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In the dark forest, Gabriel – huddled between the tangled mossy roots of an ancient tree – is not alone. He still hears the screams of his parents and the howls of the creatures coming in the night, the creatures with yellow eyes. He still hears the clash and rattle of steel.
He still hears his mother ordering him to run and hide. But the monsters, they came after him, and he whimpers looking at their cold metallic fangs glinting in the light of the fire slipping between the tree trunks.
It is then the sound of the thunder comes, the ear-splitting cacophony of hooves and braying and snorts, the wet tearing sounds and screams of fear and pain and death, and Gabriel can only stare at the shape and know he is in the presence of a god from his father’s stories and his mother’s songs, yet different from those that guard the oases, ride with the poisonous winds of the deserts, and dance in the palaces built out of clouds and adorned with jewels.
The creature, its form cut from the darkness and its fur slick with blood dripping from antlers gnarled and branching – entangled in garlands of moss and vines – it raises its head to the sky with a wail beckoning the rain.
Gabriel forgets his breath when the first drops make their way through the canopy of leaves – for the god turns towards him.
“Do not be fearful, little cub,” the forest whispers in the hum of the rain and the wind, and Gabriel is not afraid anymore when he slips his hand into the bloodied one held out for him by a boy his age, his father’s words warning him to never accept a gift he had not asked for from a god fading from his memory. “I’ll show you the way to the edge of the farmlands.”
The fingers curled around his hand are warm and comforting, and leave cold absence when the boy lets go of him.
“They will take you in, they take all the lost cubs in, even strange ones like you.” But Gabriel stops before he leaves the woods and looks back, at the boy with hair like the golden sands, eyes as dark as the bottomless wells hidden below the rocks and lips like the silks dyed with beetle carapaces. There is longing in his gaze for something irrevocably lost that is now a part of the other boy. “Do you want me to come with you, little cub?”
“Yes.” The boy sits with him and a shade of mid-day sky bleeds into his eyes. “You’re… Jack.”
“And you’re Gabriel,” Jack smiles and leans on him as they wait on the edge of the woods.
*
“You look ridiculous.”
Jack laughs at the comment, blue eyes narrowing, lean muscles playing under the skin painted with green pigment as he stretches against the tree.
“I look the part, as do you.”
“Are flowers necessary?” The blonde touches his hand to the wreath on his head, blue, red and gold glinting betwixt the luscious green of fresh leaves.
“They’re a symbol, and this very night symbols hold power immeasurable,” Jack steps forward and seats himself on the fallen log by the dying fire. Beckons him closer and Gabriel takes his place between his legs. “You call upon the Covenant. I answer.”
The liquid in the earthen bowl pressed to his mouth is bitter, it burns his throat as he swallows it. Jack leans down and licks the remnants from his lips.
“I call upon the Covenant. You answer.” The heat of the concoction travels to his face and as he looks up he can see the afterimage of a great beast behind the blonde.
“You pay the price,” Jack whispers into his ear, the brush of air sending shivers down his spine.
“I pay the price.”
“Oh, my foolish rash little Gabriel, you will pay the price. But for now,” Jack stands up and moves away, looking back at him from the edge of the woods, “find me. Follow my scent. Rip my throat out with your fangs,” he laughs and breaks into a run.
For a second, Gabriel can swear he hears a sound of hooves dampened by the undergrowth. He checks his daggers and arrows. The bow, he grips in his hand. He enters the forest.
*
In every whispered old wives’ tale there is a grain of truth hidden away behind the curtains of words and wishful thinking, and so, on the eve of Kupala’s Night, unwed girls run carefree through the forest in search of the Fern Flower, and the young boys pursue them until they find each other and together fall into the soft undergrowth – for the Fern Flower is an impossible thing – and it requires a miracle to bloom.
Gabriel, with wolves black as night and fawns white as snow keeping to his side, runs through the forest giving a chase to a great old stag. It is a tale as ancient as the world itself, the hunter after the game. It is the magic greatest of them all, where blood, love, and death intersect.
An old god’s lifeblood spills in a sacrifice and brings forth a miracle, for where it feeds the earth the Fern Flower blooms, radiant, perfect, and impossible.
When the morning comes, Jack plucks the flower and offers it to Gabriel – a gift well received – and Gabriel slowly traces the new scar on Jack’s neck with his fingertips.
The love of a fae is not a thing a mortal can understand. It burns with the intensity of a single purpose, it bathes itself in blood and death, it is jealous and possessive, and yet, there is no greater miracle than god loving a fleeting thing a man is.
Years later, when the flower is all but ground to dust, Gabriel’s blade sunk in Jack’s breast is a gift well received – for there is no greater miracle a man can offer to a god than the death itself.