It was chilling to remind herself, despite the wave of heat that burst in her face as the elephant surged forth: Heavy is the head that wears the crown. 

Elsa snapped retorts quick and sharp as gunfire, but Tembovu’s words were swung gavel. For several moments she wished urgently that he would reconsider, staring at the side of his great, grave face with wide, stricken eyes. But she knew even in her child’s heart that there would be no moving him, and the tiny fervent ‘please’ stuck in her throat and choked her. There was always a certain terror when one saw the face of love – not just the face of a parent looking upon their newborn, but the face of a parent risen to defense, risen to sword. Tilney roared it, gentle as he was. And if Tilney could be mustered to arms, then Tembovu, father many times over— Tembovu, tall and broad in the shoulder— Tembovu, who watched over them all—

Heavy, heavy, heavy. 

Another ripple coursed through the crowd as people began to flank the King, building a grave wall between the doe, the briars, and the throng of on-lookers who had not yet made their choice. Frozen behind Tilney and blanketed in the Elephant King’s shadow, ears crushed to her poll and expression stony, Ultima felt no urge to join the barricade. She couldn’t recall if she’d seen anything die before. This was not a beetle. This was not even the crocodile, that rotten, decrepit gargoyle— The bramble was old and unique, same as the Rift-demon had been, but it— What? What? Was a better rhetorician? Had harmed not a hair on their heads, had not tainted a single dream?

But oh, sweet thing, how do you know? Its voice had hurtled through her like a blast of wind and her bones were still rattling, the feathers at her nape rigid as scales. Deep in her heart of hearts, in the part of her that had once spoken to birds, she knew – good or evil, lie or truth, it was too powerful to leave within their borders.

Yet the doe haunted her, pale and delicate as a moonbeam, or the lure of an anglerfish. Staring blearily (“Brides don’t cry,” she breathed, not realizing she’d done so aloud; it was lost to the crackle of fire anyhow, to the quiet sentences passed from juror to juror) at the deer and the thorns lurching behind it, she thought just once more, desperately, to speak, to beg for surety before they took another step. 

Nothing came out. 

There was only the smell of fire, the intent pendulum of lions’ tails, and that which must be done.

Ultima trembled forward, reaching for her friend’s shoulder. “Tilney.” A crack and a whine. “Tilney,” she tried again, the syllables reedy and small. Her jaw was sore with clenching. “Please. Please, let’s go. Please.”

And God, God, my God, she thought, Who Dreamt the Wood (and may You Dream forever) and all that lives within and without it— Who drives the rivers and sings the grass to growing— May there be peace at the end of this.

command me to be well.