Chapter 10 #2
My pine marten settled across his thigh with the turnip trapped between his front paws and began eating with quick, satisfied bites.
Xandros looked down at him. “He seems rather pleased with the arrangement. Perhaps we will be friends after all.”
I nearly snorted. “He’s pleased because he thinks he trained you.”
Xandros' mouth curved at one corner. “Perhaps he did.”
I lifted another spoonful of stew, and my sleeve dragged back from my wrist. Verdant light stirred through the vines inked beneath my skin before fading again.
Xandros' attention followed it.
The spoon stopped halfway to my mouth.
He had seen the markings plenty of times. Every Thornwarden in the room wore vines much like mine, though our leaves all varied. Still, his gaze remained on my forearm long enough for heat to gather beneath my skin.
“What?”
His eyes lifted to mine. “Do all Druids have those?”
I lowered the spoon and glanced at my arm. “Vines?”
A slight crease appeared between his brows. “I can see that they’re vines.”
“Good. I was beginning to worry all this time in quarantine had damaged your eyesight.”
The corner of his mouth shifted.
I tugged my sleeve farther back and turned my arm. The vines curled from my wrist toward my elbow and climbed beneath the fabric at my shoulder, leaves spreading between the winding lines.
“Only Thornwardens have these.”
Xandros leaned one forearm against his knee. “They mark your rank?”
“Yes, but mostly our vows.” My thumb passed over one of the leaves near my wrist, and it curled against my touch. “They were inked when I became a Thornwarden.”
His attention followed the movement. “And your Wild makes them glow.”
I nodded. “The Wild runs through them.”
Green light stirred beneath my thumb. One narrow tendril lifted from my skin, unfurling a delicate leaf before sinking back into the ink.
Xandros shifted closer by barely an inch, watching until the last trace of green disappeared. “Does it hurt?”
My fingers tightened around the spoon as the memory of fresh ink burned across my arms. I had spent hours beneath the Mother Tree with my skin swollen and raw, speaking vows that had settled differently inside me once there was no taking them back.
“Enough that you remember what you promised.”
Something shifted across his face before his gaze returned to the vines.
I pulled my sleeve over my wrist again. “You’re one to stare, though. You have half the night sky inked across you.”
Gold swirled faintly through the constellations along his hand.
“These are different.”
“Of course they are.”
His gaze dropped once more to my covered arms. “Though I suppose carrying that much shrubbery around does make yours difficult to ignore.”
My spoon struck the side of the bowl.
“Shrubbery?”
His expression remained perfectly composed. “There is quite a lot of it.”
I stared at him.
Bramble abandoned the last bite of turnip and stretched toward Xandros' bowl. The prince caught him around the middle before he could climb into it and pushed him backward on his thigh. Bramble immediately tried again.
Xandros scratched one finger beneath his chin before glancing back at me.
“Wildflower.”
My spoon paused above the bowl. “What?”
He gave a small shake of his head. “You remind me of a wildflower.”
I looked pointedly toward the vines hidden beneath my sleeve. “Because of all my shrubbery?”
His mouth curved. “You are a Druid who grows vines from her skin. The name doesn’t feel like much of a stretch.” His fingers moved slowly through the fur beneath Bramble’s chin. “Unless you would prefer that I think of you as Shrub?”
I held his gaze.
“No, thank you.”
The smile remained at the corner of his mouth as Bramble settled more comfortably across his thigh.
Movement beside Rhian’s bed pulled my attention away.
The warmth in my chest faded as Solan peeled back the linen covering Rhian’s side. A thin ring of Everlight still circled the bite, holding the indigo in place even as the dark lines pressed against the gold with every breath Rhian took.
Solan’s thumb tapped against his fingertips.
One, two, three, four.
“Still holding?” Caelan stopped beside him.
“For now.” Solan lowered the linen with a sigh. “The barrier weakens faster each time I renew it.”
Caelan gripped the bedframe. “How much faster?”
Solan glanced toward Xandros.
The prince set his bowl aside. “It held almost half a day the first time. The last barely lasted six hours.”
A muscle jumped in Caelan’s jaw. He turned and resumed his worn path through the moss.
I rested my hand on the edge of Rhian’s blanket. His skin looked gray beneath the amber light, and sweat dampened the curls at his temple.
A familiar pull caught beneath my ribs and drew my attention east, again.
No sunlight reached the infirmary, but I knew the direction at once. Bramble stopped chewing and turned toward the sealed passage as the same pressure moved through our bond, carrying the sense of shifting soil and something waiting below.
I closed my right hand over the starburst in my palm.
While I sat beside Rhian, counting each breath, other Thornwardens stood watch beyond the walls. The vow I had sworn rose inside me, carrying the weight of everything my parents had taught me before I was old enough to swear it.
Protect the forest. Protect the Circle. Above all, protect the Veil.
The eastern boundary called while Rhian lay dying beside me. I knew what the vow required. I just didn’t know how to protect the Veil without leaving him behind.
The sealed wall caught my attention again. Torren’s broken report followed close behind it: light beneath the cedar, the ground giving way, three heads forcing through the opening.
“You think the weakness is still there.”
I looked across the chamber. Xandros leaned forward with his forearms braced over his knees, watching the same stretch of wall.
“You said it could open again.”
“If whatever weakened it remains.” His gaze shifted to me. “You have looked that way every time the room falls quiet.”
My fingers tightened around my spoon. Apparently, I had fallen into patterns of my own, and he had been paying close enough attention to notice them.
“That marker was on my watch.” I lowered the spoon into my bowl. “My family has guarded that part of the forest for generations. Now it is mine.”
“And you believe you are failing it by being here.”
“I am sitting on my ass, eating stew in a sealed infirmary, while everyone else watches the Deepwood.” I set the bowl down harder than I meant to. “I should be out there, protecting my people.”
Xandros nodded slowly. “You are protecting your wounded. There is no shame in that.”
“I am hiding down here while everyone else does my work.”
His gaze moved to Rhian. “And would your...”
He looked back at me, leaving the question between us.
“Friend,” I supplied before he could ask.
Something shifted in his expression before he nodded again. “Would your friend call it hiding?”
A dry breath slipped from my lungs.
No, Rhian would have called it hovering. Then he would have asked how long I planned to stare at him before admitting he looked terrible.
My throat tightened. I turned away and smoothed the blanket over his chest.
Xandros let the silence settle before leaning back against the bench. “Do you believe I am hiding?”
I looked at him.
His shoulders had gone stiff beneath his loose shirt. “My wounded are in a ward I cannot enter. The rest of my people remain in Asterra while their world dies around them.” His silver eyes held mine. “Do you think I am just sitting on my arse while someone else protects them?”
“No.”
“Then perhaps neither are you.”
Warmth crept into my cheeks. I had spent three days straining toward a boundary only a short walk away while he sat beneath a foreign tree, farther from home than I had ever been.
Xandros looked toward Rhian again. “We don’t always get to choose where we fight. We only choose whether to waste our strength by wishing we were somewhere else, or use it to protect whoever is within reach.”
Solan tapped his fingers again before checking Rhian’s pulse, and Xandros followed the movement with his eyes.
“I’m sorry.” My voice came out quieter than I expected. “It must be hard to be so far from home.”
“It is.” His jaw shifted once. “But these are the people I can help now.”
Even if my world was dying, if the forest caught this corruption and turned it all to ash, I would stay planted in the Deepwood. This was my home, and Asterra was his, and he was severed from it.
Bramble climbed into my lap, smelling of damp fur and the turnips Xandros had fed him. I ran my fingers between his ears until the pull through our bond eased.
Sleep dragged me under before I could fight it.
I leaned back against my father’s chest and repeated the words I already knew by heart. “Cedar bends before it breaks.”
My mother smiled, sunlight catching the gold in her hazel eyes.
“Stone holds when everything else gives way.”
My father squeezed my hand once before releasing it, and I scrambled higher onto the root.
The earth shifted beneath my bare feet. My heart raced as I grabbed for the cedar. Gold flickered inside the standing stone.
My mother’s smile vanished as the ground dropped away.
I woke up with my arm stretched across Rhian’s blanket, my fingers digging into the covers so tightly they ached. Bramble clung to my shoulder, nudging my ear and pawing at my cheek. Alarm pressed through our bond.
A narrow viewing slit had opened in the wall, though a thin sheet of amber resin still sealed the chamber. Ivy crouched beyond it with one hand braced against the frame, while Sula crowded behind her, the bear’s dark head filling most of the opening.
A growl rolled through Sula’s chest as Caelan reached the gap. “Report.”
“Another Marred creature was found near the northern wall.” There were mud spatters through Ivy’s hair, and a fresh scratch crossed her cheek. “We were able to take it down before it could cross into Wolf territory.”