“Because I tried to save Shadow by using the energy of the Verilain Plains and that of the flowers throughout the forest, but what if I didn’t really save him? What if all I did was delay his dying?”
She hurried into the forest, not waiting for Terran. He would follow.
The trees felt her urgency, shifting a path that let her work her way through the forest quickly. The awareness it granted enveloped her as she hurried through. She felt Shadow at the heart. The bond between them grew stronger, and she surged through it, trying to rouse Shadow. Slowly, he stirred.
When she reached the heart of the forest, she found him sitting and waiting for her. His eyes were bright and clear and fixed her with a hard stare. Light filtered through the upper branches of the trees. The air around her was still and cool.
“You left me,” he growled.
“I was safe.”
“You know the risks. I warned you of what could—”
“You’ve warned me of nothing, guardian. You keep what I need to know from me, but you can’t protect me, and I can’t protect you. Not if I don’t even know what it is we face.”
Shadow stalked over to her. Huge ears swiveled and twisted toward her. A low rumble echoed from him.
Eris ignored the threat and reached over to scratch behind his ears. She studied him, realizing that he did look something like a tree lion, if only a rather large one. The thought made her laugh.
Shadow jerked away. “Don’t think to treat me like some pet.”
“Then don’t think to treat me like some child.”
“You are still a child, keeper.”
Terran reached the clearing and looked from Eris to Shadow. Surprisingly, an amused smiled crossed his face. He raised his hands and backed away, leaving Shadow facing Eris.
“Probably. But I’m all you have,” she continued.
Shadow stopped moving and sat. His tail twitched.
“I went to Imryll. The other keeper of light.”
Shadow’s ears twitched.
“I explained what happened. She knows about the Darkbinders.”
Shadow nodded. “That one has lived many years.”
“How long?” Eris asked. If she survived, she needed to know how long she would have to live without Terran. How long would she be alone, only Shadow as her companion?
“Easier to ask how old is her forest?” Shadow answered. “And probably easier to determine. That one has seen many cycles.”
Eris nodded slowly. That was what she had feared. “She won’t help. She lost someone to them, I think.”
Shadow stood and growled softly. “She is not the first, nor will she be the last. All have lost to the Darkbinders.” He stretched, reaching his massive paws toward her. “She is a keeper of light. If the Darkbinders return, she will need to help.”
“I tried. I think her guardian tried. But she is afraid.”
Shadow circled the clearing, sniffing the air as he went. “She has good reason to fear.”
“What are they, Shadow?” she asked. “Why won’t you tell me?”
“You already know the answer, keeper.”
Eris frowned, but realized she did know the answer. It wasn’t that Shadow wouldn’t tell her, it was that he couldn’t. “Is there anything that will help?”
He sighed and looked toward her. “There is one thing.” Then he turned to Terran, shifting his gaze to stare at him. “You will keep us safe, gardener.”
It was not a question.
Terran smiled and nodded. “I will keep you safe. Where are we going?”
Shadow came to sit in front of Eris and looked up at her. His bright yellow eyes seemed to glow, reminding her of Imryll’s grey wolf guardian. “Not we, gardener. And we will stay right here.”
Chapter 72
“Follow me,” Shadow said.
Surrounded by towering trees and the fragrant scent of the teary stars, Eris stared at him. His voice was a command she could not ignore even were she to want to. “Where are you taking me?”
His great head shook from side to side. “Into the past.”
Power surged from him.
It came suddenly, sweeping out from him, reaching through the depths of the forest, as if directly from the Source itself. As far as Eris could tell, it did. The power washed over her, filling her. She gasped, shocked by the strength—the understanding—she suddenly felt as it overpowered her.
“I will guide you,” Shadow said. “But you must stay focused.”
There came a sense of movement, though Eris didn’t move. Colors swirled around her, and the forest faded. At first, she saw reds and oranges swirling together, reminding her of what she saw of the sunset, but that faded, twisting into other colors: reds and violets and deep greens and pale yellows. Hundreds of different shades, each like the petals of flowers within Lira’s garden, and all swirling around her, too many to keep track of, and too many to count.
The colors changed, blurring together, becoming a mixture. Reds merged with orange, and purple mixed with blue and green and yellow—all the colors she could ever imagine came together, swirling in front of her. Then all she saw was white light.
“What is this?” she asked.
Through the bond, she felt Shadow next to her. He felt different, changed, as if he came before her not as a catlike creature, but something different. Something more.
“This is the light. This is you.”
He spoke aloud, not through their bond. His voice sounded deep and melodic, nothing like she would have expected.
“How is this me?” she asked.
She noticed how her voice sounded weak and thready compared to his, nothing like the strength he managed in this place.
“Come,” he said. “Follow.”
“How?”
The light seemed move, the pure bright white growing dim, casting her in thick shadows. The sense of Shadow standing alongside her persisted. Here he felt stronger, more solid somehow.
“This is the shadows. This is the place between darkness and light.”
“This is you,” Eris said.
“This is me,” he agreed.
As they stood there, she felt the drawing sense of power from the light. Had she the strength, she would have gone to it, moved back into it, but she was held within the shadows.
“Why do you hold me here?” she asked.
Shadow laughed. “It is good you feel it.”
“I feel drawn back to the light.”
“As you should. You are a keeper of light.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“No,” he agreed. “But you will.”
He moved away from her, and she followed. Each step seemed to take them leagues, but still she felt the drawing of the light. She was always aware of it. Were she to close her eyes, she could still find it.
“What do you feel here?” she asked.
Shadow laughed. “I feel everything.”
“Everything?”
He seemed to nod. It was hard to tell through the shades of darkness. “Where you feel light, I feel the same. But there is another, and it pulls me as well.”
“What other?”
“Come. Follow.”
They moved, and the shadows faded, quickly leaving them in darkness. Cold fear gripped her heart, and she shivered. The darkness around her was absolute, nothing but blackness. If not for the bond she had with Shadow, she would feel terrified. Even with it, she knew fear unlike anything she had ever felt before. This was more than blackness—this was nothingness.
“You sense it as well, do you not?”
She nodded, uncertain whether he could see her. How could he see anything like this? “This is the darkness.” Her voice came out as a whisper, dragged away into the nothingness.
“This is the darkness. This is what they would bring.”
Eris couldn’t move. Fear paralyzed her, leaving her trembling. Even having Shadow alongside her did nothing to reassure. “Please. Shadow.”
Po
wer moved her, drawing her forward. They shifted, gliding back into the place between darkness and light, back into the shadows.
“You understand better?” he asked.
She shivered at the memory. She would do anything to avoid going back to that place, to that sense of emptiness. Only Shadow’s presence had made it bearable.
“How can you stand it?” she asked.
He laughed. “I do not have to stand it.”
“But you said you are the place between darkness and light.”
“Yes. There is balance there, and your world requires balance. There is not always darkness and not always light. There are both.”
“You’re saying the Darkbinders are needed?”
Shadow laughed again. “You are the light. They are the dark. Balance.”
It made no more sense to her than it had before. “Why show this to me? What do you think I will learn?”
He stepped closer. She could almost smell him, the sizzling bite of energy that mixed with an almost floral scent. Hidden beneath it was something else, something dark and mixed with decay. “Before the Darkbinders, there was balance.”
Eris frowned, understanding coming to her slowly. “This is what the first keeper saw. This was why she planted the Svanth.”
Shadow nodded. “It drew us from the shadows.”
She blinked, trying to understand. “Why is balance needed? Why need the dark at all?” She shivered, thinking of the cold nothingness that had enveloped her.
“Light comes from the dark, keeper. If not for the dark, how would you know when you saw the light?”
Eris stepped toward Shadow, hoping to see him in his true form. He seemed so close that she could almost touch him. But as she stepped toward the sound of his voice, the sense of him shifted, changing and tilting in a different direction. She moved again, but again he slipped away.
Shadow laughed softly.
“What happens if the Darkbinders succeed?”
“They cannot succeed.”
“What happens?”
He seemed to sigh. “Then all will fall into dark. All you know will fade. Without light, the world will cease. It will be as you experienced. All will be dark.”
She shivered again, thinking of the nothingness. How could she hope to be the barrier between that if Shadow couldn’t even survive the earliest attack? How would she win without destroying them or having them destroy her?
“You said they have attacked before.”
Shadow leaned close. Still she couldn’t see him. She had only the sense of his presence.
“Darkbinders have come before. It is possible that they have always come. The keepers of light must continue the struggle against the dark. That is your task.”
“It’s impossible.”
He laughed. The sound seemed to come from all over. “Is it? As impossible as standing on the edge of shadows?”
As he spoke, there came the sense of movement. Eris felt herself drawn toward the light until it suffused her. She welcomed the change, thankful for the brightness and warmth after so long standing in the shade. How must it be for Shadow? How must it be for that to be all he knew, to have to stand on the edge, to serve as the barrier between darkness and light?
“What would happen were you to die?” she asked.
Shadow felt different in the light. Both less substantial and more real at the same time. She wondered how he managed it.
“If the guardians fall, keepers will remain.”
Eris noted that wasn’t much of an answer. “You fear them.”
“As should you.”
She nodded. “I feared the dark. The sense of nothingness. I couldn’t stand that for any longer.”
“Do you understand your purpose then?”
She shook her head. She knew to fear the Darkbinders, but she would have feared them anyway. Knowing Shadow feared them made her frightened, but seeing what would happen were the Darkbinders to succeed left her barely able to go on.
“I’m not sure there’s anything I can do.”
Shadow laughed again. Now that they had returned to the light, his voice filled the space around her, practically booming. “You can do as you have always done. You can resist the dark, expand the light. That is the only way you will succeed.”
Eris thought of the poisoning, how quickly it had worked through her, spreading to the trees and nearly destroying Shadow. What if she couldn’t stop them? “And if they are too powerful?”
He leaned toward her. For a moment, she caught a glimpse of his eyes. They carried the weight of eons, the wisdoms of the Sacred Mother. And then the eyes disappeared in a flash. “They must not succeed.”
Colors swirled about her again, the pure white light shifting into dozens, and then hundreds, of different colors before finally resolving into bright yellow. Shadow’s eyes.
He stared at her. Even his ears didn’t move.
Eris sucked in a deep breath and stood. All around her she felt the forest again, the sense of trees and grasses and flowers. Life. She welcomed the change, welcomed the return of her senses. She welcomed the scent of the air and the muted quiet. Most of all, she welcomed the sense of Terran standing nearby, his quiet intensity watching over her.
She turned to him. “Terran.”
“What happened?” he asked.
Shadow stood and stretched, looking as if nothing had changed. Then he loped into the forest, disappearing between the trees, leaving Eris alone with her gardener.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” she said.
Terran looked in the direction of where Shadow had gone. “You stood in place, staring at each other. Neither moved.”
“How long?”
He shook his head. “A few moments. No more than that.”
Moments. To Eris it had seemed like hours. “He showed me the light.”
Terran frowned.
“He showed me where he came from. The place between light and dark. And then he showed me the dark. What it would be like if the Darkbinders succeed.” She shivered and fell toward Terran.
He caught her and held her, pulling her in a tight embrace.
“I don’t know how to stop them,” she whispered. “He said I needed to, but Shadow fears them. I don’t think he knows how to stop them either. He said I had to resist the dark and expand the light. But how do I even know where to begin?”
Terran touched her cheeks and twisted her face up toward him so he could look into her eyes. He kissed her forehead and her cheeks, then found her lips last. “You have already begun.”
She shook her head. “I’ve done nothing.”
“No, Eris. You’ve resisted the dark since I first met you. You fought the Conclave and stopped them from destroying this forest. You saved your mother from the priestesses and their poisoning. And you pushed the magi back from the border. What else have you been doing, if not resisting the dark?”
Eris took a steadying breath. Terran was right. She had done all those things. Maybe the time near the dark had shaken her more than she realized. “But what next?”
He laughed and kissed her again. “You already know what you need to do next.”
She looked up and him and took a deep breath. Her heart gradually slowed, the terror of seeing true darkness finally easing, but all she had to do was think about it again, and her heart sped up, pounding against her ribs. She took a few steadying breaths. Could that have been part of Shadow’s lesson? Had he intended for her to be scared? To face the Darkbinders, she would have to find strength she had never needed before. But she would also have to have help.
“The Gardens of Elaysia,” she said.
He nodded. “Think of what’s changed. The gardens destroyed. The magi trying to destroy the Svanth. And then whatever they planned along the border. That can’t all be coincidence.”
“But the priestesses—”
“You told me you thought that sect worked with the Conclave.”
She nodded. It fit with what she’d overheard
. “You’re suggesting after the gardens are restored, that we go to Saffra?”
Doing so might bring her more than answers. It might give her the chance to rescue Ferisa. Even after what she had done, she didn’t want to lose her sister, not like she’d lost Jacen.
He blinked. “That’s not at all what I was suggesting. I thought you would see to Elaysia and summon the keepers. There must be others like you, other keepers of light. They might have answers.”
“But I’ve found another keeper of light, and she was unwilling to help. All the other keepers were scattered when the magi attacked. We need to know more about the priestesses, understand what these Darkbinders really are. Even if other keepers return to Elaysia, they’re scared.”
Terran frowned. “And you’re not?”
She sighed. “I’m terrified.”
Chapter 73
The massive svanth tree now reaching high over the palace caused the fading sunlight that drifted through the courtyard to shift differently than it had during Eris’s youth. The tree had grown in the three months since she’d planted it, more than time could simply account for. The teary star vine twisting along the surface had thickened as well. Large flowers with petals each a different color curled from the vine. She sighed and inhaled their fragrance, thankful the tree still stood.
“You summoned me.”
She turned. Lira stood studying her. Her chestnut hair was twisted atop her head, and her long, flowing dress bloomed near her feet, layering like a corinth.
“I summoned you,” Eris agreed.
Lira stepped up to the tree and reached toward it. Her hand stopped short of touching the bark; the barbs would not recede for her. “It is an impressive tree.” She turned toward Eris. “Like the svanth, you have grown much.”
Eris glanced at the tree. As far as she could tell, it had recovered completely, the taint she caused to work through it now gone. “I had no choice.”
Lira laughed. “When faced with a gale wind, some flowers will bend, their stalks will break. Others bend but stand tall when the wind finally eases. You still stand tall.” She paused and turned to Eris. “I thought I would see you sooner. I thought you would come to me and ask about Rochelle.”
The Lost Garden: The Complete Series Page 57