pleasure than for Sephia’s honor, though, if I must be honest with my motives.

Clad in a floor length gown of rose-colored crushed velvet and jeweled flower combs pinning her lovely green locks back, Sephy looks every inch the winsome maiden. I can’t tell if her pink cheeks are artifice or if she’s naturally blushing from my snappy words. Perhaps she’s managed to magically summon a desirable blush to hold permanent residence on her cheeks. Lucky thing.

Before I can bark at her to state her business once more, she places a small box on top of my dressing table and mumbles something I can barely understand.

“Pray, speak up, flower!” I say, startling her. “What’s this?”

“Happy bloomday, Vireth,” she says, apparently mortified at having to raise her voice above the volume of a burbling brook.

My sharp brows arch nigh to my hairline. I whirl around, flinging droplets of water from my wet hair in a wide arc around the room. Sephia flinches and takes an inadvertent step back, as if I mean to strike her.

I move to the table and pick up the small box, untying the gold ribbon binding it closed. Inside is an exquisite comb of pale white gold—so pale, it almost looks like starlight. The filigree is a pattern of tiny mushrooms surrounding an antlered stag skull. It is delicate and beautiful and grotesque, and far more elegant than the rot-tainted one truly deserves. I’m stunned into near silence.

“You remembered,” I breathe. Astonishment gives way to white hot shame, burning up my neck to my cheeks. I shouldn’t have been so cross with her—I don’t deserve this gift.

Her blush deepens. “We share a bloomday, sister. Of course I remembered.”

“I… thank you, Sephia. I know not what else to say. Aside from the fact that I’m endeavoring not to spoil this evening for you. I will be on my best behavior and solemnly forswear any mischief against the Moontide court,” I offer with half a smile.

She winces, and I raise a brow again.

“Unless you do wish for me to send them packing?” I venture.

Sephia exhales a disappointed sigh and comes to stand behind me, absent-mindedly picking up my damp white hair and plaiting it with practiced ease.

“I don’t know what I want,” she opines. “I don’t want to be some idle court fixture, sitting and smiling at vipers all day and being used all evening by a husband I do not care for.”

“It sounds to me as if you do know what you want,” I chuckle.

She shrugs and begins to twist the delicate braids around the crown of my head, securing them with the white gold comb. The effect is rather flattering for me, and I wonder if the comb is enchanted with some kind of beautifying spell. I am not normally this pretty. Unsettling? Certainly. Ominous? Most definitely. Lovely? Ne’er.

“Have you told Mother and Bronwyn you do not wish to marry into the Moontide lot? Mayhap they would let you have a few seasons yet before shifting you to some foreign court,” I say, though I know immediately how false my words ring. Sephia is the lauded daughter, certainly, but she also suffers grander expectations than the rest of us whelps put together.

Her brittle smile is all the confirmation I need. She will do her duty. She will win over whatever witless prince stumbles forward for her hand, and go be the fruitful womb she is destined to be. My heart suddenly thumps with pain for her.