Chapter 25 #2
Farther north, another road strained against the Veil.
Then something answered from the east.
My star flared. I sucked in a breath and caught Xandros' forearm before the Wild could drag my attention any farther.
“It’s not just Stonewater.”
His attention dropped to my hand.
I felt the shift in him before his expression changed, the tether between our souls tightening with his attention.
“How many?”
I closed my eyes.
The Mother Tree groaned beneath my feet.
“Too many.”
A shriek rose from somewhere beyond the western wall, followed by the clash of flint against something harder than bone.
Caelan swore under his breath.
I turned back toward the great trunk rising through the center of the Grove.
Light climbed one deep ridge, faltered, and went dark before another pulse tried to follow.
The roads were pulling at the same living weave.
At her .
Maren’s voice came back to me from the night before.
The surviving weave cannot carry it.
My stomach tightened.
No .
I had already given her my answer.
Xandros had been asleep when I whispered it against his chest, but I had meant every word.
I would not take it from him.
“There has to be another way.”
Caelan’s attention snapped toward me, but I was already moving.
I crossed the sanctuary toward the Mother Tree while Bramble raced beside my boots. Xandros stayed close enough that his shoulder brushed mine when the ground shifted again.
The oldest roots rose around the base of the trunk in broad, smooth ridges, some large enough to form chambers beneath them. I dropped to my knees between two of them and pressed both hands against the bark.
Wild surged into me.
I bit down on a cry.
The roads appeared again through the Mother Tree’s reach, scattered fractures pulling against the same body. Some barely trembled, but others had opened enough that cold indigo pressure crawled along the places where living paths met the Veil.
I had spent weeks thinking of the roads as doors. From inside the Mother Tree, they felt like wounds, gaping and raw, each one tugging at the edges of the same being.
Xandros crouched beside me. “What do you need?”
I stared at the green light beneath my fingers, wet streaking down my face though I couldn’t feel any rain.
Yesterday, the old weave had failed because we had tried to make it carry both worlds again. Too much Wild had gone out through paths too damaged to return enough strength.
We didn’t need to open them now.
We needed them closed.
“All of the roads still touch her.”
His eyes moved toward the trunk.
“If I can reach the Druid side from here, I might be able to force the roads closed without sending anything across.”
Xandros studied the light beneath my hands. “While I hold the Asterra side steady.”
“Yes.” The star in my palm burned hotter.
Xandros glanced down at it. “You can do that?”
I nodded.
His jaw tightened. “For how many?”
“I don’t know.”
Another impact struck the outer wall.
A child screamed.
I looked toward the sound, but Xandros did not. His attention remained fixed on me, waiting for the answer I didn’t have.
“We keep going until we can’t.”
Something shifted in his expression, then settled.
“All right.”
There was no argument. No warning about what it might cost him. He just lowered his hand beside mine, Everlight slipping beneath his palm and sinking into the grain.
The Mother Tree responded.
Warm Everlight moved through the Mother Tree beside the Wild until both reached Stonewater. Xandros' power settled against the Asterran side of the road and held.
I caught the Deepwood side.
The path bucked beneath my grip.
I leaned into the Mother Tree and pulled with everything in me. Sweat beaded along my brow with the strain, a cry tearing up from my throat. For several breaths, nothing happened.
Then the pressure shifted.
The road narrowed.
Indigo scraped along its damaged edge before disappearing.
The Mother Tree shuddered, then eased free.
In the distance, beyond the sound of screams and death, a Thornwarden whistle rose beyond the gates.
A single short note.
Clear .
The signal for secure.
My breath shook out of me.
Xandros looked at me as hope rushed through our bond.
I reached north next, and this road fought harder.
The pull of the Briar Moon pressed against the ancient seam while I tried to draw it back. My shoulders trembled with the effort. Xandros fed a little more Everlight into the Asterran side, holding it steady without opening the exchange.
The road folded.
Another strain disappeared from the Mother Tree. Amber light brightened beneath her bark.
Someone behind us cried out in relief, but I didn’t turn, or allow myself to feel the same, not when the sound of steel and bone and bloody cries still rang out around us.
“Again.”
We found the eastern path. Then another beyond it.
I lost count of how long we knelt there with our hands against the Mother Tree.
The Grove did not become quiet, but the sounds slowly changed.
There were fewer warning whistles and fewer impacts against the roots.
The amber glow beneath the great trunk strengthened until it remained steady between my fingers.
Bramble climbed onto my thigh and pressed himself against my side.
His relief pressed through our bond.
I turned my head toward Xandros.
Sweat darkened the pale hair at his temples. Gold ran through his constellations in slow, controlled pulses rather than the fierce blaze he used in battle.
His eyes found mine. “We found something.”
My throat tightened. I shifted my hand until the edge of my little finger touched his.
“Maybe.”
His finger hooked around mine. For the first time since waking, I could imagine returning to my room, to the broken window and spilled wine, to Xandros crawling beneath my blankets with leaves in his hair while I complained about the glass scattered across the floor.
Tomorrow, this might simply be another terrible thing we had survived.
The Mother Tree convulsed beneath us.
My hand tore from Xandros'.
Another crack thundered through the Grove as the north road ripped open again. Before I could reach it, Stonewater followed. Then Cedarstone.
The force struck the Mother Tree from three directions at once.
Amber light vanished from the root beneath my knees.
“No.”
We seized Stonewater and forced it closed once more. Then the northern road widened.
I reached for that one, but the southern path split farther.
Another road woke somewhere in the west.
Every closure drove the pressure into the next weakness.
The old prophecy came back to me.
The forgotten gates shall open.
No matter how quickly we forced one shut, the Briar Moon found another weakened seam and dragged it open.
A sob tore from my throat as I closed one road and felt two more widen.
Xandros' Everlight brightened beside me as he tried to hold more than one celestial edge at once.
Pain shot from my palm to my shoulder.
I reached again.
My vines burned. And the Wild eventually vanished completely.
“No!” I screamed, and slammed my fist against her bark.
Nothing answered. There was no spark of light, and no life I could feel beneath the earth.
“No!” The word tore itself free from me, Bramble’s presence disappearing with it.
The small body against my thigh remained warm. His claws dug into my trousers. But inside me, there was nothing.
I grabbed him. “Bramble.”
He twisted in my arms, frightened by the sudden movement.
My stomach dropped.
Xandros pulled his hand from the Mother Tree immediately.
Everlight disappeared from the roots.
“What happened?”
“I can’t feel him.”
Bramble shoved his nose beneath my chin. I crushed him against my chest, but nothing.
My gaze fell to the vines along my wrist.
They had drawn tight against my skin.
Heat pulsed through them with every beat of my heart.
Purpose: Protect the forest.
Duty: Protect the Circle.
Above all, protect the Veil.
I had kept reaching for the roads after I knew every closure was only driving the strain somewhere else.
The oath had stopped me before I could make the Mother Tree bear any more of it.
It hadn't taken my thoughts or my body. The binding had closed around the Wild itself.
Xandros' hand covered the back of my neck.
I looked up.
Understanding moved across his face as he followed my stare to the vines.
“Your oath.”
I nodded.
The northern wall shook, and a fresh chorus of screams rose beyond the sanctuary.
He looked toward them, then up at the Mother Tree.
“We stop.”
My arms tightened around Bramble.
“But the roads won’t.”
“We will find something else, Wildflower.”
Another branch cracked overhead.
Neither of us flinched as it crashed to the ground behind us.
“There isn’t time.”
Xandros' hand stilled against the back of my neck. “What are you thinking?”
The Mother Tree groaned beneath us. A crack raced through the root beside my knee, and amber light welled into it, flickered, and dimmed.
Bramble squirmed against my chest. I tightened my arms around him.
“The roads can be unmade.”
Xandros went still. “What does that mean?”
I couldn’t answer.
He searched my face before glancing down at my glowing right hand.
Then his eyes lowered to his own chest. A jolt of fear crashed through the tether between us.
He knew.
“No.”
Another sob rent through me.
And another warning whistle rose beyond the sanctuary.
Xandros pushed to his feet. “We keep looking, Verena.”
“We just did.”
“Then we try again.”
A section of the western wall buckled with a crack of splitting wood. Druids screamed as Thornwardens rushed toward it.
Xandros turned at once.
Everlight flared from his hands as he crossed the sanctuary and drove a barrier of gold against the failing roots. A Marred limb punched through the gap. He forced the roots inward until bone snapped between them.
He was still saving us.
Even now.
One weak pulse moved beneath my knees. Nothing followed.
I held my breath until a faint tremor finally stirred beneath the bark.
My eyes moved across the Grove.