Chapter 25
I dreamt of home, of my parents at the dinner table, Rhian laughing as I kicked his ass while we sparred, and the sounds Bramble had made as a kit when he first found me in the woods.
And then there was Xandros, staring down at me with eyes full of stars, each one burning like an ember.
One by one, they went dark.
A single tear ran down his face, glimmering as the last of the stars faded from his eyes.
I shook my head and reached up to wipe it away, but his hand closed hard around my wrist.
My lips parted to ask why. His expression hardened, and suddenly it was no longer Xandros looking down at me, but his brother.
I jerked awake to the sound of screaming.
For a single heartbeat, I wondered if the sound had come from me.
Then another scream rose from somewhere below.
Xandros was already sitting up beside me, Everlight gleaming in his hand as he stared toward the window.
“What—”
The floor rocked beneath us.
The wine bottle from last night toppled from the table and spilled what remained across the rug.
A thunderous crack split the air.
The window shook violently in its frame. Fractures raced across the panes before the glass burst inward.
I threw myself from the bed and scooped Bramble into my arms.
A shadow swept across the empty window.
My stomach dropped.
One of the Mother Tree’s great branches tore through the lower canopy, snapping smaller limbs beneath its weight before disappearing from view.
Wood struck wood with a splintering crash.
The impact shuddered through the living walls and jolted beneath my bare feet.
More screams rose from below.
I stared through the broken window.
High above the wrecked canopy, fresh wood gleamed pale where the branch had torn away from the Mother Tree’s trunk. Amber light spilled through the wound, bright for one terrible moment before it began to dim beneath the bark.
No.
Another tremor passed beneath my bare feet, and I froze.
The Wild surged beneath my feet with enough force to buckle my knees. Bramble tumbled from my grasp as I dropped to one knee, a hand against the smooth grain beneath me.
The Mother Tree’s pulse stumbled beneath my palm.
Then something pulled at her.
Hard.
The strain dragged through her roots toward the east before another caught farther south, wrenching the Wild in a second direction. A third followed before the first had eased.
My vines tightened along my arms, and the star in my hand burned more brightly than before.
I let out a gasp as pain shot through me.
The first warning whistle sounded outside. A second answered before it finished. Then someone screamed.
Xandros was out of bed before I managed to straighten, his face drawn in a way that told me he felt it too. He pulled on his trousers while I dragged yesterday’s tunic over my head, my fingers catching twice in the ties.
Another impact struck somewhere below us.
Bramble scrambled back up onto my shoulder.
His fear came with the sharp impression of falling wood, too much movement beneath us, home changing shape.
“I know.”
My boots were still unlaced when I reached the door.
Xandros grabbed his shirt and followed me into the passage.
The Mother Tree’s amber light pulsed through the curved walls, brightening beneath my palm as I steadied myself, then fading until the corridor went almost dark.
Druids poured along the rootways ahead.
A female clutched a bundled infant to her chest while two older children ran beside her. A male I recognized from the western settlements carried an elderly Druid on his back. Blood covered one side of the older male’s face and soaked into the shoulder beneath his cheek.
Some hurried down toward the Grove below. Others disappeared into branching passages within the Mother Tree, carrying children, blankets, whatever they had managed to grab.
I couldn’t tell where any of them thought they were going.
The Mother Tree stood at the heart of the Grove. Her walls surrounded us. Her roots and branches sheltered the settlements below and formed the defenses beyond them.
If they were running here, there was nowhere safer left.
The Mother Tree shuddered around us.
Bark cracked overhead.
Xandros caught my elbow and pulled me beneath the curve of the wall an instant before a cluster of branches tore loose from the ceiling and struck the floor where I had been standing.
Amber sap spread across the path. Her lifeblood.
The smell hit me first, green and sharp, like freshly cut stems beneath summer rain.
My stomach lurched. I stepped over it.
The noise grew as we descended. Shouting. Children crying. Thornwarden whistles calling from the outer passages.
A roar rolled through the Grove.
Not Sula. I knew that sound.
Bramble’s claws punched through my tunic.
We reached the open sanctuary path as a wall buckled.
One of the great woven supports had split from top to bottom. Daylight showed through the torn wood, gray and thin beneath the thorn-covered moon still hanging above the canopy.
Something struck the opening from outside.
The roots shuddered.
A narrow black limb punched through.
Then another.
“Back!” Caelan’s voice carried across the Grove. “Get them away from the wall!”
Thornwardens converged on the break.
The root wall gave way as something pale forced its head through the opening.
For one heartbeat, I could not make sense of its shape. A narrow body followed, slick skin stretched over a sharp breastbone while two enormous wings remained folded tight along its sides. Indigo light branched through the thin membranes in crooked veins.
The creature hooked black claws into the broken roots and dragged itself into the Grove.
Its wings snapped open.
Druids screamed and ducked as they struck the surrounding walls, wide enough to span the rootway. The creature’s head jerked toward the movement below, and its mouth split vertically from jaw to throat.
A second shriek answered from beyond the breach.
People scattered.
The Marred launched itself from the wall.
I drove my palm toward the floor. Roots burst beneath the creature’s chest and twisted upward, catching it around the chest. Its body slammed sideways into the broken wall.
Xandros moved past me.
Everlight gathered in his hand and hardened into a blade before his second step.
The creature twisted and screamed.
His sword went through the base of its skull. Indigo burst beneath its skin.
The roots holding it blackened, and pain tore through my forearm. I released them before the corruption could travel farther.
The Mother Tree did not.
A thick support root snapped itself free from the contaminated section, abandoning the blackened length on the ground.
The severed wood smoked.
My mouth went dry, terror and grief lodging themselves in my throat as I realized what was happening.
The Mother Tree was cutting away pieces of herself to keep the damage from spreading.
A second Marred forced through the opening, and a Thornwarden met it with a flint sword.
The creature caught him across the chest and sent him crashing onto his back, his scream cutting off when the impact drove the air from his lungs. Perrin stepped over him and drove his blade upward beneath the creature’s jaw.
Another warning rose from the northern wall.
Then another.
Not one breach.
More.
The Grove had filled overnight with every Druid who could reach it, families driven from the outer settlements, the wounded carried in from damaged shelters, elders and children packed into every space the Mother Tree could give them.
They had come here because the Mother Tree had always been the one place the forest could not take from them.
A crash sounded above me. I looked up in time to see a branch thicker than the Cedarstone house split from the canopy.
It dropped toward the open sanctuary.
People screamed.
I reached for the Wild.
Xandros' arm slammed across my chest, and gold exploded over us.
A curved barrier rose from the ground as the branch struck, the impact driving Xandros to one knee.
The barrier bowed as wood cracked across its surface.
I shoved both hands into the earth and called every living root beneath the falling limb. Green surged through the ground.
Roots and vines rose around the branch and caught its weight before the Everlight shield could fail.
Xandros staggered beneath it.
I grabbed his arm. His skin was hot, gold still blazing through his hand where he held the barrier over a group of Druids trapped beneath the branch.
Among them, a female crouched over a small girl.
I recognized the child.
I had seen her the night before, her injured arm tucked against her body while her mother held her other hand.
Xandros saw them too. He shifted his footing. The muscles in his forearm jumped beneath my fingers.
“Move!”
The female dragged her daughter clear.
Others followed.
When the last Druid passed beyond the branch, Xandros dropped the barrier. My roots lowered the broken limb against the ground. The impact still shook the sanctuary.
For several breaths, I could only hear Xandros breathing beside me.
His gaze was fixed on the family he had just protected. The little girl twisted in her mother’s arms to stare at him.
Indigo blood streaked his shirt.
His hair hung loose around his face.
The starlit blade still burned in his hand.
He had spent Everlight holding up the heart of my world while his own continued dying beyond the Veil.
My grip loosened from his arm.
“Verena!”
Caelan was running toward us.
His beard had come loose from its bindings, and blood streaked the leather over one shoulder. I couldn’t tell if it belonged to him.
“Stonewater has opened again. Our patrol couldn’t hold it, and more Marred are already moving through the forest.”
My eyes went to the Mother Tree behind us, and the amber light guttering beneath her trunk.
Another pull tore through the Wild.
I followed it.
Her roots opened beneath my awareness, spreading past the Grove and deep into the forest. The strain caught along one path, then another, each one pulling against her from a different direction until I could barely separate them.
Stonewater burned cold at the edge of my senses.