He could still hear its victim’s screams and feel Papa’s big warm hands covering his eyes. More people would have died if Papa, Bear and I hadn’t been there. We saved a lot of people. Now Papa needed saving, but no one would let him. Ran kicked the door.
“Ran, are you okay?”
Ran shook his head. Worry and fear tied his tongue in knots when he tried to speak. So, he pointed at the door. A third kick might help get his point across, but his toes smarted from the last blow.
The other children called Saveen slow-witted, but Saveen had no trouble interpreting his silent demand. His friend shook his head and regret filled his eyes.
“I can’t let you out until your father or your uncle comes for you. I promised Sarn and Miren and—” Saveen ticked off the names of the people who’d extracted that damnable promise on his stubby fingers. Saveen only had three digits and a thumb on each hand.
Or was the candlelight playing tricks on his eyes? Ran stared at his friend’s hand. It was as large as Papa’s but much thicker. Had Saveen always had four fingers? Ran couldn’t remember. Today had been long and confusing, and he’d dropped Bear when Moirraina hauled him out of his cave.
Hot tears pricked Ran’s eyes again. “I want Papa.”
“I know, but Moirraina said you must stay here.” Saveen readjusted the scarf tied around his head.
No hair stuck out from under that tan cloth because Saveen didn’t have any, just a scaly scalp. In fact, his mottled skin looked a lot like Snake Woman’s, but they weren’t related. Snake Woman was a demon-made creature, and Saveen was a real boy, wasn’t he?
Ran put those doubts aside. Saveen was his friend and the best playmate ever, aside from Papa. Ran squared his shoulders. He must get to Papa. But first, he needed Saveen to open that door.
“Papa’s in trouble.”
“You must stay here. That’s the rule. Your Papa will come when he can. Do you want to play Knights and dragons while we wait?" Saveen gave Ran a hopeful look.
That happened to be Ran’s favorite game, but he shook his head. Fresh tears spilled down his face. “I want Papa. He’s not okay. Let me out. Please let me out.”
Ran grasped Saveen’s pant leg, but the material felt like scales instead of the plain homespun his eyes saw. The mismatch confused him. How could something look like one thing but feel like something else?
Perplexed, Ran let his hand fall back to his side. Saveen was a puzzle. One I’ll solve when I’m big like Papa. By then, he’d have enough pieces to make a start on that.
“I can’t do that. I promised Sarn I’d look after you when you’re here. So here you must stay. But we can play knights and dragons until he comes. I’ll be the dragon if you’ll be the knight.”
Saveen crouched in front of Ran. Were everyone’s hands the same size as their feet? Ran blinked. Were Saveen’s arms and legs always the same length? Something was off about Saveen, but Ran's suspicions faded when his friend smiled and gestured to his back.
“Climb on and we’ll play until your Papa comes.”
Ran shook his head. After fighting real monsters, his favorite game seemed silly. Why chase imaginary creatures when a real one might be hurting Papa?
“Papa!” Ran slapped the door. I need you.
A pawn landed on the ground at the Queen of All Trees’ roots as the Adversary left with Dirk. A woman in white flickered into view beside her.
The Queen of Shayari shook off her trance. Astral projection was risky but expedient. Shayari kicked the chess piece, sending it rolling down a long, denuded slope.
“You didn’t know they were down there. You—we—aren’t omniscient. And how would you have known anyway? They didn’t cry out. I would have heard. I was there too before you threw me out.” The Queen of Shayari paced around the Queen of All Trees. Their combined light and power rivaled the sun.
“Did I make the right decision?” asked the Queen of All Trees. She lifted a branch then let it fall.
“Yes, of course, you did. Aralore’s merry band of magic-slaying bastards are still the greater danger. The Ægeldar is nothing compared to the havoc that foul rock can wreak especially in a Seeker’s hands, and you know it.” Shayari gestured from the mile-wide swath of destruction to the thin black line poking heaven in the eye. “If it grows strong enough, it could destroy us.”
The Queen of All Trees extended a silver branch to the tall woman she dwarfed with her extreme height.
“You’re right of course. How do we stop it?”
“You don’t. You promised you’d let little miss priestess do whatever she wants, remember?”
“You promised that. I was otherwise engaged. Trouble seems to come in threes lately.” The Queen of All Trees laid her stricken child-tree gently on the ground. Until the black lumir crystal was somehow contained, replacing what her child had lost would just open the wounded creature up to another assault.
“I had no choice. I needed her to leave those menhirs alone. They’re our last line of defense.”
Shayari brushed a silver lock out of her eyes then grimaced when it tangled on her overly bejeweled crown. She’d have preferred trousers and a sword or barring that, a divided skirt. But legend remembered her as the beauty in white from that Goddamned painting even though she’d never looked like that. So, she was stuck in a lacy, floor-length gown studded with more diamonds than had existed in her day.
Ignoring the dirt, she knelt in the wilting grass and laid her hands on the dying tree. Silver light suffused her, and its nimbus elongated until it encompassed the quivering tree.
“And it’s you who promised. Aralore thought I was you, and I didn’t tell her I wasn’t. So you can’t go after her, but I can.”
Under her hands, the bark warmed. Light filtered through the tubes carrying nutrients, replacing the magic the black lumir crystal stole. It took only a moment to reweave the broken enchantments. She had been repairing them for centuries, possibly even a millennium. Time had no meaning when everyone you knew was immortal.
“There, good as new. Arise and protect, our people.”
The tree rose of its own accord. It stood tall and proud again. After it bowed to her, it processed to a nearby fallen tree and began ministering to it.
“What did you do?”
A silver branch snaked around Shayari’s arm as she turned to go. “Neither you nor I have time to save them all. Since the damage is the same on all of them—a rupture to the magical reservoir fueling their enchantments—I created a patch for it. One they can pass on. It’s easy enough to duplicate. Even a worker can do it.”
“Are you sure that’s all you did? Tinkering with your army in the middle of a war is a bad idea.”
“What’s done is done. Few of them are self-aware enough for this to cause a problem.” Shayari yanked her wrist free and rubbed it.
“Where are you going?” The Queen of All Trees straightened to her full thousand-foot-tall height. She was about a hundred and sixty-six-and-a-half times taller than the woman charging down the denuded slope. But her companion was quicker.
“The same place you’re going. Don’t you dare try to stop me.”
The Queen of All Trees shook her crown, but she didn’t follow her sister-Queen. Instead, she trailed her branches over her stricken children. If she left, they'd die, so she remained. After all, she was their anchor, and they were hers.
An alarm shrilled through her bark. No! Without a backward glance, the Queen of All Trees propelled herself as fast as her roots allowed toward a soul hurtling toward the waiting arms of the grinning Adversary. You can’t have him. He belongs to us.
She reached for the Child of Magic—the young man all her hopes rested on.
This Spirit Isn’t Made for Walking
Walking was for ordinary folk who had no better way to get around. Since better ways of locomotion existed, the Adversary dispensed with that annoyance. He’d already wasted too much time on this pointless errand. So he touched Dirk’s shoulder and jumped them a half
mile for every step the silent conman took.
Except they didn’t take that first step. The Adversary held Dirk back and veiled them. There was something not quite right about this entire interlude. He scanned the forest. This as her place of power. The Queen of All Trees could hide all manner of things in here without him knowing.
Where’s that mage? He couldn’t have escaped the invisible currents pulling everything toward the black lumir crystal. But what if he had? Oh, what a prize a mage like that would be.
“Why are we just standing here? You said my friends are in trouble. Shouldn’t we go to them?” Dirk said right before the Adversary touched his shoulder and froze him.
Just stand there and think about what you’ve done.
And why not? Dirk looked like he needed to marinate for a bit. A little self-reflection was good for the soul, especially a damned one. It made a better minion in the end.
After patting Dirk’s shoulder, the Adversary floated upward for one last glance, but all he saw was the Queen of All Trees moping around. It was maddening. Every bone in his spiritual body vibrated, signaling active spell work. It could be the Witch Tree you’re sensing. She is magical.
Bells chimed signaling an angel on the wing. He rotated, scanning all the way to the serrated horizon in a panoramic sweep. Where are you, angel? What business brought you here?
Are you looking for a certain doubly-gifted mage?
Of course, he couldn’t see angels. The All-Father hid his haloed sycophants from all infernal eyes, but this angel was close judging by the chiming he heard.
Dropping back to ground level, the Adversary stood behind Dirk and tilted the conman’s head back. He listened once more, fixing the chime’s location in his mind then pressed his face into the rear wall of Dirk’s skull. He blinked a few times to bring the slice of sky visible between two giant branches into focus and almost crowed with glee.
There flew and angel-girl, arm extended, gripping something—a hand maybe? What have we here?
She melted into a spinning ball of white light and it limned a man-shaped negative space—the doubly-gifted mage. Before her light winked out, a shadow peeled off his back and grabbed ahold of the mage. They fell together, the invisible mageling and the shadow twining around him or her.
The Adversary let go of Dirk, and the conman slumped to the ground. They don’t make mortals like they used to. The Adversary shook his head. A quick probe proved Dirk hadn’t suffered any lasting harm. Good, because I have plans for him.
He needed the conman to invite him into a mountain whose protections were woven to keep the Fallen and their infernal counterparts out. After that, Dirk was expendable.
The Adversary glided to where his shadow had gift-wrapped the invisible mage, but he or she was sinking into the ground.
No, The Adversary squatted in the leaf mold and made a grab for his vanishing prize. His bones vibrated in sequence seeking the harmonic frequency of this mage—earth magic, not unusual for a Shayarin since the pole for that power was nearby. The earth sucked him or her down into its embrace before the Adversary could check for a second gift. Damn it.
Switching tactics, he seized the mage’s hand and drove his nail through it. Sinner, I mark thee. For sinner you are. Blood welled from the wound as the Adversary traced his sign on the mage’s palm. Skin to skin, we’re kin in sin. Come, sinner, we’re one in the fall.
The spell disappeared with the invisible mage as the ground swallowed his or her hand. It was a black splinter lodged in the unknown mage's soul, but his taint would take root and spread. White light surrounded the Adversary and burned his shadow helper. He held a hand up to shield his eyes as his doppelganger slunk away.
“Hello, Queenie. It looks like you’ve got something I want. Care to trade?” His lips quirked into a smile, crooked and sharp, like a sickle, as he gestured to Dirk.
Evidently, she didn’t want to trade because she processed away as silently as she’d appeared. No matter, she’d fall eventually, but not before he took her prize away from her and turned that mage to the dark side.
The Adversary unfroze Dirk with a touch and helped the man to his feet. “Come, your friends are waiting.”
Dirk blinked at him and seemed on the verge of asking something, but then he thought better of it. “Right, we should go.”
The conman glanced around seeking a path back to Mount Eredren. There wasn’t one. The Queen of All Trees wasn’t in a giving mood.
“It’s this way.” The Adversary reinstated his favorite transportation spell. The forest blurred around them as Dirk stepped forward and landed a half mile from where he was a moment ago.
The Queen of All Trees watched until the Adversary was a dark smudge on her forest miles from her present location. The leaves beside her churned as the ground expelled a young man—or rather his soul since he’d gone walking about without his body. That wasn’t part of the usual curse breaker’s toolset, but he was the son of two curses, so perhaps their crossing had given him extra gifts.
She hoped so as she pulled back the cloak of invisibility to reveal his pale face. What will I do with you? You’ve seen too much. She brushed a lock of hair out of his eyes.
The last shard of her hopes and dreams for the future of Shayari—the country not the Queen still striding toward her doom—hung on a leather thong around his neck. So long as it stayed there, it would hide him from even the Adversary’s sight. She touched that white jewel with her root. It was a piece of Shayari’s once proud past—her golden age of heroes—but even it couldn’t protect him from the Adversary forever.
Nor does it need to. Because this Child of Magic might not survive the awakening of his second gift on his twenty-first birthday five months hence. Her root stroked the glowing jewel.
Stay away from black lumir. Go back to the mountain and—what? Avoid the Adversary? The veil did more than hide him from infernal eyes, it also hid the Fallen from his sight and his magic.
“Papa, come back! I need you.” Ran shouted and his teary voice sent a jolt of fear through her.
The Queen of All Trees gazed across the intervening miles, but the ancient spells woven into the menhirs blurred her sight. She couldn’t see the child calling for his Papa.
Sarn couldn’t stay out-of-body for much longer without doing irreparable harm to himself nor could he return blind to the Adversary’s machinations. But if he didn’t, his son might die.
What is the son of a loophole?
Not even she knew. The question had haunted her, since she’d discovered he had a son, one month ago.
And that boy was pulling on the tie binding them, dragging his father a man-length in the fallen leaves. If Sarn didn’t go back, she’d never find out the answer to her question. Forget all this. Stay away from the Adversary.
After placing those injunctions so they were top of mind, she broke the bond holding him here. Free at last, Sarn snapped backward to Mount Eredren before the current could catch him. Nothing could stop his flight this time because his body was still in his cave, and his magic was an overstretched band slingshotting his unconscious soul back to it and the child calling for him.
The Queen of All Trees watched until he’d sped past the menhirs. After that, she prayed the veil held and the Adversary didn’t sense him or find him. Moans recalled her to thousands of downed trees. Some had ceased writhing in pain. One solitary tree moved between them trying to help—the one Shayari had tinkered with.
Torn between staying and going, she stood there on the brow of a hill, watching that altered tree for any sign of trouble. She was a silver flame against the darkness left in the black lumir crystal’s wake. Its foul, nullifying current tore at her crown, sending a stream of silver particles chasing after the Queen of Shayari. She halved her height and halved it again, but it was no use. Her aura extended for a hundred and forty-four miles, putting her radiance well within reach of the black lumir crystal. And already, she was beginning to dim.
You’re Not the Boss of
Me
Sarn woke to a stinging slap and a smarting face. He’d just had the strangest dream about his sister, but it faded as he threw an arm out to stop the next blow. “What was that for?”
“That’s for scaring me, you dolt.” Moirraina glared at him through her stringy hair.
She’d let herself go, but so had he. They were a matched pair, both the worse for wear except they weren’t a pair. Her tone and her air of authority grated on his nerves, and she had no right to boss him around.
“I’ve known you for almost seven years, and I’ve never seen you laid so low before. What the hell have you been doing to yourself?” Moirraina poked Sarn in the chest until he swatted her hand away.
“Nothing I want to talk about.”
“With me specifically or the world in general?”
Both, so Sarn ignored her question. He sat up and rubbed his aching head. Bear’s button eyes caught his. Where is my son?
Before he could stop it, his map mushroomed out of his skull and nearly split it open with pain. Black spots swam in and out of his vision. Thank Fate, he was still seated, or he would have collapsed from the force of his map spawning. It had a lot to show him despite the pain pounding on his skull. Sarn could only take in the most important detail of all—the location of his beloved son.
A red X blinked in the forest, but only his son mattered right now as Sarn stuffed his map back inside his head. Ran’s white star glowed a hundred-feet away in the Foundlings’ cave.
Oh, thank Fate, Sarn pushed to his knees and almost face-planted.
“Where do you think you’re going? And where’s our morning ration? It’s past lunchtime, and you didn’t bring any food yet. Need I remind you your son is an adorable handful. If we’re watching him, then we’re not doing other things like fetching food.” Moirraina crossed her arms under her dirt-smeared bosom, which was spilling out of her too-tight corset.
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