She still had not found Jasi.
Several times she thought she heard her sister, but each time she finally managed to reach where the sound seemed to originate, she found nothing. Eris pushed onward, not willing to rest. Now that she had managed to get them away from the magi, she would not lose her sister in the forest.
She kept calling out, yelling for Jasi as she went. Occasionally, she heard her sister yell back, but her voice grew weaker. Eventually, sleep or distance would keep Jasi from answering.
The forest pushed against her. Where it had seemed to guide her, now it seemed determined to trap her where she was, to keep her separate from wherever Jasi had gone. If only her sister would stay in the same place; Eris thought she could manage to find her were she willing to just wait.
Or maybe it was Eris who made it harder. Should she sit and wait, or—better yet—move back into the deeper parts of the forest as she searched?
With the thought, the trees seemed to relax, and the underbrush which had begun scratching at her legs and snaring her feet almost backed away, as if willing to give her space to move. Eris decided what she saw was simply the effect of her tired mind.
She continued to call out for her sister, but moved in the direction the forest allowed, following the moonlit path through the trees as she went. A few times, she thought she saw motion and spun, but nothing was there. After a while, she no longer even heard Jasi answering.
The trees in this part of the forest stretched so high she could not even make out their tops. Somehow, moonlight still made its way through the branches to light her way. The small thorned bushes and scrub trees around them thinned, leaving her with an increasing sense of openness. Patches of vines worked up a few of the trunks, and Eris was surprised she recognized some of them by the pale white flowers. She had seen them in one of the books she had read, though could not remember what they were called.
Eris paused. A small clearing opened around her, rimmed by the immense trees. Not oak or elm like those on the outskirts of the forest, these were different, older—almost ancient—and seemed to have an aura of power and age to them. She wondered if she had finally reached the heart of the forest.
She looked from tree to tree, making her way around the clearing. If this was the heart of the forest, would she find the teary star flowers?
Exhaustion finally won. She sat on the soft forest floor and wrapped her arms around herself to keep warm. The ground was slightly damp and smelled of earthy decay; it was a pleasant scent but mixed with it was something else, something…familiar. As she was pulled into a comfortable sleep, she realized it was the same scent her flower had.
She had finally found the teary star.
She breathed it in, opening her mouth and nearly tasting it on her tongue.
Then dreams claimed her, dreams unlike anything she had ever experienced before.
Eris opened her eyes and saw all around her young saplings. They were planted in staggered lines, and she sensed a pattern to the way they set into the ground but did not quite recognize what it was. Most were thin, barely any thicker than her forearm. A few scattered closest to the middle were so small they did not even reach her knees. Dark green leaves already flourished on the trees, leaves that were different on each of the trees, some rounded, others oblong, a few spiky. Even though the trunks seemed similar, the leaves were the only way to tell the trees apart.
The sky overhead was clear and cloudless. A warm sun shone down. A gentle breeze gusted around her, tousling her light hair. Something did not seem quite right, though she could not place what it was.
“You think these trees will grow here? The soil is soft and sandy.”
Eris turned and saw a man looking at her, brown eyes carrying a warmth and familiarity. Something about his face was familiar as well. Perhaps it was the tilt to his jaw or the way he wore his long hair pulled back in a tail behind his head, or the lopsided smile he made when looking at her. A dark green jacket covered a muscular frame. He stood away from her and looked around at the trees.
“There is solid black earth beneath the sand,” she answered. The words were not her own, but she said them anyway. “The roots will stretch and tap into what is stored deep in the earth.”
“There are other places you could have planted your forest, mistress.”
She smiled at the man, somehow knowing that he was Therin, one of the great gardeners. His hands had planted most of these trees, and his care had ensured they would grow, their long branches stretching toward the sun. The land had failed them for many years, the soil fighting their gardens, forcing the Gardens of Elaysia north and east, never to the west, never across this patch of land where nothing seemed to grow. Even their most hardy plants, flowers and vines that required so little to sustain them, withered and died in the soil here.
This had been her plan, something none of the others felt would work, a folly to even try…yet already in her mind she could see what the trees would become, how the forest would spread from what she first started, how the earth welcomed the presence of the trees, already drawing roots deep, past the sand and clay and into the hearty black earth deep below. The life surging through the land was fledgling but grew stronger with each passing day and with each gentle rain. Even the heavy storms did not seem to unsettle the trees as she had feared.
It would be her greatest arrangement.
“There are,” she agreed. Therin did not see what she saw, the future she traced through the roots that would grow. Other arrangements would not have the power she needed. “This place is strong. There is something here deep beneath the earth I sense…something I cannot fully explain.” Her eyes took in Therin. His smile never changed. “Perhaps because I was born along the edge of this land I can see its potential where others see only brush. Life can exist here, even flourish.”
“Such things have been tried before, mistress,” Therin said.
She nodded. She remembered, had participated in several of the plantings and knew the failings as a deep hurt. Chosen specifically for the climate, the flowers still failed. Each season they withered more, slowly disappearing until they rejoined the brush of the desolate plain. It was almost as if nothing was destined to grow here.
Yet she knew better, she felt it, deep within her marrow. “These trees will grow strong. Already I see their potential. The land around them will change, bringing more life, more growth, but here, even the smallest will thrive and grow powerful.” She spoke with the conviction of one who could read even the smallest root system and could see what came.
Therin sighed, and it was like a breath of wind. “It is not the trees that you wish to plant, is it mistress?”
She smiled. Always so bright, Therin saw what she hid in her heart from the others. The forest would be strong and unlike any other, but it was what she could grow within the forest she sought. A shame she would not live long enough to see it.
“Cannot the trees be enough?” she asked in answer. “Cannot we enjoy the shade they will create? The strong trunks that will one day tower over this patch of land, land that has for so long resisted growth? Why must we worry about what else there is?”
Therin’s smile faded. “It is my duty to worry, mistress. We have tried planting here many times because we recognize the power buried deep beneath the surface, but these,” he said, hand sweeping over to the trees, “will outlast any of us. How can you be certain that what you have started will always be used as you intended?”
“You think the gardeners will disappear?” she asked Therin.
His face remained somber. “Like these trees, we weren’t always here. I do not possess your gifts—few do—and cannot see what will happen even next season. What we have done here will last many seasons and outlive even the youngest of us.”
“Then why did you help?” she asked.
“It is not my role to question. I am simply a gardener.”
She smiled and stepped past one small sapling, its nascent trunk barely wider than he
r finger, and rested a hand on one of his broad shoulders. “Therin,” she began.
He smiled.
“You have always been more than just a gardener. All of this,” she said, motioning toward the vast stretches of early growth, “is because of your skill. Do not fear what will become of it next. With enough seasons, I will be better able to read the roots, perhaps even guide them.”
Ever stoic, such a statement still elicited a soft gasp from Therin. “Mistress, such a thing is not possible.”
“Not with what we have traditionally grown. Our gardens have been too transient, chosen for their ability to focus the power of the sun. What will grow here will be different. Their roots thicker—deeper—and more permanent. With time, I sense I can influence the shape of what will come, what growth will exist here.”
“Are you certain that is wise? Such influence is not meant for mortals.”
“Do you think they will step from the shadows long enough to influence the growth? To them, we are but fleeting lives.” She shook her head. “I think such influence is simply the next step in our growth as we learn to harness the powers granted to us.”
Eris shifted in her sleep, blinking. Distantly, she recognized how strange the dream felt but also how clear it was—how so very real—as if living someone else’s life.
The soft bed of the forest floor pulled her back down into deeper sleep, and she did not resist.
The forest had matured around her. Trees stretched overhead, not like they would one day at the heart, but respectable growth had been achieved. Beneath the trees there was the start of something else, of faint undergrowth living in the shadows along the tree. Small vines already wrapped themselves around several of the trunks, snaking their way toward the sky, using the trees as scaffolding. Soft spikes grew along their length. And rather than choking off the tree, they kept burrowing animals and insects from reaching the bark. Working together, they were much stronger.
“You let the vines climb this season.”
She turned. The man standing behind her was older, streaks of grey now in his hair, but the same keen intelligence shone in his eyes, and the same off kilter smile pulled at his lips, though less than it once had. His dark green jacket hung over a frame no less muscular than ever. Older, but still vibrant. She had missed him.
“You have returned.”
Therin looked at the trees and walked toward the nearest, where the vine had completely encircled the trunk as it wound toward the sunlight. “This is a single season?” he asked.
She nodded. “For so many seasons I struggled to keep the vines from growing, not wanting to let them squeeze the life from the trunks before they had a chance to grow strong.”
“Did you know what would happen?”
She shook her head. “I did not.”
He lightly brushed his hand along the vine and winced, pulling his hand back quickly. “Barbed. And sharp. Are you certain letting it grow into the bark is wise?”
She shrugged, sliding across the damp soil. Old leaves and other forest detritus squished beneath her woven slippers. Her pale violet dress swished around her ankles as she walked, letting some of the cool forest air caress her skin. Reaching out, she ran her hand along the vine, sliding it carefully along the barbs, having already learned how to touch them so she would not feel their bite. Therin watched her with a curious expression.
“They grow together,” she answered. “Possibly they have always meant to grow together, though I do not know what would have happened to the sapling had I allowed the vine to cling when it first established here.”
“Did you plant the vines?” Therin asked.
She sensed that was the heart of the reason he came. There were many who never visited her trees but still passed judgment upon her arrangement. She did not know where the vines came from and did not know what they were; they had simply appeared one season, working from the base of the trunks and climbing toward the top branches. For many seasons she had fought against them, pruning and taming the vines, keeping them from what she had felt was certain destruction. Her hands still held many scars.
Only these trees, only the Svanth trees growing in the center of the forest, at the heart of her arrangement, grew the vines. The rest were left alone. When she recognized this, she began to wonder at the reason.
Finally, this season, she dared to let them grow.
“You know I did not, Therin. With all the time I have spent among the trees, where would I have acquired them?”
“Others grow increasingly uncertain about your arrangement.”
“Do their gardens not flourish?” she asked, her voice weary.
“They flourish,” Therin admitted.
“Then there is no reason for uncertainty. These trees are my garden. They may lack in the colors found among the great gardens, but there is more to the arrangement than color.” Even as she said it, she knew it untrue. There were many colors found beneath the trees, shades of greens and browns not found in other gardens that mixed with the shadows and blackness. Given enough time, other colors would grow, colors from flowers which preferred the shadows.
“This has changed you,” Therin commented.
She rested her hand on the vine and turned toward him. Beneath her palm, she felt the tiny barbs as they pushed against her skin, trying and failing to puncture her. She pushed back, resisting the effect of the barbs, and felt them soften.
“You think so?”
He stepped over to her and rested a hand on hers, careful to keep from touching the vine. Much like any gardener, Therin smelled of the earth itself. Other odors mingled, giving him a distinct smell, different than any other gardener she had ever met. Had he chosen to, he could have remained with her among the trees.
“I did not say such change was bad. Only that you have changed.”
She sighed and moved her hand from under his, sliding along the vine. The barbs pulled back, careful so as not to catch her skin as she brushed along the length. Therin jerked his hand away so he didn’t touch the vine either. Husks of captured insects whisked away, their once hard carapaces now disintegrated and dry. The vine captured the tiny creatures, the barbs latching onto their sensitive flesh to keep them from crawling any further. She had yet to learn whether the vine itself fed on them or merely captured them.
“Change is inevitable. With enough seasons, we all change, guided by what we have learned and seen, so that one day we might awaken and not recognize the person we once were.”
Therin captured her hand and squeezed. “Is that how it is for you?” he asked. “Do you no longer recognize who you once were, the feelings you once felt?”
Her heart ached with the question. Had she only stayed within the Gardens of Elaysia rather than leaving, determined to make this forest, this arrangement work, she might have been a very different person. As it was, she knew Therin would not feel for her how he once did.
“I still recognize her,” she whispered.
Her breath caught, and she closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. Smelling the air around her, air that was hers, a force of her creation, she sighed, pushing away the longing she felt. She could not change what had come before, and there had been no way to mingle the two lives, both of which she had read along the roots. That the choice had been hers did not change how much it hurt.
Therin remained still, standing near the trunk of the growing tree that would one day be one of the great Svanth trees at the heart of this forest. For a moment, she thought he might come to her, might take her hand, pull her toward him and embrace as they once had done, making love under the canopy of the forest, but the moment passed.
“The others are uncomfortable with your influence.”
She smiled. Of course they were uncomfortable. It was one thing to read the possibilities among the roots; it was another to influence their growth. “I do not do so often.”
“But still you do it.”
She tilted her head. She would not deny what she had done. These tre
es would one day be massive, their root systems complex. A gentle touch was required to guide them in such a way the roots were arranged so power might be drawn. Such influence had never before been attempted, had never been thought possible, and perhaps it had not been possible before she moved her garden and selected these trees to be her arrangement. What was possible here was different than what would be possible with the growth of small flowers whose lives were limited. These trees would live for centuries, outlive her even were she able to hold onto life beyond what was expected of her kind.
“What do you see here, mistress?”
He had not called her that for years.
To her surprise, he had come up behind her, standing so close that she felt the heat of his body. So close they could almost touch. She turned and looked into deep brown eyes that looked back at her with fondness which age and time had not completely erased.
“I see potential. Beyond that, even my ability to read the roots fades and becomes hazy. It is the potential that is needed, for one day, when our gardens have all disappeared, this forest will survive, and with it, the memories of what is possible twisted and twined in the roots.”
His eyes tilted into a frown that did not reach his lips. “You have woven a story into the roots?”
He did not question whether it was possible—as far as they both knew, it should not have been. And he did not ask what story she weaved. It was not the gardener’s role to question the arrangement, only to aid in its growth.
“I have. For one who knows how to look, our story can be revealed not by reading the trees or the shape of the branches. Those will change with each passing season, the small buds of new growth changing its telling so that it is no longer reliable, but in the deepest part of the trees, in the way the roots twist and dive beneath the surface of the earth.”
The Lost Garden: The Complete Series Page 17