Brina

Brina's teacup clatters against its saucer, spilling droplets of mint-infused liquid across the worn wooden table. The knocking echoes through her cottage, a staccato rhythm that seems to reverberate in her very bones. With trembling hands, she sets down her cup and rises, her feet carrying her to the door almost of their own accord.

The latch creaks as she opens it, revealing a sight she never expected to see on her humble threshold. Princess Elara stands before her, resplendent even in her distress, her silk gown catching the dappled sunlight filtering through the forest canopy. The princess's eyes storm with grief and urgency.

"Mistress Elmswood," Elara gasps, cracking. "I come bearing terrible tidings. My mother, the Queen... she's gone."

The words hang in the air, heavy and surreal. Brina feels a chill creep up her spine, a sensation that has nothing to do with the cool forest morning. She ushers the princess inside, her mind reeling as she tries to process the implications of this news.

As Elara steps into the cottage, the scent of herbs and bubbling potions seems to envelop her, a stark contrast to the opulent halls of the palace she's fled. Brina guides her to a chair, noting how the princess's usual grace has been replaced by a barely contained trembling.

Brina clutches the teacup, heart hammering. The familiar weight of the porcelain feels suddenly alien in her grasp, as if the world has tilted on its axis. She stares at Elara, her mind a whirlwind of fragmented memories and half-formed thoughts.

"...Elara?" The name slips from her lips, unbidden, tasting of both honey and ash.

The princess's eyes widen, a flicker of recognition dancing across her grief-stricken features. "You know me?"

Brina opens her mouth to deny it, to say that of course she knows the princess by reputation alone. But the words catch in her throat, tangling with the tendrils of fog that seem to cloud her mind. She looks down at the cup in her hands, still full to the brim with mint tea. The surface is perfectly still, untouched by time or trembling fingers.

She doesn't remember drinking from it. She doesn't remember brewing it.

The realization sends a shudder through her body, rippling outward like a stone cast into a still pond. The cottage around her suddenly feels both achingly familiar and disturbingly foreign. The jars of herbs lining the shelves, the worn rug beneath her feet, the very air thick with the scent of sage and rosemary—all of it pulses with an unsettling wrongness.

Elara leans forward, her silk gown rustling like whispered secrets. "Mistress Elmswood, are you alright? You look as though you've seen a ghost."

Brina wants to laugh at the irony, but the sound catches in her throat. Instead, she sets the cup down with exaggerated care, watching as the liquid inside remains perfectly, unnaturally still. "I... I'm not sure," she manages, her voice sounding distant to her own ears. "Princess, how did you find me here?"

The question seems to startle Elara, a frown creasing her brow. "I... I've always known where to find you. Haven't I?" The last part comes out as a question, uncertainty creeping into her voice.

The air in the cottage grows thick, charged with an energy that makes the hairs on Brina's arms stand on end. Outside, the forest seems to press closer, the dappled sunlight taking on an eerie, greenish tinge. Time stretches like taffy, elongating into an eternity.

Brina's gaze is drawn to a small mirror hanging on the wall. Her reflection stares back at her, but for a heartbeat, it seems... wrong. Older, perhaps, or younger. A face she knows intimately and yet cannot place.

She turns back to Elara, her voice barely above a whisper. "Tell me about the Queen. Tell me what happened, tell me everything," Brina says softly, her voice steady despite the turmoil in her thoughts. She reaches for a vial of calming draught, uncorking it with practiced ease.

Elara's words tumble out in a rush, her carefully cultivated composure crumbling like sand. "It happened in the night. No warning, no illness. She simply... didn't wake." The princess's hands clench and unclench in her lap. "But there's more, Mistress Elmswood. Something... unnatural about her passing. The court physician, he whispered of strange markings, of an aura that lingered..."

Brina listens intently, her mind racing. The Queen, seemingly healthy, struck down without warning? And these whispers of the unnatural... A shiver runs through her, and she becomes acutely aware of the shadows in the corners of her cottage, of the way the air seems to thicken with each word Elara speaks.

As she hands the calming draught to the princess, Brina's fingers brush against Elara's, and for a moment, a jolt of something—recognition? premonition?—passes between them. Their eyes lock, and Brina sees in Elara's gaze a desperate plea, a hope that the humble potion-maker might hold answers to questions not yet fully formed.

Outside, the forest seems to hold its breath. The usual chittering of woodland creatures has fallen silent.

Brina's fingers freeze above her mortar as her cottage window rattles suddenly, dry leaves against warped glass. The rosemary sprig slips from her trembling hand onto stained worktable wood grain that squirms faintly like beetle legs beneath parchment skin.

"Third time this week," she mutters to no one but bitter air thick with mandrake tincture vapors. The braided protection charms above her door swing counterclockwise despite there being no draft.

Outside her crooked herb garden stretches toward black pines whose branches claw moonlit mist into fraying ribbons of phosphorescence. Wait no, those aren't firefly sparks between trunks but eyes cluster-winking chartreuse needles shifting under bark that weeps sap like honeyed mercury. Don't look directly at them! You know better than that nine-year solitude should count for something she'll need. Fresh yarrow. Come, dawn! If dawn still visits this particular valley when her bone-charm necklace flares sudden heat against sternum.

As kitchen shadows detach from walls and skitter across ceiling beams in liquid streaks sharpening into glyph-shapes she almost understands until they fracture like ice under bootheel memory-pain bright behind left eye where Mother used to press cold coins during spring fevers.

Brina slams mortar against pestle hard enough to crack limestone. "None of that now," she tells the quivering wall plaster whose pores weep red rust down milk paint. "You'll have your tribute when the wind dies mid-howl." As the entire forest inhales at once, roots creaking deep below the frost line. Something vast turning over beneath thin soil skin. Brina shoves fistful of dried nettles into apron pocket before fingers can forget their purpose again. Picks up knife begins dicing monkshood root. Precise, measured slices but each crescent moon sliver squirms faintly before stilling like caught spiders curling legs inward counting seconds until darkness pulses green.

At window edges though sundown was hours past: she doesn't turn doesn't blink keeps chopping but now ironwood handle sweats sticky resin under palm floorboards arch upward snake-spined beneath boots. She left cupboard door yawns wide releasing scent of burnt hair and drowned orchids. Brina hums childhood lullaby off-key through clenched teeth throws salt over shoulder hears it sizzle against stone walls breathing wet mineral breath down her collar vertebrae locked screaming animals trapped in marrow.

Something heavy thuds against doorframe wood groaning into impossible angles. Owl hoots three times from chimney then laughs human-soft through soot smeared bricks. Brina slaps bleeding palm against oaken table carved with nine protection sigils by hands not entirely her own last winter solstice.

"Enough!"

Silence rings like struck crystal gradually fills with ordinary cricket song worn floorboards settling true north again night air still but cold-burning normal through drafty windows.

Brina exhales seven-count breath stares at wrinkled hands crosshatched by years of work both mundane and otherwise finds new scar across left thumb knuckle already healing silver-tissue. Fast, too fast!

"They're waking earlier each time" - she tells three dried crows hanging upside-down from rafters. Plumage shimmering oil-slick purples unreachable by candlelight.

"Best prepare more bone meal".

But when she reaches for grimoire leatherbound thing chained to iron pedestal pages flutter open alone revealing fresh script bleeding across vellum in ash-gray letters:

“NOT YOUR CONCERN LITTLE WARDEN. KEEP STIRRING YOUR POISONED BROTHS!”

Brina traces trembling finger along sentence that melts into illustrations showing thorned towers piercing cloud belly black spires jutting through star maps rearranged violently across ink-blotted calembours. Sky recognition hits like icicle between ribs blood-hot dread flooding throat because those jagged silhouettes match exact lines painstakingly avoided in every tapestry ever woven for Hartwood royals. Oh no! No, not again, not when…

She slams grimoire shut chainlinks hissing angry beetles retreating into shadow and hears distant scream tear through night fabric owl-shaped or maybe elm-shaped certainly royal-register pitch reverberating castleward direction.

No mistaking that particular timbre after all these years listening from forest margins.

Princess lungs still hold same panic note. Age seven cornered by hunting hounds outside kennels.

Brina presses palms against eye sockets until colors burst. "Don't!" - she warns herself aloud "Healer oath prohibits interference. Nine winters running poison pact still binds unless (unreadable)"

Floor ripples liquid underfoot mortar bowl shatters pungent herbs scattering fractal patterns across swaying boards grimoire pages. Rattle, desperate caged bird noise until brass chains snap sudden whipcracks embedding in ceiling beams. A tome splays open shrieking papercuts slicing air scarlet smell ozone desperation.

Illustration glows now sickly yellow-green Hartwood crest inverted thrice-fold overlapped by sigils older than first kings than first forests than first breaths. Drawn mortal-throated words bubble up unbidden from memory-crypts carved below sanity line.

Brina reaches for obsidian dagger kept velvet-wrapped under loose floorstone since last equinox. Betrayal feels edge bite familiar furrow across left palm. Vital droplets stain grimoire pages smoke rises spelling verdict in cuneiform ash.

The Three Queens stir.

Roots drink deep corruption.

Key bears sapphire tears.

She swears viciously kicks table leg hard enough to crack toe bone. 

Ignores pain already knitting watches illustrations rearrange into prison-blueprints.

Recognizes scullery maids' tattooed collars blacksmith daughters sleepwalking toward midden pits garrison soldiers melting like wax dolls near armory shadows collection notices all pointing castleward teeth marks on reality fraying quick now.

Princesa screams again closer vibrating Brina's wolfish molars aching childhood memory of teaching royal child. Forest mushrooms not to crush under slippers feels ghost-fingers clutching present-tense heart.

"Sodding nobility," Brina snarls throwing ingredients into travel satchel.

"Sodding prophecies, sodding sentient architecture" - Glass jars shatter protective wards as she stomps toward door grabbing gnarled staff carved from lightning-struck oak. "If Hartwood bloodline gets devoured I want full damnation rights reserved!"

Forest parts before her staff-glow trees curtsying thorny branches moonlight gone viscous dripping sap-thick between leaves that whisper warnings in fungal spore tongues.

Brina marches uphill, boots sinking deep into fecund rot that wasn't there yesterday. Ground remembers old bones wrong now sings up through boot-soles in funeral dirge cadence.

Stag skulls roll from thicket shadows antlers knitting thorn cages around path behind her.

Brina doesn't look back knows better than to acknowledge invitations written in marrow.

Princess' scream splinters into three separate frequencies - child/woman/crone - each note vibrating different set of teeth.

Brina spits out molar; it's smoking faintly amethyst against leaf mold.

"Should've let wolves take you that winter" - she lies to ghost memory of Elara clutching doll soaked in hound drool.

Forest sheds its skin halfway upslope familiar oaks now weeping amber resin eyes forming between birch.

Paper scrolls trunks peeling back to reveal obsidian mirrors reflecting Brina's face as she might've been - crown-heavy sharp-chinned lips stained wine-black from drinking court intrigues. She kicks nearest mirror hard enough to spiderweb reflections.

"Flattery won't work hagspawn!"

The path ahead constricts ribcage-tight saplings bending drunkard-close. Their leaves buzzing with wasp-wing scripture warnings written in pollen-bursts.

“STAY HEALER, STAY SAFE, KEEP STIRRING, KEEP SLEEPING! DUST ON TONGUE (INAUDIBLE)”

Brina plunges hands into travel satchel flings powdered ravenclaw and dried comet-tail lichen into air. Ingredients ignite mid-arc becoming cobalt butterflies that eat through verdant prison bars. Their proboscis-needles drilling sizzling holes in reality's fabric. She steps through burning wings still clinging to hair like cursed hairpins.

Castle glares across newly formed chasm where moat should be its stones pregnant with slow-breathed malice arrow slits dilating lizard-quick as Brina approaches.

Drawbridge teeth rising jagged to block her way.

"Still using Mother's face I see" - she barks at mortar gap oozing queenly perfume.

"Cheap trick for cheaper ambition"

Staff-globe dims as bridge swallows itself whole but Brina's already moving.

Left palm pressed to the wet wall where keystone dreams fitfully whispers half-remembered lullaby through limestone pores. Muscle-memory guides fingers into cracks that shouldn't exist here.

She carves quick sigil using thumbnail and blood clotted under quickened healing flesh.

Keystone screams awake births a new staircase spiraling downward through improbable geography.

Brina counts each step's ache. Seventeen. She turns before noticing walls growing fur breathing hot against neck pocket watch ticks backward but pulse races forward down down until (unreadable).

Princesa stands chained to a clockwork heart bigger than a banquet hall. Its piston-valves pumping black syrup from ruptured aquifers.

A crown of starlight nails driven deep into braided hair eyes full of moth-wing confessions mouth moving around silent plea wrists raw from pulling at vines grown through ancestral portraits.

Brina freezes mid-reach as grimoire's warning burns fresh behind eyelids.

“NOT YOUR CONCERN LITTLE WARDEN” - but child-Elara's voice overlays current screams - "You promised promised PROMISED"

Floor yawns between them, teeth emerging from flagstones.

Grandmother clock pendulum swings scythe-sharp missing Brina's throat by breath-width.

"Liesake!" She spits forbidden words relishing air curdles around it.

"Blood binds deeper than oaths, broken girl!"

Staff meets engine-core in shower of cursed sparks wards detonating like festival fireworks.

Brina tastes the electric truth. Princess (or Princesa) isn't victim but anchor chain weight dragging realm into gullet below. Oh clever, clever queens, always planting keys in beating mortal flesh.

Three crows burst from satchel deathclaw alive again circling, screaming princess plucking starlight nails one by one with beaks made of forgotten apologies.

Castle shakes crumbling into component lies brick by bloody brick.

Brina grabs Elara's forearm; feels both warmth and worm shaft beneath skin. "This will hurt" - she warns before slamming royal palm onto exposed heart-gears.

Sapphire tear splits princess' cheekbone and falls burning through machinery.

Entire world stops mid-scream.

Then

Silence

Then

A different music.

Brina's stomach churns as she follows Elara through the castle's writhing corridors. The walls pulse with a sickly, otherworldly light, casting grotesque shadows that dance and twist with each step. Tapestries depicting long-forgotten battles ripple as if caught in an unseen breeze, figures within them shifting and contorting into shapes.

"It's changed," Elara whispers, her voice trembling. "The castle, it's... different."

Brina nods grimly, her eyes darting from one warped corner to the next. The air grows thick with the scent of decay and something else—something ancient and wrong. She clutches her staff tighter, feeling the wood thrumming with barely contained energy.

As they round a corner, they come face to face with a group of servants. Their eyes are glassy, unseeing, and their smiles stretch far too wide across their faces. One of them, a maid with hair the color of straw, drops her tray with a clatter that echoes unnaturally through the halls.

"Di nuovo tu," she whispers, her voice a rasp that seems to emanate from the very stones beneath their feet.

Brina feels a jolt of recognition, a memory trying to surface through the fog in her mind. She opens her mouth to speak, but the words die on her tongue as the maid's face begins to melt, running like wax down a candle.

Elara screams, the sound piercing through the oppressive silence. The other servants turn as one, their grins widening impossibly further, teeth elongating into needle-sharp points.

"Run!" Brina shouts, grabbing Elara's arm and pulling her down a side passage. The princess stumbles, her silk slippers sliding on floors that have become slick with an oily, black substance.

Behind them, the servants give chase, their footsteps a cacophony of squelching and scraping. Brina's staff flares to life, casting a protective blue glow around them as they flee deeper into the castle's twisting bowels.

They burst through a set of ornate doors into what was once the grand ballroom. Now, it's a nightmarish parody of its former self. The ceiling stretches upward into infinity, chandeliers swinging like monstrous pendulums. The floor beneath their feet ripples like the surface of a pond, faces pressing up from below, mouths open in silent screams.

In the center of the room stands a figure that makes Brina's blood run cold. It's the Queen—or what's left of her. Her body is a patchwork of mismatched parts, stitched together with threads of starlight. Her crown sits askew on a head that's too large for her body, eyes bulging and rolling in their sockets.

"Mother?" Elara whispers, her voice breaking.

The Queen-thing turns jerky.

The Queen-thing smiles.

Brina's staff slips from nerveless fingers as memory crashes through her like breaking dam water - thirteen summers past/mornings future/endless nows folding into perfect alignment. Shaking hands remember holding terracotta cups in a thatched hut smelling of rosemary and rot.

*Elara-But-Not-Elara placing steaming drink between her palms*

*Brina-But-Stranger smiling over chipped porcelain rim*

*A hundred thousand teatimes bleeding together*

The vision crystallizes: that final morning before everything shattered. Young princess eyes too old for her face pushing ink-black tea across scarred pine table. Liquid surface rippling against angles, coalescing into single staring eye that isn't hers isn't human isn't (inaudible).

"You always choose this part," - Memory-Elara whispers as frost flowers bloom across Brina's knuckles. "The running. The noble sacrifice." Her smile splits into fractal patterns. "Let me show you how crowns are unmade."

Present and past scream as one when Brina drinks.