Chapter 21
N essa refused to let either of us leave the infirmary.
Whatever argument I might have made died when I pushed myself upright and the room tipped hard enough that I caught the edge of Rhian’s bed.
“Absolutely not.” Nessa pointed toward the row of narrow beds built between the roots. “Both of you.”
“We need to speak to the Circle.” Xandros' voice was rough with exhaustion.
Nessa looked between Caelan and us, gentling her tone when she spoke again. “The Circle has survived several centuries without your immediate attention. It can manage a few more hours.”
Caelan studied her expression, then reluctantly nodded.
Xandros rubbed a hand over his face. Dirt still streaked his clothes from the road, and exhaustion had settled heavily around his eyes.
I looked at him.
He looked at me.
Neither of us was interested in arguing with her.
The beds were the same ones we had used when the fae first came through the Veil: narrow mattresses tucked into hollows between the infirmary roots. I remembered lying awake in one of them with too many questions and Xandros only a few beds away, still more threat than ally.
This time, my body barely touched the mattress before exhaustion dragged me under.
When I opened my eyes again, unsure how much time had passed, mosslight had shifted across the infirmary walls.
For several breaths, I stayed where I was.
My muscles ached with the deep heaviness that came after pushing the Wild too far, but the terrible, hollow weakness from the road had eased. Bramble was curled against my hip, his nose buried beneath his tail as his body rose and fell in time with his soft snores.
Across the infirmary, Xandros sat on the edge of his bed, pulling on his boots.
He looked up.
The sight of him loosened something inside me before I could stop it.
He was still here. Still alive. Still real.
Rhian slept nearby with one arm flung across his stomach. His color had improved while we slept. The bruises beneath his eyes remained, but his breathing came deep and even.
The willow sat beside his bed.
Indigo still threaded several of its leaves, but mostly, it was green. My chest tightened around a feeling too large to fit comfortably inside it.
We had done that.
I pushed myself upright.
Bramble woke immediately and climbed into my lap, stretching his long body before scrambling up my shirt toward my shoulders.
Xandros crossed the space between us. “How do you feel?”
“Like I fought the road, lost, then decided to fight a tree.”
His mouth curved at the corners, and I couldn’t help but mirror the expression.
“That sounds promising.”
I shrugged. “Well, it is considerably better than yesterday.”
His hand closed around mine and pulled me to my feet. I came up closer than I meant to, my body nearly brushing his, and a soft flutter swept through my stomach. Gold warmed beneath my palm as the tether drew gently between us, answering his nearness with a pull I had grown used to feeling.
Only now, with hope still kindled inside me, everything seemed to reach a little deeper.
Nessa appeared from behind a curtain of hanging vines before I could take more than two steps. “Have you eaten?”
“Not yet.” I yawned and stretched my aching muscles.
Nessa squeezed her eyes shut. “You have been awake for nearly three minutes.”
I blinked slowly. “I admire your commitment to unreasonable expectations.”
She shook her head and shoved half a loaf of seeded bread into my hand and the other into Xandros'.
He accepted his with considerably more dignity.
Then she was back to fussing over the other patients in her ward.
Boots sounded just beyond the infirmary entrance before either of us finished.
Caelan had come to fetch us, his expression far more grim than it had been last night.
He stopped when he saw Rhian. His attention moved over the bed, the steady rise of his son’s chest, then the willow beside him.
Then he turned toward us. “The Circle is waiting.”
The bread turned dry in my mouth.
Of course they were.
I swallowed and brushed the crumbs from my fingers.
As I followed, Bramble settled across my shoulders, happily munching on the bag full of seeds Nessa had practically thrown at me on our way out the door.
Xandros' shoulder brushed mine, and my right palm prickled. I curled my fingers around the golden star.
My exhaustion had dulled while I slept.
Everything else had sharpened.
I stepped inside.
Elder Griffin stood near the center of the sanctuary with Maren and the other elders gathered along the raised roots behind him.
Caelan remained below with us.
I noticed that first.
He had stood in this room more times than I could count, carrying the Circle’s decisions back to the Thornwardens as if there had never been any distance between the two. Now, several feet of living root separated him from the elders, and exhaustion had deepened the lines around his mouth.
I stopped beside him.
Xandros settled at my other side.
Griffin’s attention moved between us before landing on me. “You crossed into Asterra against the Circle’s express orders.”
“And I came back with something that saved Rhian.” The words landed more steadily than I felt.
Whatever else waited for us in this room, no one could take that away from me.
Elder Maren glanced toward the passage leading back to the infirmary, her eyes narrowing slightly. “The growth beside him still carries indigo.”
It was less of an accusation than it sounded, but still, I bristled.
“It carries life too.”
I opened my right hand, the golden starburst catching on the mosslight.
“We found a way to help him. Xandros and I know now that the Wild and Everlight can work together without one destroying the other.” I lowered my hand. “We can save our people. Maybe his too.”
Xandros shifted beside me, and the tether roused softly beneath my palm.
No one answered.
Maren’s gaze had drifted down to the Veil Weaver mark again, the same way she had watched it before I left.
Unease moved through my stomach.
I looked toward the elders.
“I’ve told you what we found.” My fingers curled around the edge of my palm, the starburst pressing hot against them. “Now I want the same honesty from you. How long have you known what the Cedarstones were?”
Caelan turned toward me.
Maren’s fingers tapped once against the top of her staff, then stilled.
“We knew your bloodline came from the Veil Weavers who tended the eastern road.”
Heat flashed through my palm.
For a breath, I could only stare at her.
The cracked stone rose behind my eyes. Cedar roots buried deep around stone. My parents walking the same paths their parents had walked before them, carrying a duty they had never been given the truth of.
Or one they had never cared to share with me.
The Circle had known, too.
I turned to Caelan, swallowing the lump forming in my throat.
His thumb dragged once across the leather wrapped around his sword hilt. I had watched that same movement since I was young enough to need both hands around a practice blade.
The familiarity of it sent a pang through me.
“And you?” My fingers twitched at my side as I stared up at the male whom I had admired all my life. “What did you know?”
Caelan’s hand dropped.
“I knew the Cedarstones mattered. I didn’t know why.”
I waited.
His eyes stayed on mine.
“After your parents died, the Circle told me your family had guarded something tied to the Veil. They believed the Briar Moon might make your bloodline important again.” His mouth tightened. “I was ordered to protect you. Train you. Make sure you remained close to the Grove.”
My stomach sank.
Bramble shifted across my shoulders, one paw catching against my collar as the tension went through me.
All those years of extra drills and longer patrols. Caelan watching me more closely than anyone else and pushing until I either improved or threatened to throw something at him.
I had believed all of it belonged to the Thornwarden he thought I could become.
Some of it had. And some of it had belonged to an order I never knew existed.
I turned back to Maren. “Did my parents know the truth?”
She shook her head. I wasn’t sure which was worse. Knowing that they had kept such an important detail from me, or knowing that the Circle had used them, too.
“They deserved to.”
“Yes,” Caelan responded, his gaze still fixed on me.
Griffin shifted his weight against his staff. “After the First Severing, knowledge of the roads became dangerous. What survived was kept because we believed there might come a day when it was needed.”
I understood the fear.
I had met Asterra’s king and seen what draining a land of its power could do. But I had also walked through Asterra and seen what severing it had cost.
Understanding did nothing to make the secrecy feel any better.
“You kept enough knowledge to preserve my family because you thought the roads might wake again.”
Maren inclined her head. “And now they have.”
I thought of the willow beside Rhian’s bed, green leaves wrapped around veins of indigo. Life holding where there had only been death.
“We have a chance to do something different this time.”
Griffin’s mouth flattened, but Maren spoke before he could answer.
“If you mean to act on what you found in Asterra, understand this first. Whatever you decide, the Deepwood cannot be the price.”
The words tightened something along my spine.
“I know.” The answer came out before my anger could rise with it.
I did know.
I had spent my entire life knowing.
Purpose: protect the forest.
The words had lived in me long before I understood how much the Circle had kept from me.
Maren watched me for another breath. “And if what you attempt begins harming it?”
“Then, we stop.” Xandros' voice came quietly beside me.
I looked at him.
His hands hung loose at his sides, his shoulders level despite the attention that shifted toward him.
I had seen those same hands shape Everlight into a sword.
I had watched royal soldiers obey him without hesitation and his brother calculate exactly how far he could push before Xandros pushed back.