Bloodleaf

by Crystal Smith

  “Think of Nathaniel. He needs you. Please, Kate. Take it.”

  “He’s stronger than I am. He always has been. He will heal, and live a good life. But if I take some, and she dies, I won’t be able to live with myself.”

  “If you don’t take it . . .” I trailed off. I didn’t know how to tell her.

  “I’m not a fool, Emilie. I know what Dedrick said to me. ‘Nihil nunc salvet te.’ I know what it means. What if I take it, and you lose us both anyway? This way, I can die knowing I did everything I could for her.”

  I took a deep breath and nodded slowly. My heart was too sore to try to argue. A mother should never have to be without her child. “Then, here. Give her to me.”

  With the baby in my lap, I opened the vial and held the dropper above the infant’s parted lips.

  One, two. Two drops.

  Nothing happened.

  This was madness. What had I just done?

  Live, I willed the child. Live.

  I handed the baby back to Kate, unable to speak.

  “Look,” she said.

  I watched in wonder as warmth began to spread again over the baby’s arms, and legs, and down her torso, and to her toes. Two rosy circles began to form on her gray cheeks. And then she gave a sigh.

  Then eyelids fluttered. She opened her eyes.

  “Hello, love,” Kate said with joy.

  * * *

  I didn’t realize I’d drifted off until I blinked groggily at the sight of Kate standing by the baby’s cradle, gazing down at her. It was not yet daybreak; the full moon was shining through the window.

  “You shouldn’t be up,” I said, forcing myself tiredly to my feet, shivering involuntarily. There was a chill in the early-morning air. “Let me help. You just rest. Kate?”

  She turned and gave me a soft, sad smile. I stopped in my tracks.

  Kate’s body was lying still in the bed beside the cradle. The baby was sleeping soundly, tiny chest rising and falling.

  “No. No . . . Kate!” I sobbed.

  She placed a reassuring hand on my arm. Her touch was cold. The last few moments of her life drifted past my eyes like a breeze on the first breath of spring. She’d been watching her daughter sleep, joyfully cataloguing every precious detail: hair, hands, cheeks, toes. When death came, it was soft and sweet, like sleep. She died at peace, knowing her daughter would live.

  “I’ll take care of her,” I whispered. “I’ll watch over her for you. Whatever is in my power to do, I’ll do.”

  She nodded and then she was gone. Forest Gate’s “mother” sacrifice was complete. An unearthly fog rose and roiled against the window, swallowing the full moon whole. In an instant the landscape became an ocean of white.

  * * *

  I didn’t get to mourn long before my cries were interrupted by the baby’s. I’d promised Kate I’d care for the child, so I dried my tears and went to work. I bathed and dressed her while she watched me with a wide, unfathomable gaze. Her eyes were the color of soft feathers: light gray and silvery brown, and alarmingly clear.

  When she looked at me, it felt as if she was asking me a question to which I had no answer.

  With no mother to feed her, I managed as best I could with a clean cloth dipped into a bowl of goat’s milk, mumbling a haphazard spell to make the poor offering softer on her stomach, sweeter to the taste, and more nourishing. I had no way to tell if it worked, but she sucked the soaked corner until the bowl was mostly empty before falling asleep in my arms.

  She was still slumbering when I heard the first sounds of hurried footsteps on the path outside. It was now coming on nightfall again; I’d spent almost a day in silence, just me and the baby. In the thick fog, it had begun to feel like we were the only two people left in the world.

  I heard the door open. “Hello?” Nathaniel’s voice came from the kitchen. “Kate?”

  “Emilie’s not at her hut,” Zan said. “Maybe Kate will know . . .”

  Nathaniel froze at the entrance of the bedroom, gazing at Kate, soundless and still.

  “I am so sorry,” I whispered, rising from the rocking chair.

  I’d cleaned the room well; there was no evidence remaining of the difficult night, of the toil and torment that Kate had gone through. She lay on pristine white sheets, her beautiful hair still braided and coiled softly around her face. Her eyes were closed, her expression serene.

  Nathaniel collapsed beside her, took her hand and pressed it to his lips. His shoulders shook, but he made no sound.

  Zan, who had come in behind him, lowered his head and gripped the back of a chair.

  It was nothing more than a brightening at first, like when thin clouds drift past the sun. Then the brightness collected into a shape. Kate knelt and touched Nathaniel’s face with hands made of feathery light and air. He didn’t react; he couldn’t feel her touch. She looked up at me for help.

  “Nathaniel,” I ventured, the sound of my voice rippling through the deep darkness of his grief like a pebble in a still pool. He did not acknowledge me, so I spoke again. “Nathaniel.”

  Kate crossed to me and I held out my hand. She took it for the second time, and the cold drifted across my skin in delicate curling spirals, like frost on a winter windowpane.

  Tell him that I’m sorry.

  “Kate wanted you to know that she is sorry.” I swallowed hard.

  Tell him that I love him.

  I took a quavering breath. “She said that she loves you.”

  Nathaniel raised his head to look at me with reddened, swollen eyes.

  Tell him that I’ll be happy.

  “She said that she’ll be happy.”

  And I want him to be happy.

  “She wants you to be happy, too.” I held the small, bundled baby out to him and said slowly, “She had to make a choice to save the baby. And she . . . she was at peace with the choice.”

  I approached him with the baby and laid her in his arms. Kate followed, misty eyes inscrutable as she watched him gingerly cradle her.

  I remembered what Kate told me outside the fabric shop. “Her name is Ella,” I said.

  “That was my mother’s name,” he said, wiping his eyes. “I always thought Kate didn’t like it. She looks like Kate, doesn’t she?” he said, and then he smiled.

  “She does,” I said. “She’s part of you both.”

  “Arielle Katherine. I’ll probably be terrible at this. I didn’t expect be doing this alone. But I promise, I will love you every day of your life. I swear it, I swear it. I will give you the love she wanted to give and can’t.”

  Kate let go of my hand and went to them, placing an airy kiss on Nathaniel’s lips and then another on Arielle’s downy hair. Then she faded away. But though she was gone, her light lingered.

  Zan came to stand beside me and laced his fingers into mine. The frost of Kate’s touch melted at his. I looked down at our entwined hands and then up to his face. He said, almost inaudibly, “I heard you call for me. We got here as soon as we could.” He closed his eyes. “I never should have left. I am so sorry. I am so very sorry.”

  I nodded mutely and we went back to watching Nathaniel gaze at his newborn daughter, clinging to her like he was a drowning sailor and she was his rope back to life.

  * * *

  We gathered again at dusk on the foggy shore of the fjord to say one last goodbye to Kate. She lay on a raft Nathaniel had made of willow and rowan, with lavender at her feet and a laurel on her brow. There were few words said between us, and no one made a solemn address—​none of us had it in us. What could we say that would make this better?

  Nathaniel raised the torch to the funeral pyre, his other hand clutching their baby tight to his chest. Zan helped him push the raft from the shore, and we watched it float away with her, sending up sparks like red stars until it disappeared into the mist.

   27

  The next night Zan stood in front of my door, vacillating between knocking and walking away. He seemed to have chosen the latter only to
turn and find me on the path behind him. After explaining everything that happened with Kate, Zan had gone to see what could be done to bring Dedrick Corvalis to justice, leaving me to spend the day helping Nathaniel change and dress Ella, then feed her with my spelled milk and rock her until they both fell asleep. I slowed to a stop.

  “I probably shouldn’t be here,” he stated. “I know I shouldn’t bother you. But it’s been a very hard day and I didn’t know where else I could go.” He looked up at me through his dark hair. “This is where I always used to come when I needed someplace quiet. To think, and to draw.”

  I said, “Don’t let me stop you.” I went to the door and opened it, stepping aside to let him in.

  It was awkward and quiet at first, as he settled into the chair with his paper and charcoal and I stoked up the fire and filled the kettle for tea. But the uneasiness abated quickly, and we were soon well absorbed in our endeavors—​him, sketching; me, raptly watching him sketch.

  We both jumped when the teakettle began to sing.

  I poured two cups, keeping one for myself and setting the other on the table beside him. “Can I see?” I asked.

  He nodded and sat back in his chair. I shyly leaned over his shoulder to peer at his work and immediately felt my breath catch.

  It was a picture of Kate laughing, pulled from some bright place in his memory. A clear and vivid portrait, full of life and color—​a feat, considering it was rendered in black and white.

  When I was able to find my voice, I said, “I know the custom here is to burn the dead, and that we gave her a proper sendoff . . . but there’s a part of me that thinks that she”—​I flushed, swallowing the hard lump in my throat—​“that she deserves something more. Something to mark her passage. To remember her by.” I forced a tinny laugh. “It’s the Renaltan in me, I guess. In Renalt, a headstone is almost like a trophy for virtue. The bigger, the better.” I tapped the side of my teacup. “She deserves a monument. You know what I mean?”

  “I do.” Zan regarded me for a long minute before standing. “Are you up for a walk?”

  * * *

  I followed him past the culvert tunnel and into the trees beyond. The terrain was rocky and rising sharply and our trail virtually indiscernible under the fog that had settled low and thick. Zan moved confidently forward, however, easily winding his way through the forest of evergreens turned brown. Looking up at the trees, he broke the silence. “You know, if it wasn’t for all this”—​he waved at the skeletal canopy—​“I’d actually want the wall to come down.”

  “You want to leave Achlev open? So just anybody can come and go as they please?”

  “Yes,” he answered. “Imagine how different Achlev would be without it—​think of all the art and thought and innovation we’ve missed out on because of it.”

  “And danger,” I said. “A wall is protection, too.”

  “And yet, the greatest threat this city has ever faced came from within, not from without.”

  “Is it done, then?” I ventured. “Was Dedrick arrested?”

  “Most of the guards had gone with the king to hunt, but I was able to recruit—​which is to say, bribe—​a few of those who remained. When they went to retrieve him, he was still in the sanctorium, just like you said he’d be. Your spell held true; they couldn’t get him out until he was good and chained. He’s being held in the dungeons tonight. I plan to question him tomorrow. If I have my way, he won’t make it to the next Petitioner’s Day. Whoa, there.”

  The toe of my shoe had caught on a gnarly root, but Zan caught my hand before I fell. He eyed a new red-dotted bandage around my palm.

  “Casting spells without me?” he asked.

  “Are you going tell me that I shouldn’t?”

  “I know better than to tell you what to do and what not to do.”

  “It was for Nathaniel and Ella,” I said. “It wasn’t a spell, exactly,” I said. “It was more like . . . like a prayer. For them to find peace now that Kate is in the arms of the Empyrea.”

  He agreed. “Let them have peace even if we cannot. I’ll never forgive myself. For choosing to follow the king when I knew it was wrong.”

  “If there’s blame to be had, I must share in it. I figured it out too late.” I sighed. “I practically walked her to Dedrick’s front door.”

  We stopped at an impression in the steep hillside, an opening like a cave. Ducking into it, he said, “We’re here. Follow me.”

  It wasn’t a cave after all, just a short, shallow walkway that quickly widened into a meadow sheltered on all sides by mountain stone, open to the sky. The fog swirled around my feet as I ventured into the moonlit circle. Everywhere I turned, there were markers standing like pylons in drifting eddies of fog. There was no pattern to the placement or materials used—​some were stone, some moldering planks, and there were even a few roughly hewn statues. Still others were simply mounds, their adornments long lost to time. But unlike Renaltan graveyards, where spirits wait and wander among the ostentatious tombs, this place was quiet—​no sounds or souls stirred.

  “Nobody is buried here,” I said, turning and turning again. No spirits meant there were no bodies. This was a place made to comfort the living, not to house the dead.

  “That’s true,” he said. “On the old maps, this was called ad sepulcrum domini quod perierat, the Tomb of the Lost.” He gazed across the fog-shrouded shrine. “The city of Achlev has always burned its dead. It’s meant to hasten a person’s spirit into the arms of the Empyrea, and it’s considered a great honor to receive such a sendoff. But during the wars, there was not always a body to burn. For the noblest soldiers, a raft was burned empty. For the very poor, or the prisoners of war, or the ones who died by their own hands instead of the enemy’s . . . there was simply nothing done or said to honor their life—​imperfect as it may have been—​or mark their passing. They were just . . . gone.”

  “The Lost,” I said.

  He nodded. “And to the bereaved, being unable to have their loved one acknowledged was unbearable. So they came here, made their own rituals of goodbye, placed their own markers to honor their dead. Often at night, often alone . . . always in secret.”

  “There are no names on any of these.”

  “To place an unsanctioned marker for the disfavored here—​or anywhere inside the wall—​could bring a great fine or worse. They left off names so that if this place was discovered, there was nothing that could be traced back to them, so they couldn’t be punished for what might have been viewed as an act of rebellion.”

  “But the kings let the stones stay?”

  “If they knew, they looked the other way. When the war eventually ended, so did this method of mourning the dead, and the custom became as lost as the people it was created to remember. And yet this place endures.” He unfolded the portrait of Kate and handed it to me.

  I found a nice spot near the edge of the hollow and knelt, laying Kate’s picture down gently and carefully pinning it in place with a stone. Tendrils of mist curled and cradled it for several long moments before drifting back into place over the top of it. Kate’s visage disappeared like the sun behind storm clouds.

  Returning to my feet, I noticed another marker nearby. A thin slab of slate that had been placed upright into the ground so that it looked like a headstone. Scratched coarsely into it was the shape of a bird like the Silvis raven, but delicate and white. A dove.

  The stone, unblemished, stood out from the rest. All the others had been in place for two hundred years at least, and even without rain or wind or snow, time had still taken a toll on them. Not this one, though; it was new in comparison.

  “This one is yours, too,” I said. “Isn’t it?”

  Softly, he replied, “I was sick when my mother died. Unconscious, near death myself. She took her own life, so she was not given an Achlevan funeral. She was buried in a shallow, unmarked grave in the forest outside the wall before I ever knew she was gone. To this day, I don’t know where she rests.�
� He took a deep breath. “She was everything that was good about my miserable childhood. She would draw with me, read with me, study maps with me. This was one of the last places we discovered together, before I was too sick to leave my bed.”

  I knelt next to the slate marker. The bird etching was rough, rudimentary. I swallowed, reaching to trace the grooves. “Who helped you place the stone? Was it Simon?”

  “Simon was not always around. His duties as a blood mage often kept him away.” He shook his head. “It was just me. I was seven.”

  “Seven,” I repeated, imagining a little boy the same age as Conrad, devastated and weak from prolonged illness, wandering these woods, erecting this stone in this hidden hollow, then engraving it as best he could with small, frail hands. And he did it all alone. I could hardly bear the thought of it.

  “She died because of me, because caring for me became too much for her to bear. This was the least I could do.”

  “Zan,” I said, rising, “you’re wrong about your mother.”

  “I know what you’re going to say: I was just a child, it wasn’t my fault . . .”

  “No.” I approached him carefully. “I have something . . . important . . . to tell you. It’s going to sound insane, but it’s true. You have to believe me.”

  “As I recall, that was your price for helping me with the wall. Since Corvalis is in custody, I suppose now is as good a time as ever for you to collect.”

  Words tumbled out, one on top of the other. “Most spirits move on immediately after death, but some linger in the border between. It’s how we were able to call Aren to us, during the séance. The spirits that do delay their final passage . . . they want to be seen. And when they are seen, they want to tell their stories.”

  “What?” His eyebrows knitted together, and a bemused smile crossed his lips.

  “I know all this because I see them. Because it’s me they want to communicate with. I don’t know why . . . but the dead have been as much a part of my life as the living, for as long as I can remember.”