Eris sighed. Once, such a question would have seemed strange, but once she hadn’t known anything about the keepers. The story woven into the roots had taught her some of the history but nothing about what had happened in the hundreds of years since the first keeper began this forest.
“The roots only reach so far.”
Terran touched her hand. She smiled at his familiarity. The smile he’d once worn so easily had disappeared since she’d escaped from the magi, replaced by his steady determination to serve as the gardener he thought he needed to be. A protector, keeping her safe from the dangers of the forest. Eris had given up telling him that she sensed where dangers hid within the forest. Most she could defend against. The others could be avoided. Even after all the time she’d spent here, she still didn’t know what they were.
“You can reach beyond the forest, Eris.”
She nodded, sliding her hand along the vine as she released it. Here in the heart of the forest, sunlight didn’t quite reach the base of the trees, but she still felt its warmth. Terran had brought her clothing, something other than the thin shift she’d worn when running from the magi, and today, she wore a plain yellow dress the color of a corinth. Nothing like the wild dresses she’d preferred when living in the palace, but there, she’d felt the need to show how different she was from her sisters, as if she’d needed her clothes to remind them of that. Her dark hair was reminder enough.
“And I have reached beyond the forest.” The Verilain Plain stretched away from the forest, and she could follow the roots of the needlegrass growing throughout the plains, but the energy there was different than the near sentience she had within the forest. Still powerful in its own way, but different. “There’s so much I can learn here, Terran. I just need more time.”
Terran frowned at her. “And while you take time to listen to the past, you ignore what’s happening around you. You isolate yourself from everyone.”
She frowned at him. “I don’t isolate—”
“Three elms on the north edge of the forest have rotted. Another oak near the southern border does the same. What if it spreads deeper into the forest and reaches the svanth trees here?”
Eris searched for the trees he described and found them. The three elms were beyond repair, rotted from disease. Eris sent a request to the forest to keep the disease from spreading. She could not find the oak.
How had she missed them?
She sighed. Maybe Terran was right. She had been spending most of her time searching for answers. That had been the summons of the forest, but since staying here, she hadn’t learned much more than what she’d glimpsed that first night.
Terran took her hands. “You’re avoiding returning. You know the Mistress of Flowers wanted you to return so she could begin teaching you arrangements. And I’m certain your parents wonder—”
Eris turned away. “Lira will have told my mother what happened to me. I’m not sure they care more than that.” They were probably happy to see her gone. After all the times she’d disappointed them, surely this would be another disappointment.
At least here, she felt a part of something. At home, she was only different.
Terran took her hand and turned her to him. He smiled, but it had a hint of sadness. She missed the lopsided expression he used to wear. “Your family cares about you. I saw your father after you’d gone missing, how distraught he was at what he thought happened. And your sisters—”
“My sisters will be pleased that I’m here.”
Terran laughed lightly and shook his head again. “Your sisters will want to know what happened. You may be different than them, but they’re still your sisters. Didn’t you tell me about an aunt who was different?”
Eris glared at him. Of course Terran would remember her talking about her aunt Rochelle. “My father’s sister. Rochelle.” Eris hadn’t seen her for years, since before Lira arrived in the palace. Rochelle had been gone so long most thought her dead. Before, she would come and go, spending much of her time in the library, studying something new. Eris remembered the way her mother and Rochelle would stroll through the palace garden together, before Lira had taken it over. Then, trees had filled the courtyard. Eris had never learned why Rochelle hadn’t returned. “What’s your point, Terran?”
“Only that you once told me how fond your father was of her and how he worried about what happened to her, even now. Why do you think your sisters would worry any less?”
She really should return to Eliara. Not for her sisters. Regardless of what Terran said, Eris didn’t think they missed her at all. They were too different. Jasi, married to the prince of Saffra, intended to unite the kingdoms, though that union had proven a mistake, especially after how the magi betrayed her family. Then there was Desia, so much like Jasi in how she understood her role within the kingdom. Even Ferisa, pledged to serve the Sacred Mother since birth, had not fought her station. Only Eris pushed against what she had been born into.
Yet, doing so had helped her discover what she was really meant for. Would her sisters—and her family—understand? Wasn’t it easier to remain in the forest and learn what she could about being a keeper?
She sensed an energy deep within the roots of the forest. It felt like a promise, there at the edge of awareness, some deep and powerful secret she could almost grasp.
Each day she tried but never quite understood.
But she had promised Lira she would return. As Mistress of Flowers, Lira was a keeper different than Eris, but she had to know something, certainly more than Eris managed to learn by delving into the roots. Maybe there were only so many lessons she could master from them. And the last thing Eris had said to Lira was that she would return to learn what she knew of being a keeper.
More than anything, Eris owed her that.
She sighed. If only she could learn faster. The trees had taught her how to follow the roots, how to learn what happened outside the forest, and she had stretched that awareness, sensing beyond the borders of the trees, past the Verilain Plains, until she found hints of a growing danger.
Along the plains, she could follow the roots of the needlegrass, roots that didn’t delve nearly as deep as the forest but still carried much potential. A garden in its own right, one even Lira had not realized existed. And then, beyond Verilain, lay the open expanse of Eliara. The roots of the grasses growing around the city were too shallow to follow and learn much, but still she felt them. Beyond Eliara, to the south toward Saffra where the Conclave hid, she felt nothing.
It was the nothingness she feared.
The nothingness continued to grow.
“You don’t know enough yet.”
Eris looked at Terran, frowning. “I don’t know enough for what?”
“I see from your face what you think. You don’t hide your emotions nearly as well as you imagine, Eris Taeresin. You aren’t strong enough to take on the Conclave by yourself. I know how their attack angered you; how you think about what they did, wishing you can do more.”
Terran looked around the forest, his gaze flickering over fallen trees lying around the perimeter of the heart. One, larger than the rest, had fallen. Age and time had felled the trees, but Eris knew how much it troubled him that he hadn’t managed to save it. It was another thing Eris hadn’t noticed in time. She’d been too focused on learning what she could from the roots.
Had she noticed, would there have been anything she could have done? Terran claimed responsibility, but wasn’t her job to protect the trees of her forest?
“Can you blame me? After what they did?” she asked.
“I don’t blame you, but there’s only so much you can do.”
“The Conclave failed when they attacked the last time.”
He shook his head. “Not the Conclave. Only a few magi. And you know the Conclave managed to attack and destroy the Gardens of Elaysia.”
“There was no keeper of the forest then.”
Terran nodded. “And there is now. But she’s untrained. You still don�
��t really understand the power stored here. Until you do—until you can control it—thinking about the magi puts you at risk.”
Eris sighed. Terran was right. She didn’t really control the power of the forest. She borrowed it, asked it to help her, but didn’t control it. In that, she was still as green as the saplings growing along the edge. While she could delve into the roots and listen to the histories written there, she had no more control over the forest than the wind did the trees. Enough to bend them at times but no real mastery over them.
Maybe she couldn’t have done anything about the diseased trees—would her abilities have allowed her to do anything more than ask the trees for assistance?—but they’d healed Terran when he lay injured, bone sticking from his broken ankle, keeping infection from setting in as it surely would. If the power of the forest allowed her to help Terran, certainly it would have let her heal one of its own.
Thinking about what had happened the day the Conclave abducted her and Jasi always managed to draw out Eris’ anger. It bloomed in her like a flower facing the sun. The Conclave had wanted her and her sister to destroy the forest, and their destructive magic had nearly killed Terran. Had Eris not been here—or had she not learned that she could be a keeper—would they have succeeded? What would have happened then?
Eris didn’t want to consider it.
“I don’t think I can confront the Conclave on my own.”
Terran laughed. Like so much else throughout the forest, the sound faded, disappearing as if swallowed by the trees. “You think I don’t know you? Working alongside you these last few months, you don’t think I’ve gotten to know anything about you?”
She frowned at him. “What do you imply?”
“I imply nothing. The Sacred Mother knows you need help. More than just help, you need training.” He took a step toward her. “Listen. I know the Conclave pushes again. When I see your face each time you connect with the trees, how can I not? But there isn’t anything you can do, not all the way in Saffra. Remember Lira and the limits to her power. What makes you think you’re so different?”
Eris considered him for a moment. He looked back at her with defiance in his eyes. For so long, she had been different. Now, Terran reminded her how she was like Lira, and she hated that he was right. “I thought the gardeners were supposed to help the keepers,” she pouted.
“You think I’m not helping?”
“I’m not sure what you’re doing, but it doesn’t feel like help.”
Terran shook his head. “Just like Lira never tried to teach you.”
She shot him a look and pulled away from him. “Careful. I might ask the trees to tear another hole in your jacket.”
As she said it, she knew that was the entire problem. She would have to ask.
She sighed.
What she felt each time she followed the roots told her that she needed to fear what happened to the south, where Errasn met with Saffra, the way everything simply stopped. There should be something there. From all the time she’d spent in the library researching her flower, she knew that even the hot, arid climate of Saffra would have flowers of its own. Shouldn’t she be able to cross over and reach them?
If only she knew more. The first keeper had likely hidden answers in the story woven throughout the roots, but Eris couldn’t understand it. Maybe another day…
She shook her head. Another day wouldn’t change anything.
But could there be another reason she didn’t sense anything beyond the southern border of Errasn? Did her ability as keeper have limitations? That didn’t make sense. A keeper’s reach was limited only by the life growing across the land. Besides, other than the keepers, no one stood between what the Conclave wanted and Errasn. Already they had tried to destroy the gardens. Had the forest not still stood—and the plains—they might have succeeded. Then they would move on north.
Yet, she didn’t want to leave the forest. For the first time in as long as she could remember, she felt a part of something. Her sister Jasi had always known she would play a political role. Desia had the same destiny and embraced it the same as Jasi. And Ferisa…she took to the faith as intended, filling her duty as servant to the Sacred Mother. But Eris never wanted any of that. Until she’d learned she could be a keeper, she hadn’t known what she wanted.
Having found her place, she would do anything to keep it. If that meant battling the magi to keep them from destroying her garden, she would gladly do it. She only had to learn how.
She turned toward the south, where the subtle change from where Lira’s gardens grew emanated.
Learning to use her ability meant returning to Eliara. Facing her sisters and her parents. Would they accept that she had changed? That she had a different place in the world than the one her father had assigned for her? Or would they try to force her to be more like her sisters?
She sighed again. They couldn’t force her, not any longer.
“I see you’ve decided.”
Eris frowned at him. “I’ve decided I’m ready to leave you here. I might have the trees keep you from following.”
Terran shook his head. “You know they won’t. And you know I’m right.”
She glared before shaking her head.
Eris started to say something, but a low howl split through the calm of the forest, interrupting her.
Terran peered through the shadows between the trees, as if he could make out what was out there.
Eris touched the vine surrounding the svanth tree and delved into its roots. A stillness came through the forest, as if it were holding its breath. Birds sat motionless atop high branches. Squirrels and tree lions perched, waiting. Even the wind seemed to pause.
She searched for where the creature prowled and found it nearby. The forest had been unable to provide answers about what the creature was, and neither she nor Terran wanted to search for it. They were safe at the heart of the forest. But when they left, they were often followed.
She sent a request to the trees, asking for a barrier. It was little different than what she’d asked after her first night spent beneath the trees, when Jasi had been in danger from the tree lion. Then the trees had responded, pulling around her and keeping her safe.
This time, she felt indifference.
Eris didn’t know how to explain it any differently, only that the trees didn’t answer. The creature—whatever it was—prowled around the edge of the heart of the forest.
“It hasn’t come this close before,” Terran said.
Eris shook her head, pulling away from the sense of the forest around her. “But we’re in the heart. We’re safe here.”
“I could hunt it—”
“We’ve talked about this before. You were the one who told me how dangerous this forest was, and we know it’s because of that creature.” Eris didn’t think there was more than one but couldn’t be certain. “Hunting it would be dangerous.” And she had the strange sense that the forest wouldn’t allow it. Another problem.
Terran frowned and pushed his hair behind his ears. “Leaving it out there is dangerous. What if the heart of the forest no longer contains it?”
“The forest tolerates its presence.”
“I’d feel better knowing what it is.”
Eris nodded. Not knowing anything about the creature bothered her as well, but short of tracking it, she had no way of discovery, if the trees refused to tell her. “You can see if Lira knows, when we return to Eliara.”
Terran blinked as the words registered, and then he smiled. “Are you certain?”
She shook her head. “Not entirely. But you’re right. There are limits to what I can learn here.” And there was so much she wanted to learn. She needed to command the forest instead of ask. What would happen to them when they needed the trees to respond? Would asking be enough? Would they care about Eris—or the same things Eris cared for—or would they simply ignore her requests?
Eris couldn’t be at risk of the trees not responding if something were to happen. Not agai
n, not like when she’d first tried to heal Terran. Had anything happened to him then…
She shuddered at the thought.
Terran nodded, studying her face. “When do we leave?”
Chapter 31
They stood on the western edge of the Verilain Plains, past the burned remains of the magi’s attack months ago. The grasses should have regrown by now, but Eris didn’t take the time to stop and determine why they hadn’t. The grasses couldn’t help her, not like Lira could.
Eris felt exposed. It was the first time in months she’d left the forest. In the time she’d been staying within the trees, she’d barely left the heart where the towering svanth trees all around her kept her plunged in shadows. The bright sunlight streaming across the plains blinded her, making her cup her hand across her brow as she stared out. The trees loomed behind her, beckoning her back beneath the canopy.
Did she really need to leave? Couldn’t she learn what she needed by delving into the roots, tracing the lessons the first keeper hid there?
Eris looked over her shoulder, knowing the answer as she did. Delaying wouldn’t change it. The trees had been home for the last few months—more like home than Eliara often felt—only now she didn’t know when she’d return. The connection to the trees was faint, drawing on her and never fully leaving her mind. Eris hadn’t expected to miss it as much as she did.
The wide expanse of needlegrass waved in the whistling wind. The first time she’d gone through it, she was left with dozens of shallow cuts across her arms and face. Since then, her connection to it changed. Or maybe she had changed by accepting the mantle of keeper. Now the grasses parted for her, giving her a wide berth so she walked unharmed, leaving her deep green dress intact. Eris had an open pathway, nearly as comfortable as the Kingsroad, leading away from the Svanth and back toward Eliara.
Beyond the plains, the ground opened into wide, rolling hills. Trees dotted the land, but fewer than in the forest. Eris delved into the roots, questing toward the trees, sensing the energy available. Nothing like with the Svanth, but knowing it was there put her at ease. That sense faded as she traced across the rolling hills, following the roots through Errasn until they met Saffra. Then there was nothing more than desolation. Eris shivered.
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