Chapter 22 #2
“Guess your plan to murder me wouldn’t have worked after all,” I exclaimed, turning to show Dasha.
Her rounded mouth and eyes held wonder. “Has it been there this entire time?”
“Most definitely, and you should thank Florence for revealing it,” Cedric’s dry reply. A glance had me blinking, for the cat was no longer trapped in his cage.
“How did you get out?” I exclaimed.
“As if I’ll spill my secrets,” Cedric scoffed. “I tired of being confined, and so I exited. Show me the seed.” I dropped to my haunches and let him have a sniff.
“Definitely not Earth-based,” he murmured.
I snorted. “Did you not hear Dasha say the mommy tree originated in Infernal?”
“I thought it might be a cousin of the Earth varieties. However, it is quite unique.”
“Is it viable?”
“Oh yes. It’s just waiting for the right conditions to grow.”
I glanced at Dasha. “You heard the cat. We need a hole to plant it.”
Her lips pursed before she nodded and scurried off.
“Keep an eye on her,” Cedric cautioned.
“You think she still wants to kill me?”
“She wouldn’t be the only one. These people have reached the point of desperation.”
Meaning I’d better get that damned seed to sprout and transfer Anivivi and its magic or else.
Dasha soon returned with a burly pair of men who reminded me of Misha. Seeing me staring at them, the woman murmured, “Those are Misha’s brothers.”
Brothers who worked without smiling as they hacked at the trunk. Other people arrived, men and women alike, pale of hair and countenance, some casting me curious looks, others sly assessment. Likely wondering how hard I’d be to murder.
Dasha approached. “May I have the seed?”
I held it out, and Dasha took it gently, cradling it against her body.
She didn’t hold it for long. One by one, those in the courtyard, the number of them growing as the afternoon waned into night, took a turn holding the seed. I could feel the hope emanating from them.
As the first rays of the moon lit the courtyard—barely noticeable because of all the braziers they’d lit—the hole was ready.
Dasha was the one to kneel, and murmuring something in a language I didn’t know, she planted the seed in the ground. Misha’s brothers would have covered it, but Dasha shook her head.
“Not yet.” She glanced at me. “Try again.”
AKA fill it with Anivivi and the magic.
Hoo-boy. Here went nothing.
I went to my knees by the hole and placed my hands on the seed. I tried everything. Wishing for the seed to sprout. Offering it every ounce of magic I had in me. Imagined it in the ground, being watered, and the shining sun causing it to send out rooting tendrils.
Nothing worked. The hard brown nugget remained inert.
I blew out a breath. “I don’t know what else to try.”
“Could be the seed remained inside the trunk too long and went bad.” Dasha stated.
My hands stroked over it, and I murmured, “No, it’s still good. I can feel it. Like it’s asleep and can’t wake up. It needs something to jumpstart it.”
“We tried your way. Now for mine.” Those words the only warning I got. I half turned my head to see Dasha holding a dagger. A really long one that looked wickedly sharp.
Before I could beg for my life, a voice barked, “Don’t you dare!”
“Misha!” I wasn’t the only one to yell his name.
My big, and very irate-looking, elf stalked in my direction, and people wisely moved out of his glowering path.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Misha snapped.
“A sacrifice is needed so that Anivivi can transfer to the seed.” Dasha made my murder sound so matter of fact.
Misha crossed his burly arms. “You’re talking about killing Flo.”
“An unfortunate necessity,” Dasha said with a shrug. “It pains me, for you know I’m not one for violence, but there is no other choice.”
“Actually, there is.” Cedric sat between me and Dasha, tail curling around his haunches.
“Well, are you going to tell us what that is, or you going to be a dick like the seers and give us the answer in riddles?” I snapped.
“A riddle would take you idiots too long to solve. And besides, you already know what the seed requires. It needs a soul.”
“I tried pushing the spirit out of me into it.”
“Correction. You tried shoving the magic it gave you. The spirit, however, is long gone.”
“What do you mean, gone?” I blurted out.
“It happened the moment you touched the necklace. As you absorbed the magic keeping it bound, the previous soul of the tree, what you called the spirit, took that moment to pass on.”
“But…” My lips pursed. “I thought it possessed me.”
“No. Two souls can’t inhabit a body. And before you ask why I didn’t say anything before now, it amused me to have you think you were haunted.”
“You are an ass.”
“I’m aware.” Cedric smugly replied.
Dasha interrupted my epic glare to ask, “So if Anivivi is no longer, how are we supposed to return magic and vitality to the Luxalis?”
“Those things will return once the seed begins to grow. But for that to happen, it needs someone to give it life.”
Dasha eyed me, and I blurted, “I am not sacrificing myself.” Call me selfish, but I hadn’t come all this way, survived so much, just to kill myself for a tree.
“You carry our magic. I don’t see as we have any other choice.”
“There must be another way,” Misha argued, taking my side. He’d better if he ever wanted to feel my lips or my pussy wrapped around his dick.
“I never said it had to be Florence,” Cedric interjected.
“Then I will do it,” my big idiot Russian elf declared.
“No, it will be me. I’ve lived a long life, and this is for a worthy cause,” Dasha said, holding up the dagger, ready to plunge it into her heart. Had to admire her tenacity.