I turn and start stalking off, the others hurrying to match my step as I head for my army’s camp.
“What do you want to do, Slade?” Ry asks at my side.
My eyes harden with my resolve, only softening when they drop down to Auren’s face.
I’m going to fix her. She’s going to be alright.
I won’t accept anything else. I won’t even consider it.
Shouting voices from the front of the castle carry across the night air, making my steps quicken.
“We need to leave. Right fucking now,” I reply grimly. “Get the army back to Fourth.”
As soon as the panic abates, the survivors and witnesses are going to be talking. Accusing. Pointing fingers. They’re going to want answers and demand atonement. Because the dead can’t say what transpired in that ballroom.
But Queen Kaila can.
She and her group were in there. They saw what happened, and they saw that it was Auren who made it so.
It’s just a matter of time before they come for her.
But I’ll be fucking ready.
Golden Gold
Vine
Part Three
Oh, this miser did prize her, this golden gold vine.
He couldn’t stop now,
so he sat at her shrine.
He had to cut, to cull, and to bleed.
For her to keep growing, that was the creed.
Whenever he plucked
her vine until bare,
he’d sit by her stems,
into skin he would tear.
Losing himself, as he sat and he flayed.
Yielding himself, as he laid in her shade.
He soon gave up his toes, his fingers, mere stumps.
His teeth, he yanked out, in white and red clumps.
Dropped into soil,
like rain for her roots.
Up grew her blossoms,
inedible fruits.
The gold was his blanket,
his prize, and his gloat.
The thorns for his teeth,
the leaves as his coat.
He took what she made,
and reaped what she sowed.
Addicted, entitled, thinking— wealth he was owed.
But bitter her roots
became as she bloomed.
This golden gold vine,
resented and fumed.
So blinded by gleam,
he just couldn’t see
what he became
by demands he decreed.
When he first found her
along that plain road,
he didn’t yet know
what he picked when he trode.
For it wasn’t just her
that he took on that day.
Greed was the weed
he invited to stay.
In his house the gold took up all of the room.
He thought it a triumph. （But it was a tomb.）
Tangled and knitted,
every corner, leaves spewed.
Still, he wanted more
—Oh! Just a few!
No hair or nails, no eyes or nose.
No fingers or ears, nor any toes.
Yet he'd satisfy himself with his own greedy prose.
He was the richest alive! Anything he could buy!
（Yes, it was true, that wasn't a lie.）
Though he did not realize, no he could not conceive, that his obsession for gold was what made him unweave.
The old miser lived on,
a sorry state of affairs.
Sacrificing his tongue,
his legs, arms—both in pairs.
He couldn’t touch or talk, nor could he see.
But what did that matter, when what mattered was he was alone with his vine, his treasure sublime.
No need for his senses or to walk or to sign, when all that he wanted was her opulent shine.
And all the while, this old miser clung to the vine.
His mute mouth empty, but still miming, "mine.”
The vine did outgrow his little house on the hill.
Winding down to the forest, all twine and twill.
She’d grown so large, while he'd withered down to a pulp.
Until finally, she took the last of him, in one final gulp.
His stumped and stubbed pieces, now taken inside her.
This golden gold greed,
like a web from a spider.
And upon his death,
the vine did slowly die back.
It shrunk from forest to yard, its gold gone to lack.
The only bit that remained, on that house on the hill
was a flicker of gleam
against a cracked windowsill.
And there right beneath,
under a pile of rubble,
was one golden vine,
its short thorns like stubble.
It glistened and shone,
so small with one leaf.
It sat there, undiscovered, a prize for a thief.
This vine as golden as a small piece of sun, it waited right there for someone to come.
And when someone did, （for there would always be one） she perked up and straightened, she showed off her shine.
And he stole and he smiled, and whispered greedily, "mine.”
Thank You For Reading