Chapter 47
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
My jaw drops. “What?”
“I always hear the whispers, you know.” A faraway look blows across Lavendera’s face for a moment as she draws her fingers over the scar that cuts across her cheek and jaw. “From people wondering how I got this scar. I got it in the war.”
“What war?” I breathe, my heart now pounding in my chest.
“The war.” Her gaze sharpens, and she looks from face to face with a serious expression on her beautiful features. “I was there. Six thousand years ago. I fought in the war. I was nineteen when the Icehearts decided to slaughter my entire people for a crime committed by a small group of outcasts.”
“I don’t understand.” I stare at her while shock and disbelief clang inside my skull. “How can you be over six thousand years old? That’s six times longer than a fae is supposed to live.”
“I know.” A laugh slips from her lips until it turns into a sob. Pain and insanity flicker in her eyes. “Trust me, I know.”
Dead silence falls over the thick woods for a few seconds as we all just stare at Lavendera. In the distance, dragons roar and beat their wings as they fly back and forth across the city, trying to figure out where we went. But I can barely hear them over the ringing in my ears.
The first person to break the stunned silence is Alistair.
“Mabona’s fucking tits.” Anger pulses across his face as he flings his arm out and stabs a hand at Lavendera in accusation. “If you’re the daughter of the Seelie Queen, then why the hell are you fighting for the Icehearts now?”
Pain and desperation once again shine in her eyes. “Because only they can give me what I want.”
“And what is that?” I demand.
“The Soul of Trees,” a new voice suddenly says.
We all whirl around, half of us dropping into fight stances, before we find the source of the voice.
The Dryad Queen glides out of the lush green vegetation to my left. Her hair and dress, still made up entirely of vines and leaves and twigs, ripple behind her when she moves. We all watch her, but her brown eyes are entirely focused on Lavendera.
“You said that the only way we would get it back was if they give it to us,” the Dryad Queen says, ancient power dripping from her voice.
“So we did as you said. We backed off. We left you alone so that they would not grow angry and keep it from you out of spite.” Fury flashes across her face.
“But then I hear from this fae,” she nods towards me, “who fell into our lands last year, that the Icehearts are making you fight and kill each other for sport.”
“I was—” Lavendera begins.
“You know what would happen if you were to be killed!”
“Of course I do!”
“We made an agreement.”
“I know. And I’m trying.” A sob full of pain and desperation escapes her lips. “I’m trying.”
“Your way is not working. It has been six thousand years. If they were going to keep their word and give you the Soul of Trees in exchange for loyal service, they would have done it already.”
“Stop,” Draven demands before Lavendera can reply. His voice pulses with authority as he looks between Lavendera and the Dryad Queen. “Explain what the hell is going on here. How can you be over six thousand years old? What agreement did you make? And what is the Soul of Trees?”
The Dryad Queen slides sharp eyes to Draven but doesn’t answer. However, she doesn’t shut down his questions either, so Lavendera heaves a long sigh.
“It was towards the end of the war,” she begins.
“I was leading a group of my friends on a mission to take out the Icehearts’ information center, but we were ambushed.
The Icehearts had been hunting me across the world because of my very rare tree magic, and my friends knew that.
So they… traded me to the Icehearts in exchange for their own lives.
” A harsh laugh rips from her throat. “They survived that day but were then executed along with everyone else when we lost the war.”
My heart twists. By Mabona. Her own friends sold her out to the Icehearts?
“After that, I was… tortured.” The flat way she says that word makes me think that it was brutal and extensive. “Earlier that year, Bane had stolen the Soul of Trees from the dryads.”
The Dryad Queen lets out a low growl while age-old fury burns in her eyes.
“And they used that to fuse me with the Mother Dryad,” Lavendera finishes.
We all just stare at her. My head is pounding.
“What does that even mean?” I ask.
“It means that I’ve had an immortal dryad living inside my head for six thousand years!” she snaps.
I jerk back in shock. “That’s why you don’t age? Because you have been fused with the… Mother Dryad?” I say the title hesitantly since I don’t even understand what it means.
“Yes.”
“And that is why we hate the Icehearts,” the Dryad Queen adds, her voice cold. “Only the Mother Dryad can create new dryads. But she is trapped inside Lavendera Dawnwalker. And if she is killed, the Mother Dryad dies as well, and then there will be no more dryads. Ever.”
“Azaroth’s flame,” Lyra curses under her breath.
“The Soul of Trees is an artifact,” Lavendera begins.
“It is not an artifact,” the Dryad Queen hisses. “It is the Soul of—”
“It is an artifact,” Lavendera interrupts, frustration flashing across her face. “It is a precious and meaningful and invaluable thing for the dryads, but it is a physical item, which means that it is also an artifact.”
The Dryad Queen narrows her eyes but doesn’t dispute the point.
“It is the only thing that can split me and the Mother Dryad back into two people,” Lavendera continues, that desperation bleeding into her voice again. “Bane and Jessina promised that they would give it to me if I served them loyally.”
“And you believed them?” Isera retorts, her eyes cool.
“I didn’t have a choice!” Her chest heaves, and her gaze slides in and out of focus several times.
“I have no idea where it is. We have no idea where it is. And it’s not like I can just search for it freely.
I am kept on a very short leash. Always guarded.
Always observed. They always know where I am and what I’m doing.
So the only way I can get it is if they give it to me.
And it’s the only thing I want! It’s the only thing that will give me freedom. ”
“But why did they even do that in the first place?” Galen asks, shaking his head at her in confusion. “Why did they want to fuse you with the Mother Dryad?”
“To raise the thorn forest, of course.”
Isera, Alistair, and I all jerk back slightly in shock.
“You raised the thorn forest?” I ask. I feel like the entire world is tilting around me.
“Yes. When they fused us, it created a massive power surge as our magic combined. That is how the thorn forest around the Seelie Court was created.” Agony floods her features. “And that is ultimately why we lost the war.”
My heart hammers in my chest. “So if we find this Soul of Trees and use it to split you and the Mother Dryad…?”
“The thorn forest will disappear. It’s kept in place by our combined magic, so if we split, there is nothing left to hold it together.”
I drag in an unsteady breath as my head spins. I knew that Lavendera would be important. But this… This is beyond anything I could have guessed.
“But don’t you see?” Galen begins carefully while still shaking his head at her in disbelief. “That is why they will never give you the artefact. If they do, the thorn forest will disappear. They never had any intention of giving it to you.”
“What else was I supposed to do?” she yells back at him, her voice almost breaking with desperation.
“We have no idea where it is, and I have no chance of finding it on my own since I haven’t been able to set one foot outside the Ice Palace without them knowing about it.
So it was either do what they want and there is a slim chance that they might actually give it to me.
Or actively work against them, which they would hear about within five minutes, and ensure that they never give it to me.
And I want it. I want to be free from this! ”
My heart twists painfully again at the pure anguish in her voice.
“You think you’ve had it bad, being forced to do their bidding for two hundred years?
” she demands as she locks eyes with Draven.
“I’ve been forced to do it for six thousand years!
I’ve lived for six thousand years with another person inside my head.
” Insanity flashes in her eyes like bolts of lightning.
“Do you have any idea how fucking crowded that is?”
All of her strangeness suddenly makes perfect sense. All of the odd things she says, the way she just completely disassociates from the world, the way she stares unseeing at walls while her mind retreats, the random panic attacks when she screams about how crowded it is.
It’s because there is another person inside her head. And not just a person. An immortal dryad who is an entirely different species from her.
Another broken sob rips from Lavendera’s chest, and her knees suddenly buckle. Hitting the grass hard, she gasps in panicked breaths. “I just want it to stop. Please, make it stop.”
The Dryad Queen’s features soften in a way that I have never seen before. Crouching down, she wraps her arms around Lavendera and pulls her close to her chest. “You have been so strong, Daughter of the Dawn.”
Tears stream down Lavendera’s face while broken sobs continue racking her chest. “I’m so tired.”
“I know, child. But I need you to be strong for a little while longer.”
I glance around at my friends. They all seem to be thinking the same thing, because they nod.
All except Orion, who is staring at Isera with intense eyes.
My heart jerks at the reminder of that. Orion now knows that Isera lied, which means that his promise to help us is no longer valid.
And that means that we have lost the Unseelie Court.
But we have also gained a lot.
After seeing all my friends nod, I shift my gaze back to Lavendera and the Dryad Queen. “We will help you find the Soul of Trees.”
Lavendera just continues crying, her eyes sliding in and out of focus as the Mother Dryad no doubt continues taking over her mind for periods of time. But the Dryad Queen lifts her head and looks up at me.
Her eyes are serious as she gives me a slow nod. “And you have brought Lavendera back to us, and in so doing moved the Mother Dryad out of harm’s way, which means that we will honor our agreement. The dryads will go to war.”
My heart stutters as both dread and anticipation swirl through my chest.
The dryads are with us. And with Lavendera no longer helping the Icehearts, they have lost their ability to use dragon steel.
Which means that Rin Tanaka is now on our side, which in turn means that half of the other dragon clans are as well.
We also know how to remove the thorn forest. And what’s more, we have someone who was alive six thousand years ago.
Lavendera knows everything that happened back then.
She knows everything about our culture. She must know how the partnership between fae and dragon shifters worked.
For the first time in weeks, hope washes through my soul like warm summer waves.
This mission was a roaring success. At long last, we might finally have everything we need to take the fight to the Icehearts. We might actually win this war now.
With a smile on my face, I look up to meet my friends’ eyes again.
Alarm crackles up my spine.
I scream as an arrow shoots straight towards Draven’s neck.