Chapter 15 #2
If someone held the only thing that might save my people, I knew how much I would be willing to risk to reach it.
The sharp crack of Maren’s staff against the stone cut through the air.
“We are not deciding today which version of the past deserves our anger.” Her gaze moved between Griffin and Xandros. “We have a road that should be dead, corruption spreading through the Deepwood, and three patients who improved while that road was open.”
Her fingers tightened around her staff.
“If the road becomes dangerous, we deal with it then. But destroying the only thing that has pushed this back before we understand how it works would be reckless.” She took a slow breath. “We open it once. Long enough to learn what we need, and no longer.”
The road had nearly killed me, but it might be what saves Rhian.
I found Xandros across the room. He was already watching me. Something tightened low in my chest as I gave him a small nod.
This time, we would open it on purpose.
The graves appeared beside the trail before the clearing did.
Fresh earth rose beneath the trees, dark against the moss surrounding it. Here and there, pale shoots had begun pushing through the soil where we had scattered Mira’s and Jalen’s seeds.
My steps slowed.
Bramble brushed against my ankle.
I forced myself forward before I could stop completely, leaving the graves behind as sunlight brightened through the thinning trees ahead.
The Cedarstone marker came into view a few moments later.
My pulse quickened as I stepped into the clearing.
Three days ago, rain had left this place gray and slick with mud.
Now sunlight spilled through the open canopy and caught along the pale carvings exposed around the base of the cracked stone.
The cedar rooted through the split looked greener than I remembered, fresh needles brightening the tips of its branches.
Everything looked too alive for a place where two of my friends had died.
Caelan began sending Thornwardens around the perimeter while Griffin remained near the western edge. Maren and Ivy followed me toward the marker.
Maren stopped beside a narrow living root exposed beneath the moss and crouched beside it. She pressed two fingers to the bark and closed her eyes.
A faint green glow spread from her touch and slipped beneath the ground.
I had sent warnings through the Deepwood this way often enough. A little Wild carried through the right roots could travel farther beneath the forest than any whistle.
For a few seconds, nothing happened.
Then the root pulsed once beneath her fingers.
“This is the one.”
Maren pressed her hand more firmly against it and sent another brief flare of Wild through the wood.
“They know we’re in position. Nessa and Solan are watching all three patients. If opening the road helps them, they’ll send Wild back through this vein.”
My gaze followed the narrow root until it disappeared beneath the moss. “And if nothing changes?”
Maren’s mouth tightened. “Then we’ll receive nothing.”
Xandros moved to the opposite side of the marker and knelt before the star-carved half.
I settled across from him, facing the carved roots.
My fingers began to shake.
For a heartbeat, I felt the stone holding me again, the pain tearing through my shoulder while Mira and Jalen fought somewhere behind me.
I curled my fingers until the shaking eased.
There were a thousand reasons to put my hand back on that stone.
Rhian and Torren were waiting at the Grove. The corruption was still moving through the Deepwood. And somewhere beyond the Veil, an entire kingdom was dying.
My gaze lifted.
Across the marker, Xandros rested one hand beside the carved stars. His jaw was tight, but something had softened around his eyes.
Asterra.
I could still hear the way he had breathed the name when that single green shoot pushed through his world’s dead soil. Hope had cracked through his voice before he could hide it.
The star in my palm stirred toward him, and Xandros lifted his head.
Our eyes met across the stone, and warmth spread through the silver of his gaze.
I held my hand above the stone, and across from me, Xandros mirrored the movement. For one suspended breath, neither of us moved.
Then, he gave a subtle dip of his chin, and we lowered our hands together.
Heat rushed through my palm the instant it met the stone. The eight-pointed star blazed beneath my skin, casting thin rays of gold between my fingers.
My pulse picked up speed as the stone began to soften beneath my touch. My fingers sank through it, instinctively searching for the warmth I knew would be on the other side.
Across the marker, Xandros' constellations brightened, their light scattering tiny golden stars across the cedar and the stone between us.
Green and gold flowed toward the divided circle at the center until it glowed beneath our palms.
A thin, iridescent line split the air beside the marker. It stretched upward and slowly widened into a narrow window between our worlds, no broader than my shoulders.
Asterra appeared through it.
The pressure I remembered never came. No violent wind tore through the clearing. The road held exactly where we wanted it, narrow and still.
Silver trees stood beneath a dark sky, their branches thin and nearly bare while cracks split their pale trunks.
Maren drew in a sharp breath behind me.
Griffin moved closer. “What happens if we hold it open?”
Xandros' attention shifted toward the surrounding forest.
The last time we opened this road, the Marred found us.
“This time is different,” he said. “But I wouldn’t assume that makes us safe.”
My attention snapped toward the trees.
The Thornwardens had already spread into a wide ring around the clearing. Archers watched the eastern edge while the others stood with swords ready, searching every gap between the trunks.
Maren’s staff struck softly against the earth. “Then we stay ready.”
Bramble pressed close against my boot, sniffing at the air like he might be able to smell the danger before it reached us.
My Wild stirred within my veins and stretched into Asterra, where the parched ground drank it in. Strands of emerald light spread through the soil, following the paths of old roots as though they remembered the way. The nearest silver branches lifted toward the glow.
Maren’s attention dropped to the ground, where she wrapped her hand around the glowing green vein from before. It pulsed, a strong, steady thrum followed by two more.
Her shoulders loosened as she closed her eyes. “They’re responding.”
A breath left me before I realized I had been holding it.
The road worked.
It had opened when we asked it to. Our power had crossed between worlds, and somewhere beneath the Grove, Rhian, Torren, and Tala were answering it.
Relief pressed hard against the ache in my chest.
For the first time since Rhian had been attacked, something we tried had actually helped.
Then a shout carried through the road from Asterra.
Xandros and I snapped our attention toward the opening. Movement broke between the trees, and four armed Moon Fae rushed across the pale ground toward us.
When a soldier caught sight of Xandros, he stopped so abruptly that the others nearly ran into him from behind.
“Your Highness.” The male fell to a knee, bowing his head, and the others quickly followed suit.
Something in Xandros' face changed. “Stay where you are.”
The guard obeyed, though his attention moved quickly over the opening, to the Druids gathered behind me, and finally to the green and gold light flowing from beneath my hand.
“We were ordered to hold this anchor after your party disappeared.”
Xandros' fingers tightened against the stone.
Caelan moved closer behind me. Leather creaked as his hand settled around the hilt of his sword.
The guard reached inside his cloak and removed a narrow, folded message bearing a royal seal of black wax.
“He has orders for you as well, Your Highness.”
Xandros' eyes narrowed. “What orders?”
The guard looked back at him; then his eyes cut to me. “He knows the source waking the roads is living.”
Ice snaked through my stomach.
His eyes dropped to the star blazing between my palm and the stone. “And that she is Druid.”
Every Thornwarden around the clearing tightened at once.
Bowstrings drew taut along the perimeter. Caelan stepped closer to Xandros, his sword already raised and ready.
Griffin swore behind me, while Maren moved close enough that the edge of her robes brushed my boot.
Xandros didn’t so much as flinch.
The guard crept forward, holding out the rolled parchment. “You are commanded to secure her and return to the palace.”
My pulse hammered against the stone.
Secure her. Not ask. Or bargain.
But take me by force if necessary.
The fragile hope I had seen in Xandros only minutes earlier had vanished.
His free hand closed around the message as the guard pushed it through the shimmering opening in the air.
With a flick of his thumb, he broke the seal and unrolled the parchment.
His eyes moved over the first few lines before his jaw clenched.
His gaze sliced to mine. For a moment, neither of us moved. I wasn’t even sure I was breathing. Then, something settled in his expression.
Starlight gathered between his fingers as the parchment went up in flames.
The guard recoiled. “Your Highness.”
Xandros released the burning pieces. They slipped through the opening and scattered across Asterra’s pale ground.
A muscle feathered in his jaw.
“No.”
The word hung in the air between us.
“Your Highness, His Majesty was very clear?—”
Something in Xandros' expression shifted. His silver eyes narrowed before settling on mine. “But I do need to go back.”
Tension locked across my shoulders.
“You cannot leave yet.” Maren straightened beside me.
Griffin took two steps forward before the soldiers on the other side drew their weapons.
“My king has ordered my return.” Xandros looked between them. “I am not asking for your permission.”