Chapter 19 #3
“Tell me, Druid .” The word came sharp with contempt. “If one grain of rice could save a starving city, would you refuse to spend it because you feared losing the grain?”
His eyes were bright now, the control I had seen since entering Asterra cracked wide enough for something rawer to show through.
For one breath, I couldn’t tell whether I was looking at a king who had watched too many of his people die or a male who had stopped caring what survival cost.
Xandros moved closer to my side.
“Whatever happened needed her Wild and my Everlight. She can barely reach the Deepwood from here. If we want answers, we have to go back.”
Aurelian’s gaze snapped to him.
“To the Druids.”
“Yes.”
Aurelian’s expression hardened. “You would trust Asterra’s survival to them again?”
“It isn’t only Asterra anymore. We need to find a way to help both of realms?—”
“There is no both .”
Xandros held his brother’s gaze. “I won’t save our world by destroying hers.”
Aurelian went completely still, his chest barely even rising and falling with breath. Then he tilted his head ever so slightly.
“Do not mistake your refusal to choose for mercy.”
His eyes dropped briefly to our joined hands and his upper lip curled almost imperceptibly.
“If you leave Asterra with her, know this. Every star that dies before you return will be yours to answer for.”
The dying city flashed through my mind. The empty well. Fading constellations on skin stretched too thin over jutting bones. Hands reaching for Xandros as we passed.
His fingers flexed around mine. “Then help me save them without making her the price.”
Aurelian said nothing.
Neither did the guards. Their blades remained raised around us, bodies still blocking every clear path toward the doors.
For all that he had spoken as though Xandros had a choice, the room told a different story.
Aurelian’s gaze settled on me again, calm returning to his face one careful piece at a time.
Xandros’s hand tightened around mine.
I looked up at him. His eyes flicked once toward the rear wall.
“Run.”
His constellations blazed to life.
Starlight erupted from his sword in a violent sweep, flooding the archive so brightly I threw up an arm against the glare. The force hit a heartbeat later.
Guards were ripped from their feet and hurled backward. One crashed across a table hard enough to split the wood, while another struck a stone case with a crack that sent records spilling across the floor.
Xandros was already moving, hauling me between the shelves before the glare had even faded.
I ran with him, Bramble locked across my shoulders as the archive erupted behind us.
Records scattered beneath our boots. Behind us, someone shouted, and boots struck stone.
Xandros veered sharply toward the back of the archive and slammed his palm against a narrow section of wall between two towering cases. Light raced from his hand into seams I hadn’t noticed before, and the stone groaned.
A jagged line split down the wall, widened, and folded inward to reveal darkness beyond.
Xandros pulled me through.
The opening began grinding shut behind us before I had both feet inside.
The passage dropped steeply beneath the palace, narrow enough that my shoulder brushed cold stone whenever Xandros pulled me around another turn.
Bramble flattened himself across my shoulders as bells began tolling somewhere above us, their deep notes muffled by layers of stone.
Boots pounded faintly behind us, then vanished when the passage bent again.
Xandros never hesitated. He took each turn at a run, ducking beneath low arches and choosing branching corridors before I could even make out where they led. I kept my hand locked around his and followed.
The final door opened into pale daylight near the eastern edge of the city.
We kept running.
The last shelters fell behind us as Xandros veered from the road and cut into the silver forest.
The sour stench of rot and scorched metal thickened almost immediately.
Bramble went rigid across my shoulders.
The faintest echo of fear through our weakened bond just before I saw the gouges carved into the trees ahead. Some had split through the pale bark entirely. Inky residue clung to a broken branch, dried black around the splintered wood.
Marred.
A horn sounded behind us.
Too close.
I tightened my grip around Bramble’s leg and followed Xandros deeper into the trees.
A shriek tore through the forest behind us. Branches cracked a heartbeat later.
The ground shuddered beneath my boots.
It wasn’t just soldiers coming for us now.
I drove myself faster.
Another branch snapped behind us, closer this time, followed by the wet scrape of something heavy moving through the undergrowth.
Bramble’s claws dug into my shoulder.
My lungs burned. Each breath scraped harder than the last, but I kept my eyes on Xandros’s back and forced my legs to match his pace.
The trees began to thin.
Then the standing stone appeared ahead, pale and weathered in the middle of a clearing.
For half a second, I forgot how to breathe.
The road.
We had made it to the road.
Behind us, something screamed again.
Closer.
Relief vanished beneath a fresh surge of fear.
I didn’t slow. I ran at it with my hand extended and slammed my palm against the stone hard enough to send pain cracking through my wrist and up my arm. My fingers curled against the rough surface, holding on despite the ache.
Xandros plowed into the other side of the stone with the same urgency, his eyes wild as he scanned the trees at my back.
The star flickered once and my stomach twisted.
Three howls rang out in unison and Bramble growled by my ear. I pressed harder, desperation building in my chest.
Another spark appeared, then another.
“Mother, please!” I cried out.
Golden light flared to life from Xandros’ side of the stone. Panic filled his eyes as the crashing sound grew louder, closer.
Then light. Precious, glorious light ignited in my hand.
All too slowly, the stone began to give way, our fingers slipping into the center. A narrow line appeared in the air.
Then stopped.
My pulse hammered against my throat. “Come on.”
A disjointed scream tore through the forest, this time coming from the south.
I reached for the Mother Tree, for the Deepwood, for every last tree and root on the other side of the realm.
For one sickening heartbeat, I worried that my plea would go unanswered.
Another scream rent the air, loud enough to rattle my bones.
My breath caught as the road widened, and wet cedar rushed through the opening with the smell of moss and dark earth.
Home.
Bramble felt it too.
He scrambled down my chest before I could catch him and leapt through the narrow opening.
Relief burst through our bond so sharply my eyes burned.
A crash sounded behind us. The first Marred broke through the trees. Indigo flashed behind three sets of eyes as it lunged into the clearing.
“Xandros.”
His hand closed around mine, and we jumped.
A rush of icy air tore over my skin, and my boots slammed into wet earth and slid out from under me.
Xandros caught me around the waist, but the mud gave way beneath his footing too. We went down together, his back striking the soaked ground as I landed hard across his chest.
A furious roar echoed through the rift, then three yelps as the road snapped shut behind us.
For a moment, I could only breathe. My lungs burned with each sharp pull of air, my cheek pressed against Xandros' chest while his heart hammered beneath it. Too fast. Hard enough that I felt every beat through his shirt against my skin.
Alive .
Bramble scrambled onto my chest, trembling as he wedged himself against my neck.
Then something stirred beneath us.
I pressed my palm into the mud.
A steady, gentle thrum answered beneath the ruined earth, thin but unmistakable.
The living root beneath the Cedarstone marker.
And beyond it, stretching farther than I had been able to reach for days, the Wild waited.
My breath broke loose.
Wet cedar and moss filled my lungs. Mud soaked through my trousers, and somewhere beyond the dead scar surrounding the standing stone, leaves shifted beneath a familiar wind.
Home.
My eyes burned as I squeezed them shut.
Xandros' heart still hammered beneath my cheek. His hand remained wrapped around mine.
Heat flared between our palms, bringing with it the memory of indigo climbing his wrist before turning beneath my touch. Following the path I gave it.
Rhian.
We needed to get back to the Grove.
I tightened my hand around his and pulled him up with me.
For the first time since Rhian’s blood had soaked through my hands beneath the Briar Moon, I had something to bring him besides another promise.