Chapter 57 - Wax bird

  The events of this story take place long before the fall, back in the year Ryn first arrived in Solvara, and the same year Ariel’s mother was pronounced dead.

  At the time, Ariel could barely comprehend it. The idea that her mother, the woman who had always seemed untouchable, radiant, eternal, would never speak again.

  She had been like the sun itself, a presence too vast to imagine fading. But the impossible had happened. And it hadn’t just broken Ariel. It had broken the entire city.

  Solvara fell silent in those days. The bells did not ring. The prayers in the temples quieted. Even the banners seemed to hang lower in the wind.

  Her father, the king, withdrew into shadows. He locked himself away in his study, his chambers, in grief so deep it turned inward. Days passed with no word from him, no comfort, no presence, nothing but the muffled echo of footsteps pacing behind closed doors.

  Ariel was left alone.

  The weight of her entire city pressed down on her small shoulders. Courtiers whispered when she passed. Servants watched her with pity in their eyes. Everyone expected something from her—strength, grace, answers she didn't have.

  As a child, it was unbearable.

  One morning, she ran.

  She couldn't go far—it wasn't possible, not with guards and knights at every gate—but still, she hid in her mother's garden, an area that would later be repurposed to expand the courtyard.

  It was the one place that still felt like hers.

  She slipped under a small silver bridge that arched over a narrow stream, surrounded by flowers and plants her mother had once tended. The scent of lilies and rosemary hung in the air, almost suffocating in its familiarity.

  Ariel curled into herself, knees pulled tight to her chest.

  There, she wept.

  Countless tears streaked down her face. Her body trembled, wracked with sobs she'd been holding back for days. She didn't know how long she stayed there—minutes, hours—but it had to be a long time.

  Because someone eventually found her.

  A silver-haired girl around Ariel's age, only slightly older. The maid's outfit was clearly borrowed, sleeves rolled up three times, she carried a book clutched close to her chest, fingers gripping it like it was something precious.

  She didn't say anything at first. Just sat down beside Ariel beneath the bridge, close enough that their shoulders touched.

  At first, neither of them said anything.

  Ariel kept sobbing softly, shoulders shaking, her breaths came in broken, uneven pulls, each one shuddering through her small frame. Lilia didn’t speak — didn’t try to hush her or pull her out — she simply sat close enough that Ariel could feel her presence, warm and steady in the cool garden shade.

  After a moment, Lilia gently eased open the book she held. Its spine creaked softly, pages fanning out in a burst of color. It wasn’t just a storybook, it was a picture book, thick with illustrations and sprawling descriptions of places far brighter and wilder than their own.

  Cities floating in the sky…

  Capitals that stretched beyond the horizon, their towers scraping the sun.

  Forests that held ancient kingdoms, Continents still untouched, wild and waiting, mapped only by imagination. And countless places no one had ever visited, drawn in soft watercolors and lined with Lilia’s neat notes in the margins.

  Lilia flipped through them slowly, letting the turning pages speak where she couldn’t.

  Every image glowed with possibility.

  Lilia tapped Ariel’s shoulder, just lightly.

  When Ariel lifted her tear-blurred eyes, Lilia held the book open to a drawing of a tiny bird, pale and delicate, perched beside a drifting lantern.

  Lilia tried to meet Ariel's gaze, but her eyes dropped to the ground instead

  She swallowed once, her silver hair falling forward as she shifted her grip on the pages.

  Her voice, when it came, was small, soft and nervous

  “Ariel… um… this one,” she whispered. “It’s… one of my favorites.”

  Ariel sniffed, rubbing her sleeve across her eyes. She didn’t speak, but she leaned just a little closer.

  Lilia took a breath, steadying herself, then began, her words timid but careful, as if worried she might say the story wrong.

  “s-so… there was a bird,” she said quietly. “A really small one. It was made of wax.”

  Her fingers hovered over the illustration, tracing the outline of the tiny creature.

  “It… it traveled the whole world. Or, at least… tried to.”

  She hesitated, glancing at Ariel as if checking whether she should continue.

  Ariel watched her, silent. Lilia’s eyes softened.

  “It could only fly when someone walked beside it with a little lantern,” she murmured. “Because the flame kept it warm. And if the flame went away, even for a moment… the bird would freeze… and eventually die.”

  Her voice grew even softer.

  “Unable to move… unable to fly… not even able to feel warm anymore.”

  “the bird really, really wanted people to stay next to it…And the people grew close to the bird aswell,” Lilia whispered, her voice small and careful. “They liked playing with it, they really did. But eventually…” She hugged the book tighter against her chest, shoulders curling inward. “Eventually they all had to go. They had homes… families… things they needed to go back to.”

  Her brows pinched together.

  “So the bird kept asking them to stay, but… they couldn’t. And it would get left behind. Over and over.”

  Lilia glanced down at the final picture — a small lantern glowing softly where the bird had once been.

  “And at the end… um…” she whispered, voice barely audible,

  “the bird melts itself… into a lantern.”

  She turned the book slightly so Ariel could see the gentle golden glow painted across the page.

  “So… someone…maybe just one person… might stay a little longer.”

  A small silence settled over the two of them, stretching out like the still water beneath the bridge.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Ariel’s sobs slowly faded into shaky breaths, then into nothing more than small sniffles. Lilia just sat there, book on her lap.

  Ariel stared at the illustration—the tiny lantern, still glowing, still warm. Her throat tightened.

  Finally, she muttered, barely above a whisper:

  “…That’s dumb.”

  Lilia blinked. “Huh?”

  “I said that’s dumb!” Ariel snapped—

  and then launched herself at Lilia, tackling her straight into the soft mud beneath the bridge.

  Lilia let out a squeak, eyes going wide as her freshly brushed silver hair hit the dirt with a soft thump. Her book nearly flew out of her hands. She looked utterly stunned, mouth open, leaves in her hair, her apron smudged with soil.

  “Ariel !”

  Ariel leaned over her, face all scrunched up.

  "Those people suck!" she said. "Didn't they care about the bird? Didn't they know they were hurting it? If they knew it would die without them, then why— why wouldn't they just stay?"

  She shook her head so hard her hair went everywhere.

  "But the bird was dumb too!" She kept going, getting louder. "It was being so selfish! Like, super selfish! How could it just expect people to follow it around everywhere, like, their whole entire life?"

  Her voice went all high and squeaky.

  "It's so dumb. So dumb. What made it think it was so much more important compared to everyone else's families and lives and— and stuff?"

  She threw her hands up.

  “This is a dumb, stupid story that makes no sense !”

  Ariel stopped, breathing hard, and finally looked down at Lilia.

  The other girl wasn’t upset. Or scared.

  Or offended.

  She was smiling.

  Ariel frowned. “...What’s so funny?”

  Lilia turned her head to the side, her smile widening the tiniest bit.

  “…Nothing.”

  Eventually, Ariel rolled off of her, landing flat on her back in the cool soil beneath the bridge. Lilia stayed exactly where she was, still lying in the messy imprint where Ariel had tackled her—hair ruined, apron stained, book half-open on her chest.

  “Lilia…”

  Lilia turned her head, bits of dirt still tangled in her silver hair. Ariel didn’t look at her. She stared upward instead, eyes fixed on the stone underside of the small silver bridge, watching sunlight leak through the cracks in thin, trembling beams.

  Ariel’s voice came out small.

  "Promise you won't—" Her voice cracked. She tried again, smaller. "Promise you won't leave me. Not like... not like everyone else did."

  The garden wind stirred.

  Water murmured beneath them.

  Lilia let out a faint laugh.

  For a moment, she didn’t speak.

  Then she shifted closer, their shoulders brushing faintly, and answered in that soft, careful voice of hers:

  “Its not like I have a choice.”

  She said it so simply. Like it was the most natural thing in the world.

  A tiny, earnest nod.

  “...I’m your maid, after all.”

  And Ariel, still lying in the mud, tears drying on her cheeks, laughed.

  thin, cracked at the edges,

  but real.

  “Im so glad you are.”

  ***

  Ariels heart went hollow.

  She stumbled back into the field of lilies, breath tearing in and out of her lungs.

  The revelation — cruel, intimate, perfectly aimed — struck deeper than anything ever had before.

  Because it wasn’t a lie.

  It was aligned too perfectly with the hideous truths she already believed about herself.

  She was a selfish creature.

  One who had chained too many people to her own pitiful fate…

  dragging them with her, binding them to dangers meant only for her.

  Including the people she’d cared for the most.

  The god’s words were a mirror, polished and merciless,

  and in that mirror she saw every awful thing she had tried to hide from herself.

  Every mistake she had tried smooth over.

  Every fear she had buried.

  Every wound she had hoped no one else would notice.

  Her body buckled under the weight of it.

  She stumbled backward, knees giving way, the golden lilies bending and brushing against her palms as she fell to the ground, shivering. They released a scent like honey gone rancid.

  The flowers trembled with her, their laughter turning thin and sharp in the air.

  She thought — she truly thought — that if she was strong enough, persistent enough, powerful enough…

  she’d be allowed to be greedy.

  Allowed to keep the people she loved close.

  Allowed to have them stay, just as long as she wanted them to.

  She didnt want to lose anymore than she already had.

  But no.

  She had never been strong enough.

  Not enough for that.

  And in the hollow of her chest, she doubted if anyone ever truly was.

  Sol clapped.

  Once.

  Twice.

  Three times.

  Each strike sharp and bright, ringing through the field like breaking glass.

  Ariel could almost make out a smile on his faceless radiance — wide, pleased, grotesquely delighted.

  His applause echoed, echoing again, as if the whole field were clapping with him.

  “Do not be so ashamed,” he crooned. “The sun itself is selfish, after all.”

  The lilies swayed with his words, leaning toward her like an audience waiting for the final act.

  He stepped closer, the burning figure shifting through the gold haze — and knelt in front of her.

  Ariel didn’t move.

  Couldn’t.

  Her eyes were wide, unblinking, fixed on the brilliance that swallowed every shadow around them.

  The god of the sun lifted one glowing hand and pressed a single finger to her forehead.

  “Go,” he whispered.

  “Protect those you care about.”

  His voice curled around her like smoke.

  “Correct your mistakes.”

  The light flared.

  “And I think you know how.”

  A faint laugh threaded through the lilies.

  "I've made sure your friends will need you now"

  Pain swallowed her.

  A white-hot agony ripped through her body, burning and healing and burning again in an impossible cycle.

  Her breath hitched, her back arched, her vision shattered into shards of color.

  The last thing she tasted before she slipped into unconsciousness

  was bile rising in her throat

  and the metallic tang of fear.