Chapter 48 #2
Rissa cried out in pained delight as her own chains relinquished, and she leapt from branch to branch to descend from the tree. She dove from above, colliding with Ferris in a fierce embrace, the two sisters sobbing at their reunion and slumping to the ground as one.
Panic coiled inside my chest as the shoot encircling Ferris’s hand recoiled and returned to the earth. I scrambled forward on hands and knees, trying to catch hold of it myself.
“Wait!” I begged, looking to the Great Elm as the spirits stilled around it’s huge trunk in contented quiet.
“I’ll do anything. I’ll give anything for one more boon.
I assisted her.” I pointed to Ferris. “I helped bring her here. One gift is all I ask. My family are in the grip of death but on and on they linger, ever suffering, but unable to pass on to the afterworld no matter what I do to try and release them to it.”
I felt Ferris watching me but I couldn’t turn from the Great Elm, my desperation palpable.
“I wish for death, nothing more. Bring the spirit of my demise here. She stalks my every move regardless. Have me. Take me and my family into the grave. I want for nothing more. Release them and take me too.”
“Bane,” Ferris gasped, that final drop of truth falling upon her at last.
And there it was. I had never intended to live a day beyond the last of the Great Hunt.
I hungered for death as if it were nourishment, for there was nothing more for me in this wretched land. My family knew no peace and I only wanted to take them with me into the afterworld which we had all been denied for so long.
“You cannot die.” Ferris lunged for me, tugging on my arm, trying to draw me to my feet but I didn’t turn to face her as I spoke in a low growl.
“My death will end the plague of the Hollows. The last curse upon Rathian will be gone.”
“But you will be gone too,” Ferris said in anguish as if that possibility truly hurt her.
I looked at her then. This woman who had taken my last hope from me, and all I could feel was anger.
She had snatched it from my grasp. Even though I’d known it might come to this, I couldn’t fight how ruinously I hated her for it.
It was a bitterness that cut through my bones and branded me her villain.
“Death will not have you yet, Crownthief,” the Great Elm spoke to me through the tremors in the air and I felt her almighty power coursing through my veins, drawing my gaze from Ferris as she backed away from me with her sister.
I rose to my feet, snatching my sword, intending to cut through its damn trunk, but as I stepped forward, roots snared my ankles, binding around my calves and forcing me to a halt.
“Patience,” the Great Elm purred. “You are not done with living yet. For there is much you must achieve.”
“I will do nothing except seek my wish until I find a way to grant it,” I spat.
“You and the spirit singer are destined for a greater path. You must seek Providence, my dear, lost spirit. I believe someone trapped him, whether human, spirit, Hag or Fae, I do not know, but I believe he is caged, unable to escape.”
I swung my sword at the roots of the Great Elm, refusing to listen to her drivel.
The tree groaned as I hacked through one of them, the spirits rearing up, howling and roaring at me.
More roots entangled me and I cut at them viciously, fury lining my limbs.
I’d lost everything, fucking everything and now this spirit dared ask more of me?
“You are fated. Born for this task. I have called you and she here time and again to meet with this moment. Your souls are destined to intertwine, bound together to return Providence to me.”
“Never!” I cried, slashing more fiercely at the roots.
“Bane – stop!” Ferris yelled but I had no ear for her.
Not now that she had stolen away my chance at freeing my family from the Hollow curse.
She had no idea what it was to live year after endless year in servitude to Death.
She had pined for her sister for a barely a moment while I had longed for my family’s freedom for centuries.
“Find Providence and I will let you have your boon,” the Great Elm spoke through the fabric of the air itself. “And until then let a lesson be learned of my power. You may have eternity to find my lost love, Crownthief, but your own beloved does not.”
“What lunacy are you spewing now?” I demanded. “Haven’t you done enough to Rathian? To me? To all of us!?”
A small tree grew at my feet in a miniature version of the Great Elm, its trunk gnarled as if it was as ancient as the spirit itself.
“This tree will blossom as if in spring, flourish as if in summer, turn gold as if in autumn, and wither as if in winter, your spirit singer will perish and your curse of Death shall drag you deeper than ever before, the dark will sink in until there is nothing left of you but rot.”
“You cannot do this,” I rasped as Ferris cried out in horror. If I had thought that this could not get worse, it had. The Great Elm was cursing me, layering onto my already miserable existence and branding me her pawn in a game I refused to play.
“The tree will not follow the seasons of your land but will move through seasons of its own. One by one, in a time that suits my own desires. So when its winter comes, you must have returned Providence to me, Crownthief, or your spirit singer will die and your Hollow curse will have you. I pray when we meet again that your arrogance has been tempered.”
“Please don’t do this,” Ferris called to the tree, tears brimming in her eyes. “I did what you asked. I’ve done nothing to wrong you.”
My throat thickened at the sight of her pain, despite what she’d taken from me, despite the hatred festering inside me, she did not deserve this fate.
“Take heart,” the Great Elm spoke to her instead.
“The fate you face may not come to pass if you wield the gifts you have been blessed with. Your soul is connected to mine, to my children’s too.
They will assist in your search for Providence so that you might have a chance at living.
And while you search, you will come to discover what you were born for.
The power in your veins is great indeed. Do not squander it, spirit singer.”
As one the spirits swept from their plinths, moving on wing and paw and hoof to hurry over to Ferris.
They ran to her, nuzzling and pawing at her before sweeping away into the trees as if celebrating all that had come to pass.
Ferris shook her head at the Great Elm in refusal of what had been had asked of her, but no words parted her lips.
“No more amulets,” the Great Elm sighed. “They are your allies. But you know this by now.”
Ferris nodded silently, looking to me in fear, her own rage rising to meet with mine.
“Take the small one,” the Great Elm commanded me and roots snared me in their grip, forcing me to bow down and scoop the little tree from the earth and clutch it to my chest. The roots only released me when I held it for myself and I scowled at them for the prisoner they’d made me.
I locked my gaze on Ferris. Ferris with all her power, the gift of the thirteen spirits now running in her veins. Reality hit me like an anvil to my chest.
She was my answer. The Great Elm had told me itself.
If anyone could gift me death, it was her. So there was no chance of her leaving me now.
“You’ll come with me,” I said darkly and Ferris frowned, her throat bobbing as she backed away.
Rissa stayed close to her sister, a possessiveness in her expression that set my hackles rising. But I only had eyes for my lightwing.
“You caused this, so you’ll damn well fix it,” I snarled at her but she shook her head, her refusal clear in her eyes. “You will not leave my side until it is done!”