Chapter 40 #2
I didn’t dare curtsy to the princess in case the enemy had a way to watch us this deep into the town.
With those damned gems, we couldn’t be sure of anything.
If they saw me show too much respect, it would put a target on her.
She’d made a point of changing her appearance and dressing like a regular Veronnian soldier before coming here so she wouldn’t be easily recognized.
Lillian nodded. “You do the same, Aella. I’ll see you again soon.”
She began walking away as Faina appeared down a pockmarked street. Darrow’s sister practically sprinted the rest of the distance. To my shock, she embraced me and planted a kiss on my cheek. “Thank the nameless ones you’ve come to rescue me from the monotony and drudgery of this horrid place.”
Several more booms sounded in the distance, along with a high-pitched wail from a spell.
“It doesn’t seem that boring to me,” I said, frowning as she pulled away.
She waved a hand toward the sounds of battle. “That is nearly an everyday event. It stopped being interesting a while ago, trust me.”
“Okay,” I said, choosing not to argue.
“Please tell me you don’t need to stay long and recharge,” Faina said, a desperate look on her face. She looked at me like I was here to break her out of prison.
I shook my head. “The only question is whether you want me to take you straight back to Darynia, or if you’d be up for going to southeastern Juvarn to help me look for plants.”
No need to mention which type since that might scare her off. I just preferred to have an extra pair of hands for carrying or protection should we run into trouble.
“Oh, I’m definitely going to Juvarn with you,” she said, gray eyes lighting up.
The next trip would be pushing my power limits since I barely had fifteen minutes to rest between channeling, but my next stop wasn’t far from the border between Veronna and Juvarn.
With the ring over a mile from our destination, we’d have time for me to refill my power levels while walking and scouting for carnivorous plants.
I smiled at her. “Good. I had hoped you’d say that.”
A few minutes later, we stepped out of the portal into a dense forest with sweet, fresh air.
The leaves had all turned brown, orange, and red in a colorful array that blanketed the land.
Our feet crunched over them, barely able to follow the path I remembered from years ago.
I’d been here exploring and inadvertently discovered the crunchertraps.
Few people lived in this area. At first, I couldn’t understand why.
It was so beautiful and serene—pure, untouched nature.
When I came a second time to get another plant, the reality became clear.
I’d had to wait until well after dark to sneak from the castle that time, so my uncle wouldn’t know I’d left.
When I’d arrived here, I discovered a night creature I hadn’t encountered before—wraiths.
They were terrifying and vicious. Unlike wisps, these spirits couldn’t come out during the day, but they were always hungry, traveling in groups throughout their territory as they searched for their next meals.
They could move through solid objects, rendering homes useless for protection.
Only the most powerful wards could stop them.
Their singular goal was to tear through a person’s soul and steal all their energy until they died. Thankfully, I could use my light power to protect myself and scare them away, but I had to come back another time to get the crunchertrap.
“I never thought I could appreciate a peaceful forest this much,” Faina said, twirling in a circle with her arms raised. “Karganoth barely gave us a moment to breathe this past week. I swear we have spent at least twelve hours a day fighting them as they keep bringing reinforcements.”
Since it was only late morning, I didn’t bother to tell her that this place’s serenity was deceptive. She’d likely never have a reason to return. But even if she did, her control of flames and sheer bullheadedness would keep her safe from the wraiths.
I smiled at her. “Happy to break you out of prison.”
“Better you than the other ones who tried,” she said as we continued walking.
“Other ones?” I asked.
She sighed. “Yes. Some of the dark elves tried to take me a few days ago. It was near the end of a long battle when we were all drained and the wards broken. They would have succeeded if my brother, Vas, hadn’t shown up. He actually saved me just like he did Darrow.”
“He says he wants us to reach Earth, and that’s why he helps,” I said, referring to the letter I’d given Darrow weeks ago.
Faina pushed a loose lock of her brown-black hair behind her ear. “He told me the same thing. I mean, he’s never attacked me or been cruel to me, but I still don’t trust him.”
“You and me both.” Unfortunately, we couldn’t do much about the Unseelie man at the moment. Figuring out his true motives would have to wait.
She kicked at some leaves, sending them flying. “Not that it matters one way or another, but what kind of plants are we looking for here?”
“My crunchertrap, Wrath, needs a friend. It’s getting lonely.”
She shot me a stunned look. “So you’re telling me that we’re avoiding the war effort to hunt down murderous plants?”
Why did everyone act like all my garden did was kill?
“That’s one way of putting it.” No one was going to make me feel guilty for it, either.
“As long as you don’t expect me to carry one, I’m fine with it,” she said with a grin.
I laughed in relief. “You’re growing on me, you know.”
“Same with you.” Faina skipped through the leaves like she was five instead of forty-six, even more amusing while she wore a drab soldier’s uniform. “Now, give me all the updates. Where is my brother, and what else has been happening?”
“Dare is somewhere east of Porrine right now. He sent a sebeska yesterday with a letter describing the land decay he found, the movements of Karganoth’s troops, and he confirmed that the dark elves freed Kaius, the king’s brother.
” I rubbed my chest where the ache kept frustratingly growing.
“He’s hoping to return soon, but he wants to check on a few more things first.” Of course, he didn’t say what, so we’d have to wait to find out.
“He’s been busy, the lucky asshole,” she said, shaking her head. The movement made her long, brown-black braid swing back and forth.
I snorted. “If he hadn’t finally told me about his teleporting, I wouldn’t have believed he could cover so much ground that quickly.”
Faina lifted a brow, surprise in her gaze. “He told you?”
“Yes. The secret had to come out when Dare rescued the princess. At least, that’s the way he explained it, so he’s not hiding it anymore.” I’d keep pulling more secrets from him, but I suspected there were some I might not want to know.
We spent the next mile catching up on what had been happening over the last few weeks. I’d seen Faina a couple of times when I came to open portals at Radoumar, often to bring the severely wounded back to Darynia for more intensive healing, but she usually had too much to do to chat for long.
As we neared our destination, a sick feeling came over me, and the breakfast in my stomach curdled. The forest thinned, and the break in the trees ended sooner than expected. Up ahead, the foothills of the Sobaryan Mountains came into view. I blinked at the horror of what I found.
“Nooo,” I cried, dropping to my knees.
Faina froze next to me. “Dear nameless ones, this wasn’t in the intelligence reports.”
It probably wouldn’t have been because no one had a reason to come here.
The blight had struck most of the rolling hills, turning them ashen.
It hadn’t progressed to the point of full decay, which almost made it worse.
I estimated hundreds of crunchertraps were within my view, blackened and slumping to the ground.
Some had a tinge of green in their stalks, but all their lavender petals with teeth had fallen to the ground and withered away. They were beyond saving.
Still, I forced myself to rise and walk the terrain.
While the rotting odor and sorrowful mood of the dying plants turned my stomach, it didn’t sap my magic like what happened in Alavaar.
The blight had struck much more recently, but it must have spread quickly because it reached nearly to the mountains.
Faina walked her own path as she studied the ground.
We diverged as we took in the state of the place and mourned another piece of lost land.
It wasn’t until I reached the edge of the decay that I caught sight of a lone crunchertrap that still had its petals, though they were turning gray at the edges.
It had begun to slump, despair coming from it in waves.
“Over here,” I called loudly, so grateful to find a survivor.
Then I sank to my knees in front of the plant. “Shh. I’m going to help you. Would you like that?”
The giant lavender flower lifted a little, and I put my hand out to caress the edges. It gently rubbed against my palm, letting me feel its pain and anguish. I couldn’t say how I knew what plants felt, but some other druids had the same ability. This one had watched its family die helplessly.
Faina stopped behind me. “Can you save it?”
“I think so.” I glanced back at her. “Did you see any others like this?”
She shook her head. “No, sorry. I think the blight has already done too much damage to the rest of them.”
“I’m guessing it didn’t spread to this one until the last day or so. It’s sitting apart from the others, which likely saved it,” I said, nuzzling the flower with my cheek. It trembled in response.
“This is just…awful. I mean, you have to respect plants willing to do battle. Did you say this is the only place they grow naturally?” she asked, a surprising amount of concern in her gaze.
I nodded. “Which means this one and the one in my garden are the last of their kind.”
“Can they make more?” she asked.
“All the ones I brought back never produced viable seeds. I found an old tome once where someone had studied crunchertraps thoroughly. He experimented but was unable to reproduce them on any land other than this one. It might be something to do with the soil. That’s why I worked so hard to keep mine alive year-round after I realized new ones wouldn’t sprout in the fall at Ivory Castle like they do here.
I lost the first two and had to start again. ”
At one point, I took some of the soil from here, but I couldn’t carry much since I was alone and it was a long walk.
Getting enough to satisfy the plants fully would have been exhausting and time-consuming.
I settled for keeping two that I could feed a little magic to now and then to keep them strong, along with the bag of soil I’d acquired for them.
“Well,” Faina said, crouching next to me. “Let’s save this one so yours isn’t alone anymore.”
She smiled when the crunchertrap rubbed against her face. I had never seen anyone else willing to allow the plant to do that, and it made me respect Dare’s sister for being so brave. There was more to her than I thought.
“We have to carefully dig with our fingers so that we can feel the roots. They’re already going to be damaged. We have to do our best not to make it worse,” I warned.
“No problem.”
We began carefully extracting the decayed soil, trying not to gag at the pungent odor we released.
It was terrible. I could only imagine how the crunchertrap felt stuck in the nasty, sickly ground.
As I worked, something occurred to me. This one was nearly a hundred feet from any others, which was quite a distance, and at the start of a rocky area. It shouldn’t have grown here.
“I think it tried to run away from the blight,” I said in wonder. After all, they could move short distances.
Faina stopped digging to note the dead and near-dead plants farther down the hill. “Wow, you’re right. It must be smarter than average, which makes it even more important we save it.”
“I’m beginning to worry about you actually understanding my train of thought,” I said, working a root free as I spoke.
She gave me an amused look. “I’m not a gardener like you, but I do appreciate looking at plants. When I need a break, I find somewhere quiet where nature can surround me.”
“Well, you’re welcome to my garden anytime you need it.”
Her eyes twinkled just like her twin brother’s. “Thank you.”
We continued loosening the plant from the ground.
Its roots should have run over a foot down, but most were shallow, confirming my suspicion that the crunchertrap had moved very recently.
It had only dug a couple of them deep enough to reach the nutrients under the nasty rot.
That bought it time, but soon the blight would have spread its infection enough that even trees wouldn’t be able to find sustenance, despite their broader reach.
Finally, we freed the plant, and I carefully lifted it.
The roots were cumbersome, so Faina kept a hand at the top of the stalk to stabilize it.
We slowly made our way down the hill toward the forest far below.
Once we reached healthier ground, I began feeding the crunchertrap a small amount of healing magic.
That helped perk it up enough that it pulled away from my helper.
To my delight, it chose to rest on my shoulder.
Though I was tired by the time we returned to Darynia and impatient during the boat ride, nothing made me happier than stepping into the garden.
My other crunchertrap was so excited to see one of its kind that it hardly noticed Faina.
I allowed the two flowers to greet each other for a minute while still holding the sick one.
They buzzed with happiness and excitement as they rubbed against each other’s petals.
“If I weren’t here to see this, I would never believe it,” Darrow’s sister said, her features softer than usual, as if she’d never witnessed a touching moment before.
After they settled a little, I planted the new one in a hole I’d already dug in preparation for it. Faina helped me cover the roots with soil. It included a mixture from the old garden, so it met the plant’s needs to some extent.
We also added some of the meat blend I’d concocted so the new crunchertrap could soak up desperately needed nutrients right away.
I’d see about getting something fresher to bring back after dinner since I’d already worked out a deal with the castle’s vermin catcher.
For now, both of my lonely plants were happy to have a companion again, and I was glad my garden felt a little more like home.