Chapter 40 Treefall
Treefall
Everything shifted.
I was thrown forward, and I flung out an arm to catch myself as I tumbled down onto the platform, the deathless rose clutched to my chest with my other hand. The world shuddered again, and a hard, muscular body threw itself across me, shielding me.
Alastor, I realized with a start as his cedary scent washed over me.
Octavian had been knocked down to his knees as well. He was just in front of us, his face mere inches from mine, and his gaze darted around, scanning our immediate surroundings for danger before finally landing on me.
His eyes burned into mine, searching deep, and then he gave a small nod as if to assure himself that I was, for the moment, uninjured.
It took me a few seconds to notice everything else happening around me—to hear the shouts of people both above and below, and the unmistakable crack of wood—
A scream, then an avalanche of screams, split through the chaos from somewhere to my left, and the platform beneath us shuddered, then leaned.
“Quickly!” I wasn’t even sure which of the brothers spoke, or which of them grabbed my arm and hauled me to my feet, pulling me up and away.
To our left, there was a great groan of wood as one of the tree’s huge branches bent, then snapped, and an entire piece of it—with its platforms, and people—plummeted to the Hill below.
When it hit the ground, the earth trembled.
My body froze. People were still falling, tumbling off into nothing as the walkways fell apart beneath their feet, supports collapsing and boards giving way—
“Marigold!” A hand yanked me back into motion, pulling me into the sea of people now running from the collapsing section of platforms.
Somewhere nearby, there was more wood creaking. I couldn’t tell where. I was pressed against the crowd, Alastor on one side and Octavian on the other. There were so many people we could hardly move.
And my skin was tingling, burning as that shiver built inside me. Even with the pearls still on my wrist, for me to feel so much—
“Mordren,” Octavian rumbled beside me.
“Or Laitha.” It was Alastor who gripped my arm, his fingers like steel. “Maybe both. How—”
Another strong surge of shiver was the only warning I had before the world shifted again. Alastor was thrown into me, and me into Octavian, and it was only Octavian’s ability to keep his footing—strong and steady as an oak tree—that kept the three of us from toppling right over the rail.
Others weren’t so lucky. A woman near us let out a terrified wail as she was knocked over the side, and her soul-wrenching scream could be heard through the rest of the noise right until its abrupt, sickening end.
Our platform was leaning further. The boards beneath our feet shuddered as the supports started to give way. Maybe the tree was leaning, too—I couldn’t tell.
The brothers shared a look above my head. I had no idea what they meant to do, but I saw no way out of this. Even if we could push through this crowd, make it back to the elevator, there were so many people…
“Are they here for me?” I asked.
I could hardly hear myself over the shouts of the people all around, but both brothers’ attention snapped to me immediately.
“Are they here for me?” I said again, more firmly this time. “If I go to them—”
“Out of the question,” Octavian growled. Then added, in a gentler rumble, “We don’t know why they’re here. It’s just as likely they’re here for us.”
And none of it mattered if we all fell to our deaths. Maybe that was the plan—simply to kill us. It didn’t matter if their target was the brothers or me—or both. The result would be the same.
The platform beneath us inclined a little bit more, and the crowd shifted with it. People were shoving towards the trunk of the tree, pushing away from the perilous outer edge of the platform that dipped ever lower beneath our collective weight.
Alastor still had me by the arm, and he pushed me forward with the crowd.
Octavian shoved ahead, trying to clear a path for us.
But while the crowds in the street below had happily split around his huge form, no one made way for him here.
All around us, the panic was rising. People continued to scream, to push, to claw at each other as they tried to get away, away—
“Oak.” Alastor’s voice was sharp. When my head jerked in his direction, I found him looking across me at his brother and pointing to something above us.
I looked up. All I could see was another branch—smaller than the ones beneath our feet, and strung with lanterns that swayed with the trembling of the tree.
Octavian apparently understood his brother’s meaning without another word passing between them.
“Marigold,” he rumbled, “I need you to climb up on my shoulders.” He was already kneeling down.
I glanced up again, understanding. “You want me to climb up there?” It would get me off the platform, but it wouldn’t accomplish much else, as far as I could see. I’d just be even higher in a tree that was threatening to split apart beneath us.
“Once you’re up, follow the branch all the way to the trunk,” Alastor said. His eyes flicked down to where I still hugged the deathless rose to my chest, and then he reached out and plucked the small plant from my grasp.
“I’ll keep it safe,” he promised before tucking the plant into an interior pocket of his gray coat. “You’ll need both hands.”
“What am I supposed to do once I reach the trunk?” I asked as I climbed onto Octavian’s back, slipping a leg over each of his shoulders.
His big, warm hands closed over each of my legs just below the knee. “Hold on. And wait for us.”
He stood, and despite his firm grip on my legs, I found myself grabbing at the collar of his shirt, bracing for the world to shake again. The branch was lower than I'd realized from below, and all I had to do was reach up over my head and I could grab it.
“Climb up,” Octavian said. “I’ve got you.”
He helped me scramble up from my seat on his shoulders—I ignored the heat of his fingers as they touched half a dozen places on my legs in the process—and I got my arms fully around the branch. After one failed attempt, I managed to swing a leg over, too, then hauled myself up.
By now, the people around us had noticed what we were doing. A tall man with a pale green coat jumped up, his fingers grasping for the edges of my skirt, but he fell short.
“Go!” Octavian said to me. “Now!”
Easier said than done. Growing up, I’d never been the sort of kid who climbed trees—I was much more likely to be the one curled up beneath them with a book. Scrambling along a branch seemed simple enough in theory, but as I sat up fully, my stomach flip-flopped.
The branch was only about a foot across—technically wide enough for me to walk, if I could get myself to a standing position, but I didn’t trust my balance. Not up here, with everything snapping and shaking around me.
As if in response to that thought, the shiver beneath my skin flared again, and another great jolt shook the tree.
I hugged the branch as the tree shuddered and the leaves rattled around me.
Somewhere off to the right, there was a snap as another branch gave way, and a fresh wave of screams tumbled away to the ground.
I have to move. Now.
I couldn’t stand, but I could crawl, dragging myself toward the trunk with my legs to either side of the branch.
It was slow going. The floaty fabric of my dress snagged on the rough bark again and again, and my skirts rode up enough that the insides of my thighs were soon scraped and raw. But I kept moving.
The branch shook beneath me again, and I flattened myself against it, gripping tight. But it was only Alastor hauling himself up behind me.
“Keep going,” he called to me above the shouts from below.
Around us, other people had started to follow suit, grasping and climbing for the higher branches—anything to get off the platforms below.
Our branch shook again, and this time it was Octavian. He hauled himself up with a grunt.
And I pushed myself back up and kept moving, using everything I had in me to get to the trunk.
The shiver rose beneath my skin again, burning and tingling up my spine.
“Hold on!” I called back to the brothers.
No sooner had the words left my mouth than the tree quaked, and another deafening CRACK split the air.
It was the branch below us. It groaned, and I watched everything happen as if in slow motion—watched the platform beneath us tilt again, watched the boards start to break apart, watched the crowd fall in every direction, some surging forward, some tumbling back, grasping at anything they could reach.
Men and women and—oh god—children, clawing at anything, everything, desperate for a lifeline—
But there was nothing for them to grab except each other.
Or the pieces of the platform, even as they fell apart.
A dozen people clung to one of the ropes that had once supported the suspension bridge between two platforms. Others grabbed for the trunk of the tree, trying to find a grip in the bark as the walkway crumbled.
Just beneath me, on a section of platform threatening to buckle any second, a child was sobbing. He couldn’t have been more than five or so. His father was holding him up, begging him to look up, to grab onto the branch, but the child was too terrified to even move.
I leaned down.
I could barely reach the boy, and with my first attempt my fingers only brushed against his ruffled hair.
But the boy’s father saw what I was doing, stood up on his toes—
This time I was able to grab the boy’s shoulder. His arm. I gripped the tree branch as tight as I could between my thighs and reached down with my other hand, catching his other arm as well.
The father lifted his child up, up—into my arms, and somehow I was able to haul the boy up onto the branch in front of me.
Just seconds before the final section of the platform below us collapsed completely.