Chapter 18 #2
Lady Chaliko nodded. “We hoped that if we showed evidence of them, the emperor would send more money, more supplies, and we would be able to save the trees and the dragons with them.”
“What happened to the elf?” I asked. “This was the work of her lifetime, and she is not here.”
Lady Chaliko crossed her arms over her stomach.
“She told us that she had been given the task by Spider. And that she could carry it on her shoulders no longer. When we accomplish the task, when we regrow the trees and save as many elven children as we can, Spider will return and make sure that the tree is kept safe.”
“And reward you?” I couldn’t keep the suspicion from my voice.
Lady Chaliko shook her head, taking the dead dragon over to the tree that it had clearly grown from. Gently, she placed the corpse on the soft earth around the base of the tree. “I fear my father will die before the task is done. And when he does, there is no reward I would want.”
It sounded like a lie. I knew it was. She was an imperial and yet her own nation had taken everything from her.
“Spider promised you that when the task is done, the Imperium will fall,” I predicted.
Lady Chaliko put her hand on the dead dragon. She shook her head in denial. “No. We were promised that when we regrow the elder tree, there will be peace.”
“Peace,” I said, doubt coloring my tone.
“Peace.” She stroked her fingers over the branches of the dead sapling and they broke under the gentle touch.
“And what does peace look like?” I asked, feeling something like possibility curl in my chest and echo in my ears.
“I do not know. I have only known death and blood my entire life, but I should like to see it. Wouldn’t you?” She looked at me with such hope and desperation that I was forced into honesty.
“I am not sure that I will survive well with peace, but I want it nonetheless.” I looked around the room. “So, you tend this garden and hope?”
“Yes,” Lady Chaliko began walking down the rows of plants.
“She does more than tend the garden. She practices plant magic.” Na? seemed deeply satisfied. “She practices elven magic. Ask her about it. I can smell it on her and these insects she calls dragons. Perhaps I should eat one. I don’t imagine they have any more meat than a newborn chick.”
I squinted at Lady Chaliko, but whatever Na? sensed, I didn’t. “You practice elven magic?”
Lady Chaliko paled, holding up her hands. “No. Elletrailu—the elf who gave us her burden—she tried to teach me, but I don’t have the skill for it. Neither did any of my brothers.”
“Who did she teach? Na? says that someone around here is practicing elven magic to try and grow these elder trees.” I stepped close to one of the living ones, reaching out to see if I could sense the magic the way I could with Na?’s ice or the fire dragon’s lava.
As I brushed my fingers over a leaf, it came to life, color spiraling over it, then down the trunk and settling into the roots.
They flared with light for a moment, visible through the soil and pot before dissipating.
Frowning, I tried again, inhaling sharply as I saw a spark jump from my fingertip to the leaf before it made the same pattern—down the trunk and into the roots.
Lady Chaliko gasped. “You have the power. You have the same power as the elves.”
I looked sharply at Na?, who pulled back on her haunches, sitting upright. She rubbed her front paws together. “I did tell you that the hole in your head left room for other magics.”
“I thought you meant dragon magic.”
“You relearned animal speak. There’s no reason you couldn’t learn this.” Na? licked one of her paws, drawing it across the crest on her head. She closed her eyes. “Elven magic was also taught by the One Dragon.”
Before I could ask any questions, Lady Chaliko rushed forward, grabbing hold of my hands tightly. “You could help. You could help us fulfill the task.”
“How?” I drew my hands away from hers. Her skin was too warm, as though she had absorbed the heat of the swamp during her time here.
“My brothers tried, but… it didn’t work.
Whatever magic they had was snuffed out.
They left, joining the Pirate King. It was the only way they could think of to help.
” Lady Chaliko looked at me, her eyes shining.
“But with you, we’ll have more than one magic user.
Maybe we’ll have enough to save one of these trees, to let one of the dragons grow. ”
“Lady Chaliko, who is the other magic user?”
Lady Chaliko’s forehead creased, and she started to speak before biting her lip. She shook her head. “Not until you promise to help.”
“I will not make any promises.” I kept my voice firm. I couldn’t lie to her. Not when she had so much hope, not when the desperation in her gaze felt like yet another stone placed upon my grave.
“You must.” She hesitated. “You must want peace, too. You come from the north. What hope is there for your nation with the Imperium at war?”
“Lady Chaliko—”
“I am the other magic user.” The voice that rang out was familiar, and I let my head drop. I had been hoping it wasn’t true, even though it was the only thing that made sense.
“Riini.” I watched as Sagam’s sister seemed to melt from between the plants, coming into existence as though crawling out of one of the trunks of the stunted saplings. “You take after your brother and your sister?”
“I take after my mother.” Her eyes were no longer childlike and they shined in the darkness with the same fluorescence I saw in the plants. They glowed a bright green that faded to pale blue as she looked out across the greenhouse of dying elder trees.
“Your mother taught you elven magic?” I didn’t approach her, feeling my whole body tense. Her ability to move from one place to the other was the sort of magic that made her the most dangerous person I might ever fight.
“She taught all of us magic, although we didn’t know that at the time.
Before she died, she gave us tea. She said it was an old remedy.
” Riini stepped toward the dead seedling that would never be an elder tree and dug her fingers down into the dirt, tearing out something and bringing it into the light.
She dusted it off with her fingers. “She knew she was dying, and she knew at least one of us would have the gift.”
“You drank tea made from the elder trees’ roots,” Na? said. From their flinches, both Lady Chaliko and Riini heard her.
Riini nodded. “My brother and sister both have some of the magic, but not enough to know what the gift did.”
“You poor thing. How cruel your mother must have been.” Na? shook her head, then began to shift.
I looked away, even as Lady Chaliko stared at her, mouth falling open.
Riini didn’t look away from the elder tree root she held in her hand, the diseased thing nearly gray, mold or fungus already consuming the root.
I glanced down at Na? to see that she had finished. I had no clothing to offer her, so I cleared my throat. “Lady Chaliko?”
“Oh!” Lady Chaliko pulled off the outer layer of her dress, carefully helping Na? into it.
She rolled up the sleeves with familiarity, clearly used to helping children into clothes that didn’t fit.
She was just barely out of childhood herself, and yet she had spent most of her life caring for other children.
“My mother wasn’t cruel,” Riini said, tucking the root into her pocket.
“She knew that there was no other way for me to learn the magic I would need to survive in the short time she had before dying. She knew that when the emperor and his soldiers burned the elder trees that grew in the Imperium, there would be not a single elder tree left on the continent. Our people would die, blinded with the lack of our own history, ignorant of what was taken from us.”
“Drinking the tea of the elder tree taught you magic?” I asked, looking between Na? and Riini.
Na? spoke, her voice as high as Riini’s and just as old.
“Drinking tea made from the roots of an elder tree gave her all of the knowledge the tree contained. Just as I was born with all of my mother’s memories and all of the memories of my grandmother, she has been cursed with the entire knowledge of the elven people.
Not simply their magic, but also the library of information they stored in their elder trees.
” Na? approached her, and in the form of a human girl, she barely reached to Riini’s chin.
She reached up, cupping Riini’s cheek, her face creased in sadness.
“History. Experiences. Discoveries. Magic. It is too much for a child to bear.”
“Do not dare tell me what is too much to bear.” Riini’s voice was amplified, echoed by all of the dragons in the room.
They swarmed around her, their small chirps emphasizing her words.
“We are the last memory of the elven people. Do not pity us, dragon of the north with your ice and your voracious appetite. Your magic is want. It is selfish. The magic of the elves, the magic of the forest dragons, is in sacrifice.”
“Yes. You sacrificed her childhood. You sacrificed her,” I said, shaking my head.
I wasn’t even sure who I was speaking to, only that the child who had once been Sagam’s sister had been transformed by the magic she carried, by the history and knowledge that took up every space inside her.
“I suppose in that way the north and the elves are not so different.”
“I offered myself,” Riini said.
But the dragons echoed a different phrase. “She offered herself.”
“It’s easy to say that, after you’ve already taken hold of her.” I stepped forward, crouching down so that I was eye level with Riini. “It wasn’t just knowledge, was it? Trust me, I’ve become an expert in things living in your head. What’s in there with you?”
Riini pulled her lips back from her teeth, stepping away from Na?’s gentle hand. Her tendrils thrashed around her, nearly knocking one of the trees onto the floor before she grabbed hold of the fragile pot with her hands.
“The magic of the elder tree needs somewhere to go.” Lady Chaliko spoke up, her voice sad. “Please. Help us grow a tree that is strong enough to take the knowledge Riini bears.”
“And then we’ll all have peace?” I tried not to let the bitterness seep into my words, but Lady Chaliko flinched away from it. “I don’t want some prophecy from Spider. I want to speak to the animalia herself. I’ll help when I can have a guarantee that I can speak with Spider afterward.”
“Alright.” Riini bowed her head. “If you give me a tree, I will give you Spider.”
“Is that a promise you can really make?” I asked.
“Yes.” Riini stared at me, her fluorescent eyes changing color as she blinked. “Yes.”
“What do I need to do?” I tapped my finger against one of the leaves, the spark for my fingertip moving along the leaf and down the trunk. “This?”
“More than that. That is flint knocking together in the dark. To grow a tree you must know the basics of elven magic.” She gestured for me to come forward.
“And I assume you don’t mean to give me a cup of tea and skip the lesson?” I couldn’t keep the bite out of my voice.
“No.” Riini blinked, her eyes losing their color, turning into the same brown as Sagam’s eyes.
“Have you seen your brother yet?” I asked.
“I saw him. I saw Joxii. And it made me realize I can’t face them until…” She blinked, her eyes flaring bright green.
She gestured to the ground, drawing her fist up, and the wood under our feet screamed in protest before shifting and creating two stools for us to sit on.
Then she began to teach me. The premise was very similar to what Na? had already taught me. The dragon shifted back into her natural form, curling at my feet and snapping at the smaller forest dragons anytime they came too close.
Ice magic relied on desire, on wanting something deep in your bones, needing to have it, despite the cost. Fire magic was emotions: rage that couldn’t be contained, fury that melted your own heart, jealousy and hatred that spilled from inside.
But as Riini spoke, I saw that forest magic—elven magic—was about connection. It was about giving instead of taking. Forest magic was about exchanging your knowledge, your power, your life, for the betterment of the entire forest.
“So when you do anything to shift the trees, you’re sacrificing something of yourself?” I knocked my knuckles against the wooden stool I sat on. “What did this cost you?”
“An hour, a year, does it matter? In the end, the forest will pay me back if what I’m doing helps it.
Just as the tide brings back sand that it pulled away when it retreated.
If what I’m doing is to the benefit of the community, to the benefit of the trees, then in the end I will get it back.
” Riini made it sound reasonable, but I thought about the massive roots that had exploded out of the earth, nearly trapping Irad?o and me.
“And what if what you do doesn’t help the forest?” I asked.
“Then I have sacrificed my life for nothing.” Riini shook her head.
I knocked my fist against the wooden stool again. “How will this help the forest?”
“Regrowing the elder tree helps the forest.” Riini’s face grew fierce, her features sharpening. “Without the elder trees’ guidance, the forest has grown out into the ocean. It will continue to grow, taking over more of the sea and more of the land. Without the elder trees, there is no balance.”
“Wouldn’t that be good for the elves? If they have more land?”
“The trees will starve or steal the nutrients from the plants that already live there. They will provide the wrong habitat for animals. There will be too many of them for the elves to care for.” Riini stared at me, unblinking.
“Or, they will steal the water and food from the elves themselves. Very few things can grow in the shade of these trees. What food could grow under branches that block out the sunlight and drink magic from the soil itself?”
“So I need to sacrifice something to help you grow the elder tree.” I looked at my hand, considering the smooth skin. I had felt old for most of my life, older than my years, but now I was faced with the reality that I might actually be giving up my youth.
“Yes.” Riini nodded. “If you and I work together, we can grow an elder tree. We can see why the rest of them are dying even though I have sacrificed to make sure they take root.”
I fisted my hand. My decision had already been made. “Do you promise that if we do this you will lead me to Spider?”
“If we do this, Spider will come to us herself.” Riini extended her hand. “Are you ready?”