She didn’t even swear when she reached the source of the light and saw it was a ward. A door ward.
* * *
“I don’t have to bleed on this, do I?”
Silence. After a pause, Serian said, “on the tree?”
“On the ward.”
The glance that passed between the Barrani might as well have been a shout.
“You don’t see a ward here.” Kaylin’s voice was flat.
“No, Lord Kaylin. Do you recognize the rune?”
“Does it matter? It’s a ward.”
“In Elantra, the mortal view of wards has been adopted across the whole of your large and crowded city—but they are not the only use of wards, and indeed, not the first.”
Kaylin, who had lifted a palm in the usual hesitant way, lowered her hand. “What was the first use?”
“They were meant as containments,” Serian replied. “The wards served as warnings to those who might otherwise seek to use magic or to explore what lay beyond the ward itself. They sealed. They imprisoned.”
“You said this was where we needed to be.”
“Yes. But I also said that not everyone who enters the tunnels survives. These are old, Kaylin; it is beyond our ability to build what was built here. Only those who have encountered the traps and threats of the maze understand their dangers—but they have never emerged to share that knowledge. What do you see?”
“It’s a large ward. The center is where I assume my palm is supposed to go—but it’s larger than my hand.”
“Describe the rune, Chosen. Does it resemble the marks on your arms in any way?”
Did it? “I’m fairly certain it’s not one of the marks; it may be the same language. It’s more ornate than the door wards I’m used to; the ones I’m used to are very much like the wards in the Lord’s hall.”
“Yes, they would be.”
She reached for Lirienne and found—pain. She pulled back instantly. She reached for Nightshade and found darkness, movement, flitting impressions of hall and stone floor and sword.
She didn’t reach for Severn, because it wasn’t a word he would recognize, and she didn’t want to burden him with her fear. She was afraid.
Gaedin stepped around Kaylin with an ease that implied sloping, rounded trunks caused him no issue with balance. “Allow me, Lord Kaylin.”
Serian said nothing.
“You can’t even see it,” Kaylin said.
“No. But if it is activated by touch, and there is a risk associated with it, I am not wearing the blood of the green.” He raised an arm, and she knocked it aside. Serian caught her, because balance was an issue for Kaylin.
Gaedin lifted his arm again, and this time the small dragon launched himself at the Barrani man’s face.
“I don’t think he thinks it’s a good idea.” To no one’s surprise—or at least not Kaylin’s, the small dragon’s opinion was, of course, more relevant than hers. Gaedin lowered his arm.
His eyes narrowed, his perfect brow furrowed. He stared at the tree trunk as if he could force it, by dint of glaring, to surrender useful information. Kaylin’s arms were itching; she couldn’t see any visible magical effects, but he was using familiar magic. He bowed to her and stepped to one side. How he didn’t fall off, she didn’t know, and she tried not to resent it.
Kaylin raised her hand, grimaced, braced herself as she usually did when touching a door ward, and pressed her palm into the center of the ward.
The world exploded.
* * *
It was not the first time that Kaylin had stood at the center of a magical explosion. She had time to throw her arms over her face to protect her eyes as wood chips and bark flew.
None of them hit her arms. None of them hit her at all. She lowered her arms and looked immediately to her left; Gaedin was standing suspended in midair. The root upon which they’d found purchase was gone. So was the large, curving root on which Serian stood. But Serian still stood.
They were encircled by a globe of familiar, golden light. Flying debris hung in the air around them. Kaylin turned back to the ward. To her surprise, it was still suspended in air, glowing a brilliant silver; the tree was damaged. Kaylin was no expert in trees, but the brunt of the explosion had taken out only the section of tree—and its attached roots—directly in front of the activated ward.
The central element of the ward, the star, was gone. The rest of it—the radial points that looked like designed offshoots of that star, remained, as did the framing. Gaedin’s magic followed the explosion—but it was slower by far than the ward had been; Kaylin felt it crawling along her skin.
“Gaedin—”
“It is not me,” he told his partner. “It is Lord Kaylin.”
“Lord Kaylin who claimed to have studied magic for mere mortal months?” She looked skeptical, and Kaylin—who disliked the superiority Barrani often displayed when dealing with mortals perversely liked her better for it.
“It’s not me,” Kaylin told them both. “It’s him.” She pointed to the dragon who was rigid on her shoulder.
She followed the direction of his wide-eyed stare. “How important is this tree?”
It was Gaedin who laughed.
“Gaedin. Kyuthe,” Serian added.
He reined laughter in. His eyes were a midnight-blue so at odds with laughter it made him more disturbing.
Lirienne, can you tell me about this tree?
Silence. She didn’t even try to reach Nightshade, because it was pointless; she recognized the silence.
Kaylin grimaced and turned to the two Barrani who had led her to comparative safety. “I hate to tell you this,” she said, “but we’re not in the West March anymore.”
* * *
“I can see the ward,” Gaedin said.
Serian frowned. The ward was no longer her concern. “Do you know where we are? The cavern looks essentially the same, to my eye.”
“It is substantially the same.”
“And the tree?”
“It is as you see it.”
Kaylin, however, was moving. She wasn’t walking, because at the moment, there was nothing to walk on. But the bubble that surrounded her began to inch toward a ward that was now suspended against air, and not the bark of a trunk.
“Let Gaedin inspect.”
“Gaedin is not as sensitive to magic as I am,” Kaylin replied—in Barrani. “And I am not certain he can move of his own volition.”
Gaedin said, “She is correct.”
“Can you read what’s left of the ward?” Kaylin asked him.
“No, Chosen. The center section is missing.”
“Yes—it appears to have been the magic behind that explosion.” She was frowning now. The bits of bark and wood she was passing beneath and around still hadn’t moved. “Gaedin—this debris—are you suspending it?”
“No.”
“Am I?”
“Not in any detectable way. In my opinion, however, it is either you or your companion. He is a familiar, yes?”
“I don’t know what word means in real life. He’s certainly not the familiar of the stories the Barrani used to tell each other.” She reached out to touch a piece of bark; the small dragon bit her finger. Hard. Kaylin cursed; he gave her one baleful glare, and then once again oriented himself in the direction of the gaping hole in the side of the tree.
“I don’t think it’s the dragon, either,” she said. “Guys, when was the last time someone disappeared into the tunnels? Do you know?”
“You are not going to like the answer,” Serian said.
“Give me the answer anyway.”
“Less than ten of your mortal years ago. I believe it was six.”
There was nothing in the answer that Kaylin could dislike. “That’s good, though—it means the maze has been run and people in it have gotten out. Why did you think I’d be unhappy?”
“One of the two was mortal.”
Severn.
* * *
Kaylin carefully avoide
d touching debris—which would have been harder if the dragon weren’t in the driver’s seat. But she looked at the pieces, at their placement, at their distance from the tree. Her frown deepened. “Gaedin, can you give me more light?”
His reply: illumination. Every piece of debris was sharper, clearer. She could see what she assumed were flight trajectories. She had, with Teela and Red by her side, examined debris in the wake of an Arcane bomb. Pieces of house had embedded themselves in the parts of the walls left standing.
These pieces had traveled out in a sphere seconds after the explosion itself; Kaylin was fairly certain they’d be dotting the cavern’s rough wall had they continued their flight. They hadn’t. Kaylin, Serian, and Gaedin had experienced the force of the blast; they were alive because the small dragon had intervened.
But pieces of wood, of bark, and even dirt, remained fixed in the air, as if time had frozen. Kaylin could move; nothing else did.
“I think—I think this explosion didn’t just happen.”
The small dragon squawked.
“We witnessed it,” Serian reasonably pointed out.
Kaylin nodded. “We witnessed it. I think we’ve appeared at the exact moment the tree did explode.”
“You don’t think the ward was responsible for the explosion itself.”
She glanced at the small dragon’s profile. “No. I think the ward is responsible for dumping us here. Wherever—or whenever—here is.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. The tree looked solid when we approached it.” She frowned. “I’m not much of a mage.”
Gaedin was extremely politic for a Barrani, and said nothing.
“But when I touched the ward, the center portion of the rune disappeared; the tree—this side of it—exploded, or started to—the pieces haven’t moved. So...is it possible that the ward was holding the tree together somehow?”
“It is.”
“Door wards don’t vanish when touched,” she continued. “And most of this rune is still here; only the center portion is gone.”
“You feel that the ward served two functions.”
She nodded. “I don’t understand why. Frankly, I don’t understand how. Either the explosion occurred or it didn’t. If it did, how could someone then reverse it and contain it?”
Serian’s frown was more subtle than Kaylin’s; the color of her eyes made up for it. “It would make far more sense that the rune caused the explosion.”
“And it froze just after it happened?”
“The familiar—”
The familiar rolled his eyes. Kaylin stared at him, and he shrugged his wings. “I’m pretty sure he’s only responsible for the shielding on us. Does the shape of the rune look familiar to you?”
Gaedin had been staring at it in silence; he spoke to answer questions, but his gaze didn’t leave it. Kaylin was surprised when he began to speak. His voice was sonorous, low, the syllables almost familiar. He wasn’t speaking the ancient tongue that Sanabalis had once used to tell a race the story of its birth; he was speaking a variant of High Barrani. She could catch one word in three, but the words she did catch made no sense.
She waited, folding her arms across her chest; those arms shot out when the bubble around the Barrani servant began to flicker. “Don’t drop him!” she shouted at the small dragon. The small dragon squawked. Kaylin was too far away to make a grab for Gaedin as he lurched in midair.
His eyes widened; she saw gold ring his irises and then he was gone.
Serian said, “that was not a failure on your part.”
“What did he say?”
“I will not repeat it,” she replied. “But I think I understand what has happened. Gaedin is safe. He will probably be deeply chagrined, but I believe we will find him in the heart of the green.”
“If we reach it.”
“If, indeed, we reach it.” Serian began to float toward Kaylin. “He recognized the rune.”
“You can’t see it.”
“I have very, very limited abilities in that regard; magery was not my gift. But if I heard him correctly—” A polite phrase, because if Kaylin had heard him there was no way that the sharper-eared Barrani hadn’t. “It is in style and substance similar to runes that exist only in one place.”
“The heart of the green.”
“Yes.”
“Is someone responsible for drawing those runes?”
“If you mean, are they placed there by the Barrani, the answer is no. Not directly. Not even, to my knowledge, indirectly—but as magery was not my gift, there may well be knowledge that was not given to me. But they inform some of the unusual architecture at the heart of the green.
“I think there was enough variance that Gaedin was not entirely certain; he spoke the words of greeting and return, and the rune responded.”
“He disappeared.”
“I believe he returned, Kaylin. He will be displeased with that return; if we do not follow soon, Lord Lirienne will be likewise discomfited.”
“And you won’t—”
“No. If Gaedin had realized what the results of that tentative phrase would be, he would not have uttered it. I admit that being your servant has been an unusual challenge; we were both surprised at our deployment. Unless the green chooses to displace me, I will remain by your side.”
The dragon had once again turned his stare into the ruin of the tree side. “All right, all right. Take me to it.” She wanted roots beneath her feet. She could climb; she could cling to vertical surfaces with a little preparation. Hovering, wingless, over a distant river in the poor light of the cavern, was still disturbing.
* * *
Kaylin didn’t know a lot about trees.
Her expertise in wood involved chopping it and carrying it in the yards of the Halls of Law. This was not that kind of tree.
“Is this tree somehow planted in the heart of the green?”
The line of Serian’s lips thinned. “The tree, as you call it, is indeed planted in the heart of the green.”
“What do you mean, as I call it? What does it look like to you?”
“It looks very like the roots of a great and ancient tree. There are no trees within the whole of the West March or beyond it, in the darker forests, that have reached the age of this tree; it is singular in all ways. It is said that it speaks. I have never heard its voice,” she added softly.
Kaylin almost touched the tree; her hand stopped before it made contact with the ragged sharp edge of newly broken bark. Gleaming liquid that might be mistaken for sap caught her attention.
“Lord Kaylin?”
“The tree—it’s infected. Infested. Something.”
Silence. It was bad silence, but at this point there was no way it could be anything else. Serian moved; she seemed to have more control of her movements than Kaylin had. Kaylin glared at the small dragon.
Serian made no attempt to touch anything, but her eyes alighted on the dark, running blackness Kaylin had assumed was sap. She closed her eyes, her lashes a dark, trembling fan against her pale skin. “I believe I understand.”
“Explain it to me?” she said, in frustrated Elantran.
“The tree destroyed part of itself.”
“What caused it?” Kaylin asked.
“I do not—as you must guess—know. Rumor says that you are a healer. That you became kyuthe to the Lord of the West March because of that singular gift. He does not resent you, and he does not fear you—and that was unexpected. The Barrani do not expose themselves to—”
“Healers? No. Believe that I’m aware of just how much they hate it.” She was afraid to touch what she could barely think of as a wound. Even in the darkness, she could see the scintillation of color flowing in the liquid, and if the Barrani of the West March insisted that this black mess wasn’t the shadows that plagued the fiefs, Kaylin couldn’t see what the difference was.
She examined the tree; very little of the dark infection was visible. If the tree had destroyed some part of its
elf in an attempt to be rid of it, that said something about the tree. “I’ve never tried to heal a plant before.”
Serian looked mildly offended.
Kaylin hesitated for one long minute, and then placed her hand on the tree’s bark, instead of the jagged edge of its wound. She closed her eyes as the marks on her skin began to warm. It is a tree, she thought, but kept her nervous defiance to herself. Most trees didn’t ditch large chunks of themselves in fancy, magic explosions. They certainly couldn’t write, and the rune was complicated enough that it hadn’t happened by accident.
Most trees didn’t think.
* * *
This one did.
The problem with healing—from Kaylin’s perspective—wasn’t the exhaustion it left in its wake, although it could certainly have that effect. It wasn’t the physical contact, and the sudden knowledge of the limits of another person’s body; it wasn’t even the sense that, while she healed, there was little separation between her own body and her patient’s.
There was just as little separation between thoughts, between identities. She could feel and sense what they could feel and sense.
She didn’t know what the tree would offer. And the tree seemed content to offer her nothing. A lot of nothing. A great, endless darkness. She wasn’t even certain that she was connected to the tree at all; she saw a lot of what she assumed was unlit cavern.
But there was texture to the darkness, and it was a texture she didn’t like. She remembered what she’d done with the Barrani who had been injured in their skirmishes with the forest Ferals. They’d been infected—by bite—with the same transformative shadow, and she’d forced it out. Torn it out. Which had left injuries that could be healed the normal way.
Her arms were burning, but it wasn’t the usual heat. It took her a moment to realize it wasn’t her marks—although they were warm—but the sleeves that covered most of them. It was the dress, the blood of the green. She felt a moment of sick fear because she knew she was worth far less than the dress to the denizens of the West March.
But the dress was somehow of the green. And the tree, if she’d understood anything—and given how little sense things made, that was questionable—was its heart. She opened her eyes and saw that the sleeves were...flowing. They were drifting off her arms as if they were liquid.