Prince Daric touched his fingers to the giant column of mist and then jerked them back. He stared at his fingertips, but nothing had changed. His skin hadn’t reddened; the nails weren’t blackened. Nothing, in fact, had happened.
With a nervous swallow scraping down his throat, he turned his head to check that no one had followed him from the royal encampment. The dying forest stared back with gnarled eyes, everything brittle, creaking, and ready to catch fire. Nothing disturbed the too-dry branches, but it was only a matter of time before someone noticed he’d snuck off and came looking for him.
They were still days from home after a long journey to neighboring Raana followed by a pilgrimage to their own sacred Wood of Layton. Negotiations with Raana’s Royal House of Nighthall had not gone well, putting everyone in a foul mood, especially Daric’s father. King Wilder worried for his people, and Queen Illanna Nighthall had shown more greed than humanity, as usual.
Every year had been the same since Daric’s birth—ten years of drought. Fields grew drier, the people of Leathen thinner, and the royal coffers lighter as Daric’s parents were forced to pay the surrounding kingdoms for water, grains, and provisions.
After another look around him to make sure all was quiet, Daric turned back to Braylian’s Cauldron. A thick column of mist rose from the sacred circle, but he knew that at any second, the elements could shift, turning into violent flames, bolts of lightning fierce enough to blind a man, gales that whipped and wailed, or shards of ice that exploded upward before raining down like daggers.
Children were warned away from the Cauldron from the moment they could understand fear. At least once a year, Daric joined the rest of the royal family at the volatile stone-lined circle to pay homage to Braylian, the goddess of the elements and the divine creator of the four seasons.
Usually, he was not alone to come before Braylian and beg for the return of water to Leathen’s lakes and rivers. And to his knowledge, no one had ever stood this close to the Cauldron. He was not too young to understand the consequences of this ongoing lack of true springtime. He saw the tension in his parents and the gauntness of his people. The fact that he and the drought were the same age made him even more determined to find a solution. Somehow, he felt responsible.
Gathering his courage, Daric stretched his hand into the mist again, this time losing sight of everything up to his wrist. It was cool, damp, and terrifying. He curled his hand into a fist and drew back. As he did, he could have sworn he felt a soft brush of fingers across his knuckles.
Daric shivered in a way he knew a brave young prince shouldn’t, and had he been a hallerhound, he’d have felt the hair on the back of his neck rise and quiver.
He squared his shoulders. Raana coveted Leathen’s orin mines. No longer satisfied with simply purchasing the strong, versatile metal, Illanna Nighthall had just successfully bartered for a nearly untapped mine that hugged the border. She had one shaft now. Next year, Daric feared she would have another.
Why spring rains would still water and nurture the surrounding kingdoms but not Leathen was a mystery. All Daric knew was that Leathen had faithfully guarded Braylian’s Cauldron for generations. It was time that Braylian returned the favor for Leathen.
“Braylian!” he called out, frightened, even though the stone circle seemed calm today. This was where spirits gathered, the seasons changed, and storms were born from nothing. “We need your help!”
No response came, and the mist remained quiet. He leaned forward, dipping his head into the column. To do so was bold and spine-chilling, but if the goddess saw him, maybe she would answer.
A thick gray cloud dampened Daric’s skin with more wetness than he’d felt on his face outside of his own washroom since the last snows of winter, but he saw only fog in front of him.
Disappointed but also a little relieved, he straightened out of the column. Leathen’s summer heat sucked the moisture from the land, its autumn storms sometimes ruined the crops the kingdom’s struggling farmers managed to cultivate, and its harsh winter freezes left too many people huddled around kitchen fires, cold and hungry. The long, ground-watering rains of springtime had abandoned Leathen the moment Daric came into it.
He didn’t know how, or why, but he needed to fix it before the drought forced his parents to sell their kingdom piece by piece to the power-hungry Queen of Raana.
An orin mine for water. More orinore for bread. When Leathen had no riches left, what would become of it?
Other kingdoms would turn covetous looks their way soon, just as Raana did. Land was land, even if it was dead.
Daric appealed to the goddess again, leaning once more into the mist. He knew his actions were dangerous. Reckless, even. But what good was a prince to a kingdom that might cease to exist?
He called to Braylian until he was hoarse. Finally forced to admit defeat, he withdrew his head and torso from the cloud and started back toward the royal camp, his heart heavy with failure.
A lilting female voice stopped him in his tracks. “Who calls?”
The sound was more water than words. Daric turned back in awe, seeing a hand emerge from the column. Small fingers mirrored the tentative movements he’d first made into the mist. As if she’d learned from him, she mimicked his gestures, eventually leaning forward. As she did, her upper body took form, solidifying. Every action matched his, except she was a girl. She was even his age, and the most ethereal, radiant being he’d ever seen.
She stretched out her hand more boldly. Beads of water dripped from her fingertips. Rain. It watered the dying ground between them, turning it vibrant and green.
Daric moved toward the Cauldron, his eyes wide and his pulse beating with wild hope. “I am Daric, of the House of Ash. Are you Braylian?”
“I am her daughter,” she answered. Her speech was slow, as if she were discovering language as they talked.
At the dawn of time, Braylian created the four seasons to help her govern the year. This daughter had new vines for clothing, silver waterfalls for hair, and eyes the color of the lakes he’d seen in Raana.
Spring! She had to be Spring! And she had not yet gone to her rest. This was her last day of the season. At dawn, Summer rose from her bed.
“Why have you abandoned my kingdom?” Daric asked. “Will you not water our fields again?”
“I have abandoned no kingdom,” she replied. “I water all the lands that I see.”
Daric frowned. “Then…do you not see Leathen?”
She looked as confused as he. She seemed to have no answer and withdrew into the Cauldron again.
“Please!” Daric dashed after her. He stepped partway into the misty column, forgetting about the stone circle he wasn’t supposed to cross. “Can you see me? Can you see my kingdom?”
A vague form twirled in the cloud, rushing like a river, swirling like a tempest. He moved toward the shadow, and an icy sheet of water splashed across his face. He jerked back with a gasp.
“Do not step through, or you can never go back,” she warned. “Braylian will claim you, and you will race across the land and sky as weather.”
Daric retreated, his heart pounding in fright. The girl followed him halfway out. They began a gentle back and forth, almost a dance. She met his gaze, and her delighted smile put to shame the most beautiful of starlit nights.
“We’re in a terrible drought,” he said as they continued to sway together, sometimes Daric partway into the Cauldron, sometimes her partway out. “Can you help us?”
She threw a high-arching spray of water into the forest with a tinkling laugh.
“That’s wonderful.” Daric grinned. “But we need much more than that.”
She shook her head. “I see only you and the magic of the Cauldron. Everything else is dark.”
Hard hands suddenly ripped Daric away from her. He struggled but was no match for the large man dragging him back. He recognized Soren’s gruff voice as his father’s personal guard banded a heavy arm around his chest and told him to settle.
As though Soren’s words broke a spell, people appeared around him. His mother stood only a step away, pale with terror. Beside her, his father swung a calculating gaze back and forth between Daric and the girl, the gears of his mind visibly turning.
“No!” cried Daric a split second before King Wilder surged forward and clamped his hand around the girl’s wrist. With a decisive yank, he pulled her from the Cauldron.
She turned entirely to flesh as she crossed the stone circle. The vines covering her milky-white skin withered and died. Her silver hair stopped cascading water. Her eyes were the only part of her that still brimmed with moisture, and she stood there, shaking.
Daric shoved away from Soren and ran to her, throwing his cloak around her shoulders. He tugged it closed to cover her, and she clutched at the garment, her legs trembling like a newborn foal’s. She seemed barely able to hold up her weight, even though she was as slight as a sapling.
“Can you make it rain, child?” the king asked urgently, bending down close to her. “I will give you all that I have for rain.”
She blinked at Daric’s father, silent, and yet everything about her screamed out in horror. The tears in her eyes hit the ground, but they made no difference to the crisp brown moss still struggling to survive in Leathen’s sacred forest.
Daric began to shake along with her. He’d failed, and he’d ruined spring forever.
She’d seen only him, and Daric only her. Some magic had blinded them, a curse for spring, and him, and everyone.
“Rain,” he pleaded softly. Maybe she could still control the elements. Maybe she was still Braylian’s daughter.
Sorrow filled the bluest eyes he’d ever seen. “Once, I might have been what you needed. Now, I am nothing.”