This was what he had of her. This was all he had of home.
What he’d been drawn to, what he’d loved—and he used that word only here, because it still felt cloying and naive at his age—was what, in turn, had made her make the only decision she could.
Had she not been Terafin, she would not have made that choice.
But no, he thought. Had she not been Jewel, she would not be Terafin. But Jay, with no money, no machinery of a powerful House behind her, had come to rescue Finch. He smiled, thinking of magic, and talent, of gods and demons.
He thought about bargains, about costs, about prices paid. He still thought that selling his soul was a bad deal. But maybe he had more of Duster in him than he thought.
She had gone to face demons expecting to die. Knowing that death was the best she could hope for. She had never used the word “love,” and when the word “den” had become inextricably entwined with it for everyone else, had shied away from that as well.
He could imagine making the same decision she had made. He could imagine that it might be worth an eternity of pain. Not that he’d probably be aware of it, given the nature of agony—it didn’t leave room for a lot of thought. He wouldn’t have an eternity of knowing he made the right choice because, in the end, he’d probably regret it.
But that end didn’t matter so much on this side of life. What did was what made life worth living. He could have been Duster, his rage and pain turned inward, and shoved back out in a survival reflex as old as man, all of them.
And the leaf that Jay had given him, on impulse, in pain? It could do what she herself had said she could not do.
He knew, now, that she shouldn’t have left it with him. She was kin. He was hers. But this gift was not a gift left him because she was seer-born, or because she had thought it through and made a rational decision. It wasn’t the decision of a leader, a ruler.
He did not want to let it go.
Fair enough, he thought, as he levered himself out of memory and into this shimmering, false summer. At the moment, there was no one to give it to. If the demon wanted it, he could pick it up from Carver’s corpse.
Which, from the shift in the earth beneath the blanket, which was otherwise unmoved, he thought would be soon.
“What are you doing?” Anakton demanded.
“I’m arming myself.”
“With that? You’d do better to pick up a stray branch!”
“This is what I’ve got.”
“It won’t be useful. It might hurt your companion, but it wouldn’t leave a scratch on me.”
“I do not think it wise,” Ellerson interjected, “to pick up, as you say, a stray branch. Not from these trees.”
Anakton gave Ellerson the side-eye and then snickered. “You are not as careless as he is.”
“He is younger.”
“I don’t suggest you leave this blanket. We have a bit of help at the moment, but it’s not likely to last if the blanket is destroyed.”
“This help of which you speak—does it have something to do with the tree’s roots? I cannot help but notice that they are being unearthed.”
“With the tree, yes, since they’re attached. Watch: the tree wants to keep this patch of Summer where it is. You really should have mentioned that you had this earlier. But even if you pick up a stray branch, it won’t help. I might help,” he added, crawling into Carver’s lap.
“Out of the goodness of your heart?”
Anakton tilted his head. “What does that mean?”
“It means,” Ellerson said, “without cost. To us.”
“How does that even make sense? Things of value are not merely thrown away; they are traded for things of similar value.”
Ellerson lifted a brow, and Anakton chuckled. “. . . when both sides understand the value of the thing given. Survival generally makes all things that might be of use far more valuable in the short term than they might otherwise be.”
“And you do not believe your survival is in question.”
“No. It is not.”
The earth moved—and moved again. The blanket rippled as roots rose to the left and right, forming brackets. “Does the tree understand that we’re here?”
“It understands that I’m here. I am less certain of how it views you. Do you have any way of quieting that leaf you carry? It’s making my teeth ache.”
Carver shook his head.
“Can you plant it?”
He shook his head again. “The blanket,” he explained. “I think the blanket would be destroyed.”
“Because it is a Winter spell?”
“When Jay plants her trees, they grow to full height in an eye blink, a heartbeat. If this is meant to be one of her trees, that will happen here as well.”
“It might be interesting—”
Something roared.
“—or maybe not. I should probably go.”
“You want to face a demon on your own?” In spite of himself, Carver’s arms tightened.
“You really are remarkably foolish. It is almost enough to make me feel guilty.” He sat more squarely in Carver’s lap. “I may have misstated the reasons for my tenure here.
“Although it pains me greatly to see the fallen, he cannot destroy me. He cannot even hunt me. Were it not for my presence here, he could hunt you, but sadly, I am awake now.”
Carver waited.
“And because I am awake, the earth is waking far sooner than it might have otherwise woken.” When Carver failed to reply, the creature continued, misunderstanding the silence. “Yes, I know. The earth does dislike the fallen; they betrayed the earth, they forsook it. But, for the most part, the fallen and dead do not have voices with which to bespeak the earth. Some remember the skills and the powers they had in life—and attempting to use them again is almost certain to destroy them, for the earth hears their call and responds in rage.
“Darranatos could bespeak the earth. And his voice was a thing of glory; it held the earth rapt, while he but spoke. There was almost nothing he could not ask of the earth; the earth desired greatly to please and succor him. And now? It will desire greatly to destroy him. I do not understand why he came, but it must have something to do with you. Not Ellerson, but you.
“Do you know, boy, that it is not safe to bleed here? To offer even the sleeping earth your blood? It is like the beginning of an oath, and the earth is ancient and its bindings subtle and broader than the bindings of the Oathbinders in ages past.
“The earth is tired of its long isolation, its long sleep. It wakes me from time to time, simply to hear my voice. It woke me this time for a different reason: it hears yours. Yours and the chorus of the trapped that you carry with you. Their voices are a crowd; they are stronger and louder than even my own.
“If you offer the earth what you carry, the earth will protect you from everything except the Lord of these lands—and perhaps, for a small time, even that Lord.”
“And if I don’t?”
“You will perish here, and the earth will take what you carry anyway.”
Carver stared at the creature he now thought of as an oversize rodent. He then lifted a hand in den-sign. Lying?
Yes.
“You’ll have to do better than that,” he told Anakton.
“Oh?”
“If I die here, the leaf will never be planted.”
A chorus of voices said: Yes.
Anakton frowned.
“You are eldest, but you are not of the wilderness that owes my Lord fealty. If you could have taken the leaf, you would have taken it one way or the other. There would be no need to bargain, no need to trade. Am I wrong?”
Anakton was silent.
“What I don’t understand is why Darranatos is here. Or how. But why seems more important. I can’t imagine he knows about the leaf.”
“And I can’t imagine he doesn’t. This is not a safe place for one such as he has become. Even absent the Lord, it causes him no end of pain, for he has lost much, and the loss is
fresh, it is new each time he remembers what he once was. There is no reason for him to come here now, unless it is what you carry.”
Carver shook his head.
Anakton shook his tail in a way that implied the gesture was somehow equivalent.
“Mortal child, you think that the leaf is a leaf, for that is what you perceive of it. And were the Lord of these lands awake, perhaps that is what we would perceive, as well. But he is not, and here, the dreams are loud. Do you understand? It is only here that Darranatos has some hope of finding that leaf and its bearer. Do you ask how he knows?”
“I do.”
“That leaf was created by a mortal upon the mortal plane, the overworld. A god walks that plane now, breaking all covenants. Gods are not all-seeing, but when they finally turn their gaze toward you, there is very little that escapes it. And that god is the god Darranatos and his kin forsook their lives to serve.”
Carver started to speak. Stopped. “Do I smell fire?”
Anakton shrieked as smoke drifted through the knot of roots to either side of their conversation and the blanket that protected it.
The fire spoke.
“How dare you speak of my Lord?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“THIS IS YOUR FAULT!” Anakton hissed.
Ellerson pulled out the second blanket, grimaced, and considered attempting to smother the tiny licks of visible flame he could see. Above them—and in front—the summer had shifted, from noon to evening. Winter, however, had not yet returned. The domicis was almost certain it was only a matter of time.
Anakton tumbled off Carver’s lap, attaching himself by all four paws to the trunk of the tree against which the edge of the blanket had been set. He began to chitter furiously, as if he were an angry bird.
Carver shook his head. “It won’t put out that fire,” he told the domicis.
“You are certain?”
He hesitated and then said, in a softer voice, “They are.”
Ellerson did not ask who they were. “Then we had best keep it. We may be able to convince the tree to trade this hint of Summer for aid.”
“I think it already did,” Carver said. “But Anakton somehow expects more.” The smoke grew more dense, and the flames became visible. They lapped at the edge of the blanket, turned layers of tree root into black cinders and ash. Carver could hear the tree scream in both pain and rage, although he couldn’t make out the words. If Anakton’s voice had not risen to such a piercing, grating screech, it might have been possible.
As it was, he made enough noise to wake the dead.
• • •
The tree was not dead. Carver understood that it had, movement of roots notwithstanding, been sleeping. Even asleep, it had yearned for Summer; in its own dreams, it had reached for it. The roots changed shape as the voice of fire and demon both broke that sleep. The earth changed shape beneath the rectangular square of Summer the tree had tried to hoard and protect.
The tree itself changed shape as the trunk widened. A door appeared, framed by bark. It was not a wide door, but it was far taller than either Carver or Ellerson; certainly far larger than Anakton in his current form. Anakton made no attempt to enter the door; instead, he leaped out of the way, his chittering paused for the moment as he landed, once again, at Carver’s feet.
The door had not been designed for mortals. It was not a way in, but a way out, and Carver watched as the tree shed its bark, its trunk, the raiment of its rooted self. What emerged was a being of golden skin, seven feet in height; it had four arms and four legs, the latter of which had roots for toes, or perhaps simply roots; they were buried in the earth until Carver invited him onto the blanket.
He bowed to Carver. He bowed low. He did not speak, but he looked down at Anakton. Anakton chittered. A rustle of leaves spoke in kind, a breeze that did not cause the smoke to waft. He then planted his feet. In the blanket.
The tree absorbed the light of Summer, and its arms grew thicker, its legs wider; buds appeared along the backs of his limbs, and antlers of wood grew from his forehead, gray, pale tines that reminded Carver of the stag Jay sometimes rode. The stag’s horns were the lesser horns, and the horns of the tree god—for it seemed to Carver akin to what gods must be—cast shadows that were taller and finer; that suggested citadel towers of endless height.
He gestured, and the roots that had formed a loose wall of knots and burls withdrew in a rush, leaving a hint of ash in their wake—but no flame. No fire. He had become, in the Winter landscape, a pillar of sunlight that turned, unerring, to face the creature who had dared to call fire.
Although Carver could not understand the first of the words the tree god spoke, he really didn’t feel he was missing anything; there was only so far you could take challenges and expressions of anger, and no matter how pretty the words, or how deep, they meant the same thing in the end.
“He—he thanks you for the gift of Summer,” Anakton said, in a trembling voice. “And in return for that gift he will face the dead in your stead. Umm, also: it’s personal, now. The trees don’t like axes, but they really hate fire.”
“I don’t understand—he’s made of wood. That fire isn’t the usual kindling fire—it’s—”
“Oh, he knows that,” Anakton said. “Now, you will have to shut up, because the power he calls upon is the earth’s power. It will not answer Darranatos, and in answering the tree whose roots run deepest, it will be far more easily coaxed into behaving. The earth hates fire and the dead in equal measure.”
Ellerson cleared his throat.
“Yes, what?”
“It is my understanding that when the wild elements mix in this fashion, they oft see the need to destroy each other.”
“Yes, yes. That’s possibly a problem. It’s why we have to run.”
“You don’t seem to be running.”
“Ah, yes. Not me. Sorry, I’m talking to the earth.”
Carver had not heard a thing.
“I’m special,” Anakton continued, in a tone of voice that made “special” a detrimental state. “I told you—the earth gets lonely. If I die here, now, there’s nothing to keep the earth company when it wakes. There’s nothing to speak to it or sing to it.”
“You want to escape.”
“Don’t say that out loud. Or at all!”
“I highly doubt the earth hasn’t heard you.”
“It doesn’t hear everything we say—our words are too quick and too slight. It takes effort to talk to the earth. Effort or a different state of being.”
“The tree?”
“Yes—the tree can obviously bespeak the earth. But it wakes as it wakes and sleeps as it sleeps; it is not beholden to the earth.”
“But—it’s got its roots in the earth.”
“Yes. It’s hard to explain. It’s a bit metaphorical, the wild earth. Not every patch of dirt is sentient, after all. It’s like fire. We’re clear for a bit. Come on. I’m not sure how that battle is going to go. There’s nothing you can do to help. You can’t ride the angry earth; you can’t douse the flames of the wild fire. The earth will help,” he added, shrinking.
Carver didn’t ask what Anakton had said or done. He turned back once, his hand upon the leaf, the leaf pressed into the center of his chest, between bare skin and palm.
The beady eyes of small Anakton seemed to catch blue light, although the leaf was in no way exposed. It was Ellerson who caught Carver by the elbow; Ellerson who signed No. It was emphatic; there was no question in it.
Carver nodded, then. Resting on the blanket had done some good, but he knew that he could not run for long; he could feel the figurative weight of Jay’s gift become actual weight again, with each step he took.
“Yes. It is a Winter leaf. It is a Winter tree.”
He glanced at Anakton. Anakton had not said a word.
“It is a Winter Leaf. It cannot be planted in Summer lands.” A child’s voice. A girl’s voice. High and clever and pleased with itself. He could see a young girl’
s face if he closed his eyes. After which, he could see a young girl’s face if he didn’t. She was dressed for Averalaan in early spring: winter clothing. It was slightly unusual in texture; he thought the fabric was wrong, possibly because it was glowing gently.
“Look, do you understand where you are? Do you understand what you’re doing here?”
“Yes, I know where I am,” the girl replied. “I am dreaming. I am dreaming of the world in Winter, and the demon Darranatos, and the long sorrow of the Arianni, the Wild Hunt.”
He froze.
“And I am dreaming of Carver and Ellerson, and the sorrow of Jewel Markess, and the fear that she will lose you and the certainty that she must.”
He stumbled. Righted himself.
“And I am dreaming of home, but that is just my dream. The others are not all dreaming now. They are quieter in Summer.”
“And I woke you?”
“No, no, no. You made me sleep!” She laughed, delighted for a moment at the stupidity of an adult as compared to the knowledge of, well, herself. Maybe eight, he thought. Maybe younger. At this age, it was hard to tell. She was certainly well fed, well dressed.
“But the others have not gone to sleep yet. They slept until Summer, but in Summer, they woke.” He thought about this. The blanket. It must have been the blanket.
“I’m sorry,” she added. “But you cannot stay in Winter lands, Carver. You cannot stay long in them because it forces all the rest to sleep. There are two sleeping now, besides me, two dreaming. One is old and grouchy,” she added. “I think he was a soldier, in one of the wars. He dreams of war and war and war, and nothing but fire and magic and death. I don’t like it much. Sometimes, his dreams are strong enough to trap us until we remember who we are.
“And he never wakes, if he can help it. I don’t know why.” She scrunched her face tightly. “No, I do know why. He thinks he knows way more than me. Way more than anyone else.”
“Does he?”
“Master Carver?”
Carver signed busy.
“Maybe a bit more.”
Firstborn Page 66