Chapter 40 #2
“YOUR LEGACY WILL BE ROT,” boomed the Thornfather, the pronouncement echoing from the very bedrock of the world.
Tamsin began to chant, her voice a desperate, shrieking counter-spell.
She clawed at the air, tracing frantic, useless sigils with her fingers, but her magic was a flickering candle against a hurricane.
The raw, ancient power of the Grove Core, of the god, and of the ghost simply laughed, a sound like wind howling through empty branches.
Vines wrapped around her arms and legs, tightening like pythons. The bone-white thorn bushes closed in, their barbs sinking into her flesh. The skeletal remains of Elijah Pell clattered up her body, locking her in a macabre embrace.
The vines squeezed. The thorns tore. The bones ground against her own. With a final, sickening sound of rending flesh and snapping bone, the collective fury pulled her apart. Her blood sprayed across the thirsty earth, a final, unwilling offering to the land.
Tamsin’s last scream was absorbed by the soil, and then, a profound silence fell over the Grove Core, broken only by the ancient, satisfied sigh of the land itself.
The Grove Core’s judgment withdrew, slowly and deliberately.
The vines loosened first, sliding back into the earth like spent veins of magic.
The thorns retracted next, their blood-slick barbs folding inward like closing teeth.
Finally, the bones of Elijah Pell settled gently to the ground, the furious animus leaving them as the land reclaimed its dead.
Only when the last shiver of power faded did Goldie realize she was kneeling in the grass, trembling, breath still ragged from the blast. The air hung heavy with the metallic tang of blood and rain-soaked earth.
“Goldie.” Splice was suddenly at her side, unsteady but entirely focused on her. He cupped her face with shaking hands. “Are you hurt? Tell me you’re all right.”
The warmth of him, the solidity, cut through the terror like sunlight breaking through storm clouds.
But the scene before them refused to settle into peace. Elijah Pell’s pale bones gleamed faintly in the dim light, and the torn remains of Tamsin Donover lay sprawled beside them, half-sunken into the fresh, dark loam the Grove Core had turned over for them both.
Elijah’s flickering spirit faced Goldie for a moment, his sorrowful features softening into something that might have been a gentle, grateful smile.
Then, with a slow, deliberate grace, he drifted to Jonah’s body and knelt, laying an incorporeal hand gently upon Jonah’s still brow.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then, a silvery light shimmered from the body, and a second soul rose from the mortal remains.
It was Jonah, but not the man Goldie had known. This was a younger Jonah, the age he would have been when he first lost his brother, his spectral face wide-eyed and free of decades of confusion and pain.
Jonah’s spirit looked down at his hands, then up at the face of his brother. His mouth trembled, and a choked sob escaped him. He reached out, and Elijah moved into his arms. They embraced in the center of the Grove Core, a long, silent reunion of two souls finally reunited.
After a long moment, Jonah turned his tear-streaked spectral face toward Goldie and Splice. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so, so sorry.”
Goldie managed a shaky smile, pushing herself up into a sitting position. “It’s okay, Jonah. Really.” She summoned a tiny flicker of her usual sparkle. “Since you’re dead now, it’s probably okay to say that I thought you were really cute, by the way.”
A laugh, bright and free of all its earthly burdens, shimmered from Jonah’s spirit. “You were kind to me, Goldie,” he said, his form beginning to grow fainter. “I’m glad you found the Assistant.” He looked at Splice, a look of true peace on his face.
He turned one last time to his brother, and the two souls embraced again, their edges blurring, fading together into a healing, emerald glow.
As the last glimmer of the two souls faded, the ground seemed to exhale—a long, deep, tremble like a shuddering breath.
A breeze swept through the clearing, lifting Goldie’s hair and stirring the leaves overhead in a sound like a sigh of gratitude.
Something shifted inside her. A pressure she hadn’t realized she carried began to ease, sliding free like a splinter drawn from flesh. At her feet, a pool of light gathered. It pulsed once, like a heartbeat.
Thank you, whispered the presence, its voice resonant with soil and sap. You have cleansed the soil.
The light deepened, then slowly sank into the earth, carrying the voice with it. The Grove Core settled around her, warm and still, it’s ancient heart at peace.
The silence that followed was absolute. The magic had stilled. The ghosts were gone. Even the gods had pulled back into watchful quiet.
Only the dark hush of the Grove Core remained—and Splice.
The dam of Goldie’s composure broke. With a strangled sob, she threw herself at him, arms tight around his neck, face pressed into the solid warmth of his shoulder. Terror, grief, and exhaustion crashed over her in a single tidal wave, and she wept great, gulping sobs that shook her to her bones.
The bonds pinning Splice had dissolved with the rest of Tamsin’s spell. He sat up, wrapping Goldie close to him, holding her fast as she shook. He murmured not words but low, grounding sounds: the rustle of leaves, the steady flow of water, the gentle sigh of branches moving with the wind.
“Oh, gods,” she gasped, pulling back to look at him, her face streaked with dirt and relief. A hysterical laugh bubbled up, cracked but real. “We survived. We actually survived.”
Splice’s hand came up to cup her cheek, thumb brushing away a tear.
“We did,” he said quietly.
And in the breathing quiet of the healed Grove Core, Goldie felt it down to her bones: they were safe. Truly, finally safe.