Chapter 5 #3
"Try keeping up, princeling."
"I intend to."
Over the rest of the day and into the next, we cycle through events.
The Log Walk, balancing on a spinning log suspended over a pit of mud while your opponent tries to knock you off with a padded pole.
I win three rounds before the wiry female from Elle's crew catches me with a strike I didn't see coming and I eat mud.
Peeble provides helpful commentary from the sidelines: "That was embarrassing. Should I get you a towel, or would you prefer to just lie there and think about your choices?"
The Caber Toss. Peeble was right; it involves picking up a log and throwing it end over end. I have the strength for it, but the technique is specific, and my first two attempts are ugly. The third lands clean. Elle's bark-armed teammate beats me by inches.
"You know what would help?" Peeble says. "If you smiled once in a while. You look like you're trying to murder the log. The log didn't do anything to you."
Archery. I'm an excellent shot. I know this.
I've put arrows through targets at three hundred paces in combat conditions.
What I haven't accounted for is Peeble deciding to perch on my bowstring.
The first arrow goes sideways. The second goes skyward.
The third I manage to fire while physically holding Peeble at arm's length, and it hits dead center.
"See?" Peeble says from my outstretched fist. "Adversity breeds excellence."
Elle watches all of this with growing irritation. Every time I place well in an event, her jaw tightens. Every time I recover from one of Peeble's interferences, her eyes narrow.
"You're persistent," she says during a break between events, passing me on her way to the water station. "I'll give you that. Stupid, but persistent."
"I've been called worse."
"Oh, I have worse. Give me time."
By the end of the second day, the field has been whittled down.
And somehow, despite Peeble's best efforts at sabotage, despite an Elle who openly roots for my failure, despite competing in events I've never trained for, the final standings come down to a tiebreaker.
Me against the bark-armed male from her crew.
One event. Winner takes the championship.
The event is hand-to-hand grappling. No weapons. No magic. Just strength and technique in a ring of packed earth.
I can do this. This isn’t about pride. It’s about getting close enough to ask the right question.
The bark-armed male is larger than me. His skin is reinforced with actual wood, nature's armor. He hits like a falling tree. But he's slow. Predictable. He relies on power because he's never had to develop finesse.
We circle each other. The crowd is screaming. I can feel Elle's eyes on me from the terrace, and there's something in her focus now that wasn't there before. Not just anger. Something closer to grudging attention.
He charges. I sidestep, redirect his momentum, and use his own weight against him. He stumbles. Recovers. Comes again, faster this time, and catches me across the ribs with a backhand that cracks something. Pain flares white-hot down my side.
I don't stop. Can't. This isn't about a game.
I drop low, sweep his legs, and when he goes down, I'm on him.
My forearm across his throat. My weight pinning his shoulders.
He bucks, tries to throw me, and almost does, the bark-reinforced muscles in his back are massive, but I hold.
Dig in. Ride out the thrashing until the fight goes out of him.
The caller counts it. The crowd erupts.
I've won.
I look up at the terrace where Elle was standing.
She's gone. Already walking away, her crew falling in behind her, heading for the tree line at the amphitheater's northern edge. She's not going to honor the audience. She's running.
I vault over the ring wall and take off after her.
"Kaelren!" Peeble calls from somewhere behind me. "Where are—oh, for the love of—"
Elle is fast, but I'm faster. I catch up to her at the edge of the Wyrmwood, where the amphitheater's torchlight gives way to the forest's permanent twilight. She hears me coming and spins, hand going to the knife at her hip.
I don't give her the chance. I close the distance, catch her wrist before the blade clears the sheath, and pin her back against the nearest tree. Her other hand comes up to claw at me, and I grab that too, pressing both wrists against the bark above her head.
She's breathing hard. So am I. Up close, the differences are clearer: the faint scar across her left cheek that my Elle doesn't have, the harder set of her jaw, the way her eyes are the same color but colder, guarded in a way that comes from years of relying on no one.
"Let go of me," she snarls.
"I won. That means I get an audience."
"I don't care what you won. I don't answer to games."
"Then answer this. Have you seen anyone appear out of nowhere recently? A woman who looks exactly like you?"
Her eyes narrow. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm looking for someone. She—"
"Um, Kaelren?"
Peeble's voice comes from behind me, small and cautious. I don't turn.
"Not now, Peeble."
"Okay, cool, but I really feel like I should just—"
"Peeble. I am in the middle of something."
"Right, right. Totally. It's just that—"
"I said NOT NOW."
Peeble steps back. I can hear the click of their mandibles. "Okay. Cool, cool. Carry on. I'm sure this will be fine."
I turn back to Elle. "The woman I'm looking for is—"
The bark under my hands shifts.
The tree moves. The roots at the base coil upward, thick as my arm, wrapping around my ankles first, then my waist. Another set curls around Elle, but gently, cradling her, lifting her free of my grip and setting her aside while I'm hoisted into the air like a doll.
"What—" The roots tighten. I'm suspended ten feet off the ground, arms pinned to my sides. "What is happening?"
Peeble, from below, cleans their antennae with exaggerated calm. "Oh, are you talking to me now? You know, the me that tried to tell you that you were annoying Gerald?"
The blood drains from my face. "No."
"Yes."
"This is not—this can't be—"
"Oh, it absolutely is."
I look at the tree I'd pinned Elle against. Massive. Ancient. Bark covered in those too-deliberate patterns of moss and lichen. Hundreds of years old, at least.
"Gerald," I say.
"Ding ding ding!" Peeble claps their front claws together. "Give the prince a prize! Oh, wait, you already won one, and look how that turned out!"
I look down, well, sideways, given the angle I'm being held at, and watch as the tree gently lowers Elle to the ground.
A thick root extends and pats the top of her head with what can only be described as reassurance.
She stands there, blinking, confused, one hand reaching up to touch the root that just patted her.
"Gerald," I growl, "is an oak that I am going to set fire to."
Peeble gasps with the dramatic horror of a beetle who has just witnessed blasphemy. "Don't you DARE talk about Gerald that way! Gerald is a SAINT!"
"Gerald is currently crushing my ribs."
"Gerald has been protecting this forest and everyone in it for centuries," Peeble continues, their voice going uncharacteristically soft for half a second before snapping back.
"Gerald has saved mine and Elle's lives more times than I can count.
Every version of Elle. So you will show some RESPECT to my FRIEND. "
Below us, Iteration Fifteen Elle stares up at me with an expression that's shifted from fury to something approaching amusement. She crosses her arms. "Gerald doesn't like strangers touching people near his trunk."
"I'm aware of that now, thank you."
Peeble suddenly goes quiet. Their head tilts. Their antennae swivel toward the tree. I watch their expression cycle through several emotions in rapid succession—surprise, exasperation, amusement, and something I can only describe as fondness.
"Yes, I know he's hardheaded," Peeble says to the tree.
To Gerald. Apparently, in a conversation I can only hear one side of.
"Yes, I know. A barbarian, sure, that's fair.
Stupid face? That's a little harsh, Gerald, but I don't disagree.
" A pause. "Large muscles, yes. I suppose that's objectively true.
They're very large and very useless at the moment. "
"Peeble."
"Shh, I'm talking to Gerald." Another pause, more animated.
"Listen, Gerald, baby, sweetness, light of my six lives, I know he's awful.
I do. But he's the only awful I've got right now, and we need to get to our Elle before the entire universe collapses.
Not this Elle—" they gesture at Iteration Fifteen Elle, who raises an eyebrow—"although this Elle is lovely and terrifying and I respect her deeply.
Our Elle. The one scattered across time.
The one you've helped before in other versions. "
Silence. Peeble's antennae twitch.
"Really?" Their eyes go wide. "Oh, Gerald, you absolute ANGEL!" They clap their claws together. "Kaelren! Gerald is going to give us a lift!"
"A lift," I repeat.
"A lift!"
"To where?"
"To wherever we need to go! Gerald's roots connect to the crossing network. The same root system that links the iteration gates. All the big, old trees are part of it. Gerald can send us through!"
Before I can respond, the roots shift again.
Not upward this time, downward. At the base of Gerald's trunk, the bark splits with a low groan, revealing a hollow.
Not just a hollow, but a maw. Wide, dark, descending into the root network below.
I can feel the magic emanating from it. Old.
Powerful. The same energy I felt in the Elm Gate back in Jo's garden, but rawer.
Less refined. A highway instead of a doorway.
The roots holding me swing with casual force and hurl me into the opening.
I don't have time to brace. Don't have time to shout. The darkness swallows me whole, and the last thing I hear before the world disappears is Peeble's voice, distant and delighted:
"Thanks, buddy! I'll come by for tea soon!"
Then there's nothing but the fall.