Chapter 25 #3
Healers dragged the wounded toward the passages beneath the Mother Tree. A father crouched over his daughter, shielding her as bark rained from above. Blood streaked the rootways. Amber sap ran through the grooves between them.
Bramble pressed himself against me.
Warm, and alive, and so silent inside my head.
I looked back at Xandros.
Gold poured from him into the defenses of my world while his own waited beyond the Veil.
Xandros had already made this choice. When the road had begun killing the Deepwood, Xandros had told me to close it.
He had never asked me to save his people with mine.
Aurelian’s voice slipped through my memory.
If one grain of rice could save a starving city…
One grain.
All around me blood-stained roads and the cries of my people filled my senses. I squeezed my eyes shut, a single tear slipping down my cheek as Asterra rose behind my eyes.
When I opened them again, I looked at Xandros and the Everlight pouring from his hands into the defenses of my world.
He had refused to spend me. He was determined to save both of our people.
Another tear slipped past my chin, and my breath trembled in my lungs.
I knew what I was going to choose.
“Xandros.”
He looked over his shoulder.
“Hold Stonewater.”
He searched my face, his brows drawing together. “Why?”
“We can’t let it widen.”
“What are you going to do?”
My fingers tightened in Bramble’s fur. “Just hold it.”
His jaw flexed; then he released the wall only after three Thornwardens reached it.
He came back toward me and dropped to one knee. “Find something else.”
He pressed his palm to the Mother Tree.
I strained against the Wild inside me.
Golden light flared beneath his hand, and Stonewater answered with a violent pull.
I pressed my left palm beside his.
The Wild remained just beyond my reach. My vow-markings tightened until heat burned along my arms.
Another road opened in the north, and then one farther south.
The Mother Tree shuddered beneath the strain.
I lifted my right hand from my lap.
Xandros opened his eyes, his gaze dropping to my palm.
I could feel the sharp stab of fear flood through him just as surely as if it were my own.
“Wildflower.”
My hand stopped between us, my brows furrowing and my heart aching.
He had taught me where to find it. The living current joining his Everlight to the bridge, knowledge he had trusted me with because he believed I would use it only if the indigo had already taken him.
Xandros caught my wrist. “I’m here.”
My eyes burned. “I know.”
“I’m not corrupted.”
“I know.”
His thumb pressed against my pulse. “Don’t do this.”
The Mother Tree shook and another branch crashed somewhere beyond the sanctuary. The impact rolled beneath my knees, followed by even more screaming.
I flinched, and Xandros didn’t let go.
“Look at me.”
I did. I met his silver eyes. Then at his loose pale hair.
My throat bobbed as I took in the indigo blood across his shirt and amber sap darkening one sleeve.
Him .
Alive.
The male who had chosen my world when it meant condemning his own.
My hand shook inside his grip, and I lowered it.
Relief flooded through our bond.
Xandros' forehead touched mine, and for one solitary heartbeat, his warmth pushed everything else away.
I could stop this now.
I could let him take my hand and we could keep searching until the Mother Tree had nothing left to give.
Stonewater jerked against his hold.
Pain lanced across his face.
Another pull tore through the Mother Tree, and her pulse failed beneath my knees.
Bramble chirred sharply and clawed at my tunic. The Mother Tree gave one weak, uneven beat, and I lifted my head, meeting Xandros' eyes.
He held them for a moment before squeezing his eyes shut, his fingers tightening around mine.
When he opened them again, his mouth trembled once before he forced it still.
“I trusted you.”
My throat closed. “I know.”
He pulled his hand away, and I let him go for one heartbeat before catching his wrist with my left hand and pressing my right palm over his heart.
He went still as stone, his heartbeat slamming against the star I once believed he had given me.
His Everlight answered.
Beneath it, I found the narrower current he had shown me, the living strand joining his Everlight to the bridge.
He grabbed my wrist with both hands.
“Wildflower.”
I could still move. Nothing held me here.
The oath hadn’t forced my fingers closed, and there was no one commanding me to stay.
But beyond Xandros, the sanctuary lay broken open beneath the Briar Moon.
Thornwardens dragged the wounded between fallen branches while blood darkened the roots.
Bramble crouched against my leg, silent inside my head.
Above us, whole limbs sagged from the Mother Tree, and another weak pulse stumbled beneath my knees.
Then Asterra rose behind my eyes. Children beneath a nearly empty sky. Indigo glowing beneath pale skin. Silver trees collapsing into ash. Families dividing what little food remained while stars disappeared above them one by one.
I knew what waited for them if I did this.
The Mother Tree’s pulse faltered again beneath us.
I held on. “I’m sorry.”
His face broke.
I pulled, and the current joining him to the bridge tore free beneath my palm.
Xandros folded against me with a sound that ripped through my chest.
My arm went around him by instinct. For one breath, I held him against me exactly as I had hours ago, his forehead against my shoulder and his heart hammering beneath my hand.
The severed current burned through my star, straining toward him.
I turned it toward Stonewater.
The road seized.
Gold blazed through the constellations beneath his skin as the connected roads answered his celestial signature.
Every waking road answered.
Xandros jerked away from me.
I lunged and caught his hand, and his fingers locked around mine.
Our soul bond flooded with grief so fierce that my vision went white.
He fought toward me, and I pulled him closer.
His constellations flared as the connected roads recognized their celestial anchor. The Everlight already threaded through the weave reversed toward Asterra, and the current caught Xandros with it.
Asterra recognized him, and pulled harder.
“Don’t, Wildflower.” His hand crushed mine.
I shook my head.
“Verena. You can still stop.”
I could. Nothing prevented me from stopping except the choice I had already made.
Xandros slipped another inch away.
I looked into his face, at every perfect, beautiful line of it, and watched it break because of me.
The current seized him. Wind tore through the space between us as his body jerked backward toward the Veil.
His hand tore halfway from mine. I caught his wrist with my other hand and locked both hands around him.
For one desperate moment, I held him. His boots scraped hard across the bark, his shoulders straining forward while the pull dragged the rest of him back toward Asterra.
Then his hand began to slide in mine.
My fingers locked harder around his wrist.
The star blazed between us.
His fingers dragged down my palm, catching for one last heartbeat at my fingertips before the force ripped him free.
Golden light swallowed him, and my hands closed on empty air.
I screamed his name.
The soul bond snapped taut across the Veil.
Still alive.
Far away.
His grief slammed into me hard enough to make me fold over.
I gasped, and my palms struck the broad root beneath me. Tears rolled down my face and splashed against my knuckles.
My Wild returned. It tore through every empty pathway inside me at once, too much and too fast. Green light surged up my arms and locked every muscle in my body. My vines burning white before settling back into emerald.
Every surviving road opened inside my awareness at once.