Terran walked alongside her and touched her arm lightly. “You wouldn’t have been able to do anything,” he whispered.
Jacen overheard Terran, and his mouth twisted into an amused expression. “Eris? She could have yelled at Saffra. I’ve been on the end of her wrath before…”
Terran laughed until Eris glared at him. Correcting her brother wouldn’t change anything. Doubtful he would believe what she was. Sometimes Eris still didn’t believe the abilities she now had.
They reached the main path leading toward the palace, and Jacen veered off toward the stables. A pair of grooms took their horses and led them away. Jacen nodded and started back toward the palace.
Terran hesitated. “I’m going to find Nels.”
Eris looked to Terran. “You don’t have to. Lira might have questions for you, too.”
He shook his head. “I’m sure she will, but you can answer those as well as I. Nels might have answers for me.”
Eris felt a fool, realizing that Terran might feel just as uncertain about his role as she did.
He touched her hand again before disappearing into the garden. Even as he did, Eris could feel where he walked. The garden granted her a sort of reassurance, letting her sense his presence as she had within the forest. Having that awareness reassured her, regardless of how she came about it.
Jacen watched her. “You’re going to have a difficult time explaining to Father how you ran off to be with a gardener.”
“I already told you that wasn’t what happened.”
Jacen chuckled, looking at where Terran had disappeared. “And I see the two of you together. Don’t deny you have feelings for him.”
Eris could no more deny that than she could the awareness she had of all the plants growing around her. There was a closeness between them, forged from living beneath the trees, from sharing the experiences of the first keeper, the stories she’d woven into the roots of the trees. They’d shared touches as well, a comfort in holding hands or the simple familiarity of him resting his hand on her arm and, sometimes, her leg. As much as she might want more from him, she sensed his reluctance. As keeper and gardener, there was a bond between them. Neither knew what would happen if they violated that bond.
Maybe Lira would have answers there as well.
Eris flushed and forced the thoughts out of her mind. “What happened with Mother?”
The smile faded from Jacen’s face. “I don’t know. She’s grown weaker. At first, she thought it was the stress of the attack on the garden. You know how much Mother loves this garden.” Jacen looked around and shrugged. “Maybe that’s why Father spent so much energy having Master Nels repair it. But she kept growing weaker. Once Mistress Lira returned, she really began getting sick.”
“What do the healers think?”
“You know how they can be. They give her teas and medicines, but nothing has made a difference.”
Jacen turned. The eyes staring back at Eris were different than she remembered. No longer twinkling with a glimmer of amusement, now they were hard and dangerous. The eyes of a stranger.
“You won’t recognize her when you see her, Eris. She is…different…than she was.” He sighed. “Maybe having you return will lift her spirits. Regardless of your affection for the gardener.”
Eris made as if to punch him, and Jacen smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes.
“There’s the little sister I remember.” His voice shifted, turning serious. “You’ve changed, too. Not so much as Mother, but you seem…” He shook his head. “I don’t know how to explain it. Stronger, maybe.” He snorted. “Maybe you should go yell at Saffra. Likely you’d be able to convince them to turn back and leave the borders.”
“Well, I am with child,” she said.
Jacen coughed, his eyes bulging, and she laughed. The coughing turned into choking.
“Serves you right,” she said.
They hurried up the wide steps and into the palace. Dim lanterns hung on walls, flickering with a pale light. A faint smoke trail led up the walls, coating the stone with dark soot. The air smelled musty, giving her a sense of confinement. How was it she missed the forest after only days away from it?
“You will want to see Father first,” Jacen said. “And then you should see Mother. I hope…” He trailed off as he turned and looked at her. “I hope your return can do something for her.”
Eris didn’t think she could do anything more than Lira had done. And her mother had never seemed overly fond of her, not like the way she fawned over Jasi or Desia. Even Ferisa, with her dedication to the Sacred Mother, pleased their mother more than Eris. Likely Eris’ return would bring only memories of her disappointment.
So, rather than arguing with Jacen, she only nodded.
“Careful what you say around Father. This war with Saffra consumes him.”
She looked up at her brother and frowned. The tension in his cheeks and the way his hand drifted toward his sword spoke volumes about what the war had done to him. “Only Father?”
His eyes blazed briefly. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
Eris wondered why he focused on that. “For Mother?”
Jacen blinked and shook his head once. “Father needed a report from the border. And I need more men.”
“He doesn’t send them?”
Jacen snorted again. “He sends enough to push Saffra back, but that is not enough. We need to end this war.”
The vehemence to the way he said it left no doubt in her mind how Jacen would end it.
They stopped outside the council room. A deep voice came from within, rough from yelling. Eris recognized the old general Tholen’s voice.
“We do little but hold them on the edge of Errasn, my lord. And they are relentless. We don’t have the men needed to battle both soldier and mage. I begin to wonder if Jacen might be right—perhaps we need to press the attack into Saffra.”
Her father said something she couldn’t understand.
Tholen went on. “Nothing more than a slip of water holds them back. The men wait for them to try and cross and…”
Jacen glanced at her, a grim expression knotting his brow, and stepped into the room.
Eris followed but stayed along the wall. A long table filled most of the room, a thick parchment rolled open across its gleaming surface. Stout oak chairs circled around the outside. Only a few were occupied. Her father sat at one end, atop a rivenswood chair much like his throne. A window cut into the wall overhead spilled bright light into the room to fall on a pot filled with perisals and listhanis. Lira’s touch, likely, and one that never would have been allowed when Adrick served as advisor. Did her father even know the importance of the flowers?
Eris pulled from the energy of the flowers to shade herself.
“My lord,” General Tholen said, nodding to Jacen. “You’ve returned from the border.”
He nodded and strode toward the end of the table to take a seat next to their father. Eris noted the change in him clearly, then. Tholen had once worried about Jacen’s abilities in the field, but now deferred to him nearly as much as he did to their father.
“I have. It’s much as you describe, Tholen, except the magi remain hidden in Saffra. We have nothing that can counteract the fire or lightning, which they continue to throw at us. The only good is that they harm their men nearly as much as ours.”
Her father watched Jacen, nodding. He hadn’t looked toward her yet. His face had aged in the time she’d been away, and his hair took on more grey than not, though he kept it cut short, as if trying to hide it.
“We will need a different tact, or else we’ll have to retreat from the Loess River. That is all that keeps their fire at bay. If I had another company of cavalry, I would be able to—”
“Do what? Push against the Kernig Mountains?” Lashen said. The frail soldier had once served as her grandfather’s advisor and was widely regarded to still have a keen mind. At least he had been before she’d left.
Anger flashed across Jacen’s face as
he turned and looked at Lashen. “Yes. Let me push them against Kernig and destroy them. Once we possess the mountain passes, Saffra won’t be able to send any additional troops.”
“It’s not the troops we should fear,” Lashen said.
“No, but since I can’t do anything against the magi, I have to focus on what I can. Once the soldiers are gone, the magi will have to face us rather than hide.”
“Yet they still hide and throw lightning. If we lose another company, the rest of Errasn is in danger.” Nasally Eldan looked from Jacen to her father.
Her father sighed and leaned forward to rest his chin on his hands. “I am loath to give up even an inch to them, but what other—” His gaze darted toward the end of the room and settled on her. “What is this?” He looked to Jacen. “Who did you bring into my chambers, Jacen?”
Jacen nodded toward her. “I thought you might want to see her, Father.”
Her father stood and made his way toward her. One hand rested on the hilt of his sword as he walked. Eris noted a limp, and he stooped slightly.
When he neared, he blinked at her. His hand fell away from his sword.
“Eris?” he whispered.
She stepped away from the wall, releasing the energy of the flowers. The edges of their petals had rolled, wilting slightly as she tapped their energy.
She nodded. “Father.” She bowed her head slightly, making certain to watch his face as she did.
“Where have you been? You’ve been gone all this time and now you return. Why now…” He glanced back at Jacen for answers. When Jacen shook his head, her father turned back to her. “No matter. You have returned. The Mistress of Flowers was right.” He pulled her into a tight embrace.
Eris hugged him back. How long had it been since her father had hugged her like that? Months? Maybe a year?
He smelled of age and something else, like the edge of rot.
She pushed away. “I heard Mother is ill.”
Her father’s face changed, falling as if the strength left him. He nodded. “She is unwell. The healers can do nothing—”
“And Lira?” She hadn’t asked Jacen whether Lira had tried healing her mother, but she suspected her father knew of Lira’s power.
He shook his head.
Behind him, Jacen frowned.
“There is nothing she can do. You will go to her. Seeing you might be enough to lift her spirits,” her father said.
It was the same thing Jacen had said. Eris didn’t think it likely but nodded.
He sighed and smiled. “It is good you came when you did, Eris. She needs this.”
“Can you take me to her?” she asked softly.
Her father looked at the men of his council and nodded to Jacen before taking Eris’s hand and leading her from the council room. As they left, Jacen began the meeting again. His voice carried authority that it hadn’t possessed the last time she’d seen him. Only a few months away, and already much had changed. Eris wished she knew whether any of the change was for the better.
“The Mistress tried everything she can, Eris,” her father said as they made their way from his council room. “She…delays…what is happening, but does not think she can stop it. I think she even fears leaving the palace.”
Rather than making their way deeper into the palace, they walked away from her parents’ quarters. “Where are you taking me?”
Her father looked over at her. “You said you wanted to see your mother.”
She nodded. “She’s not in the palace?”
He shook his head as they reached a wide door leading out into the garden. Through the glass, swirls of color streaked together. Energy emanated from the garden. Even without a connection to it, she knew where her mother would be found.
How sick must she be for Lira to have brought her here?
“How much time does she have, Father?”
He swallowed. A tear welled in the corner of his eye, and he shook his head. “Not much, I’m afraid. I’m thankful for each day she has left, but those become fewer and fewer. At least her suffering will be over. The Sacred Mother will give her that much.”
Chapter 33
Eris followed her father into the garden, clutching her dress in her hands. She wished Terran were with her, if nothing else for his comforting presence, but Jacen had already shown how that would open her up to questions she was not quite ready to answer. Her father might believe she was a keeper, but would he understand Terran’s role, or would he react much like Jacen? She didn’t want to put Terran through that again.
They passed rows of flowers. Tulips. Anosems. Ulsens. Eris no longer knew how many varieties she’d learned from simply wandering the garden and how many she’d learned from her connection to the forest. Some she’d learned by spending time sorting through books in the library as Master Billiken sat watching.
She inhaled the fragrances, noting the subtle shift as they moved deeper into the garden, away from the main gate leading toward the palace and toward the tall elms near the center. The greenhouse would be there, and likely, Master Nels with Terran.
The energy coursing through the plants was a near palpable thing. Eris could almost touch it. From the arrangement in her father’s council room, she already knew she could borrow energy from the flowers. She suspected she could do the same here in the garden.
Strange how she could command the power stored within the flowers yet she had to ask the trees for assistance. Had it always been there, thrumming below the surface, waiting for nothing more than a soft touch for her to draw upon it?
The power might have been here, but she had never been aware of it. Even now, her connection to it was different than what she shared with the Svanth. Within the forest, there was strength far beyond what this garden held, but a sense of age and something more. The forest garden needed her to understand her role. It was the reason the lessons were woven into the roots, plunging deep into the earth beneath the forest. This garden had nothing like that.
“She wanted to come here. I think it reminds her of when we first met.”
Eris realized her father had been carrying on as they walked. She hadn’t been paying much attention and now turned to listen. “She once said the elms were lovely then.” Eris couldn’t remember when she’d heard her mother speak of the trees, but it felt right to say.
He glanced over, and a sad smile worked across his face. Tired eyes held a hint of moisture. In spite of the arranged marriage between her mother and father—a union designed to knit the fractured north more tightly with Errasn, much like the union intended for Jasi and Petra—they had found real love. “She always loved the trees. Something about how she could sit in the shade and feel their age and wisdom.”
Eris nearly stumbled. Could her mother have been a keeper?
She’d always thought she was nothing like her mother. She had none of the beautiful golden hair or the deep blue eyes—not like her sisters. Or even Jacen. Instead, she looked more like her father. Chestnut hair that seemed to grow darker with each year. Brown eyes that looked to belong to another family. But if her mother shared her gifts, Eris might finally feel connected to her.
It would only take her dying to make it happen. Sorrow pulled through her.
They reached the elms, and her father slowed. The trees grew in a circle, but everything else about the place spoke of her father’s influence. A shaded pavilion had been set between the trees. A low tent blocked the sun working through the branches. A thick rug rolled beneath the pavilion. Even the pair of guards stationed between each tree, eyes vigilant for imagined threats, hands gripping the hilt of their sheathed swords, were her father’s.
The air beneath the elms smelled off. Eris almost delved then, to understand.
Within the pavilion, she sensed Lira’s touch. Pots of fresh flowers were set around the trees. The colors within each bed worked together in ways Eris still didn’t understand but at least began to recognize. Each augmented the energy, strengthening the effect, drawing from the rest of
the garden and focusing its energy here. The power building here practically buzzed.
Her father hurried forward. Under the overhang, he paused and beckoned her forward, waiting until she joined him before ducking fully underneath.
More flowers greeted her here. There were precisely placed. The colors might look beautiful, but the power drew inward, drawing from the rest of the garden and focusing it on her mother.
In the face of this much effort, how could her mother still be sick?
And then she saw her.
Her mother lay on a plush cot covered with thick blankets. Patterns woven into the blankets reminded Eris of the flowers around her. Only her mother’s face was visible, and it looked different. Pale and sunken. Her once golden hair now held no luster and had taken on a greyish sheen. Her head swiveled toward them as they approached, eyes milky when they’d once been bright.
“Hanrik,” she sighed. “I have visions now. I see Eris standing beside you. Were she only here…”
Her father grabbed her hand beneath the blankets. “But she is here, my love. Eris has returned home.”
Her mother blinked and tried to sit up. Her father shook his head and made soothing sounds, keeping her from moving.
“Eris? But Lira said…”
Eris swallowed. Could it be that her mother was actually pleased to see her?
More than anything else, that change surprised her the most.
“Mother.” Eris took a place alongside her father and looked down at her mother. The blankets made it difficult to see how thin she’d become, but Eris recognized it in the prominence to her cheeks and the way her eyes pushed forward. “I’ve returned.”
“Have you completed your lessons?”
For a moment, Eris thought she was back months ago when Lira had sent her to the garden to find her flower. In those times, she often disappointed her mother, always having to answer that she hadn’t found her flower. When she finally had, Lira refused to explain it to her, forcing her to search for answers on her own.
The lessons she had now were different, but no less urgent. Likely more so, now that she knew what she could do, what she could be.
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