Chapter Five
Five
The garden was cradled in a small valley among the foothills.
“They call it the Giant’s Thumb,” I explained.
“When the realms first split, humans shared Terra with giants and monsters. A lost human once came upon a giant’s demesne, but the giants refused to share their land or food with the human, who they thought was too puny to be worth their time.
The human stole a crumb one of the giants dropped in this spot, and the giants were furious.
Their king tried to squash the human like an ant and pressed his thumb into the ground. ”
I held up my thumb and fit it into the spot. In the terraced hills beyond, a line of workers pushed bulbs into readied soil.
“Mountain lilies?” Nik asked.
I nodded. “By midsummer, they’ll be taller than the people sowing them. Then they’ll be processed and used for pretty much everything. Food, cloth, fodder, perfume.”
“It’s beautiful. Who owns this land?”
“According to the Emperor Eternal, he does. He demands half of everything the stronghold makes.”
His gaze shot to mine. “That can’t be right.”
“It’s right. You saw the market. For most, there’s coin for necessities, little more.” And for some, there wasn’t even coin enough for necessities.
The wind changed and carried the song the farmers chanted to the rhythm of the work. It was the same one the kids had sung yesterday about the gates and fighting princes.
“ ‘Fight ’til their father brings them home again,’ ” Nik repeated. “Harsh.”
“Yeah. Probably better not to mention that to the prince.”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t even hear it.” He extended a hand toward the garden’s entrance, which was marked by an arch of woven vines. A stone figure of the Terran god of land, spade at the ready, squatted nearby, its nose rubbed smooth by gardeners who’d touched it for luck.
There was a tight prickle in my chest, and as I moved closer to the statue, I could see the faint haze of Aether in the moss that crowned its head. It had the same sickly tinge that I’d seen in the market.
Thankfully, while the pinch was growing fiercer, it was still quick. “The practitioner was here. He touched the statue.”
Nik moved closer and stared at it. “Tell me what you see.”
“A green haze. Sometimes it glows, like the light of a will-o’-the-wisp. But there’s no trail from here, so let’s check Innis’s plot.”
The plots were rectangular, and some were still tangled with the remains of last year’s plants; others were bare and ready for planting anew.
Set against each other—the dark squares and light—they looked like a game board.
The entire lot was bordered by woven wattle fencing to keep the plants safe from horned deer and rabbits.
Ferren had given us coordinates, so we counted down the rows until we reached their plot. The dirt had been turned, and tiny green sprouts in tidy rows marked the spots Innis had already planted. But they were the only hint of green.
“No Aether here,” I said, a little disappointed that there wasn’t more to show for the coin I’d taken.
“And no signs of a fight,” Nik said. Hands on his hips, hair falling over one eye, he looked down at the dirt. “He wasn’t taken here.”
“Then where?” I asked.
Nik looked up. “You tell me.”
He had a point. “I’ll walk the garden and look for Aether.”
Nik nodded. “We’ll look for clues here. If you see an evildoer”—he lifted his hands—“wave your arms.”
“I’ll be sure to send him your way,” I assured him.
I walked along the narrow path outside the woven fence and found nothing but dirt and rocks and plants. Those who’d attacked Innis would have to have come from somewhere, but there was no trace of them, or their magic, leading into the garden.
Water trickled nearby, where the land dipped just beyond the tree line. A stream, I bet, and probably used by the farmers to water their plots.
I found the well-worn path down to the water, logs placed in the ground to make steps down the hill.
A similar path led up to the other bank.
There were no logs to make the climb easier there, just a steep and muddied path where striplings would provide the only purchase.
I squinted and could just see the faint haze of Aether left behind by someone’s manipulation.
The stream below was clear and shallow at the edges. I stepped carefully into the water, treading slowly across the current to keep as much water as possible out of the tops of my boots. And as I moved closer, I could see footprints in the mud on the other side.
I began to cross the deepest section of the creek, but rocks shifted beneath my foot and I felt my balance go.
I wheeled backward and prepared myself for the cold shock of water—but instead found myself supported just above the surface by a very strong arm.
Blue eyes stared down at me, and Nik’s mouth quirked in amusement.
“Hello, Fox.”
For a very long moment, while I gazed up at him like a startled deer, I could think of nothing to say.
“Thanks,” I finally murmured as he helped me right myself, the stones still moss-slick and slippery. Mortification warmed my cheeks; I wasn’t a helpless storybook maiden who needed rescuing.
“Not the first time someone has fallen into my arms,” he said with the confidence of a man who fully expected it would happen again. “Now we’re even. You saved the prince from assassins. I saved you…from the damp.”
“I don’t think that’s quite the same level of danger,” I said.
“Then I’ll owe you one. What are you doing down here? Other than going for a swim.”
“Innis said he’d done some planting. Pretty sure you need to water plants when they go in the ground.” I pointed to the other side of the stream. “Look.”
He shifted his gaze to the mottled ground, then crouched and reviewed the footprints.
“Someone was pulled from the stream.”
“Drag marks,” he agreed, then rose. “There’s Aether here?”
“Not that I can see. Either the practitioner hid it—”
“Or he had someone without magic do the dirty work for him. Let’s see how far the tracks go.” Nik climbed up the bank, careful not to disturb the marks, and held out a hand for me.
“I’m fine,” I said, and instead used an overhanging branch to pull myself up the incline. My heart was still racing, and I could still feel the sensation of his hand on my back. This was more careful, just as Wren had requested.
The ground on the shore was too dry to hold footprints; it also held no Aether. So we made our way back to Galen, who waited near the horses.
“He was probably taken while getting water,” Nik said, and explained what we’d seen. “I think we’ve found what we can here. Let’s get back to the stronghold.”
I had my foot in the stirrup to remount Grim when I felt the new pinch. I gasped at the bright pain, and Grim shifted nervously.
“Whoa,” Nik told him, holding the reins with one hand and supporting my arm with the other.
I untangled my foot, breathing deeply until the pain subsided.
“What’s wrong?” Nik asked. Galen had pulled his sword, and they’d both moved around me to fight against whatever lurked beyond. Or to protect Grim. Imperial horses were probably expensive.
“Aether,” I said, and looked around.
There was no new Aether in the garden or the hills beyond, where workers still moved to their own rhythm.
So I walked around the horses, avoiding the kicking parts—I knew at least that much—and back toward the road, following its rise until I had a good view of the surroundings.
It was early spring, and the air should have been loud with birdsong and the hum of crickets.
But it was quiet. The trees were only just budding, which made the sickly green haze that had bloomed over the hills to the west that much more visible.
There were footsteps behind me. “What do you see?”
I pointed toward the north. “Aether. It wasn’t here when we arrived.”
“The practitioner?” Galen asked.
“It seems likely, but I can’t tell from here.”
“I need to check it out,” Nik said. He looked down at me. “You can stay here, or go back to the stronghold. I won’t ask you to fight a battle you didn’t sign up for.”
It wasn’t that I wanted a fight, but I didn’t mind the possibility of a little more adventure. Maybe Wren was right to worry about me. “You can’t fight what you can’t see.”
He looked at me for a long, quiet moment. “All right. Let’s go.”
We walked the horses in silence down the road, the only sound the scritch of rock and sand. We followed the haze as best we could, turning down one side road and then another until we were deep in the foothills and far beyond the stronghold wall.
“It hurts you?” Nik asked quietly. “The Aether?”
“It’s fine,” I said.
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Yes, it hurts. Most of the time, not badly. This—whatever the practitioner is doing—is more painful.”
“Is that common? Among people who can see?”
“I don’t know. There aren’t many who can see these days. Doesn’t the Emperor Eternal know everything about everything?”
“Don’t believe everything you hear,” he said. “Simple lies always spread faster than the complicated truth.”
We reached a squat stone house that stood in a small clearing.
The forest was reclaiming it; weeds grew from the thatch roof and the building was half-covered in moss and ivy.
There was a single window, the shutter hanging crooked in its frame, and an open doorway.
Above the house, Aether swirled like a dust devil, but it wasn’t tinged with sickly green, and my chest carried only a dull ache.
The Aetheric practitioner’s haze must have dissipated while we’d walked here.
Within the eddy, three female Anima circled the house, luminous shadows of their former human selves.
Maybe I should have been afraid, but nothing in this Aether felt angry or vengeful.
Instead, they all looked terribly sad. Their faces were drawn in lines of grief, mouths open to spill out silent wails.
“I don’t like this,” Galen murmured. “It’s giving me gooseflesh.”