The Battle of the Trees - Sword, Ring, and Crown Book Two

Chapter Fourteen

"What's in a name? Apparently an entire universe..." - Madeline Thomas - Ultimate Patsy

Ciaran took my hand while we walked towards the castle, and as we did, the townspeople began to notice us more. At first, there was a lot of squinting. Then, I could hear excited whispers and see people nudging each other. Finally, a woman stepped in front of us and fell to her knees.

"Lord Quert? King of Spring? Is that really you, My Lord?"

"Up, up!"  His smile looked strained as he pulled the woman up by her hands, and I thought she was about to swoon because he was touching her. 

"Um... Quert? I thought you were Ull or Nion?" My eyebrows raised. 

He released the woman and turned to me, then whispered in my ear, "Another name for me." He shooed the woman off, and she backed up at a respectable distance but wouldn't go away.

"What's wrong with Ciaran or Nion for your name?"

"Nion is the name of the Ash." He hissed into my ear. Then he smiled wanly at the woman. She was giving him an utterly besotted look, so I didn't think she heard him. 

"Did you steal it?" I hissed back. I could see him doing something like that.

He began walking again, but first, he eyed me with a longsuffering look. The woman trailed behind us until he made a shooing motion once more. He kept his voice low as we traveled toward a castle made of gray rock and covered with wildflowers. If I'd been less distracted, I would have been enchanted. It looked less like a Cinderella-type palace and more like a half-forgotten enchanted castle you would find tucked in a wood. It had seven towers and many windows. A drawbridge was open to form a bridge over a crystalline moat.   Windows dotted the walls of the castle, and when we approached the bridge, I saw that many people were bustling beyond the walls. 

Ciaran squeezed my hand as he said, "Not exactly.  At the beginning of the war... Ash was against Duir, and I was for Duir. My beloved Ceridwen was her handmaiden tree. She was a beautiful cherry tree, and because she loved Duir, I took arms against my fellow trees. For Duir to win, she had to defeat Nion. She told me to get the name. So I befriended your father as a double agent then stole the page to steal a name from his book of magic. "

I stopped walking and released his hand. He had betrayed Father and the humans? "All because of a girl?"

"I was blinded both by greed, and Ceridwen's pleasure.  Duir said I could take Nion's place, and Ceridwen told me it would please her."

He stopped ahead of me and didn't turn to face me. "I took his name, which gave me the realm of spring. But I found I had no power to keep it moving forward and eventually found both it and myself fading. Duir knew it would happen. And I realized I'd been a greedy fool.  Straif cursed summer before Duir chained him after your birth, I was killing spring, autumn cannot turn the seasons, and thus winter prevails, or it was. You changed that."

"Why are you telling me this now? Why didn't you tell me before?"

He turned and stepped forward. "I was going to. I planned to tell you all."

"Somehow... just knowing how much of a trickster you are, I'm not sure that's true." I squinted at him. 

He held out his hand in entreaty to hear him out, and I shrugged and let him continue. "After the trouble,  I went to your father and told him what I did. He wasn't as upset as I thought he would be. I think he knew. My penance to him was to give you the key so you could release him. His reward to me was the ability to awaken spring again, but only in my region and only when I'm in your presence. It's you that has released spring everywhere, just by being here in Aleria. Your father's curse weakens."