“We don’t have to return,” he whispered.
She sniffed and smiled up at him. “But I do. I can’t simply wait for the Conclave to attack. Not if there’s anything I can do.”
Terran blinked slowly as he inhaled. Then he nodded. “You were gone a long time.” The accusation was gone from his voice. “So much has happened.”
She looked up at him. “More than with Lira?”
He nodded. “Princess Ferisa has disappeared. Your father is distraught. Had Jacen not returned to the frontline at the same time…”
Jacen fighting at the border worried her. If she couldn’t do anything to slow the Conclave, there wasn’t anything Jacen fighting there would do. Saffra might lose soldiers, but the magi were the real threat. Jacen knew that, but he could be so stubborn sometimes, unwilling to see what was right beneath is nose.
Sort of how she had overlooked Ferisa.
And how she hadn’t learned what type of keeper she was meant to be.
“When I was gone, I met another keeper. A keeper of trees.” Eris swallowed, thinking of how the trees moved for Imryll and how they never would for her. Even knowing she could serve as a keeper of flowers didn’t make her feel better. After spending as much time as she had in the Svanth, she had a connection to the trees—just not the connection needed for her to serve as their keeper. She swallowed, trying to figure out how to tell Terran what he needed to hear. “I don’t think I’m the keeper I thought I was.”
He gave her a squeeze. “Keeper? Of course you’re the keeper. What else would you be?”
She smiled at him. “I’m a keeper, but I’m not the keeper of the forest. I don’t think I’m even a keeper of trees. My bond…my bond is to the teary star. A flower, just like Lira.” She swallowed again, thinking of how much time she’d spent trying to learn the secrets of the forest. How much of that time had been wasted, struggling to learn whether she could be the keeper the Svanth needed, but the keeper she never could be. “I wonder if Lira always knew but didn’t know how to tell me, you know?”
He shook his head. “Lira wouldn’t hide that from you if she knew.”
She sighed. “I’ve been wondering for a while why I can’t command the trees the way I can command the grasses and flowers and why the secrets I know are hidden in the Svanth won’t reveal themselves to me, but it wasn’t until I met the other forest keeper that I really understood. The things she could do…the way the trees bend for her…that’s something I never had. Now I know why.”
Terran smoothed her hair. “But the trees listen to you. I’ve seen the way they respond to your presence.”
Eris shook her head. “I know what I saw.”
“How did you find another keeper?”
Eris still didn’t fully understand. “Lira said the remaining keepers went north after their gardens were destroyed. After my sister—” She cut off and shook her head. “After Ferisa tried to kill me, I was taken somewhere.” She shivered. Even the memory of it felt strange. “I found her in a forest to the north full of pines and elms and oaks.”
“And she convinced you that you’re not a keeper of trees?”
“She didn’t have to convince me. I think I already knew. She simply helped me to see.” She pulled her hand away. “You know the teary star is a flower, right?”
“Of course I do.”
“Doesn’t it make sense that I would be a keeper of flowers? If I was really meant to be a keeper of trees, wouldn’t I have bonded to one of the trees? Something like an elm or pine or—”
“But you’re bonded to the entire forest! You are the keeper of the forest.”
She shook her head. “I’m pretty sure I’m not. And maybe it’s better that I’m not. This way, Lira can teach me what she knows. Once my mother…” She swallowed, struggling to think about her mother passing. “Once she goes, Lira will need to focus her energy on the Conclave. They’ve pushed past the border with Errasn, you know.”
Terran nodded. “Nels told me. He can…feel it, somehow.”
“And you? What did you think happened to me?”
“I didn’t know. I know how much you wanted to know what the forest could teach. I know how hard it was to get you to leave, to even consider stepping out of the forest. I feared what I might find, but I wasn’t going to let you do it alone.”
Eris shivered, thinking how much that sounded like what Heath had said to his Mistress. Would she have been on the same path had Terran not convinced her to leave the forest? Would she have spent her days isolated in the forest, trying to learn a deeper secret, neglecting everything else going on around her?
Terran had come for her, determined to stand by her side, even though he disagreed with what he thought she was doing.
Eris pulled him toward her, holding tightly to his hand. Standing on her toes, she leaned forward and kissed him on the mouth.
Terran stiffened and didn’t kiss back at first, but then he melted into her, his mouth working over hers, gentle at first but growing hungrier. His arms wrapped around her, pulling her toward him, and she did not fight, enjoying the strength of his hands, in the earthy way he smelled, in the simple fact of his physical presence.
When he pulled his mouth away, there was a pang of loss. They had been close many times, holding each other during the cool nights under the forest canopy, but this was the first time she dared show him more emotion. Had he not kissed her back…
But he had.
What did it mean for them as keeper and gardener now? Would she lose him like so many of the keepers in her vision had lost their gardeners, or could they be different?
Eris smiled at him, and he smiled back.
“Now, I need to speak to my father.”
A horrified look crossed his face.
“Don’t worry; he knows I’m a keeper.” She started forward, pulling Terran along with her.
He resisted at first but then let her drag him forward. “What do you plan on telling him?”
She looked up and smiled at him. “That you’re my gardener.”
His face didn’t change. “Just your gardener?”
She sniffed. “Do I have to show you again?”
“Yes.”
They stopped near the copse of trees, and she did.
* * *
As they neared Eliara, Eris’s heart quickened. Terran had said Ferisa was gone, but what of the other priestesses? Who else might be working with them? Even her father hadn’t seen the threat under his nose—how Adrick worked against him the entire time he pretended to serve. How many others remained within Eliara who might want to harm her?
How many others knew she was a keeper?
Eris had lived within the palace for years not knowing about Lira. Now she served openly, using the garden to try and heal her mother, but did others know about Eris? About how she was a keeper? But even those who did thought she was a keeper of trees. Now she knew she was not.
Since learning she was a keeper, she had felt different. Part of it was how Lira had let her feel, how Lira had practically made her feel, but part of it had to do with how the teary star was her flower.
“What are you thinking?”
She looked over at Terran. They sat along the edge of Uldens Stream, a narrow slip of water that wound through the countryside on the outskirts of Eliara. They could follow the stream all the way to the city, but it would be a meandering route. With her connection through the grasses, Eris didn’t really need the stream to guide her any longer.
“The teary star. It’s a different flower, isn’t it?”
Terran smiled as he cupped his hands into the stream, taking a long drink of water. “It suites you. Rare and unique.”
She smiled and twisted her fingers through her dark hair, trying to work through what troubled her. “I keep coming back to why Lira couldn’t teach me. At first, I thought it was because I was a keeper of trees—”
“I still believe that’s the reason.”
Eris shook her head. “If you would
see the things Imryll could do, the way the trees moved for her, you’d understand. The svanth trees have never so much as twitched for me, let alone bow like these seemed to. No, this is different. Could Lira not want to teach me for a different reason? Is it because I bonded to the teary star?”
Terran frowned and plopped onto the ground next to her. “Why would that matter?”
Eris shook her head. She’d been trying to puzzle through it since meeting up with Terran but hadn’t come up with an answer that seemed to fit. “Maybe because it’s a shade flower?”
He shook his head. “Shade flowers don’t matter. Maybe they would to other keepers, but Lira started a shade garden after hers was destroyed. I still think you’ve got it wrong.”
“Nice of you to say.”
He shrugged. “That’s my role as gardener, isn’t it? I have to share my thoughts?”
“I thought your role was to do as I said.”
She said it jokingly, but Terran’s face turned serious.
“What kind of partnership is that? No, we work together. That’s how a keeper and a gardener should work.”
Eris thought about the pairs she’d seen in her dreams and compared that to what she’d seen between Lira and Nels. They seemed more similar than different, but in each, the keeper was the one leading them. But what Terran suggested felt more like what it should be.
“I’ve seen other gardeners in my visions,” she said.
Terran waited, his hand touching her leg.
“They serve their mistress, but they don’t always work with her.”
Terran nodded. “Too many are like that. I think Nels even views himself that way.”
“But you don’t.”
He shook his head. “That’s not what I want out of this.”
He stared at her with eyes a deep brown. If she stared long enough, she wondered if she could delve even Terran. Eris swallowed at the thought.
“What do you want out of this?” she asked.
“I will try and support what you decide, but I can’t do so blindly. You can’t keep thinking you can exclude me from what you plan, especially if your own sister attacks you. There are limitations to a keeper’s power and things I can do to help you, but I have to know what we’re doing. We’ll never be as strong as we can be if you do that.”
Eris thought of the way the teary star strengthened the svanth tree, but the svanth also strengthened the teary star vine. Together, both climbed higher than either would alone.
She sighed. “You will be my svanth.”
His lips curled in an amused smile. “You get to be the vine, choking me as you grow?”
“That’s not how they work. If you could only see…”
Terran placed his arms around her, pulling her toward him. “I know how they work. Do you think I wasn’t listening?”
She smiled and leaned her head against his chest.
As they sat for a moment, listening to the stream burbling nearby, Eris wished they didn’t have to move. If they had more time together, maybe they could grow together, become something as great as the svanth trees at the heart of the forest, vine and tree together, rising toward the sun.
She sighed. As she did, her senses drifted out, slipping across the grasses until brushing against the darkness of the magi, and she knew their time to grow together would have to wait.
* * *
They neared the city early the next day. They walked swiftly, moving quickly across the rolling hills. Eris stopped them near a wide field of flowers, mostly thulis and camogines turning toward the rising sun. She sniffed the air, enjoying the scent of the flowers. The energy stored within this wild field recharged her, leaving her feeling refreshed after the long walk.
“I’ve seen this,” she whispered.
Terran turned to her. “These flowers? Of course you have. Master Nels has several varieties of thulis, mostly yellow and gold. And the camogines are larger than what he keeps but, otherwise, not much different.”
“It’s not that.” She leaned toward the flowers and placed her face close to a golden thulis, inhaling its sweet fragrance. “There was an arrangement in the palace with flowers from this field.”
Terran frowned at her. “You can’t know what field flowers came from once they’re cut.”
She shrugged. “There’s a residual energy stored by the flowers that I…” She wasn’t certain how to finish. She’d borrowed the energy of the flower and used it to help her see the field. “I saw this field, though I’ve never been here.”
“There’s still so much we need to learn about what you can do.”
Eris smiled.
They made their way through the field, stopping long enough for Eris to clip a handful of flowers that she pulled into an arrangement. She let the flowers guide her, sending a request for the best arrangement to store energy. The flowers guided her as she made her way through the garden.
When she finished, they continued toward Eliara. Each step increased the anxiety working through her until she shook with it. Eris pulled on the energy of the cut flowers to hold back her nervousness.
“What is it?”
She shook her head. “Coming back here, after what happened…”
Terran took her hand, and Eris was thankful for his presence.
“You don’t have to do this alone,” he said.
She inhaled deeply and nodded.
Something triggered her anxiety, more than simply returning. When they reached the outer wall of the city, she understood what she felt.
Lira’s energy had shifted. It no longer focused toward the center of the garden, but instead, now pushed outward and south. Toward Saffra.
But if that was the case, it meant she no longer focused on the queen.
It meant Eris’s mother was gone.
Chapter 50
The palace courtyard was quiet.
Gardeners made their way through the rows of bright flowers, but they wore somber expressions. Eris frowned at each one, trying to make eye contact, but none did.
She took her slippers off as soon as she reached the garden. With each step, she delved, sending a request to the garden for understanding. All she could tell was that her mother still rested in the center, but not whether she lived.
She didn’t see Master Nels or Lira. For some reason, that troubled her.
“You can go find Master Nels,” she whispered.
Terran shook his head. He held onto her hand, squeezing tightly. “I stay with you.”
Had they not been in the garden, Eris would have kissed him deeply again. As it was, she leaned toward him and gave him a soft kiss on the cheek. “Thank you.”
They continued toward the heart. As they made their way, Eris began to fear what she would find. Had her mother already died and she’d missed it, spending too long away from the palace, wandering through Imryll’s forest and then the Svanth?
Maybe that was what the priestess wanted. Had there been something Eris could have done to help her mother? Was that what they’d seen?
As they neared the circle of elms marking the center, Eris paused. She took a deep breath and borrowed little more than a touch of energy from the flowers around her. Starting forward again, she delved the elms, establishing a connection with each step.
Before she reached the pavilion, she knew her mother still lived, but only barely.
Lira no longer worked to keep her alive. For a moment, Eris wondered why, but then recognized that Lira’s shift in focus meant she pressed against the Conclave. How much longer would she be able to keep up? The energy of the garden here wasn’t limitless, and though Lira had access to a larger garden growing within the Svanth, she still didn’t have enough strength to fight the entirety of the Conclave on her own.
Had Eris really thought she could?
They reached the edge of the trees, and Eris stepped inside. The air changed, cooler and hinted with the edge of sickness. It was like a living thing as it crawled through her mother, pulsing through her. Er
is could almost touch it and cringed back, afraid to let it too near.
She approached her mother and looked down. The skin around her eyes had sunken more than it had the last time Eris was here, now leaving her mother’s eyes looking like twin full moons in an expanse of shadows. Sickly yellow hair hung in clumps about her head. Her mouth lolled open, and a thick, dry tongue pressed against the top. Breaths came out raggedly, wheezing in and out. Her chest barely rose with each. The thick blanket covering her had been thrown back and lay crumpled along the edge of the mattress, revealing how gaunt and wasted she’d become.
“I’m so sorry, Eris,” Terran said.
She nodded and swallowed, almost afraid to step too close to her mother. She had been sick before, but the illness had been held at bay, pressed back by the force of Lira’s work. Then her mother had managed wakefulness. Now, even that had been taken from her.
She remembered how unusual the illness felt when she’d delved her mother, like it was an unnatural thing. After what the priestess had done to her—what Ferisa had done—she wondered if her mother had been poisoned.
Eris had to know.
She released Terran’s hand as she walked to her mother. This close, the heat rising off her body was like a furnace. How did she still live through this?
As she reached toward her, Terran grabbed her arm. “Are you certain it’s a good idea to touch her?”
Eris nodded. “If this were contagious, I would have already been ill.”
She touched her on the shoulder. Bones pressed against Eris’s hand, very little flesh actually covering them anymore. Her skin was hot, as Eris expected, but also waxy and practically lifeless. Eris shivered.
Then she delved.
First, she reached toward the grasses beneath her feet, but they didn’t store enough energy. She turned to the elms, seeking to borrow from them as well. Once connected, a sense of sorrow worked through the branches. The trees recognized what was happening to her mother. Eris pushed the energy toward her mother and let it wash over her. Again, she felt the connection, the unnatural illness working through her mother’s veins. Sickness eroding what she had been. Eris could almost sense the source…
The Lost Garden: The Complete Series Page 40