The Elenil woman tried to stumble away, but Baileya pushed her to the ground using the haft of the spear. The silver knife fell to the forest floor. Baileya put her foot on the woman’s chest and pulled her spear clear. Blood gushed from the wound, and Gilenyia’s mouth went slack, her eyes focused on something in the far distance.
In the confusion, David pulled his own knife and, with a peculiar slashing motion Madeline had never seen before, managed to keep the nearest Elenil guard at bay. A wave of heat came from behind her—Shula lighting herself on fire.
“Stop, stop!” the two Aluvorean women cried. “You will set the woods aflame.”
Shula said coolly, “If they put me in chains, I promise you I will burn more than the woods.”
“Our deal is broken,” one of the Aluvorean women said. Lamisap. “We made it with Gilenyia, and we were promised a peaceful transfer and that the woods would not be harmed.”
The Elenil hesitated. “Yet our archon demands these humans be brought to him,” one of them said.
“You will not all survive the fight to put us in chains,” Baileya said. “Certainly Gilenyia will not. Unless I am much mistaken, you have no healer.”
But that wasn’t completely true, was it? “I’m a . . . healer,” Madeline said.
“Madeline, what are you doing?” Jason asked.
“I am,” she said. She locked eyes with one of the Elenil. She had no idea which was in charge now that Gilenyia was bleeding out. “Leave Aluvorea . . . and I’ll . . . heal Gilenyia.”
The guards did not look pleased about fighting Baileya, or about being killed or permanently damaged without a healer nearby. “We will wait outside the forest,” one of them said. “We will wait a full handbreadth of the sun’s movement for word from Gilenyia. If we do not receive word from her, we will enter the forest again but in greater numbers, and we will not rest until we have found you or burned Aluvorea to ash.”
“It’s . . . a deal,” Madeline said.
The Elenil backed away slowly until they were out of David and Shula’s range. Then they turned and moved swiftly toward the gate that Baileya and Jason had entered a short while ago. When they were out of sight, Madeline got straight to business. “Shula . . . get Gilenyia’s . . . knife.”
Baileya was wiping the gore from her spear, seemingly unconcerned about Madeline’s decision to make a deal with the Elenil. But that was her way . . . she fought when needed but lived in the moment. If Madeline asked her opinion about the decision, no doubt she would tell her. “Baileya,” Madeline said, “thank you.”
Baileya inclined her head. “You are under my protection, friend Madeline. I would lay down my own life to protect yours.” Baileya gave Jason a look after she said this.
“Could you . . . watch the . . . Aluvoreans? I want them . . . to stay here for . . . this.”
Baileya’s face stilled, her frown grim. “With pleasure.” She moved beside the two sisters, who babbled excuses. Madeline didn’t have time to listen.
“We have something that may help,” one of the Aluvoreans said. Lin—the one who had just returned to the clearing.
“Yeah right,” Jason said. “You’ve helped plenty.”
Madeline ignored them. “David . . . lay Gilenyia . . . straight. Jason . . . help me.”
David moved like a cat, with such confidence, as if he didn’t need to think about what his body would do, he just did it. He had the Elenil woman laid out flat in a matter of seconds, before Jason had managed to get Madeline up from her stump.
She put her arm around Jason’s shoulder. “I don’t think this is a good idea,” Jason said.
Madeline hugged his neck. “You’re probably . . . right.”
“Mads, you’re not well.”
She hated when people said this to her. As if she didn’t know. They were the ones who didn’t know. She thought of it every time she took a breath. Then her friends—well-meaning friends—wanted to warn her when she was doing too much. What did they know? “You . . . of all people . . . should understand.” She tried to keep the venom out of her voice but wasn’t completely successful.
“I do, I just . . .” Jason couldn’t put words to it. Tears brimmed in his eyes. “Mads—”
And just like that she felt bad for lashing out at him. She put her forehead against his. “Jason . . . not much time . . . for me. Let me . . . choose how to . . . use it.”
“Okay.” He choked the word out, and she put almost all her weight on him. He took it without complaint, moving her beside Gilenyia. He helped her lower to the ground. He knew what she would need to do for the healing . . . put her “magic bracelet” next to Gilenyia’s. Of course, hers was broken, and she wasn’t sure this would work, but she had to try. Jason pulled Gilenyia’s arm across her body and laid her left wrist on top of Madeline’s.
“Please,” Lin said. “Please, I may be able to help with the breathing.”
Baileya sent a look to Madeline. Should she let the woman pass? Madeline knew it could be a trick, but she always found herself erring on the side of hope. “Okay,” she said. “Send her . . . over.”
Jason crossed his arms and stood between Lin and Madeline. “Okay, what is it?”
The blue woman held a sheaf of leaves in her hand. They were glossy green, like tropical plants. “This is called Queen’s Breath. We use it to swim underwater for long distances. When it is wet and placed on the throat, it can—for a time—give someone breath.”
“It can . . . heal me?”
The woman shook her head. “Only lessen the pain. Make the breath come easier.”
Well, that was better than nothing. Madeline nodded to Jason, and Lin bent over her. She laid one leaf along the side of Madeline’s neck, took a small canteen from inside her robe, and doused the leaf in water. A thousand pinpricks stabbed Madeline at once, and she cried out, then breathed deep. The oxygen flowed. Not like when she was well. More like when she breathed from an oxygen tank. Like she was doing the same amount of work but getting more out of it. “Thank you,” Madeline said. She felt a moment of hopefulness. If this plant grew in the Sunlit Lands, who knew what else could be here? Maybe there was another way to be healed other than the deadly exchange required by the Elenil.
Lin put the leaves in Jason’s hands. There was considerable embarrassment in her eyes. “We should not have betrayed you thus. Take these leaves. They will have to be changed often, laid on the neck and then wetted. They do not last long. An hour each, at most. So use them wisely.”
“Fine,” Jason said. “But next time you’re tempted to sell me out, please don’t.”
A noisy gasp came from Gilenyia. Madeline had nearly forgotten her in the momentary euphoria of getting a bit more life from her breathing.
“Jason,” Madeline said, “we’re losing her.”
“Okay,” he said. “We’ll keep watch—you do your thing.”
Madeline closed her eyes, trying to find the connection to Gilenyia’s magic tattoo. She couldn’t help but think that she had done this last with Gilenyia’s help, when she was healing Shula. Gilenyia had taught her everything she knew about this, from the first day when she had forced Madeline to make a choice between healing a stranger or saving Jason’s life. Now she was reaching out with her own magic, trying to find the network of mystical passageways that would let her access the wounds in Gilenyia’s body. But Madeline’s magic bracelet wasn’t connecting to Gilenyia’s tattoos. She continued to quest out, seeking to find it. Strangely, although she couldn’t find Gilenyia at all, she could sense Jason’s magic near her. “Is she breathing?” she asked without opening her eyes.
A moment while Jason checked. “Yeah. Not great, but yeah.” Another pause. “Mads, if you take her wounds, you’re not going to make it. I’m not sure she’s going to make it, even if you do.”
“I have to try something.” She could feel his magical connection burning bright beside her. Maybe because they were close friends. She didn’t know. But she could actually see Gilenyia’s magic through Jas
on’s. And—she thought—maybe a glimpse of Gilenyia’s connection through his.
She took another deep breath, feeling the cold bite of the magic on her neck, and then she reached out and entered through Jason’s magic tattoo. “Oh whoa, hey!” Jason said. They were standing together next to Gilenyia’s body. Not her actual body but a vision of it. “That was weird,” Jason said. “Also—pretty sure my real body just fell down. A little warning next time?”
This was the psychic space she entered when healing someone. She didn’t know if it was real or mental, she only knew that now she and Jason were connected in another space they had somehow constructed together—it looked almost identical to the Aluvorean forest clearing their physical bodies were in. They looked, more or less, like themselves. Gilenyia still lay on the ground.
Madeline knelt beside Gilenyia. She could see the magic in her, pulsing and powerful, coursing through her whole body. “I’m not sure what’s happening. I couldn’t see her magic except through your connection.”
“Maybe my magic is still hooked up to you, since my deal was to do whatever you say in exchange for pudding cups.”
“Okay,” Madeline said. “I’m going to try to look inside her body now. You remember what this is like?”
“Not really.”
Jason had been healed once before, but he had been almost dead. For Madeline, this mental space was a strange rush of emotion and symbolic visuals. She would see a wall or feel the reality of a body. She could alter things, take things on herself, move wounds from one person to another. “I don’t know what will happen with both of us in here, Jason, or what you’ll see or feel. Try not to get in the way, and don’t be scared.”
“Too late,” Jason said. “On maybe both things.”
She put her (not physical) hand on Gilenyia’s (not physical) wrist and concentrated. It worked. She had encountered Gilenyia in someone else’s mind once, and she had been a cold, silent force. It had terrified Madeline then. Gilenyia was silent now, too, but in a different way. Before she had felt cold and calculating, like a predator watching its prey. Now she was cold and empty, like a house with all evidence of life removed.
Blood was still pumping out of Gilenyia’s chest. “I hope someone’s working on that in the real world,” Jason said. “Instead of relying on the magic healing.”
Madeline ignored him and tried to take some of Gilenyia’s wound onto herself, but it wouldn’t come to her. She remembered that when she had healed Shula, she had taken the wounds into herself and then passed them on to a Scim healer who was there for that purpose. Gilenyia had been there, watching over the whole process that day. Maybe, since she was connected through Jason, she had to move the wounds through him. “Jason,” she said, “this may hurt.”
“Okay,” he said. “Let me sit down then.” He took Madeline’s hand in his and sat cross-legged next to Gilenyia. “Ready.”
He was a good man. She was so thankful for him, and sorry this next thing had to happen. She started with the internal wound, where the spear had pierced through a lung, near to the heart. No doubt Baileya had purposely missed. Madeline held onto the wound with her mind and moved it into Jason, just as Gilenyia had taught her.
Jason groaned, and his hand loosened in hers. She squeezed, and prepared to move the wound from him, now, to her. Except that it wouldn’t move. She couldn’t get it from him. “Jason,” she said, “I can’t get the wound through you to me.”
He raised his eyes to her, his forehead drenched in sweat. “I know, right?”
“Because you’re not releasing it,” she said.
“Uh-huh,” Jason said. “Not going to either.”
“I need to heal her.”
“Do it with my body,” Jason said, pausing as a wave of pain hit him, “not yours.”
“Of all the infuriating—”
“Charming,” he grunted. “I really prefer charming.”
“Jason, she’ll die.”
“Don’t much care,” he said.
Madeline let the wound pass back into Gilenyia, and Jason slumped to the ground, exhausted. She brushed the hair back from his forehead and patted him on the shoulder. He was annoying but sweet. But also annoying. Sweet once, annoying twice. She turned her attention back to Gilenyia, wondering if there was something else she could do if she went deeper into Gilenyia’s mind and body. She concentrated, trying to see where else she could go.
She felt herself moving into Gilenyia’s mental space. Madeline stood in an empty mansion now. She walked past staircases that were wide enough for two cars to drive up. She passed an empty ballroom and a series of drawing rooms and sitting rooms that were likewise empty. She found Gilenyia near the back door, sitting on a small chair. At least, she thought it was Gilenyia.
In the physical world, Gilenyia had blonde, almost white hair and was significantly taller than Madeline. Statuesque would be a good word to describe her. She was slim but had full hips and a curvy form and flawless skin. She could walk into any modeling firm on Earth and be hired instantly.
This woman in the vision house was smaller, with dirty-blonde hair and a plain face that was somehow still unmistakably Gilenyia’s. She glanced at Madeline when she came toward her. “So the Kakri girl managed to kill me,” Gilenyia said.
“Not yet.” Madeline studied her. Gilenyia looked almost human . . . like a simpler, plainer version of herself. Madeline reached out with her mind and touched her. Yes. This was Gilenyia if she had been human rather than Elenil. Strange.
“Would you like to see yourself as an Elenil?” Gilenyia asked. “In our minds such things are possible. I can show you what it would be like.” She looked Madeline up and down. “It’s not too late for such a thing, you know.”
Madeline started. “You can’t have children,” she said. It was a realization that came of exploring the woman’s physiology for the healing. It was one of the laundry list of things about Gilenyia’s body that Madeline could choose to alter.
“No,” Gilenyia said. “This is not the Elenil way. You must have noticed how few young Elenil there are.”
She had, in fact, noticed. Hanali, Gilenyia, and Rondelo were all considered young, despite being hundreds of years old. “You are sad about it,” Madeline said.
Gilenyia sighed. “Not that it matters now, Ms. Oliver, since I am at death’s door, but yes, I am sad about it. Why do you think I have taken such keen interest in Hanali’s pets?”
“Um, sorry to interrupt.” Jason stood in the doorway, looking terrified. “Uh, hi, Gilenyia. Best wishes for your health and everything, but also you probably shouldn’t fight my fiancée, so this is on you a little.”
“Are you okay, Jason?” Madeline asked. “You look . . . frightened.”
“You have a visitor,” Jason said. “He’s asking for you. Inside our minds, you know. Which creeps me right out. He said he can’t go this deep, so he sent me and, well, I don’t like it. At all.”
Madeline put her hand on Gilenyia’s shoulder. “I’m going to do my best to save you.”
“Why, child? I was taking you to prison and your likely death. Why spare a moment of energy on me?”
“Because I still can,” Madeline said. She knew other people thought it was stupid, but right now that really was her whole motivation. She was going to do a good thing for someone else because she had the ability to do so. That’s it.
She followed Jason through the strange mind-house, and they found themselves in the clearing again, standing over Gilenyia’s body. The whole thing made her feel nauseous and disoriented.
Standing beyond them, halfway in the woods, was the tree man from her vision—Patra Koja. His beard of leaves rustled in the wind, and the moss on his antler branches swayed. His small eyes, like dark-red berries, swiveled to follow her movements. She could see in this better light that his skin was covered in fine green scales, and his thick tail dragged on the ground behind him.
“We meet again,” she said.
“Child.” He looked
at Jason, then at Gilenyia. “Why are you using Elenil magic for healing?”
“She’s hurt,” Madeline said.
Patra Koja grunted. A bird landed in his branches, but it didn’t seem to bother him. “The Elenil magic is predicated on a limited system. It is artificial. There is only so much magic, so if I want benefit, someone else must receive detriment.”
“Yeah!” Jason said. “And Madeline doesn’t have the strength to take on Gilenyia’s wounds. Tell her, tree dude!” He paused and looked at Patra Koja’s tail. “Or alligator dude. Whatever.”
“Nor does anyone have strength enough to heal her,” the strange man replied. “Unless they wish to give their life for her. Not that it isn’t noble, but is it necessary?”
“What do you mean?” Madeline asked. “You can heal her without hurting someone else?”
“Of course,” Patra Koja said. “Magic is not a closed system. That is a myth of the Elenil, designed to give them power. Magic is like a forest. Magic is like water, like wind, like fruit from a tree. If I take an apple from a tree, do I lessen it?”
“No,” Madeline said.
“No,” he repeated. “In fact, it may benefit the tree, for its seeds will travel and perhaps make another tree, which will have apples of its own. Elenil magic says you must chop down the tree and burn it for fuel. Aluvorean magic says there are enough apples for all.”
“Please, then,” Madeline said, “heal her.”
“Not here,” the plant man said. “You must bring her to me. When last we met in this space, I told you to come to me when you arrived in Aluvorea. But you did not. Bring her to me, and I will heal her.”
“Okay,” Madeline said. “I hope she can survive the journey.”
“I hope you both will survive it,” Patra Koja said. He studied Jason. “You have another path to travel.”
“Uhhh, I don’t think so,” Jason said. “I stick with Madeline. It’s a rule of ours.” He scratched his head. “More or less.”
“You must travel to Arakam,” the plant man said, “the great dragon of Aluvorea. He will tell you the cost of helping Aluvorea. He will give you wisdom in what must be accomplished.” He paused. “He will tell you how to save the Sunlit Lands.”
The Heartwood Crown Page 19