“Noisy?”
Imryll nodded. “I heard the message you sent. I think all keepers would hear it, even those of flowers.” She said the last with a sense of derision.
Eris frowned. “That was sort of my intent. I wanted Terran to know where I was.” She shook her head. “I’m not even sure it will reach him.”
Imryll laughed. “With as much strength as you fed it? Likely it reaches the ocean!” She took another step toward Eris and knelt next to her. “You think your gardener will understand the message? Even as noisy as you were, such things aren’t the realm of gardeners. At least, they weren’t in my day.”
Eris shook her head. “I don’t know if he’ll recognize it or not, but after what happened to me, I needed to send something so he didn’t worry about me.”
“I thought you said you knew nothing about the bond.”
“I don’t. It’s just…”
A knowing look came across Imryll’s face.
Eris pushed away the thought and stood, wiping her hands across the cloak as she did. “You still haven’t asked my name.”
Imryll glanced at Eris. “I haven’t the need.”
“I’m Eris,” she said, sticking out her hand.
Imryll ignored the gesture and laughed. “Does it matter what we call ourselves? All that matters is how the trees respond. They know me as keeper.”
“I’m not a tree.”
Imryll’s laughed trailed off. “No. Perhaps that is your problem.”
“Problem?”
She nodded. “You seek instruction, but you do not think like a keeper of trees.”
Eris frowned. “How am I supposed to think?”
Imryll snorted. “You are to discover that on your own.”
She stood and turned toward her hut and nodded. With the svanth tree now growing sturdier, the hut seemed to have grown larger than it had been earlier in the day. And then Imryll disappeared inside, leaving Eris wondering if Imryll would be like Lira—another keeper who wouldn’t teach.
* * *
They sat again at the table. The hearth crackled behind them, giving light and a strange warmth. Eris still didn’t fully understand how it was possible without injuring the trees. Had she known how to manage a fire, the cool nights she’d spent in the forest would have passed with more comfort.
“How do you make the fire?” she asked.
The woman glanced at her. In answer, power surged through the trees, as if the forest itself pushed back the effect of the flames.
Could she do the same? Would the trees answer her, or would they ignore as they always had before?
As Eris looked around the hut, she marveled at the way the trees wove together. Branches from high overhead bent toward them, creating a cozy roof and trapping the warmth from the hearth. Small windows crafted out of curved branches opened along each wall. The hut was another trick Eris wished she had learned. With something like this, she would have been able to stay out of the rain, though the high canopy of the svanth trees kept them mostly dry.
Imryll sat across from her, another mug of tea cupped in her hands. She’d slipped her cloak off and hung it along a knobby branch. Eris preferred to keep hers on, pushing back the growing chill of the night. At least Imryll had a long-sleeved blouse made of stout wool and thick breeches to keep her warmth. Other than the cloak, Eris had only the thin slip she wore when Ferisa attacked her.
“You seem troubled.”
Eris nodded to Imryll and took a sip of her tea. “I see what you manage, how the forest bends before you, and wish I could manage such control.”
Imryll snorted. “I have sensed how you work. You think to force it. You cannot force the trees to bend any more than the wind can force them. You might rustle the leaves or even sway the branches, but more than that?” She shook her head. “None are strong enough to force the trees to bend unless they wish it themselves.”
Eris didn’t fully understand what Imryll said. Eris already knew she couldn’t force the trees to do what she wanted, but that was just the problem. Asking didn’t work either. But how did Imryll manage to coax from the trees what she wanted done? What was her secret?
“I don’t try to force anything,” she said. “But when I ask, most of the time nothing happens either.”
Imryll slapped the table with her palm. “Ask? You think asking is how you get the trees to listen!” She laughed, the sound throaty and coming out as a cackle. “Trees don’t respect you when you ask. They know who’s the stoutest, who reaches for the most sunlight. You have to be that one for the trees to listen.”
Eris frowned. “You’re saying I have to prove to the trees I’m the stoutest?” She had no idea what that even meant. Even less how she would accomplish it.
Imryll nodded. “Only yours is harder than what I have. Pines don’t grow nearly so tall as a svanth tree, especially like the ones you’re used to seeing.”
“How do you do it?”
Imryll shook her head. “I can’t explain what it is. A sense the trees must have from the keeper. One of trust and respect. Then they’ll work with you as long as you keep their trust.”
Had Eris lost their trust?
She didn’t think so. More than likely, she’d never had it, not completely. She remembered the summoning she’d gotten from the trees after she’d battled the magi, but it had been the energy stored in the Verilain Plains that let her do that. There was a difference to the power of the plains and that stored in the Svanth. It was the same difference she noted with flowers from Lira’s garden.
“Why is it easier to use flowers?” she asked. “I didn’t have to gain their trust.”
Imryll frowned, her lower lip curling in until she bit it. She leaned forward, hands gripping the wooden edge of the table, and studied Eris. “We’re talking about trees, not flowers. A keeper of trees can’t use the energy from flowers, at least not well.”
Eris shook her head. “I can use the energy stored in the garden near my home. I don’t have to prove anything with flowers. They simply do what I want.” It was the same with the needlegrass across the Verilain Plains.
Imryll looked troubled. “That shouldn’t be. The calling is different. Keeper of flowers, she touches little more than the surface, her work more one of colors and patterns. A keeper of trees, it is something else. We listen to a deeper secret, a part of it, rather than controlling it.” She shook her head as she studied Eris. Then she let out a breath. “Could it be you’re not a keeper of trees?” She spoke mostly to herself. “She said she bonded a teary star. A flower not a tree. Different, isn’t it? And the other…there is no other bond there, is there?”
Imryll blinked and looked over at Eris. “That is why you struggle with the trees. I should have seen it sooner, but who bonds to a teary star? Such a different flower, but a flower, not a tree.” She frowned. “Not many keepers of flowers can walk the roots, but there were some.” Imryll nodded, as if decided. “Yes, there were some.” She sniffed and pushed away from the table. “To use the flowers, you must be a keeper of flowers. There is no other answer. And if that’s the case, I can’t help you.”
Eris shook her head. “But I’m not a keeper of flowers…”
Imryll stood. “You can’t argue. You say you can touch the energy stored in flowers. There have been no keepers of trees capable of using the flowers. A different ability, similar but not the same.” She pointed to Eris, waving a hand at her. “Go back to your home and seek out the keeper you say is there. She must be the one to teach you.”
“I can’t. I don’t even know where I am, and I have so much to learn if I want to help my family.”
“It’s as I say. You need to find your keeper. She must teach you.”
Imryll turned and walked away from the hut.
Eris sat unmoving. She’d found another keeper, but even she wasn’t willing to work with her.
How then would she learn what she needed?
And had Lira been wrong? Could she be a keeper of flowers just l
ike Lira?
If that was the case, why would Lira hide that from her?
Chapter 46
The trees began to close around her. Imryll let her stay until morning, but hadn’t reappeared. Eris woke to sunlight streaming through one of the small windows and the sense of the hut trying to push her out, squeezing her from it. She had stumbled into the light of the clearing, only to find the clearing gone and no sign of the hut. The deep green cloak she now wore, the only sign that Imryll had been real.
As she walked, she began to wonder if Imryll was right. Had she been wrong all this time? Could she really be a keeper of flowers? If so, what did it mean that she’d chosen—bonded, as Imryll said—to a shade flower? The teary star wasn’t like any other flower. It bloomed rarely and grew from a thick, woody vine. Even the vine did not do nearly so well without the svanth trees.
But if she were a keeper of trees, wouldn’t she have some inkling of that? Imryll seemed to think so. She should have learned how to gain the trees trust. And other than tracing the roots, what other evidence did she have that the trees even listened to her? She’d never really even used the energy of the Svanth again.
More than anything, that likely meant Eris was not a keeper of trees. She might be a keeper of flowers—a keeper like Lira—but the Svanth was not hers.
And if she wasn’t a keeper of trees, then she had no garden.
Without a garden, she had no way of helping her mother and no way of keeping Saffra from pressing forward.
The thought left her with a hollow feeling. How could she have been so wrong?
Why hadn’t Lira told her?
Why hadn’t the trees?
But maybe they had. Maybe that was why she could do little more than touch the energy stored within them.
She stopped at a narrow stream. The water burbling alongside reminded her of a stream running through the Svanth. Eris still felt the pressure of the forest around her, the sense that it wanted her gone. All but the svanth tree—or rather, the teary star vine—she’d coaxed. If she stopped long enough and took the time, she could delve through the shallow roots of the forest and sense the svanth growing, gaining strength as it drew from the teary star climbing up its trunk.
And Eris thought she’d helped the svanth. Maybe all she’d done was help the teary star.
After taking a long drink, she stood and continued moving. She had no way of knowing whether she traveled in the right direction. The forest pushed her, sweeping her slowly forward. Unlike when she walked through the Svanth Forest, she moved slowly, pulled down by roots and brush that never plagued her when in her forest.
She snorted at the thought. The Svanth wasn’t her forest. It never had been.
She wished Terran were with her. Even if he didn’t know what to do, she missed his company.
Eris had never minded being different. She’d known she wasn’t like her sisters, but it had never bothered her. And then when she learned she was a keeper, she liked how she was different. But now—with no keeper willing to teach her—being different hurt.
Eris wanted to become a keeper. She wanted to tap the energy stored within the plants, to learn what she could from the stories woven into the roots. But it seemed there was no one able or willing to teach her. Somehow she would have to do it on her own.
* * *
Eris reached the edge of the forest. As the day progressed, it seemed the trees ushered her away with increasing speed. When she finally left the edge of the forest, a sigh escaped, like a breath of wind, behind her.
Rolling hills stretched out around her. She had no idea where she was. Someplace in the north, if the pines in the forest were any indication, but where?
And could she return home?
Her mother was dying—possibly had already died—and Errasn was under attack by the magi. Eris could borrow power stored in the garden in Eliara, but that would only serve to weaken Lira, a keeper who knew how to wield the power she could access. Nothing Eris did would help.
She sat, pulling her knees to her chest as she stared at the falling sun. Sweeps of orange and red spread across the sky, the colors less like ulsens and celias than simple sprays of color. A hint of a pattern stretched across the sky, but Eris didn’t care enough to try and understand it. After everything she’d been through, now she learned she wasn’t who she thought?
Or maybe, she’d been what others thought all along. Different.
Eris watched as the sun sunk toward the horizon. The air cooled, and she was thankful for the cloak Imryll had given her. Eris hadn’t offered to return it after learning she wasn’t a keeper of trees; Imryll had been most interested in seeing her away from the forest.
She should return to Eliara. Not to find Lira—she’d already shown she had no interest in teaching—but for Terran. He should know Eris was a keeper of flowers. Maybe then Master Nels would have something to teach, some way of helping Terran with his responsibility.
Only, a part of her didn’t want to return. Doing so meant admitting failure after finally thinking she’d succeeded.
Instead, she would sit and watch the sun fall from the sky, marvel at the way the colors filled the horizon, and in spite of what Ferisa had done to her, pray the Sacred Mother would help her find peace. Whatever that might be.
* * *
More than anything, the ground woke Eris.
She rolled over and saw the moon glowing brightly against the sky, hanging full and yellow as it hovered above the highest hill. Eris stretched and let out her breath. The air carried a heavy chill, and she suppressed a shiver.
How had she fallen asleep?
The rest left her feeling better and helped clear away some of the doubts that had started tainting her thoughts. She might not be the keeper she’d thought, but she was still a keeper. When she managed to return to Eliara, she would force Lira to teach her.
Somehow.
First, she had to determine which way to go.
Eris slipped off her thin slippers and touched her feet to the ground, dreading the chill she knew would come. Dry grasses crunched beneath her feet and pressed uncomfortably against her. Sucking in a deep breath, she delved into the roots.
The connection felt tenuous at first. The grasses were nearly dormant, and she struggled to gain anything meaningful from them, but all she needed was the connection.
Pressing out with the connection, she felt the forest behind her. It rebuffed her attempt to follow the roots, the barrier formed by Imryll stout enough she couldn’t follow it. There came a glimmer of something more before it faded as well. Could that be the svanth tree?
She pushed outward, following the shallow roots of the nearly dormant grassy plain, stretching for something familiar. Copses of trees dotted the landscape. Wild flowers, some with massive fields like those she’d seen in visions, covered hills.
Finally, she came to the familiar presence of the Svanth. Eris swallowed as she did but didn’t break the connection. The forest seemed to welcome her, though she wasn’t a keeper of the forest as she’d thought. Instead, she must be a keeper of flowers, like Lira. Perhaps that was the only reason the forest welcomed her.
At least now she knew the direction she needed to travel.
She picked up her shoes and started south, not breaking the connection. As she walked, her bare feet crunching against the dry grass, she continued to press outward, reaching Eliara and Lira’s garden and pushing further, reaching toward the border with Saffra…
She stumbled and broke the connection.
The border failed.
Eris recognized it as a change in the life as she pushed outward, a flash of a vision.
Grasses and flowers burned as the magi pushed north into Errasn, reaching the Loess River. But even that border began to fail. The fringes were singed. And beyond the fringes there was nothing. No sense of life. Nothing. Simply desolation.
What had changed?
Something must have changed, else why would the border fail? The only answer Eris ha
d was Lira. But if Lira failed, what did that mean for Eris’ mother?
Eris ran, afraid to consider what would happen were Lira to fall. More than her mother dying, the magi would continue to press north, twisting the land with their destructive magic. Eris felt the effect even here. Once they reached Eliara, how much longer before they reached the Svanth?
And then beyond the Svanth, into Imryll’s forest.
She considered turning back, going to Imryll with what she sensed, but Imryll was a keeper of trees. She would know how to follow the roots. She would know what was coming were the magi to succeed. And if she did, it meant she chose to do nothing.
Eris couldn’t stand by and do nothing. Even untrained, she had to try. The magi couldn’t be allowed to succeed.
Wind whipped past her as she ran, the landscape blurring. She drew energy from somewhere—probably the grasses—but didn’t think about what she did or how. In that, it felt much like when she’d first used her ability to battle the Conclave. Then, she’d simply acted, pulling on power because she had the need. At least the needlegrass of the Verilain Plains had responded, even if the forest had hesitated.
The connection through the roots gave her glimpses of what the border with Saffra must look like. Visions of bleak desolation flashed through her mind.
How could Imryll hide and do nothing?
How could Lira have let it happen?
And other keepers? Surely there were others aware of what the magi had done.
But none pressed the magi back. None stood between the magi and desolation.
Anger filled her. Anger that her mother lay dying—that she might have died before Eris could reach her again—and anger that her sister had nearly killed her. It didn’t matter that she’d somehow survived, Ferisa and the priestess viewed Eris as a threat to eliminate.
She might have to do it on her own, but Eris would learn why.
The Lost Garden: The Complete Series Page 37