The Lost Garden: The Complete Series

by D. K. Holmberg

  “I…I don’t know, Mother.”

  Honesty. With her mother dying, she owed her honesty.

  “Does Lira know?” her mother asked.

  Eris frowned. Could her mother’s mind be slipping as well? She’d believed she had a vision when Eris appeared, what else did she experience?

  “Does Lira know?” Eris repeated. She felt like a child again, standing in front of her mother, disappointing her as she had so many times before.

  “That you still need to complete your lessons.”

  Eris blinked against the tears coming to her eyes. “I will tell her.”

  Her father patted her mother beneath the blanket for a moment and then turned to Eris. “She is very sick. I think it’s good you came back. I…”

  He trailed off, looking over Eris’s shoulder. She turned and saw Jacen standing along one of the paths, watching them with worried eyes. Her father took a deep breath and nodded.

  “Stay with her a while, Eris. You can comfort her.” He forced a smile onto his face. “And when you leave her, find Jasi. She will want to know you’re back, too. She runs the household now that your mother is…well, now that she’s unwell.”

  Eris nodded, and her father strode off. His steps held less of the power and lithe grace than they used to, a slight hitch now to the way he swung his legs, but he still carried himself with the authority of his office. The guards standing between the trees saluted respectfully.

  When her father joined Jacen and turned back toward the palace, Eris walked back to her mother. Her mother’s head rested against a wide pillow, and her breathing came slowly and shallowly. Eris sighed and touched her hair, running her hand across it in a familiarity she’d never had when her mother was well.

  Was there nothing Lira could do?

  The power moving through the pavilion spoke of Lira’s attempt, but the way her mother looked told Eris all she needed to know about how the attempt fared. How much longer did her mother have before the Sacred Mother took her home?

  With all this power, was there even anything she could do?

  Outside the forest, she didn’t have the same access she did within the trees, but she had used that power to heal before. Terran would have lost his leg—or worse—had she not summoned the power needed to heal him, though that had been freely given by the forest, simply passing through her hands rather than guided by her.

  Eris needed to know.

  She pushed off her sandals. When her feet touched the bare earth, she inhaled, pressing her awareness deep beneath the surface, delving as she did in the Svanth Forest. Eris could trace through the roots, follow them toward the twining power held within the trees and flowers and grasses growing within the earth.

  Awareness of the grasses came to her first, thready and weak. Faint. Like the transient grass itself. Eris gripped onto the roots tenuously and followed them until she reached the thicker roots of the towering elms. These reminded her of those growing within the Svanth, mighty and old, but different as well; they yielded before her, as if recognizing her as a keeper. Were she to push, she could track to the flowers growing in the garden and tap into their power as well. But doing so felt like a violation, so she refrained.

  Filled with the power granted by the elms, she pushed it through her hand, letting it out like an exhalation so it washed over her mother. It resonated back to her, filling her with knowledge of the illness. Eris gasped.

  “What do you sense?”

  Eris turned and saw Lira watching her. The Mistress of Flowers stood in the center of the pavilion. Eris imagined the energy flowing through the garden centered upon her. Dressed primly as always in a flowing gown of purple and silver, her hazel eyes held Eris in a powerful gaze.

  “Lira.” Eris took her hand off her mother’s head and turned toward her teacher. How long had she believed Lira hadn’t wanted to teach her, only to learn Lira didn’t know how to teach her?

  “How did you hear of her illness?”

  No welcome back. No questions about what she’d learned. No questions about her time in the Svanth. Nothing other than formality.

  Eris swallowed and pulled herself up straight. “When we returned. I met Jacen at the palace gate.”

  Lira tilted her head. “Terran is with you?”

  “He went to speak with Master Nels.” Eris turned back to her mother. The illness working through her was a sort of wasting illness, like she’d seen in the trees. Terran had taken to striking them down. After enough time, all that remained was a hollow and lifeless core. “Is there nothing you can do?”

  Lira furrowed her brow and shook her head. “A keeper should be able to feel what I do.”

  “I can feel it. I don’t understand it, but I feel it.”

  “There are lessons the trees cannot teach. Had we more time, I might be able to help, but…” She looked over at the queen. “I do all I can to keep this at bay. I do not have the strength to heal her completely.”

  “What if she came to the Svanth?” The power stored within the forest would be enough to heal her mother, if only the forest would allow Eris to do it.

  “She would never survive the journey.” Lira stepped away from the center of the pavilion toward Eris’s mother. “Had I recognized it in time, she might have, but I thought myself strong enough to help her.” She shook her head again. “This is my folly. I was foolish. Now I do nothing more than prolong her illness.”

  “What is it?”

  Lira looked back. “I don’t know.”

  Eris looked at her mother, at the slow and steady breaths working through her frail body. Nothing of the regal woman remained. “So she will die.”

  Lira inhaled deeply. “I am sorry, Eris. There is nothing more I can do. All I can hope is to keep her comfortable in the time she has remaining.”

  Eris sighed. “Do you know why this happened?”

  “Why does anything happen? There is no why to illness.”

  Eris borrowed energy from the trees for a moment as she set her hand back onto her mother, letting the energy wash over her. The way it pushed against her felt off. Within her mother, the effects of age worked through her, the way her vision faded, the way her hair slowly turned to grey, but none of it felt the same as this illness.

  “This isn’t natural,” she whispered.

  Saying it made it feel more real.

  Lira looked at her and shook her head. “Illness often feels like that, but I have seen sickness like this before. There isn’t anything we can do but ease her suffering.”

  Eris shook her head and reached a hand toward Lira. “Feel this,” she said, pulling the energy from the trees through her—through her mother—before pressing it toward Lira.

  Lira flinched back and her eyes narrowed. “What did you do?”

  “Nothing. I simply pushed the energy I borrowed through her.”

  Lira dropped her hand. “You summon so much. I have a fine control but cannot pull nearly as much as what you manage.” She frowned. “Do you reach all the way to the Svanth in what you do?”

  Eris shook her head. “The elms only. I didn’t know the protocol for borrowing the energy stored within your garden,” she said.

  “The elms?” Lira looked up at the trees and let out a shaky breath. “So much is different between what we do. Yours is a powerful gift.” She inhaled deeply, pulling the energy around her until it focused on Lira. “All of this connects me to my small garden in the Svanth, but nothing I control would give me nearly the power you manipulate.”

  “Can you use it?” She allowed herself a sudden surge of hope. Could her mother be helped? If Eris could borrow the power from Lira’s garden, what kept Lira from using the power she commanded?

  “If only it were so simple. Do you not remember when Terran was injured? My connection to the forest was tenuous, too weak to be of any good. Were it not for your ability, the way you trace the roots…” She shook her head. “The power stored within the Svanth is too foreign for me. I cannot listen to the stories of
the past as you can. I hear nothing more than echoes, like voices calling from a great distance. I know they are there, but no matter how hard I try, I cannot hear them.”

  Except Eris didn’t have the power Lira thought. The Svanth did not grant that to her.

  These elms were different. Eris wondered if their connection to Lira’s garden granted her the access to the energy they stored, access she didn’t have within the Svanth.

  She sighed. If only she had the skill needed to help her mother.

  “Why did you come, if not for her?”

  Eris took her hand away from her mother. Her reason seemed so insignificant now. Had she known about her mother, she would have come. Perhaps that was the reason to share with others. But not with Lira. Lira needed the truth.

  “I…” she began, but didn’t know how to go on. Would Lira understand how Eris traced out from the forest and followed the twisted connections beneath the earth all the way to the border with Saffra? Would she be able to explain what Eris felt there? “I felt something along the border.” She shook her head, realizing how foolish it sounded. “I don’t know how to explain what it is. A sense of nothingness.” She’d taken to thinking about it as a desolation, but it sounded strange to say aloud. “It’s painful when I press along toward it. If I push too hard, it hurts, like a burn.”

  Lira nodded. “You feel the Conclave. I am not surprised you do. It took me years to recognize the sense and many more before I knew to fear it. But you have a different strength. As a keeper of trees, I suspect you are more deeply connected than I am.”

  “What is it? Why can I feel the Conclave?”

  “The Conclave has always yearned for more power. They thrive on discord. It fuels them, like the sun and rain fuel the power we control.”

  “I thought we would have more time.” Only a few months had passed, and already they began their attack? And forcing Saffra into battle with Errasn? How much would be lost?

  “As did I.”

  “What can we do?” Eris asked. She had seen the horrible power of the magi far too closely. If they already managed to press the attack, it meant she and Lira had done little to slow them. And they were outnumbered. From what Terran said, there once had been many keepers, all tending to massive gardens, each larger than what Lira had within the walls of the palace. But the magi had destroyed them, scattering the keepers, leaving only Lira to fight back against the magi.

  And now Eris.

  Her presence made the difference the last time, but she had surprised the magi when they were near the Svanth Forest. They would not make the same mistake again.

  Lira blinked and met her eyes. “I fear there is little we can do.”

  Chapter 34

  Eris found Terran along the back wall of the garden, fingers deep into earthen beds of shade plants. She watched him for a few moments before stepping into view, thinking of what Lira had said. If the magi made a concerted push into Errasn, there might be nothing they could do. All the gardens would fall, and then what would be left? What would the magi turn Errasn into?

  She sighed and Terran turned, a smile crossing his face.

  “Did you find Lira?” He slid to the side, focusing again on the planter where his fingers worked at the dirt, pinching through loose soil.

  Eris recognized what he did, the way he picked at burrowing pests threatening to destroy the plants. This on a taranth, a shade plant she recognized from the Svanth. She touched the earth and delved into the plant. Tiny grubs chewed on the roots, damaging them. With a gentle suggestion, she instructed the taranth to focus a brief surge of energy through the bed, destroying the grubs. Doing so with flowers was much different than working with the energy stored within the trees. Less potent, but easier to direct.

  Terran frowned at her. “What did you do?”

  Eris shrugged. “I helped.”

  Terran offered her one of his lopsided smiles. “You could’ve helped the trees in the Svanth this way.”

  The pointed comment reminded her of how much she’d neglected while trying to learn from the roots. She looked away. If she didn’t delve deeply into the roots, she would never learn what she needed to help the rest of the forest. “You heard about my mother?”

  He grunted and moved onto the next bed of taranths. Eris considered helping him again, but after his reaction, decided against it.

  “It’s all Nels could talk about, at first. The queen, resting in the heart of his garden. I’m not certain he approves.”

  Eris swallowed, looking back toward the elms. From here, the energy that the flowers of the garden focused seemed so small. If only she could get her mother back to the Svanth. There she might have a chance. “But Nels knows why she’s here, doesn’t he?”

  Terran nodded absently.

  Eris sighed with frustration. First the magi, and now her mother. And she, a keeper, unable to help. “Lira only delays it. She can’t heal her.”

  Terran paused and looked up. He wiped his hands across his scarred, green jacket and took a step toward her. “I’m sorry, Eris. There are limits to even a keeper’s power.”

  Eris fought back tears that threatened to spill again. She knew of the limitations. She still didn’t know enough to command the forest to help. Ask, definitely. Suggest. But not command.

  It began to feel like when Lira had sentenced her to wander the garden, each day searching for her flower. Each day failing, returning to the palace only to realize she hadn’t found what she sought. The forest seemed to be waiting—the ancient keeper as well—for Eris to learn something before it unlocked the next secret. Only, for this lesson, she had no idea what she searched for.

  “Lira says the Conclave pushes Saffra toward Errasn.”

  Terran looked back to the pot and began working through the dirt. “You told me the same.”

  She shook her head. “I wasn’t sure that was what I felt.”

  She turned to the bed next to where Terran worked—a combination of teraspal and vipeslar arranged in a pattern that resonated against her, as if creating even more energy this way than alone—and touched the dirt. As she delved, a surge of understanding washed over her, fainter than she had with larger plants. A few beetles worked their way across the leaves, chewing and leaving tiny creatures that worked inside the thin veins of the leaves. Over time, they poisoned the plant.

  Eris frowned. She hadn’t noticed that before.

  Another surge of energy, and the miniscule creatures died. The plants surged with renewed life, noticeably more vibrant.

  “Would you stop?” Terran looked up at her. “There’s little else I can do to help, and if you go around the garden taking care of everything I can do…”

  “You wouldn’t have been able to do anything about this one.”

  Terran looked at the teraspal, his gaze immediately going to the chewed edges of the leaves. “Hesha beetles. Easy enough to deter.” He looked back at her. “I think I can manage here, Eris. Besides, wasn’t there another reason we came to Eliara?”

  She considered saying something about what she sensed working through the teraspal plant but decided against it. Terran might take offense, and she meant none by offering to help. Out of anyone, she didn’t want to anger him. And he was right. He could manage here without her help; this was Lira’s garden, not hers.

  “I…I thought I could help you,” she said.

  Terran glanced around the garden as he came over to her. He set his hands on her arms, unmindful of who else might be around, his calloused hands warm and familiar and achingly comforting. “I know. And I know there’s something you’re trying not to do, or something you can’t do now that you’ve learned about your mother. You don’t need to worry about me, Eris. I am your gardener. Where you go, I’ll follow.”

  Eris couldn’t help but think about the gardener from her dreams. He hadn’t followed his keeper.

  She wanted to ask Terran if that was all they were—just gardener and keeper—but Master Nels appeared at the end of one of the rows.
He studied her with wrinkled eyes as he swept his hat off his head and crumpled it between his hands. Then he nodded, almost respectfully, before turning away.

  Eris watched him disappear and then laughed lightly. “That was odd.”

  Terran follower her gaze. “Nels?”

  Eris nodded.

  “He sees you differently now.”

  “He knows?”

  Terran nodded. “He wasn’t Lira’s first gardener—I don’t know who he served before her, and he won’t say—and he knew the reason I left. Now that we’re back in Eliara, I offered to help, but he holds me under no obligation.”

  Who Nels might have served before Lira? He had served her father long before Lira arrived at the palace. Even before the magi appeared, she thought. But that meant he’d served before the gardens were destroyed.

  She shook off the quandary. What did it matter, now? The gardens were gone. The keepers were gone. Now, only she and Lira remained.

  They would be able to do nothing against the full might of the Conclave.

  “Not all the keepers were lost, were they?” she asked.

  Terran shook his head. “Not all. Lira might know where they’ve gone, but I suspect even she isn’t sure where most went.”

  Why would the keepers simply scatter? Wouldn’t they want to remain near their gardens and do whatever they could to keep the Conclave in check? Unless they knew something…or those who remained went somewhere else, started a new garden as Lira had.

  “What is it?” Terran asked.

  He watched her, a worried expression twisting the corner of his mouth. A smudge of dirt lined his forehead, and he rubbed his hand against it, only smearing it worse. It reminded her of when she’d first met him, and she smiled.

  “What if Lira knows where other keepers have gone? What if we can find them and get help?”

  “Don’t you think she would have contacted them if she did?”

  “Would she? Do we know why she came to Errasn in the first place? Why, if all the other keepers scattered, did Lira come here while the magi had already established themselves with my father?”