Whatever it was, they circled around, moving into the trees.
Eris felt a mixture of relief and fear. Relief that Jasi would be safe—at least as safe as Eris could help to make her. Scared that she was alone with whoever tracked her, moving through the forest with nearly the ease she managed. And she suspected the forest itself aided her.
She considered continuing deeper into the forest before deciding against it. That would do nothing other than delay whatever was going to happen. Besides, she suspected she could maneuver to see whoever tracked her before they saw her. Especially given the awareness the forest granted.
Eris moved to a part of the forest which offered shelter but still allowed her to look out through the brush. And then she waited.
She didn’t know how long she stood waiting. Minutes. Hours?
The sky slowly changed, growing darker. Soon she would be facing her second night under the trees. If nothing happened, she would be forced to remain awake and vigilant throughout the night, fearing whatever and whoever was out there.
If only the forest would protect her.
Eris swallowed. She had hoped the trees would sense her need and respond. Earlier, it seemed as if the forest itself aided her, creating a path for her to follow, pulling the bush around Jasi to keep the tree lion away, and helping her to sense someone following them.
Now it didn’t answer.
The sense of the person drawing closer was strong. They moved confidently, easily following her trail. Part of her hoped the forest would obscure her passing, protect her from whatever was after her, but that didn’t seem to be possible. A few birds calling in the trees nearby fell silent as the person passed, taking up their song again once they felt safe. Squirrels chattered overhead, and Eris pretended she could almost make out what they were saying. The air was still.
And then, through the trees and the brush, a dark shape slowly emerged from the surrounding trees.
Eris froze, hoping the trees gave enough cover that the person tracking her couldn’t see her. What would they do when they realized her tracks stopped?
Flashes of darker green came through the trees. The person paused, turning, and she noted the long bow slung over their back, quiver of arrows alongside it. A short sword hung from their waist.
No sign of the crimson cloak. Not one of the magi.
Then who?
Eris suddenly felt quite foolish. Had she really thought she’d able to hold off the person following her? She was unarmed and underprepared, with only the fickle forest to help. The forest seemed content to share its awareness with her, but not more than that.
Leaning back against the tree, she tried to control her breathing, feeling very tired. If she could, she thought she would climb the tree next to her and simply lay down upon one of the branches. Of course, then she would have to contend with the tree lions. Perhaps when she slept, she wouldn’t care.
The branches snapped, and Eris jerked back.
A hand reached through the trees and grabbed at her wrist, clamping down with a firm grip. She jerked back but could not break free.
Then she was pulled from behind the cover hiding her.
She screamed. The sound seemed deadened in the forest. Even the birds nearby seemed not to notice.
With a sudden realization, Eris knew she would die within the trees.
Chapter 25
“Careful!” a voice hissed.
Eris’s eyes snapped open, recognizing the voice.
Brown eyes she’d once thought soft flicked from side to side, suddenly much harder than she remembered. The dark green jacket he wore fit much better than the one she’d seen on him in the palace gardens, and she could not help but notice how well he filled it out. His long hair was swept back and tied behind his head. There was no sign of the hat he and master Nels always wore in the garden.
“Terran?” There had been little need for her to speak since she’d left Jasi, and his name came out as little more than a croak. How had he found her?
“My lady,” he said. “Finally, I’ve reached you. You need to be careful in this forest. There are things here that do not care for the intrusion of man.”
Without thinking, Eris felt for the large dark creatures she had first sensed when she made her connection with the forest, but she found them moving far off, deeper in the forest.
Still, whatever the creatures were, they had little regard for her life. From what she sensed, they would be just as content to attack her as any other creature wandering the forest. Meat was meat.
“I’m not a man,” she said.
She immediately wished she hadn’t. After everything she’d been through, seeing Terran lifted her spirits. How could she feel so strongly for this gardener and his lopsided smile? But he was the only person to come after her.
“What are you doing here? How did you find me?” She stood in front of him, hands on her hips, not minding her scandalous dress as she stood in front of him.
He frowned, meeting her eyes and not looking at her clothing. “I should ask you the same thing.” He shook his head, his brown hair swishing over his shoulder. “When you didn’t come to the garden for the last few days, I realized you must have been foolish enough to try reaching the Svanth on your own.” He hesitated when Eris glared at him before pressing on. “I warned you how dangerous this forest can be, but you came anyway! I had to tell Master Nels that my mother was ill so he would let me leave…”
“You came to rescue me?” Eris couldn’t help how pleased she felt that he’d come for her. She tried to suppress the flush she knew came to her cheeks. But why had Terran come to help?
She took a step away from him, back toward the protective cover of the trees and the tall brush around it.
Terran’s eyes softened, taking on some of the look that she remembered, the warmth and the expression almost like affection. “It may seem harsh, but I can’t overstate the need for caution within the forest.”
“You are here,” she argued.
Terran nodded. “Against my better judgment. Had I not needed to reach you, I would not have entered.”
“The forest means me no harm.”
Terran’s eyes narrowed. “Perhaps not the forest, but there are other things who live within its boundaries that do not care who you are. Trust me, my lady, we need to get you back to the palace.”
Eris took a step back. While slung over the side of the horse after being abducted by the magi, she would have given anything to be rescued; she would have gone willingly with Terran then. But she had escaped—had helped Jasi escape—and she did not want to have Terran thinking that she was some poor girl who needed rescuing.
“Please, my lady…Eris.” He said her name with some difficulty. “We must return to the palace. Something is amiss. Your brother has gone missing. If that weren’t bad enough, another storm swept through Eliara in the last few days, nearly uprooting the majority of the garden.”
Eris swallowed. If a storm had gone through, that meant Lira might not have the strength to fight off the magi. Were her parents already at risk?
“Master Nels is quite beside himself to keep everything in order. Had it not been for the steadying hand of the mistress of flowers…”
“I didn’t seek the Svanth on my own,” Eris said. She took another step back and toward the trees. She felt them behind her like a soothing hand, a steadying sensation on her back that granted her a sense of strength and confidence.
Terran frowned. “What do you mean? How else would you have gotten here?”
“Not just me. Jasi, too. That’s who I was with.” She swallowed, wishing she knew where Jasi had gone, but she’d traveled beyond where Eris could sense. “We were abducted, Terran. I went riding with Jacen when they found me. I don’t know what happened to him, but the Conclave brought Jasi to the forest. They needed us for some dark magic.”
“Abducted?” Now it was Terran’s turn to look confused. “But she was just married. She should be halfway to Saffra by now.�
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“There is some plot against Lira. They needed one of her students to make it work.”
“You’re one of her students,” Terran reminded.
Eris shook her head. “Not like Jasi. I still haven’t even been allowed to join the lessons with my sisters.” After seeing what Jasi had learned, she was no longer certain she wanted to be a part of the lessons. Eris thought the combinations and colors that Jasi thought lovely were harsh and unimaginative. Perhaps she had been better off not studying with her sisters.
“You think the Conclave would attack the Mistress of Flowers?” Terran asked. The tone of his question was off, almost as if he knew the answer without asking.
Eris had reached the edge of the trees again and felt comfortable rough bark against her back. “She is not just the Mistress of Flowers. She’s a flower mage.”
Even that incompletely described Lira.
Terran had been inching toward her as they talked, but he suddenly froze in place. “When did you first learn?”
First learn? Eris felt her eyes go wide and she was rooted in place. “You know?”
Terran nodded. “Of course I know. She’s the one who asked me to come to Eliara.”
“Why?” After seeing how easily he moved through the forest, Eris thought that she understood, but she needed Terran to say.
“I am a gardener.”
As he said it, a staggering flash of knowledge resonated within her. Not just a gardener as she had always thought, but a gardener like those from her dream. Like Therin from her dreams who helped cultivate the forest, guiding those first plants.
“A gardener,” she repeated.
Was Master Nels a gardener as well? He had been in Eliara long before Lira, had worked for her grandfather in the years before her father took the throne. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t be a gardener.
“That is how you were able to move so easily through the forest,” she realized. The forest had not minded his presence. “That is how you were able to track me.”
Terran gazed at her with a strange look on his face. “You were not easy to find. This place has much power. Makes tracking difficult, especially for certain…” He trailed off, the strange expression not leaving his face. “For untold years, the gardeners have worked near the Svanth Forest, some few daring to work within the trees themselves, a connection to it nearly in our blood. My father was a gardener and his father before him. Once, they worked in the great Gardens of Elaysia, helping the Keepers, building places of beauty and power. They are all gone now, scattered, their gardens destroyed. Only the forest remains.”
As he spoke, Eris felt through her connection with the trees the story that Terran told, could almost trace back his ancestors and see them in her mind. Had she dared, she could have delved into the roots and read the story written there and would have known everything with certainty.
“I can see from your face that you know all this,” Terran said. “Care to tell me how?”
“Know all what?”
“The history of the forest. The history of the gardens. Did the mistress teach you?”
“She never tried to teach me anything.”
Terran stepped closer, the strange expression leaving as a warmth spread across his face. “You believe that? All that time you spent walking through the garden, and you learned nothing?”
“She didn’t try to teach me anything!” Eris didn’t know why she argued with Terran, but the familiar frustration resurfaced, worse since Terran seemed to think Lira had tried to teach her something, rather than simply pushing her away, ignoring her while she focused instead on her sisters. She was used to feeling that way with her sisters, but from Terran? “Not like my sisters. They were allowed to have lessons from her, time spent teaching them how the colors worked together, which flowers paired well. Everything I learned, I did on my own!”
To her surprise, Terran laughed. “You don’t think you learned any of that?”
Eris frowned. “Not like them.”
“My father tells me of a time when there were enormous gardens to wander. Keepers used to wander, to simply take in the combination of flowers, the arrangements attempted, to see what was possible.” He sighed. “The gardens are lost, but the mistress tried to recreate some of that in the palace.”
“What are you talking about?”
“What do you think you were doing when you wandered the garden? Why do you think she asked me to work with you?”
“Lira asked you to work with me?” she asked.
“Each gardener pairs with a keeper. They work together.”
“But I’m not a keeper,” she said.
Terran nodded. “Not yet, but I think she saw that you have the potential. At least, I believe it’s you.” He shrugged. “She asked me to help attend to the garden in the palace, sending word that a keeper trained there. Since Elaysia fell, I never expected to pair to a keeper. No surviving gardener did.” He looked at her, intensity bright in his eyes. “My father never did. My grandfather was the last. And the stories he told…” He sighed again. “I was comfortable in Helash, had started to make a life, but when a keeper summons…I had to come.”
“You’re mistaken. It wasn’t me Lira intended.” She didn’t say it, but likely Jasi. That was why the forest had protected her. That was why Lira planned to go with Jasi to Saffra, to help her establish her garden there.
But if it had been Jasi, why hadn’t Lira sent Terran with her?
“When she first asked me to come to the palace, I wasn’t sure. The ability of the keeper is rare, usually passed down through bloodlines.”
“My parents aren’t keepers.”
Terran shrugged. “The mistress was convinced of the talent.”
“And you?”
He shrugged. “I wasn’t sure. I watched all of you,” he admitted. “Your sisters claimed a flower quickly. Such a thing is unusual in a keeper. Then I saw how the flowers of the garden seemed to turn toward you. A sign, but just one of many. When you came to me asking to come to the forest, I thought maybe the mistress was right, but it wasn’t until I tried tracking you through the forest itself that I really knew.”
“Knew what?”
“You have the gift. Keepers have the ability to harness the sun’s power using combinations of flowers, but you can do more than that, can’t you?” He studied her a moment, and she almost blushed from the intensity in his eyes. “You hear the trees.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but closed it again. What he said was true. She didn’t know how it was possible—or what it might mean for her—but there was no denying that she was aware of the forest around her. And more than that—everything within the forest as well.
“You’ll have questions,” Terran said. “As I did when my father explained why it was that everything I planted sprang to life. Or how it was I knew just when something needed to be watered or fed. With the loss of the gardens, there hadn’t been much need for the gardeners, not as there once was. We need to get you back to the palace so that you can find the mistress and get your answers.”
Eris couldn’t even argue with what Terran said. Now that he mentioned it, the flowers of the garden did seem to turn to her as she passed. She’d thought it a trick from the way the sun shone, but maybe it was more.
There certainly was something real about her strange connection to the forest—whatever that was—about how she was able to delve into the roots. With enough time, she could read the story written there, gain an understanding of everything around her.
She thought about telling all this to Terran, but instead, she said, “I understand my flower now.”
Terran narrowed his eyes, tilting his head. “And?”
“I will show you.”
She started into the forest without waiting for him. With her connection to the forest, she sensed where she was going and quickly led him to the heart of the forest. She knew he followed.
The trees around her changed. At first the change was subtle. Without
her connection, she wasn’t sure she would’ve recognized it. Flowers thinned before eventually disappearing, as if teary stars preferred to be the only flower present in this part of the forest. The heavy canopy blocked most of the light. A soft breeze fluttered the upper branches that did not reach where she stood with Terran.
Stopping before one of the towering Svanth trees, she pointed at the bark. “Here.”
Terran looked at the tree. “There aren’t any flowers here.”
“Not now,” Eris said. She ran her hand just over the surface of the blue grey vines. Tiny barbs withdrew before piercing her skin. Beneath the tough hide of the vine, she sensed the early buds beginning. “But soon. They only blossom every seven years.”
“The tree itself flowers?” Terran asked, reaching toward the tree.
Eris caught his hand. He let her take his warm and calloused hand away. Terran leaned toward the vine and stared closely at it, a smile coming to his face. He didn’t ask how she managed to touch it.
“Not the tree. A vine grows along the tree, protecting it. It’s the vine that flowers.”
Terran walked around the tree, his smile spreading. “These are Svanth trees, the namesake of this place.”
Eris nodded. Her dreams had told her that much.
“Svanth trees grow massive nuts which fall only in the spring.” He looked over at her. “You know, many have tried growing Svanth outside the heart of the forest, but have failed? This is the one tree the gardeners have never managed to grow.”
Eris thought she understood, remembering the tender bark of the tree from her dream and the nervous acceptance of letting the vine grow. She remembered how Therin did not think the trees would survive, especially not after the vines were allowed to prosper. Instead, they both survived, one helping the other. “The Svanth trees are delicate. The vines strengthen them. Then they both prosper.”
Terran looked from her to the tree. “I never knew that there was more to the Svanth trees. I am not sure how many do. Where did you learn that?”
The Lost Garden: The Complete Series Page 20