I promised to publish one post a week in September, and as this post shows, I intend to keep my promise. This is the first post of what I am calling Sliberberg Stories. This series is a set of short stories narrated by the Silver Lady of Sliberberg, a spiritual being bound to the kingdom of New Mountainheart since its founding 500 years ago, exploring the lives of people living there. We start the series with the Silver Lady’s story, which reimagines the first short story I published on this blog. It took me a few tries to get the story right; it was hard to put myself into the head of a city, but I think I got the story right in the end.

The tale of Fredrick and Aoibheann.

I go by many names: the Silver Kingdom, the new Heart of the Mountains, and the Silver Lady of Sliberberg. I am best known as New Mountainheart. I am the heart of this land, watching over valleys and mountains, forests and towns, and all the souls that find their place within my borders. I feel their joy, pain, sorrow, and rage. There are a million stories within me, the stories of people who call my towns and villages home, and I know all those tales by heart. So stay with me for a while, and I may share a story with you; it is a sad story, still unfurling, and has yet to see an ending that is either happy or sad, but it needs to be told.
Once upon a time, there was a kingdom called Bergherz in a small, mundane world far away from the enchanted borderlands where we dwell. It was a tiny kingdom barely larger than one of our kingdom’s duchies, located in the valleys high in a mighty mountain range. However, this kingdom was surrounded by larger nations on each side. The high mountains provided some protection from invasions from beyond, but young King Edward von Bergherz knew it would only be a matter of time before one of his neighbors formed an army large enough to conquer his little kingdom. So he decided to look for something to turn the tides; he would look for magic.
As strange as it might seem in the Märchenweltgrenze, magic was rare in Edward’s world. A kingdom could go centuries without seeing a single spell cast within its borders. The cheapest and least potent magic swords in my lower ward’s Market Grove Bazaar would be considered treasures beyond price in this world, meticulously cared for and passed down through generations. Even the gods showed little interest in this world, and the tiniest bit of divine intervention or healing magic would be considered the greatest of miracles. What few magic users existed in this world would travel through the incredibly rare portals to other worlds to make pacts with powerful otherworldly entities for a tiny bit of their power or an enchanted weapon. So when a huntsman discovered a portal to what appeared to be the feywild in a remote valley in the mountains, Edward knew this was his one chance to save his kingdom.
So, according to the tales my mother and Fredrick’s father have told me, Edward and a few hand-picked knights rode to the secret valley. For two days, they traveled across treacherous mountain trails and untouched woodlands. They found the portal in a sylvan grove when they reached the valley. The portal shimmered with irradiant colors within a ring of giant toadstools. According to Edward’s version of the tale, the horses were spooked by the presence of the portal, so he dismounted and led the group through the portal on foot and, on the other side, found themselves in a clearing in the sprawling ancient forest to the north of where Neuesbergherz now stands. He encountered a leprechaun who told him where to find what he sought. Over the mountains to the north was the Enchanted Lands, whose ruler was an archfey known to make pacts with mortals.
So Edward and his men rode off into the treacherous wilderness of Märchenweltgrenze to find this archfey; they braved the dangerous wild magic that dwelt in the forests and the mountains, and after four days of traveling, they reached the Enchanted Lands. Oh, you don’t know where the Enchanted Lands are; I don’t blame you for your ignorance; few alive remember that, in the past, the Hexmarches were called the Enchanted Lands. I remember the hexmarches as they once were: a land of sylvan forests, crystal lakes and rivers, and verdant meadows where fairies, elves, and other fey folk lived in harmony with nature. It was a place where the wind whispered with magic, and the soft scent of flowers floated on the breeze. At the center of it was the castle of Ailénach An Draíocht, the Queen of Enchantments, and my mother. The castle was a towering citadel of crystal spires, flying buttresses rising out from a lake the color of a flawless mirror. I remember King Edward telling me how men stared in awe at the tableau the first time they entered my mother’s domain and how friendly they found the fey folk.
When they arrived at the castle, he was led through the towering halls to the throne room, where my mother sat in resplendent robes and adorned with jewels. According to stories from the meeting, Edward fell to his knees and prostrated himself on the ground.
“Oh, mighty Queen of the Faries,” he humbly pleaded, “Grant me some tiniest bit of your power. I care not what it might be, a magic sword or some spells to cast. I will pay anything to have more magic than what my kingdom has now.” There was a moment of silence, and then my mother giggled. Edward looked up in stunned disbelief to see that my mother was laughing.
“Oh mighty Queen of the Faries, I said all that I said in the truest sincerity; why do you think I jest?” asked Edward.
“You come to my castle, king of men, with all seriousness, prostrate yourself on the ground and ask for trivial baubles like the ability to cast a single spell or one of my knight’s swords?” She said, still giggling, “Yet you offered me anything I could desire of yours as payment, and you do not find this funny?” Edward stared blankly for a moment. My mother sighed. “Among my many gifts, I am blessed with the powers of prophecy,” she told Edward, ” In a few short months, I will give birth to a daughter. I have foreseen that she will have beauty to rival any flower, a kind, pure heart, and intelligence that surpasses the greatest sages. Likewise, your own house will bear fruit soon. As we speak, your wife carries your firstborn son. I have seen his future; he will grow up as brave as a lion, as strong as a bear, and as wise as an owl. He will be a king of legend and myth. Together, they will turn your kingdom into a great empire that will endure through the ages. If you truly are willing to give me anything, swear to me this: when our children come of age, they will wed and rule their new empire together. If you agree to my terms, I will teach you the secrets of magic.”
I have been told that Edward knelt there, stunned by my mother’s offer, for several minutes. I would not blame him; he came expecting a trifling, and here was a powerful fey queen offering him everything he could desire and more; what she was offering him could make his tiny kingdom into an empire. When he regained his composure, he agreed. The two sealed the contract in the ancient ways of the fey through the magic of blood intermingled on a magic knife.
For seven months, Edward dwelt in my mother’s court. According to my mother, Edward was the best student a teacher could ask for back then. From morning until nightfall, she and her top wizards and sages poured out all the knowledge of magic they had to offer, which Edward eagerly consumed. To his and everyone else surprise, he was a natural when it came to the wizardly arts. When he left my mother’s palace, he did so with treasures beyond measure in his world: a dozen magic swords, books full of arcane lore, many magic artifacts, and abilities to rival many wizards across many worlds.
Shortly afterward, my mother gave birth and named me Aoibheann An Draíocht. Edward arrived in his capital just in time to witness his firstborn son, Fredrick’s birth. I do not remember much from the early days of my life, but I have been told that when Fredrick and I first met as babies, it was clear that we were destined to be together. I agree with that sentiment, for as far back as I can remember, Fredrick and I were always on each other’s sides. I remember how we would get up to all kinds of mischief together in our parent’s palaces, how we played for endless hours in the gardens, poured over every storybook we could find in the library of my mother’s castle, and wandered the alpine forests and meadows of Bergherz and Sylvan glens and crystal lakesides of the enchanted realm, how I wish that those golden days would have lasted forever.
Things started to change as we grew up. The things my mother predicted started to come true. My beauty blossomed as I entered my teens; I had a perfect face, a slender figure, and luscious brown locks. True to my mother’s words, I was the subject of envy among the ladies of the Enchanted Lands; even the flowers seemed to turn green as I passed. However, Fredrick became a sight to behold as he entered his teen years; he was strong, brave, kind, and intelligent, with a flawless body and handsome wavy brown hair. Those around us would comment about how we looked like we stepped out of a book of fairytales. We had fun playing the part of the fairytale prince and princess couple. We made a game out of reenacting scenes from the fairytales we both loved as children, such as the knight defending his lady’s honor on the tournament field, the prince rescuing the princess from scoundrels and monsters in the forest, and my personal favorite, the lovestruck prince serenading the princess from the gardens below her tower. However, as our teen years wore on, things started to change. The game ceased to be simply just a game; we began to fall in love, and each day with Fredrick by my side became even more precious than the last.
However, like every fairytale, the fairytale days of our lives were not destined to last. Bergherz had grown in power under Edwards’s rule. It became the center for the nascent art of magic in that tiny world and, as a result, grew rich off trading the lore Edward gleamed from my mother to other kingdoms. The wealth and power changed Edward, who soon started coveting even greater power and glory. I never learned why King Edward did what he did. I think my mother’s prophecy of Bergherz becoming an empire in the near future that she told at their first meeting simply became too tempting, and he became too impatient to let fate take its course. Whatever the reason, King Edward used the vast amounts of magic at his command to conquer a neighboring kingdom. Then, he decided to marry Fredrick to the captured princess to ensure his new territories’ loyalty.
I am sure that Edward knew that what he did broke his blood oath with my mother all those years ago, but I doubt he knew what his betrayal would ultimately do to my mother. It is common for most outsiders to the Märchenweltgrenze to be unaware of the sacred nature of contracts, bargains, and oaths among us fey folk or that unpredictable and ruthless magic enforces the terms of contracts and oaths made by us fey and destroys those who break their word. I remember vividly the days and weeks after the news arrived in my mother’s castle about Edward breaking off my engagement. Mother spent that time in delusional denial about the whole affair, ranting about how Edward was not stupid enough to break a fey-blood oath. Once it became clear that he had broken his oath, she sent him letter after letter, trying to make him see the error of his ways. With every letter she sent, I noticed that my mother changed a little; she became less stable and less rooted in reality. It started to seem like the magic of the pact was turning my mother into someone else.
Eventually, she decided that the only way to resolve this mess was to go to Bergherz to resolve the issue face-to-face with King Edward. So we went with a grand procession of retainers escorting our pegasus-drawn carriage into the mortal world and through the mountains to Bergherz. If I had known what would happen when we arrived, I would have insisted that my mother stay behind in the Enchanted Lands. We arrived in the capital of Bergherz the day before Fredrick was to be wed to the princess. The peasantry was busily decorating the city for the royal wedding. My mother made a delusional comment about the people preparing for my wedding, to which I groaned. She leads me through the castle to the entrance to the throne room. She told me to wait here while she talked with the king. She went inside. I pressed my ear against the door to better hear what was being said beyond the door, but looking back, I wish I hadn’t. The calm talk quickly turned to angry, incomprehensible screaming between Edward and my mother.
Mother was furious when my mother exited the throne room; I do not recall seeing her that mad at any other time in my life. She grabbed me by the wrist and started to drag me to the bridal suite, saying that she was going to have a word with the girl who replaced me. When we reached the door to the suite, she used her magic to blast the door into smithereens. That alone was enough to fill me with terror at what my mother had become, but when she saw the princess that was to be Fredrick’s bride, she completely lost it. She started to rant madly at the princess and the maidservants about broken oaths, contracts, and punishments; she grabbed a candelabrum and tried to beat the poor girl to a pulp. I was so terrified that I fled through the halls. A company of knights passed by as I sprinted away. I could hear my mother scream at them as I passed out of the castle into the grounds.
I found Fredrick at the knight’s training ground and told him everything that happened, about the screaming match she got in with Edward, about how she madly tried to kill the girl his father was forcing him to marry. I am pretty sure I cried into his shoulder while I did so, and he embraced me lovingly. When I had calmed down, I told him I had a horrible feeling about how the quickly forming feud between our parents was going to end. He agreed with me, and at that moment, we decided to run away together before things got worse.
That night, we slipped over the castle walls and into the castle town, where one of our friends among Bergherz’s nobility had left a horse for us. We rode all night and most of the following day until we were far away from the castle town. We came across a small village at the very edge of the kingdom with an equally small church. On a whim, Fredrick decided that we should ask the priest to do the marriage rites for us; it was, after all, his wedding day. I am unsure if it was the heat of the moment or youthful foolishness that made me agree with him, but I did, and we wandered into the church and found that the priest was sympathetic to our plight. We thought it would be a short affair; we would get wed and leave the kingdom for good before whatever horrible thing I could sense approaching happened. However, news travels fast in small villages, and the prince and his beloved getting wed in the local church is the kind of news that travels faster than most. After the ceremony, we found that the local lord and the townsfolk had prepared a complete wedding feast for us. It felt wrong for us not to accept the townfolk’s hospitality despite my feeling of oncoming doom, so we partook of the merriment and the feast.
Unbeknownst to anyone in Bergherz, my mother had fled from the kingdom back to the Enchanted Lands; I know this because I regularly deal with assassins sent by her to kill Fredrick. I can only speculate as to what happened in the Enchanted Lands on that faithful day, but it is clear that the day events had driven my mother insane with rage. She must have invoked the blood oath’s power between Edward and her to destroy Edward and everything he had wrought since they first met.
I don’t know how long we celebrated with the townsfolk of that little village; it could have been minutes or hours. However, the festivities ended when several villagers shouted out in alarm. Fredrick and I turned, and our eyes widened with terror. Thundering down the valley was a wall of water dozens of feet high. The twilight of the evening stained the water blood red, and it seemed to crackle with magic. Before I knew what was happening, Fredrick grabbed me in a bear hug; instinctually, I wrapped my arms around him and put my cheek to his. We barely had time to brace ourselves before the wall of water washed over us.
I only have bits and pieces of what happened next. We and the rest of the town were swept away by the maelstrom thundering down the valley. I remember Fredrick holding onto me tightly as the swells threw us about. I saw the limp bodies of the village folk who insisted that we celebrate our wedding thrown about like rag dolls and shut my eyes, hoping to see no more horrors in the raging water. Then, there was a massive impact, and I felt Fredrick’s arms loosen just enough for the waves to bat me from his grasp. We called out for each other and swam toward each other, but the maelstrom was too ferocious, and we were soon separated. I tried my best to stay above the raging water, but the pounding waves and buffeting current soon started to overtake me. I felt the darkness creeping over my vision. Before I succumbed to unconsciousness, I saw a single star shining bright in the twilight skies above. With a single fleeting gasp, I shouted aloud a wish for someone, anyone, to come to our aid to save Fredrick, the people of Bergherz, and myself. The last thing I remember from that night was sinking into the water and my vision growing dark.
I awoke on a beach by the sea; I knew I was by the sea because I could feel the gentle waves tickle my head and hear seagulls cry above. However, I knew that something was wrong. The area where the gentle waves touched my feet was crawling with something; they felt like little crabs or bugs. I tried to wipe them away with my arm, but I couldn’t move my arm. I tried to open my eyes to see what prevented them from moving and realized that I could not. Panicking, I franticly tried to move any bit of my body and found that I was completely paralyzed. I tried to scream, but my immobile mouth muted the words. Desperately, I tried to open my eyes to see what had happened to me. Then, as if by some miracle, light flooded the darkness, and I could see again, and what I saw terrified me.
I was looking up towards the sky from the top of a low mountain. I moved my eyes around and I could see rocky wave-battered coastlines extending off into the distance, a bay extending from the mountain’s foot and a river along the side of the mountain emptying into the bay. Down below, I could see the pounding surf along the shoreline. The landscape painted before my eyes confused me; how could I be high up on a mountain and still feel gentle waves lapping at my body? Also, the surf I could see was not gentle; it was pounding the shore like a storm had passed through recently, so why did I feel gentle surf? Then, I had a disturbing thought and focused my mind on my body in hopes of feeling my limbs or the shape of my body. My arms and legs were gone, replaced by vast valleys of stone and earth. I could feel water trickling down my limbs and abdomen in the form of rivers. I could feel the waves lapping the shoreline where my hair once was. I did not want to believe it, but the facts were staring me in the face; I was not sitting on a mountain; the mountain was my head, and my body had become the landscape around me. I closed my nonexistent eyes, and inside my head started screaming. I prayed that this was some form of a strange dream and I could wake myself up.
While panicking about my new form, I felt the crawling sensation all over my new shoreline become more pronounced. I opened my eyes and focused on the stretch of shore far beneath my crown. I could barely distinguish the shape of people walking about on the beach. I wished that I could take a better look and felt my consciousness flow down the mountain like a silver mist toward the beach. After a brief moment of disorientation and surprise, I surveyed the beach in the form of a near-invisible cloud. The people on the beach were strange; they wore tattered and soaked clothing, their bodies were covered in fur, and they had features of small animals, including paws, snouts, and tails. However, I started to recognize these creatures from the tattered clothes they wore and the voices in which they spoke. I recognized some as friends of mine from Bergherz’s nobility and others as the people from the wedding feast at the village. Nowing that my wish was granted was enough to lift my spirit, but what happened next filled my heart with joy.
A voice that, while deeper than I remembered, was still instantly recognizable was calling my name. I did not want to wait; I willed by my misty presence toward the sound of my voice. That is when I found my beloved Fredrick. The same fate that befell the people of mountainheart also befell him; he had transformed into a hulking beast-man covered in brown fur. His hands had become closer to claws than human hands, sharp predatory teeth spouted from his mouth, and the tatters of his once pristine clothing hung about his massive and muscular frames. The knowledge of my beloved’s survival made my heart leap with joy but also filled it with pain. He was franticly searching for me, calling my name and asking the other survivors if they had seen me. I wanted to call out to him, to make him know that I was there, but when I tried to speak, flowers sprouted and bloomed around Fredrick’s feet instead.
After that initial day of pain and confusion, the months flew by quickly. As my mother predicted, Fredrick proved to be an exceptional leader; he quickly rallied the survivors and started building a town upon my shoreline at the base of my head. I watched them as they cut down the many trees that covered the slopes of my head and cut building blocks from my clifts.  I continued trying to communicate with the survivors and using my new powers to help them, but it rarely went as planned. For every bush of ripe berries I created for the survivors, there would be a rain of toads or a dog that started to talk like a man. As the town grew and new villages spread across my valleys, I discovered I could sense every person in the kingdom. Through the floors of their homes, they could feel every step, and I could hear the voices of every citizen of New Mountainheart through the walls.
For the first few decades, I was a modest kingdom. The people hugged my coast and built a few villages at the tail end of my central valley. At the top of my head was an old stone fort that my citizens transformed into a castle from which Fredrick ruled justly. I passed the time by watching my citizens go about their daily lives and working to develop my magic powers. As they fished and farmed, I would try to conjure things from the thin air and play simple tricks on the townsfolk to make them laugh. It was a simple and satisfying life. Then the ship came. A ship filled with gnomish and dwarven prospectors wreaked in the harbor. Being honest and upright, my citizens rescued them and gave them food and shelter. The Silver Mountain intrigued them, and they started to dig into its side and found a motherlode to put most others to shame, a massive vein of mystical feysilver.
Word of my motherlode spread quickly. Mortals and Fey flooded my streets, hoping to strike it rich. Seemingly overnight, Sliberberg transformed from a sleepy little market town to a bustling city. Initially, the transformation was exciting; the influx of new people brought new experiences and wonders. However, as exciting as the flood of new faces in my towns and villages was, it also brought sorrow to my heart. In the century after the discovery of the feysilver vein, every batch of new arrivals was brought to the palace. There, Fredrick would present them with a picture of me and ask if they had seen me. Most would answer no, but on the rare occasion that they said he had seen a woman who looked like me, he would get excited and head off on a grand adventure to find me. Fredrick would be gone for months, even years, but the adventures all ended the same; he would arrive home with a horde of treasure, some new accolades, and a story of his adventures, but his heart filled with disappointment and sadness. Eventually, the sadness started to build up, and he stopped smiling. It broke my heart to see him like this, and I decided to try to find any way to let him know I was still alright.
It took me decades of work and concentration to control my powers. I spent every day trying to manifest in a way that would let Fredrick know I was all right. I lost count of how many animals I gave the power of speech, buildings I transformed into massive pumpkins, and other oddities I created. Eventually, I wrestled enough control over my powers to create a ghostly image of me as once was in the air. Satisfied that I could at least communicate by writing in the air, I decided to manifest before Fredrick to send my message. With hope in my heart, I shifted my presence to Castle Sliberberg, and that hope shattered when I saw what awaited me. Fredrick had tried to kill himself; I was so busy focusing on my problems that I overlooked that Fredrick had sunk deeper and deeper into depression. He decided I must be dead and wanted to follow me into the afterlife, only to realize what I had known for centuries: Fredrik had transformed into something like mother, immortal and ageless. I decided that seeing the ghostly image of his wife was the last thing he needed to see at that moment. I would wait until this bout of depression passed, and I could better describe what happened to me.
It turned out to be wishful thinking on my part that he would recover. He eventually found himself on a never-ending loop of denial, anger, bargaining, and depression. He would spend a fortune seeking fortune tellers, mystics, and oracles. He chased down every lead he could find. Yet when the fortune tellers told him I was right here in the kingdom, and the leads did not pan out, he got angry and eventually sunk deeper into depression. Eventually, he stopped trying to rule at all, instead spending his days writing poetry about my beauty and painting scenes from those happy days of our childhood and adolescence. Seeing him like this made my heart break; however, despite gaining enough control over my powers so that I could speak, I dared not reveal myself. It may be selfish of me, but I fear what may happen if I did reveal myself to him. Would he still love me as a kingdom? If I revealed that my wish all those years ago was the reason for his suffering, would he hate me? Would the knowledge of my situation send him the last quest from which he would never return? These questions haunt my dreams and waking moments whenever I am tempted to manifest before Fredrick and explain everything.So I have spent centuries watching my citizens, gathering stories, and occasionally playing small tricks, what you call oddities, on my citizenry. My mother, Ailénach An Draíocht, occasionally dispatches assassins from the tattered remains of her once beautiful realm in a mad attempt to finish the destruction of Edwards’s legacy, and I ensure those assassins meet bad ends. I still watch over my beloved Fredrick; it makes my heart break to see him obsesse over me as if I were the only thing that would give his life meaning again. Yet, I still cannot reveal my presence to him. Is it selfish? Maybe. Would it end his suffering? I don’t know. Yet I cannot help but think that if I did tell him, it would end the limbo we have been sharing for centuries. However, I will not have to wait long for my answer to these questions. He plans to go to Mount Celestia to ask the gods where I might be found. Will he believe them when they give him the answer he has always sought? I do not know the answer, which will be a story for another time.