Chapter 21 #2
I smelled smoke, felt the rage building up in my throat, felt it coming out of my mouth as hot lava. There were screams, the smell of something burning, and I realized I was burning the last of the elder tree roots.
“Airón,” Tallu said. He covered my hands with his, pulling the roots I clutched in the silk scarf free and putting out the flames with his own flesh.
His skin blackened and bubbled, and I gasped, crying out.
I shoved back from Tallu, aware that all of the plants around me had burned.
Covering my mouth with my hands, I forced the lava back into my throat, trying to draw my rage back inside of me, but that was the danger with fire magic.
Like the volcano the dragon had set to life, my rage could not be contained until it burned itself out.
I sat back on my heels, screaming up into the air, watching the flames burst from my flesh, spout from my mouth like a torturous, horrible song.
My mother had sacrificed me and Eona?. She had treated us as things. She had decided when we still grew inside her belly that we would not be children, but the tools for her revenge.
There had never once in my entire life been a moment where I had been allowed to choose my own destiny. Spider might see the golden thread that wrapped around me, holding me to my path, but I had never even had the illusion that I would be allowed a choice.
My mother had never loved me.
The thought dampened my anger, banking my fury. It had been so deeply held, the suspicion that I was a thing, not a person, and yet I knew it was untrue.
There had been a memory… I had given it away, and as soon as I had given it away I had begun to doubt my mother’s love for me.
I tried to remember, but the missing past was a gaping wound in my mind, akin to the missing tooth of the elven child.
So I searched my mind for other memories of my mother and came up with more. Yes, she had been cold, but she was a northern queen.
She had forced herself to be cold because she had once told me that men built houses, but women built kingdoms. Then she had stroked my cheek and told me of the house she had imagined I would build someday with children and wolves and as many spouses as I wanted.
Around me, the ground still smoldered, but I felt the fire going out inside me.
My mother had taught me to play a strategy game from Ristorium, spending hours each winter over the course of years until I finally was a capable opponent.
My mother had come into my room the night before Eona? and I had left for the Imperium and sat next to our beds, crying into her hands when she thought we were asleep.
Tallu approached, kneeling in front of me, ignoring the embers that lingered on the ground. He stroked the back of his hand over my cheek.
“Are you back with us?” he asked.
I closed my eyes. I could still smell the burning flesh on his palms, the acrid scent horrible. Tallu stroked the backs of his fingers up to my temple and I opened my eyes, grabbing his hands. His palms were blackened, bubbling with blisters.
I bent my head, kissing his fingers, kissing his palms. What had I done?
In losing my grief, in sacrificing the part of me that felt empathy not just for my mother and the horrible decision she had been forced to make, but also for all of the potential harm the Imperium could do to the Northern Kingdom, all of the harm it had done to Tavornai and Forsaith and the Ariphadi desert, I had given up the part of my soul that made me myself and yielded to an anger that ate at me.
Closing my eyes, I drew on my desire to heal Tallu, feeling it rise in me with a certainty that was more comforting than the anger had ever been.
I felt his hands cool, ice crystallizing on his skin, and, underneath, the flesh healed. Kissing his palms, over and over, my lips went numb, but when I finally let go, his palms were whole and unbroken.
He cupped my face in his hands, kissing me. “What happened?” he asked between kisses.
“I gave up something I shouldn’t have,” I said.
“What?” he asked.
“Growing these trees requires grief. Because it is grief to know that when you plant a seed, you will never see it fully grown. You will never know what happens to it after you die.” I touched my hand to the charred roots.
I could feel they were still alive, feel the hum of magic in them.
“If you plant these trees, they will outlive you until you are nothing more than a distant memory. They demand your grief in advance.”
But it was more than that. The elves were so long-lived that they had more than enough grief to spare.
If they let it settle within them, their souls would curdle from all that they had lost or not done or not received.
To anyone who lived as long as them, grief would be a curse that only practicing their magic could free them from.
“I see.” Tallu looked down at the roots, then up at me, and I knew better than most that he was one whose life had been defined by grief, whose life had been defined by guilt over things he had done, but also everything that his family had done.
“For some, it might be a great relief to have such a burden lifted off their shoulders.”
“It left room in my heart for an anger that doesn’t belong there,” I said.
“Have you finished?” Tallu asked. Behind him, shadows moved across the field, and I recognized them as his Dogs. Terror swooped over the charred remains of the plants, dipping low to snap at some insects that my rage had exposed.
“Your Imperial Majesty,” Sagam said. “We must leave. If Namati didn’t know where you are already, he most certainly does now.”
“Isn’t that what we want?” I asked dryly. “If I’d known all it took to draw our missing general out was setting fire to the forest, we could have saved ourselves quite a bit of trouble.”
I pushed myself to standing, covering the roots in the silk handkerchief. It had survived, although the edges warped and curled from the heat they had been exposed to.
On my feet, I could see the extent of my rage, and it was even more terrible than I expected. I had nearly burned down the elder trees I had just grown; char marks reached to shoulder-height on the bark.
Rubbing at my face, I waited for my headache to pass and for my head to stop spinning.
Then I strode through the devastation. I would plant one more, but when I went to unwrap the scarf, small hands covered my own, pulling down, weighing my arms until I was forced to drop the scarf and all the roots.
Riini looked up at me, her eyes wide and desperate. “I gave so much of myself up because I had to. But you don’t. Stop.”
I shook my head. “The Pirate King demands more.”
Riini looked at me sharply, her eyes flashing a deep green as though the elder tree itself was speaking through her mouth. “Don’t you think the Pirate King knows exactly how much you will give?”
I inhaled sharply, and the green faded from Riini’s eyes.
Joxii bent low, picking up the roots. Lady Chaliko and the other children were still gathered around one of the elder trees, the children standing in front of it protectively as though I was about to start breathing fire again. I bowed my head in embarrassment.
“Come.” Tallu took hold of my elbow, guiding me through the swamp.
Mist rose up around us, turning the trees into hazy outlines of themselves. His Dogs drew closer, ready for an attack, but soon even they were invisible, the mist so thick that I only knew Tallu was there because he still had a hold of my elbow.
It cleared briefly, exposing the Pirate King—Spider—standing next to one of the newly grown elder trees.
She reached up, touching the bark. Then she turned to us, and the smile pulling at her lips was horrible and predatory.
“You have accomplished my task. You have sacrificed a great deal, including the anger that was buried so deep in your belly that not even you would admit it was there. You have sacrificed your memories and your power.” She dropped her hand from the tree, and three other pairs of arms spread out from her back, until she had eight hands. “So I will grant you what I promised.”