by Sara Wolf
“I thought you lived to kill them,” Fione says.
“Yeah.” He frowns. “But in a legitimate fight. Beneathers train to be warriors, not butchers. We’re not meant to kill ’em brainlessly like that.”
“The polymaths didn’t seem to mind how they died,” Lucien mutters. “As long as the books were kept safe.”
“They want the parts,” Fione agrees, smoothing down a strand of my stray hair.
“Your Yorl friend wouldn’t shut up about all the parts,” Malachite insists. “Kept blathering on about how they’d be great for ‘making a cure’ for you, or some crap like that.”
I watch the polymaths, picking out a single one in the crowd with ochre ears and a swishing tail. Yorl’s so kind. Kind in that thorny way of his, but kind nonetheless. He wants to make a cure for my valkerax blood promise. A cure that will come too late, when I do what I have to. He’ll be fine, too, won’t he? The Archives are smoldering, the fortress of black volcanic rock crumbling and smoking in some places, but still mostly intact. He’ll have his books, and he knows my friends, now.
All my friends, united. They’ll be able to help one another when I’m gone.
“Fantastic.” I flash a winning smile at Lucien. “At this point, I’ll take anything that’ll make me more human and less warbeast.”
Everyone falls silent, the sound of the waves filling in. Fione’s periwinkle gaze is somber, lit by the moons and sadness as she looks at the valkerax body parts strewn and bleeding.
“I wish it didn’t have to be this way,” she whispers.
“Wishing and doing are two different things.” Malachite’s words are hard, but the way he puts his pale hand on her shoulder is gentle.
“What do we do, then?” Lucien asks. “You haven’t told us what the book’s translation said.”
Fione looks to me. “I wanted to wait until you were awake. It’s important.”
“I am now.” I smile at her, but it feels strained. She stands, her skirts skimming the sand and her shadow thrown long by the bonfire. She folds her hands, working her fingers in and out of one another nervously, and then all at once she drops them, going still.
“We can’t destroy the Trees,” she says.
“Can’t. Like…definitely can’t?” Malachite repeats.
“It’s impossible to destroy the Trees,” she insists. “There’s nothing that can destroy them. No fire, no weapon, no magic.”
“Then how do we stop Varia?” Lucien asks.
Fione inhales and steadies herself. “The Tree of Souls is the origin of all magic on Arathess. And the First Root is one of its roots—the only one that we’ve ever seen. It may have other roots; research suggests it must have other roots. But even the Old Vetrisians couldn’t find them.”
“So there’s only the First Root,” Lucien murmurs.
Fione nods. “There is only the First Root. To make another Tree, one must split the First Root. That creates a divide in the magic, and from that divide grows a new Tree.”
I frown. “Like pruning a rosebush. Cut back one stem, and it makes two new ones.”
“Exactly,” she says. “Using the First Root, the Old Vetrisians split the Tree of Souls once to make their Bone Tree, and the witches used the other side of the split to make their Glass Tree. The split weakened the Tree of Souls considerably and changed the workings of magic as we know it.” She looks over at Lucien. “It’s why witches inherit their magic in pubescence and not from birth. And it’s why the Old Vetrisians were able to do so much more than modern witches can now. They were simply more powerful.”
“I see,” Lucien starts. “So we find the Tree of Souls and the First Root. Then what?”
“We split the root again. That will weaken the Tree of Souls again—and by proxy the Bone and Glass Tree—and theoretically release Varia.”
“You mean…” I trail off. “Split them into a new tree?”
She won’t meet my eyes. “Into two new trees. We must split the Bone Tree’s offshoot and the Glass Tree’s offshoot to weaken the Tree of Souls as a whole. This process will create two additional trees.”
“So…so that what?” I can feel my hackles rising. “So that mortals can use them to magically control more creatures?”
“Zera—” Lucien starts.
My fists are shaking, and I clench them hard. “Two new voices. Two new types of Heartless. Two new ways for people to inflict magical suffering on others. Is that what you’re saying we have to make?”
Fione doesn’t flinch, meeting my gaze now with a steadiness. “It’s the only way to free her, Zera.”
“The valkerax won’t be freed though, right?” Malachite asks.
I simmer quietly as Fione nods.
“Most of them will still be tied to the Bone Tree, obeying its primary command to remain in the Dark Below,” she clarifies. “A few might escape its hold—hopefully not enough to be a threat to the upworld. The same goes for the Heartless.” She looks pointedly at me. “A few will be freed from their witches.”
A few. Not all.
“We save Varia and stop the valkerax from being controlled by her,” Lucien murmurs. “It sounds like the best option.”
“The best—” I whirl around to look at him but go quiet at the expression on his face. He’s smiling down at me, at every part of me, with a faint look of hope in his dark hawk eyes, and all my anger drains instantly. I love him. I love all of them. They want so badly to save the people they love, to save the world they love. They know, now, what they have to do.
But so do I.
The Bone Tree helped me see. That moment under the water, feeling so sorry for it—I know what I have to do now. A gentle burn—a peaceful flame of surety. Maybe I’ve always known.
Maybe this is what I was born to do. The witches made old sayings about it. Evlorasin knows about it, like it knows so many other inexplicable things—my true name least of all. Muro said maybe the Tree of Souls knew what I’d become.
At the end of the world, there will be wolves.
A wolf to eat the world.
I can’t let it happen again.
we won’t be hurt again, the hunger whispers.
I flash a glance up at Lucien. Nothing. His smile fades, and he looks at me curiously. I don’t know when he does skinreading, but I know it’s not often. We agreed to that much during our walks in snowy Breych. But he will read me sometime, and I have to be prepared for it. I will be, so long as it’s all just a wolf eating the world in my head, mouth dripping with blood, eyes and fur luminous. If I make my intentions a valkerax story, a poem, a madness, he won’t understand. I breathe deep and turn to Fione.
“How do we split the Trees, exactly? I imagine we don’t use an ax.”
“No.” Her return smile is wry. “No axes. There are a few requirements. Firstly, we need to find the Tree of Souls. The book said the Tree itself disappeared after it was split from the Bone Tree, but the First Root remained. There are old stories as to its location: a city filled with flowers.”
“Pala Orias,” Malachite mutters. Fione looks over at him with surprise.
“You know it?”
“How could I not?” He snorts. “My grandma never shut up about it. I just thought it was a fire-brained story of hers: ‘a city of flowers?’ Sounded freakin’ ridiculous. There are no flowers in the Dark Below.”
“There used to be,” Fione asserts. “Before your grandmother’s time. Before her grandmother’s. A thousand years ago, it was called Pala Orias—the birth city. And it’s where your people came from. They lived in the Tree of Souls’ trunk for millennia.”
“Spirits,” Malachite breathes. “Your dinky book said all that?”
She nods. “It might be one of the last surviving records of your ancestors’ beginnings. The rest were destroyed by the War of White, weren’t they?”
He nods, scratching his pale hair absently. I look to Lucien for translation, what with his brain full of princely tutoring lessons.
“War of White—when the valkerax first rampaged and destroyed all the beneather cities,” he clarifies. “The beneathers lost most of their history.”
“There’s another requirement,” Fione speaks up again. “We need Varia to be close by the First Root to have any hope of splitting it again.”
“Why?” Malachite asks.
“At least one of the Trees must be physically present for a splitting to work. The Tree of Souls would work, but it’s physically disappeared. And considering the Glass Tree is being hoarded in Windonhigh by the witches, the Bone Tree is our only hope.” She looks to Lucien. “The book said it would act as a large-depth anchor for the splitting spell.”
Lucien muses this over, chin in his hand. “Right—because otherwise the cast radius would be impossible.”
we will not be split again, the hunger snarls soundlessly at them.
“If I’m understanding this right, we’re bound for the Dark Below,” I say. “And we have to lure Varia there.”
“Not without me.” Yorl’s voice. We turn to see him drying his paws on the bonfire. “I have my grandfather’s guidebook from his ventures there. I know the safest ways in and out.”
“I doubt that,” Malachite sneers.
“And you do, Mal?” Lucien looks at him with one brow quirked. “You haven’t been back for a decade.”
“A beneather never forgets the Dark, Your Highness.” Malachite drawls his title. “I can guide you better than the furball can.”
Yorl’s teeth start to show, and I pipe up cheerily.
“Or both of you can work together to guide us doubly safely down there!”
Yorl and Malachite glare at each other, but Yorl relents first with a twitch of his whiskers.
“Fine. We could use your sense of hearing, regardless.”
Malachite’s almost taken aback, and his shoulders relax as he snorts. “Your sense of smell’s better than mine, anyway. Useful for the bloodbats.”
“Ah, true love.” I wink at Fione. She giggles behind her hand, and for a blissful moment on the beach, me in Lucien’s arms, a plan on the horizon, Varia beaten back, this feels like peace. An echo of it, a tantalizing promise of things to come. For them.
For all of them.
They have a plan.
And so do I.
I look up at the prince, cupping his cheek. “You protected me. All of you.”
Lucien’s eyes crinkle, and he leans down, planting a soft kiss on my forehead. “And you trusted us to. Thank you.”
I don’t tell Lucien on that night-lit beach, but I tell it to myself in the days afterward: it’s not about trust.
What comes next for me isn’t about trust. And not telling Lucien, or any of them, isn’t at all like what I did in Vetris after I was discovered as a Heartless. This is different. This isn’t us forced apart, forcing one another apart—it’s my road leading one way and theirs the other. It feels more peaceful than pushing them away for their own good ever did. This isn’t me pushing them away at all. It’s us walking the same path together, for as long as we can.
And I plan to enjoy every second of it—of them—until our paths part.
In the bustle of the mist the next morning, the silver robed polymaths gather on the docks of the Black Archive, their ship for us bobbing gently in the blood-tinted waves. Several polymaths in matronics load supplies onto the ship, carrying far heavier loads than any mortal could, their copper armor dented by the valkerax attack but still gleaming in the sun. The polymath leader who greeted us first says farewell first, too, her face much less severe now but her robes more bloodstained.
“You have given us learning, and we have given you learning in return. Until we know you again.”
“Until we know you again,” the polymaths behind her all say at once and bow their heads, and at my side, Yorl does the same. The polymaths begin to walk up the steps of the Archive and back to their books and machines and no doubt even mustier intellectual pursuits. The woman remains, though, and she steps forward very suddenly and takes my hand. Her gray eyes pierce mine with a fearsome determination that reminds me intensely of Fione.
“You will bring Yorl back to us in one piece.”
“Sage,” Yorl scoffs quietly, more like a purr than anything derisive. “Please.”
“I will,” I assure her, trying to match her fierce eyes. “I’m not going to lose anyone anymore. None of us is.”
“Thank you.” Her expression softens minutely, and then her eyes dart to Yorl. “Make sure you parse the runes in the Dark Below correctly, and you can finish reading Tolwin’s Theocratics on the ship. I had the kitchens pack dried ginger to chew in case of seasickness—”
“Sage,” Yorl repeats, his muzzle pulling into a rare smile. “I’ll be fine.”
She steps back. “Yes. Well. Off with you, then.”
As we walk up the gangplank, I look over at Yorl. “You didn’t tell me your mother’s human.”
He rolls his eyes. “She’s not my mother.”
I chuckle, and then, “Is it really okay? You worked so hard to get here, and now you’re leaving.”
His tail thrashes. “Grandfather would’ve wanted it. He spent his whole life trying to unravel the mysteries of the valkerax. If I go with you, I can see his life’s work through to the end.”
I open my mouth to tell him about his grandfather, that I saw him. But I did tell him, didn’t I? I relayed the message that Muro is proud of him. That’s all he asked of me.
If I tell Yorl about seeing Muro, he’ll ask what Muro said. He’d press and press me, and I wouldn’t be able to resist him. I trust him. I would tell him; I know I would. I’d tell Yorl every last thing about the Tree of Souls, and how Muro implied it might’ve chosen me to put it back together.
But I can’t let him know that, can I?
It must be a poem, a story. His path, one way. My path, the other.
I pat him on the shoulder, and we watch the island float away from us. Even as we raise anchor and lower the sails and start to drift away, his green eyes hungrily take in every inch of Rel’donas, every grain of sand of the black volcanic island devoured by his gaze.
“You’ll be back,” I say, certain.
“You don’t know that,” he scoffs. “No one knows that.”
I look out past Rel’donas, at the gray horizon peeking through the mist, and laugh a little, shaking my head.
“I do, Ironspeaker. I do.”
25
THE WOLF
WHO WILL
EAT THE WORLD
It doesn’t take long for a handful of bored half-children, half-adults to find the very cool giant metal man in the cargo bay.
“They packed you a present!” Fione chimes to Yorl, stepping delicately around the matronic laid out on the wood, as if sleeping. It takes up nearly the entire floor of the bay, arms and legs as thick as tree trunks splayed out and gleaming in the white mercury light.
“Do you even know how to control this thing?” Malachite grunts, dubious. Yorl jumps with catlike alacrity onto the matronic’s inert body, kneeling down on its chest to look at the copper metal gears there.
“In theory,” the celeon agrees. “I’m still a season away from my piloting test, but I’ve logged a month of practice. Enough to know how to make it stand and lift a box.”
“That’s all we’ll need from it,” Lucien says, dark eyes roving over the matronic with curious awe. “I gather that—at the very least—it’s going to be an extremely large, extremely shiny distraction for the valkerax to gnaw on.”
“And you know how much we love gnawing,” I agree cheerily.
Yorl jumps nimbly down from the matronic. “That reminds me. I should set another batch of s
edatives to simmer for you.”
“We can’t be drugging me every time Varia shows up,” I say.
“So you want to rampage around?” Malachite shoots.
“So you want to fight the final battle all by yourself?” I fire back.
He ignores me and looks to Yorl. “Maybe brew something to keep her awake. If she falls asleep, Varia will find us again like she did on the island.”
“Mal,” I whine. “You’re being mean.”
“Yeah, well.” He folds his pale arms over his chest. “You’re being too laid-back about all this.”
“I’m not!” I argue. “I’m just trying to lighten—”
“If Varia dream-tracks you again, or whatever, it’s my people who’ll get the worst of it,” he snarls. “She’ll see into your brain and head for the Dark Below and start destroying Pala Amna.”
“Mal,” Lucien says. “That won’t happen. We’ll get there first and warn them.”
The beneather snorts. “We better.”
“Surely Pala Amna is best prepared for a valkerax attack out of every city on Arathess,” Fione says.
“Yeah.” Malachite shrugs. “But not all the valkerax. And sure as shit not all at once.”
“Why does she want you so badly anyway?” Lucien muses at me.
“A very good question,” Yorl agrees, then looks to me. “Zera?”
“I—” I falter. Just for a second. “I don’t know. I know she attacked Windonhigh right after we were there and then the Black Archives while we were there.”
“Seemingly tracking you,” Lucien says. “Is it because—you don’t think it’s because she still hates you, right?”
no, foolish prince. it’s because she’s afraid of us. of losing her power because of us.
“I don’t think she remembers her own name most of the time, let alone what it’s like to hate someone,” I insist. “If there’s any hate fueling her, it’s the Bone Tree’s. And if there’s any reason that thing hates me, it’s because I’m part valkerax and not obeying it.”