Chapter 22 #3
Serath pauses, one hand resting on the handle. “We’re about to enter Wildmere. Don’t touch anything.”
She opens the door. Heat rolls over us, thick and humid, heavy with the rich smell of damp earth and green growth. For a moment, I can only stand on the threshold and stare.
Wildmere is not what I expected.
It rises through the center of the tower, a vast chamber of black stone, glass, and untamed green.
Balconies circle the upper levels, their edges half-lost beneath trailing vines.
Trees grow from deep beds built into the floor, the pale trunks reaching upward toward the unnatural light.
Ferns choke the narrow pathways that weave between the beds, and roots cross the stone floor in thick, ridged lines.
Strange flowers hang in heavy clusters from the walls.
Some are closed tight, others bloom wide to display dark, glossy centers dripping with moisture.
It is extraordinary, and so much bigger than the tower appears from the outside.
Serath steps inside, and I stay close behind her. The plants nearest us stir as we pass. A broad leaf turns on its stem. A thick vine draws itself slowly away from Serath’s foot. Something thorned and dark tightens its grip around the edge of a raised bed.
Directly ahead of us, a figure is kneeling beside a mass of tangled vines.
Maerwyn.
I haven’t seen her since we returned to Nightward. She still looks too thin, her hair falling over her shoulders, but there is a small smile on her lips.
As I watch, a thick green vine twists upward, reaching toward her wrist like a striking snake. She catches it effortlessly without even looking, her fingers gentle as she presses it back down into the soil.
Serath stops at the edge of the path, and after a second, Maerwyn lifts her head. She brightens when she sees Serath. The vine she just pressed into the soil rises again.
“How long has that one been giving you trouble?”
“Since yesterday.” Maerwyn catches it again without looking. “It wants to be on the east wall. I’ve explained to it that the east wall belongs to something else. It doesn’t want to listen.” Her gaze moves to me. “She convinced you to wear it, then.”
“I …” I blink.
“The dress. I was hoping you would. Serath wasn’t sure, but the brownies agreed you should be offered it.”
Maerwyn rises to her feet, and steps toward me. “May I?” She lifts a hand toward my arm.
I hesitate, then nod. Maerwyn doesn’t touch my skin. Her soil-stained fingers hover an inch above my wrist. The embroidered vines there warm, and the buds split open, blooming into tiny, intricate silver flowers that release a sharp, fresh scent of crushed mint.
I stare at them. “That’s … beautiful.”
“I was hoping they would take to you. They are protection. If anyone tries to grab your wrists with hostile intent, those flowers will turn into thorns and tear their hands to shreds.” She drops her hand, and the tiny blooms slowly fold back into tightly closed buds.
“I asked the brownies to put variations on all of your clothes from now on.”
“I—” I catch myself before I can thank her. “I am grateful.”
Her smile softens. “You gave us back our Eldráfn, Alleria. A few seeds are the least I can do in return.”
A large blood-red bloom snaps its petals shut with a sharp clack near my ear, startling me into silence.
Maerwyn’s head tilts. “You’re broadcasting your fear so loudly you’re agitating the plants.”
“I’m … what?” I take a hasty step back when the flower snaps at me again.
Serath steps around me, putting herself between my body and the flower. “A Sluagh keeps visiting her at night.” Serath glances at me. “And she’s scared that something has happened to Cairn.”
“What does the bond tell you?”
“It doesn’t. She can’t feel him yet the way we can.”
“I see. Have you tried to contact him?”
I nod. “I … it doesn’t work.”
“Hmm. Show me what you do when you’re trying.”
I frown. “I just … reach. I try to find the thread and follow it back to him, but nothing happens.”
She walks to a yellow flower with its petals partially open. “Come here. I want you to try and open this flower.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Of course you can. Reach for it. The same way you reach down the bond.”
I look at the flower, then back at Maerwyn. I have no idea what reaching for a flower looks like, but I try. I concentrate on it, push my attention toward it, will it to open fully.
The bloom seals into a closed bud.
“That is what you’re doing to the bond.” She crouches in front of the flower. “Watch.”
She takes a soft breath, and rests her open hand just above the bud. A moment later, the petals unfurl, one at a time, until they’re spread flat.
“You can’t force your way in. Not with flowers, or the bond, or anything in Underhill.
You strain, and you push, and you’re trying to force a connection because the silence frightens you.
You need to quiet your mind, Alleria. Stop pushing your panic outward.
” She looks up at me, her gaze steady. “Do not reach. Simply listen for the connection that is already there.”