Chapter 13
T he moss beside my knee remained green, which was strange as so much had died. Rain gathered along the new fronds, bending them beneath clear beads of water. Beyond the small patch, the rest of the clearing lay gray and dead.
I waited for the color to drain away.
But nothing changed.
The road had closed, yet the life it carried remained inside the moss. Did that mean that the sprout in Asterra stayed, too? Could it survive even if the rest of that realm was dying?
Xandros reached toward the living patch. His fingers stopped above it.
“The road carried life in both directions.” His voice barely rose above the rain.
Caelan folded Mira’s hands over her chest, tucking his cloak around her like a blanket. His fist clenched as he looked from her to Jalen. “It also killed two of my Thornwardens.”
Xandros squeezed his eyes shut, a muscle working in his jaw as he stared at the moss. “The Marred didn’t come from the road.”
“No.” Caelan looked toward the tracks circling the clearing. “But whatever you did beckoned them here.”
Xandros said nothing else, only continued to stare at the ground as if it might hold every last answer he was looking for.
Caelan turned toward Oren. “When you’re ready, we’ll move them beyond the dead ground.”
Oren and Perrin had cut four young saplings from the forest. They stretched cloaks between the poles and lifted Mira and Jalen onto the narrow litters.
I stepped forward to help with Jalen’s poles.
Caelan looked once at the blood soaking through my trousers; my thigh was burning. I wrapped both hands around the pole.
The first step sent pain through my hip. My grip slipped, dropping Jalen’s shoulder several inches before I caught the weight again.
Caelan’s stare cut across the litter, but he said nothing.
Heat climbed into my face anyway. I tightened my hold and matched Perrin’s stride as we carried our dead from the clearing.
The sword at my hip struck against my leg with every uneven step. Its weight dragged at the belt where it had remained sheathed while Mira and Jalen died.
I had trained most of my life to meet danger before it reached the people behind me. I knew how to fight with flint and Wild, how to hold a narrow path against stronger bodies, and how to keep moving through the pain and the exhaustion.
But when my friends needed me, there was nothing I could do but watch.
Ivy pressed both palms against the soil. Emerald light moved through the vines along her arms, but the earth opened slowly beneath the strain of her exhaustion.
I lowered myself beside her and dug my raw fingers into the ground.
The Wild stirred somewhere beneath the numbness inside me. I reached for it, but only a weak pulse brushed my palm before sinking beyond my grasp.
I pushed harder.
Pain lanced through my ribs. The vines along my arms gave one dim flicker, and a thin layer of dirt shifted beneath my fingers.
Then nothing.
“Verena.” Strain tightened Tessa’s voice.
“I can do it.”
I drove my palm deeper into the soil and reached again. The emptiness inside me stretched wider. My Wild had nothing left to give.
Mira and Jalen waited behind me while I knelt uselessly on the land I had sworn to protect.
Caelan lowered himself beside me.
He pressed no hand to my shoulder and offered no order to move aside. His fingers sank into the loosened earth, and he pulled the first handful free.
I stared at the dirt packed beneath his nails.
Then I began digging.
Warmth gathered along my side before Xandros lowered himself beside me. It pressed through the damp sleeve against my arm, steady and strange against the cold rain.
His pale hands entered the soil beside mine. Dark earth filled the lines of his palms and worked beneath his nails as he tore another handful loose. He did not speak or look at me.
We just dug.
Tessa brought over several flat rocks and knelt across from me. Perrin took one and handed the rest around. Soon the scrape of stone and bare hands through wet soil filled the silence beneath the trees.
By the time both hollows were deep enough, my fingers had split along the knuckles. Mud streaked my wrists and filled the shallow cuts across my palms.
Caelan lowered Mira into the first grave.
He folded her hands over her chest and reached inside her cloak.
Every Thornwarden carried a waxed packet of seeds with them when they left the Grove. We carried them for this.
So that the dead could return their strength to the soil.
So that new life could rise from what remained. To return each fallen Thornwarden to the forest they had spent their life protecting.
Caelan removed Mira’s packet and held it toward me.
“This is Cedarstone land.”
My throat tightened as I accepted it. The seeds shifted inside the cloth beneath my fingers.
“You begin.”
I closed my hand around the packet.
This much, at least, I could do.
By the time the rites were finished, the Briar Moon had climbed above the trees.
It should have begun to wane days ago. Instead, it rose full each night while the black briars crept farther across its pale face, closing around another stretch of light.
The omen hung above the graves as we gathered our packs and made camp beyond the dead ground.
Flames snapped through the driest brush we had managed to gather. Smoke collected beneath the low shelter and stung my eyes, but the heat never reached the cold lodged beneath my skin.
Bramble curled against my side. I held him there until his warmth dampened the front of my cloak, then forced down enough food to stop Ivy watching me.
My hands still shook when I reached for my sword.
When my watch began, I followed the edge of camp with the blade drawn. My leg dragged numbly by the time I reached the northern post, but I continued until I had checked every stretch between the trees.
Nothing moved beyond the guards.
I began another circuit.
Tessa fell into step beside me. Moonlight caught the damp tracks beneath her eyes before she lowered her face. Her breath snagged once, and the words came rough when she forced them out.
“You’re bleeding again.”
“I know.”
My boot caught beneath a fallen branch. Pain tore through my thigh, and the trees lurched sideways before I could drive the point of my sword into the earth to steady myself.
Tessa caught my arm.
I pulled free and forced my leg straight.
Movement caught my attention near the fire as Caelan lifted his head. His gaze dropped to the sword braced beneath my palm, then to the blood spreading across my trousers.
My teeth ground together.
“Finish your circuit,” he ordered. “Then wake Perrin to take over your watch.”
Heat climbed my throat.
I pulled my blade from the ground and kept walking.
Tessa stayed with me. One Thornwarden was enough to finish the circuit, and she knew it as well as I did. Her shoulder brushed mine twice when my steps drifted, though she looked away each time I turned toward her.
Maybe she needed to keep moving for the same reason I did. To give her body something to do while her mind circled what waited beneath the trees behind us.
She had thrown herself between Mira and the rift hound. Afterward, she had knelt by her body long after any life had vanished.
If Rhian had died beneath that oak, I didn’t know whether I could have stood again.
My breath locked inside my chest. I forced his face from my mind before it could go still. Rhian was alive.
Nessa and Solan were with him. He would be waiting when I returned. I repeated that thought until I could take another step.
The star in my palm warmed before the fire came fully into view.
Xandros sat beyond the flames with one shoulder braced against a support beneath the shelter. His constellations were still muted, and exhaustion had carved shadows beneath his eyes. His gaze found me as soon as I stepped between the trees.
The fire blurred around him.
Perrin rose from beside it and fastened his cloak across his chest. Xandros pushed away from the support at the same time, though the movement pulled his mouth tight.
“The northern stretch is clear.” My tongue dragged against the words. “The woods beyond the camp are quiet.”
Perrin reached for the sword at his hip.
I tried to sheathe mine. The point struck the leather beside the opening and slid away. Xandros took a step toward me. I tightened my grip and tried again.
A pale hand closed around the scabbard and held it steady.
The prince stood close enough that heat pressed against my shoulder. I guided the blade into place, but my hand refused to release it. A shudder climbed from my stomach into my chest. My teeth snapped together hard enough to hurt.
Bramble’s alarm tore through our bond.
“I’m fine.” The words shook apart in my mouth.
I took one step toward the fire.
My knee folded.
Xandros caught me before I could hit the ground, one arm locking around my waist while his other hand closed around my upper arm. My back struck his chest, and heat closed around me, almost painful against the cold consuming my body.
I twisted against his hold, but my boots scraped across the earth without finding enough strength to stand.
“Release me.”
Instead of obeying, he slid one hand behind my back and the other behind my knees, cradling me to his chest like a child.
“I don’t believe I’m going to do that, Wildflower.”
Ivy rushed over and pressed the back of her hand against my cheek. Her skin felt cool enough that I turned toward it before I could stop myself.
“Shit. She’s burning up.”
“No–I, I’m c-cold.”
“I know.” Ivy pulled my cloak open and reached for the fastening at my thigh.
I caught her wrist. My heartbeat thundered in my ears.
It wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough.
Xandros' grip tightened around me as my fingers slipped from Ivy’s wrist.
“I finished the circuit.”
“You did.”
The fire behind Caelan stretched into long orange lines. Words blended together, the sounds of voices layering and entwining until I could no longer distinguish one from the next.
The old Cedarstone house. Travel at first light. A runner to the Grove.
I tried to follow. But each word slipped away before I could hold it.
“Rhian.”
Caelan crouched in front of me. “The Grove will know where we are before sunrise.”
“Need…to go… back.”
“We will.”
“Tonight.”
“No.”
My voice had fallen to a whisper.
Bramble was crying. His fear crowded through our bond, sharp and frantic, while his heart battered against my side.
I tried to soothe him. But I couldn’t make my fingers move through his fur.
The air grew colder, and pain locked around my joints and seeped into my bones.
Ivy wrapped another blanket over us and tucked its edge beneath my shoulder. “Stay awake long enough to drink.”
A cup pressed against my lips, and warm broth spilled over my tongue. I swallowed once before nausea rolled through me.
I turned my face aside, and the cup disappeared.
Fire snapped somewhere beyond my feet. I stared through the shelter opening at the moon. The black briars writhed and tangled until even more of its light faded. My eyes closed.
The thorn-crowned moon remained burning against the darkness behind them.