The Lost Garden: The Complete Series

by D. K. Holmberg

  She scanned the open plain as she considered where to begin. Not here, not this far into the open. What she needed to do should be along the edge, not disrupting the potential of the garden. If she really intended the keepers to return, there had to be something for them to return to.

  As she started toward the edge of what had once been the Gardens of Elaysia, she paused. A small cluster of pale pink flowers grew. She leaned toward them and sniffed, smiling. In spite of everything that had happened to the gardens, some flowers remained, struggling to survive.

  “What are they?”

  Terran studied them. “They are beran lilies.” He shook his head. “I’ve only seen them in books. They’re rare and were only known to grow…”

  “Here?” she asked.

  He sniffed and nodded.

  Eris looked around the remnants of the gardens. “Why here?” she asked.

  Shadow tilted his head. Yellow eyes blinked at her.

  Terran frowned. “Why what here?”

  She swept her arm around her, motioning toward the remnants of the gardens. “Here. Why were the gardens planted here?”

  Shadow stood and stretched, moving his massive paws toward the ground. “You cannot tell?”

  The Svanth Forest had been planted to intentionally tap into the source of power deep beneath the ground, but that was when the lands where the Svanth now grew had been barren and sparse. Now everything around the gardens was green and lush. Could the gardens have been planted with the same intent?

  But why? What was it they accessed?

  She hated that she had to learn about this on her own, that there was no one able—or willing—to mentor her. The sense of the earth beneath her was muted by whatever the magi had done to it. She could not reach it, not through what had happened here.

  She turned away, stopping when she reached the narrow path leading to the gardens. The taint across the land seemed more pronounced here, as if what the magi had done damaged the road in ways she could only imagine. This was where she would start.

  She pulled from her deep green cloak a large svanth seed. Drawing from the energy of the grasses—the energy flowing through here weak but useable—she pressed the seed deep into the earth. She drew power away from the grasses, and pressed that into the seed.

  It cracked open in her hand in a rush of growth.

  She reached into her other pocket and pulled a teary star cutting. She kept these with her when she travelled. Ever since needing to force back the magi, she hadn’t known when she would need to use the stores of the svanth. Having them with her gave her a sense of reassurance, knowing she would not have to be helpless if only she managed to plant one of her trees.

  As the svanth sapling grew, she pressed the vine cutting in with it, diverting energy into it as well. The vine surged, growing alongside the tree, supporting it, working around the sides, as they both grew quickly, fed by the energy of this place. Eris imagined the gardens once held enormous strength. Now they held only weeds and grasses, of little use except for this purpose, but without the grasses and weeds, she wouldn’t be able to plant the tree at all.

  She stood back and watched as her tree rose, growing quickly to her head and then taller, slowing only when it reached twenty feet over her. In time, the tree would grow higher, eventually rivaling those of the svanth that towered hundreds of feet into the air, but for now, it was a start.

  Her hand brushed along the trunk. Barbs worked into the bark of the vine pulled away from her, bending back so as not to catch her skin. Eris pressed through the tree, pushing down and into the soil around her, tracing along the roots.

  The magi taint receded from the svanth. She drew through the tree and pushed against it, focusing the growing energy of the tree away from its roots, sending it out toward the remnants of the gardens to clear as much magi influence from this place as possible. With more svanth trees planted, she should be able to clear the gardens completely from the effect of the magi.

  Sighing, she pressed deeper, reaching into the earth. Power thrummed there, much like within the Svanth Forest. It was weaker, as if the reservoir of power was not as great, but still powerful nonetheless. This was the reason for the gardens.

  Eris released the connection and looked at Terran. The effort of planting the tree had once drained her, but she had learned to use the energy around her rather than drawing on herself. Now, she felt tired, but not weakened to the point of collapse as she once would have been.

  Terran looked past her. The corners of his eyes tensed, and his mouth pursed in a tight line. He said nothing.

  She turned and followed the direction of his gaze. “Lira?”

  The Mistress of Flowers stood on the edge of the faded path, watching Eris. She wore a simple brown traveling dress. A long cloak hung open, the hood pressed down around her shoulders. Her gaze flickered from the tree to the rolling plains of grasses. She blinked slowly. “It has changed so much. And yet, I can still see it as it once stood.” She pointed into the distance. “There was my garden. Not as large as some, but then again, I was young and newly raised to keeper. My flower—rivenswood—grew well there. Few managed to grow it as I did, though it once grew throughout Errasn, the wild flowers rising tall everywhere. Now, like so much else, it is gone.”

  Eris took a step toward her. “I didn’t think you would come.”

  She turned. “I didn’t either. I’m still not certain I’m ready. But you’re right, Eris. It was time—”

  Lira cut off, her gaze drifting past Eris, eyes going wide.

  Eris glanced back to see what caught her attention. Shadow sat, studying Lira, his body relaxed, but there was a tension that flowed through the bond they shared. In all the time since Eris returned to Eliara, she hadn’t told Lira about Shadow. How to share the connection to the great creature? How could she explain what he was when she didn’t even know?

  “You have a guardian,” Lira said.

  Eris’s head snapped around. “How do you know about the guardians?” Unless Lira was a keeper of light, but wouldn’t Shadow have said something?

  Lira’s eyes never left Shadow, as if afraid to look away. “When did this happen?”

  Eris took a quick breath. How much did she know that Eris could learn? Was this an opportunity for her to better understand Shadow? “Along the border. Without him, I would not have survived.”

  Lira nodded thoughtfully. “The border. When you planted the svanth trees as your barrier.” She finally turned and looked at Eris.

  Eris nodded. “What do you know of the guardians?” she asked as Lira came closer. She made certain to pitch her words so Shadow could hear. If he refused to answer, she would discover what she needed anyway.

  Lira sniffed. “Probably less than you. They are ancient creatures and powerful. They bond to some keepers, though I never learned how or why. I suspect only the council knew the answer.” She took a slow breath and looked past Eris to scan the gardens again. “The attack here was devastating. None of the eldest keepers foresaw it, and we were unprepared. The council fought back, but there was only so much they could do against the Conclave. We hadn’t faced such destruction before. We didn’t know how to counter it.”

  Shadow snorted. While Lira was talking, he had crept toward them and now sat slightly behind her. As large as he was, his head rose nearly to her shoulder while he sat. “You were unprepared because you chose not to remember.”

  “She can’t understand you,” Eris said.

  Lira shook her head. “I understand just fine, Eris Taeresin.” She fixed Shadow with a hard gaze. “You think the keepers should have known about the magi? About the Conclave?” she demanded.

  Eris looked from Shadow to Lira. How could she understand him when Terran barely managed it? Was it because Lira was a keeper or something else?

  “You know there was one who should have, but she and the other keepers of this place chose to ignore the warnings. They chose their destruction.”

  Lira gasped softly. “
You think any would have chosen this?” She waved her hand toward the remnants of the gardens. “You think she would have chosen to lose everything?”

  Shadow snorted. “You do not understand the meaning of loss, keeper.”

  Lira stared at him, shock leaving her face flushed.

  “What warnings were there?” Eris asked.

  Shadow fixed his yellow eyes upon her. His gaze carried the weight of power and knowledge. “You know some of the warnings. You have seen them.”

  Eris started shaking her head, but stopped. Had she seen the warning? If Shadow referred to what she had seen among the roots within the Svanth, then she might have seen a warning. The first keeper had warned of danger, hadn’t she? Wasn’t that part of the reason she had grown the forest where she had?

  “That was from hundreds of years ago,” Eris said. “Possibly a thousand!”

  Shadow tipped his head slightly. “As I said. The warnings were there with enough time to respond, yet they chose to ignore them. They chose to fear what they did not understand.”

  “The first keeper knew about the Darkbinders?”

  Shadow stood. Powerful muscles rippled as he did. His dark fur stood from his back, as if the barbs along the fur were ready for attack. “You name me Shadow, and that I am. I am the guardian. I am of the deep.” A low rumble started in his chest. He looked at Lira, fixing her with an unblinking gaze. “Each time, your kind thought the war over, the attacks halted. Shelsuns the first time. G’tran the next. This time it was magi. They are all part of the same warning, the one the keepers never heeded. War has only begun. And it is far more dangerous than you know.”

  Chapter 75

  Eris knelt next to the svanth tree, studying Lira. Shadow paced in the distance, working his way around the border of the remains of the Gardens of Elaysia. Terran wandered the same way, trailing after Shadow and leaving her and Lira alone. Already Eris began feeling the connection to the gardens change, as if planting the first tree began the healing. With a few more trees, the gardens might be able to return. Lira could resume her work, and if Eris gathered the remaining keepers, the gardens could be restored to what they were.

  Except, she couldn’t shake the anxiety working through her. Too much seemed to be coming together all at the same time, and she was unprepared, untrained.

  “Tell me what you know of the guardians,” she said to Lira.

  Lira shook her head slightly. “I know so little. None of us did. For most, they were rumors. Ancient creatures of power tied to the world in ways different than the keepers.” She looked up at Eris. “We draw on the energy stored in the flowers and grasses and trees. The power of life around us. The guardians are said to be connected to a different power, something greater and more primal than anything the keepers utilize. That is all I know.” She shrugged. “And as you have bonded to one of the guardians, you must know all this anyway.”

  Eris leaned against the svanth. The barbs along the vine twisted so they didn’t poke into her back as she settled against it. “Shadow is…reluctant to share much with me. He calls me a keeper of light.”

  “What is a keeper of light?” Lira asked.

  Eris sighed. A part of her had hoped Lira would know. “I’m still not certain.”

  “And the…the Darkbinders?” Lira struggled with the word.

  “They oppose the light. Keepers of light have guardians. I don’t know any more than that.”

  Lira frowned. “Were there still a Council of Keepers, perhaps you would know more. Instead, we are all that is left.”

  “There is another keeper of light. I went to her, hoping to understand what it meant to have a guardian.” Eris thought of Imryll’s reaction, the fear working through her. Would she return to the gardens? Would the trail of svanth trees make any difference?

  Would any of the keepers return to the gardens? If they didn’t, how long could Eris oppose the work of the Darkbinders? Without understanding what it is she did, how long would she manage?

  “Where is she?” Lira asked.

  Eris waved her hand behind her, toward Varden. “North. She is a keeper of trees. She is the one who refused to teach.”

  “Most keepers of trees stay within the borders of their forest, bond to the trees so tightly as if they fear coming out will separate them from their power.”

  It described Imryll quite well. But she was more than simply a keeper of trees. As a keeper of light—as a keeper with a guardian—she should be asked to do more.

  Except, Eris had the sense Imryll had already done more. It was the reason she refused to answer now, the reason she lost her gardener.

  She looked over at Terran. How would she react if she lost him? Would she retreat to the Svanth and hide?

  Shadow wouldn’t let her. Eris only hoped Imryll’s guardian wouldn’t let her remain hidden for long. They would need her whether Imryll believed it or not.

  “Do you know where the other keepers went after the Conclave attacked?” Eris asked.

  Lira scanned the emptiness of the gardens, her eyes hollow. “Some went north, into Varden and Kelth. The lands are not as fertile, but they could till the earth, find some semblance of what they had lost. A few made their way south and east to where heavy rains fell; easier land to work, but also more difficult in some ways. And then others crossed the sea, unwilling to remain, disappearing from this land altogether.”

  “You were the only one to stay behind?” Eris had asked Lira before, but now that they were here, in this place, it seemed important for her to understand.

  “The only one who lived.” Lira touched the ground. Her eyes went distant for a moment before clearing. “I didn’t want to leave. After what happened to them, I couldn’t leave.”

  Eris waited, expecting Lira to explain, but she did not.

  “Can you really do it? Can you clear the taint left by the magi?”

  “I have done it before.” Eris turned to Lira. For Lira to understand what happened, she needed to understand how she’d nearly lost Shadow. She slipped a roll of fabric from her pocket and unrolled it carefully.

  Lira studied her, frowning as she leaned toward the fabric. Eyes narrowed, she gasped. “Where did you find this?”

  “You recognize it?” Eris asked. She feared touching the flower, but she had wrapped it in flows of energy, trapping its darkness inside.

  Lira nodded slowly. “It is a veratrum. My mother used to love—”

  Eris sniffed, cutting her off. “It is more than that. It very nearly destroyed the Svanth.”

  Lira’s eyes widened. “It can’t be that powerful,” she whispered.

  “Trust me when I say it is.”

  Lira inhaled slowly, her hands shaky. “It is a flower I have only seen a few times.”

  “My mother?”

  “She told you?”

  Eris nodded. “She told me of the warning.”

  Lira swallowed. “I missed it at first. I only found the flower after she was nearly gone. By then, it was too late to do anything. But it shouldn’t be powerful enough to destroy an entire garden, let alone the Svanth.”

  “Well, it was. Whoever is responsible has made improvements. Think what will happen the next time.”

  “And this is why you seek to rebuild the gardens?”

  Eris nodded.

  Lira looked away. “Can you do it? Can Elaysia really be reborn?”

  Eris delved into the earth briefly, sensing the magi taint as it touched the earth, pushing against life but also pushing deeper, as if questing for the stores of energy within the land. It had been the same with the desolation, the way their magic had stretched downward, working toward the Source. The magi were after the same power the keepers guarded. What would happen were they to reach it?

  “It will not be the same,” Eris said. “I don’t know what it was like before, but it will never be the same.” She nodded to the svanth tree. “I cannot heal the gardens without planting these. There might be another way, but I don’t know of it. With the sv
anth growing here, everything will be changed. The connection will be different. The trees will reach deeper than the flowers, tap more fully into the power here. The gardens can return, but they will not be the same as you remember.”

  Lira blinked and nodded slowly. “There has always been great power here. None have ever understood why this place is any better than another.”

  “None? I can tell you why this place is better than your garden in the palace. Or why it is better than anyplace in Errasn other than where the Svanth Forest grows. The keepers must have known the power here, they must have understood what lay deep beneath the earth.”

  Lira tipped her head, one hand running over the grasses. She touched them, her eyes going distant again. Eris knew she delved—or whatever word Lira would use for tracing the energy patterns through the roots. What Lira did was different than what Eris managed, but she must know how to reach deep into the earth. They must share that much at least.

  The Mistress of Flowers shook her head. “I don’t sense what you do. It must be something about your connection to the trees that lets you sense it.”

  “It’s the reason the magi destroyed the gardens,” Eris said. “Their taint strives to reach this power.” It was the reason she had to take the next step. Once the gardens were reborn, she needed to move on, to find answers before the Darkbinders attacked again. And there was only one place she knew to go.

  “I see from your face you have come to some decision, Eris Taeresin. I fear what it means.”

  Eris didn’t take her eyes off Shadow. Would he come with her or would he leave her? Where she would go, she couldn’t claim the trees as she had the last time she’d been in danger. She would have to rely on whatever growth she could find, draw enough to survive. And stay hidden if possible.