Chapter 61
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
Briar
Over the next two days, Lyra brought me books, and we searched through them together. We didn’t find any answers. It was as frustrating as trying to learn about my newfound abilities to communicate with the dead and animals.
When I ran out of books on potions and plants, I had her bring me ones on curses, but there wasn’t much on them in the shifters’ library.
The casters and elves would keep information about their magical abilities close to their hearts.
They wouldn’t put their secrets into books the other kingdoms could use.
The information we found on curses focused more on what they could do than on how they were created or broken. I hadn’t hoped for much from that avenue anyway, but it was still disappointing.
Because of Lyra’s frequent visits and time spent with me, I suspected Knox knew what she was doing. I didn’t ask, and she didn’t say. We spent much of our time working in silence, but sometimes we shared stories from our childhood.
I learned she was the youngest of seven and had six older brothers, who were entirely crazy and loved to pester her. They’d also beat up anyone who looked at her cross-eyed.
She learned about how Knox and I would play together in No Man’s Land. I didn’t tell her much about Nightshade; there were no happy memories there, and we’d settled into telling only things that brought smiles and laughter.
There was enough sadness in this castle without us adding to it. I enjoyed her company and was glad to have her faith and support.
On the third day, she looked entirely defeated when she arrived at my door. Her shoulders were slumped, and her eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep.
“It’s getting worse,” she said. “Knox wants you to come with me.”
I rankled at this command. “Where is our mighty leader?”
“In the solar with Dromon and Pierce, as well as some of the sprites.”
“What’s happening?”
“Come with me.”
Gizzi raced up to my shoulder before I left the room. I followed Lyra down the stairs and passed wilting rosebushes in the hallway. Some only had one or two petals clinging to them. Others were just starting to die as the sickness spread.
I was so focused on the roses that I didn’t notice the tree of unity until we reached the first floor. My hand flew to my throat as horror filled me.
The beautiful, multicolored leaves all drooped; their ends had shriveled and browned.
Some of them broke free and drifted to the ground; they settled around the stones where more of them lay.
The flower petals littered the ground; almost all had fallen, and the entry was silent as the bees had left.
“Oh!” I cried as I raced toward the tree. “Oh no. Please, please, no!”
I didn’t know who I was pleading to, as all the gods seemed to have abandoned this place and I was unbound. I stumbled over the stones and fell at the base of the tree. My knees smacked off the dirt as my hand collided with the trunk.
The second I touched the tree, grief erupted within me. Before I could stop it, a wail of anguish tore from my throat and rebounded around the room, but it was full of more than my misery; it was also the tree’s.
Just days ago, its power strengthened me, but now its dying filled my veins. I didn’t realize I was weeping until wetness flowed over my hands to soak through my pants.
“What happened?” I breathed, wishing the tree could talk to me like Gizzi, but all it gave me was its agony.
“I’m going to stop this,” I choked out. “I will find a way to stop this.”
I had no idea how, but there had to be a way. Knox wouldn’t allow me to make another potion, and I didn’t dare put anything else on these plants without knowing what was happening.
“It’s spreading amongst the roses too,” Lyra said from behind me.
With tears streaming down my face, I turned to look at her. I hadn’t realized Knox, Dromon, Pierce, Bertie, Zephyr, and some of the other sprites had entered the room. They stood and floated near the doorway, watching me.
Bertie and the sprites at least looked sympathetic, but the shifters’ faces were all expressionless.
I didn’t know why Knox had let me out to see this.
Maybe he wanted to witness my reaction, or maybe he hoped there was some way I could still help, but his eyes were flat and cold when they met mine.
The sprites all looked drained. Their wings weren’t as vibrant, and their skin was paler. They thrived on nature, but much of the plants’ vitality was taken from this realm by the curse. With no way to help the dying plants, the sprites were fading.
There had to be some way to stop this before I lost them.
I wiped the snot from my nose before focusing on Lyra. “Your parents?”
When she bowed her head, I knew the answer to my question. Pulling my hand away from the tree, I shuddered when my connection to it broke. I was free of it, but its anguish continued to batter my heart.
I would never be free of its misery… unless I could somehow save it.
“Everything is dying,” Knox stated.
I gulped; I really didn’t want to ask my next question, but I had to. “Even the king and queen?”
“Everything,” Knox growled.
My heart sank into my toes. If they died, he might kill me.
“Could it be the rat?” Knox asked. “He’s venomous.”
“No!” I shouted as I recoiled from him. “His bite is venomous, and he’s not running around biting the plants and trees.”
“Of course I’m not,” Gizzi said angrily. “This guy’s an idiot.”
“Lowleetos don’t work that way,” Bertie said.
“Besides, he’s been here the whole time, and the plants were all getting better.”
“If I find out you, or him, had anything—”
“I didn’t do this!” I shouted at him. “For once, stop believing the worst in me! I would never do this!”
“You’d better hope not.”
Despite my lingering sorrow for the tree, I glowered at him. “Take me to the worst of the roses.”
“I’ll show you,” Bertie said as she flew closer. “This way.”
Rising, I didn’t look at Knox as I followed Bertie from the room. Zephyr flew on the other side of me as Gizzi turned on my shoulder to keep his eyes on Knox.
All the other plants in the room and the ivy encircling the banisters were also dying. Many of their leaves littered the ground.
When I first stepped into this room, it was like entering an indoor forest. Now, it was like entering a tomb.
I was surprised to discover the colored sand still scattered across the ground. The sprites had been too distracted and busy to clean up after their prank, and everything remained untouched. Time froze the second Atlas burst in to tell us about the dying roses.
Bertie led the way to the courtyard off the long hallway. The insidious sensation of impending doom crept up my neck as we walked.
She stopped near a rose with no petals left. It drooped over as its stem gradually crumbled beneath the weight of what remained. A single leaf clung to it, but all the thorns remained.
I didn’t want to touch it, but I had to. Bracing myself, I knelt beside the rose and reached for the decaying stem.
As soon as I touched it, what remained of the flower crumpled beneath my fingers. I recoiled as the ashy remnants scattered across the ground.
Unable to move, I stared at the rose in horror. It took a few moments before I hesitatingly stretched my trembling fingers toward it. I dipped the tips of them into the remains; they were silken against my skin, but no emotions radiated from them.
I rubbed the black ashes between my fingers as I examined them. There were no bony remnants, but it was as if someone had cremated the shifters. A sick feeling settled in the pit of my stomach as I lowered my fingers.
Am I somehow doing this? Is there some way I’m killing them without realizing it?
I recalled sitting in the tree while its life flowed through its limbs and into me. I’d strengthened myself by absorbing its energy.
Did I take too much? Is my ability to connect with dead things leaking into the world and poisoning it so that I was also killing things?
Are they dying because of me?
The possibility turned my blood to ice and sent my brain screeching in a hundred different directions. I strained to deny the possibility while also trying to find some other reason this was happening.
But I had nothing. Absolutely nothing other than death and decay.
I couldn’t bring myself to wipe the ashes off on my pants, but I couldn’t stand having it on my fingers anymore either. This was a living, breathing shifter at one time, and then my mother came along, and now I had.
If I could talk to the dead, could I also talk to the shifter who once resided in this flower? I struggled to form a question that wouldn’t make the others suspicious and could get this dead shifter to talk to me.
“Are there others like this?” I asked.
When no one answered me, I turned to discover them all staring at the fallen rose with a mixture of shock and sorrow.
Bertie flew down to stand on the ground; she was impossibly drained of more color and life. “There are a few this bad throughout the castle.”
“Do you think they’re dead?” I asked.
It was clear to me they were, but I waited to hear something from someone else… someone no longer on this plane. Silence from beyond met my question, but Bertie answered me.
“Don’t you?”
“Yes,” I reluctantly admitted.
I rested my fingers on the ground before rising. More dying roses speckled the courtyard, but I didn’t dare approach them. If I were the one raining death down on them, then I couldn’t get any closer.
Is it me?
I dug my fingers into my palms, grinding some of the ashes into my skin. It felt like the full weight of the dead shifter rested on my shoulders instead of just these scant remnants on my hand.
Did I do this?
Bile burned my throat, and I couldn’t hold it back. Rushing to a corner of the courtyard, I didn’t quite make it before vomit surged out of my mouth and sprayed the ground.
My throat burned, more tears fell, and my stomach knotted as I heaved again, nearly throwing out my back as I purged all my insides. When there was nothing left to come out, dry heaves continued to wrack me until they finally subsided too.
Legs trembling, I staggered back a few steps before falling to my knees. I was a complete mess, but I couldn’t kneel in my own throw-up.
What was I supposed to do now? How did I proceed?
My gaze fell on a rose with only three petals left. The sands of the hourglass were running out fast on its time, and if I didn’t figure something out, nothing would remain of the shifters… that’s if I wasn’t the cause.
Oh, gods, I couldn’t be the reason for all of this. I’d never be able to live with myself if I were the one destroying the shifters.
If it is me, will anything be able to live around me? Is one of my new abilities complete and utter destruction? Will I ever be able to touch plants again?
If there had been anything left in my stomach, I would have spewed it everywhere at the idea of never being able to fully immerse myself in nature again. I loved everything about nature; it was a part of my soul, and I would die without it.
Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I stared at the wall before pushing myself to my feet. I turned to face the others; they all stared back with wary expressions. If I were the cause of this, they’d hate me.
But whether that was true or not, I had to figure out what was happening.