The Lost Garden: The Complete Series

by D. K. Holmberg

  Could this be Rochelle’s flower?

  Such a delicate flower seemed unlikely for her. Rochelle had always struck her as sturdy and strong, but also carefree and vibrant. The beran lilies were delicate. Eris touched their petals and drew through them. A smile came to her face as she did.

  They might look delicate, but there was much power in them.

  Could she use the lilies to send a message to Rochelle? If not to help her, to at least warn her of what happened with Terran and Shadow?

  Eris touched the lilies and drew of their energy, pulling it within her. She hadn’t noticed before, but the flowers had a particular energy to them, different than the nearby camogines. She focused on this distinction and framed an image of the Gardens of Elaysia in her mind.

  The keepers who returned to the gardens would need help. They would need the keepers of light. They would need Rochelle…and Imryll, if she would come.

  Eris pushed this image through the flower, adding it to the flower’s energy signature. Rochelle would receive it. She would have to.

  Eris took a deep breath and looked around. Now she had to find her way out of here.

  The tunnel might be blocked, but there might be another way.

  She hadn’t wanted to try it before. Doing so would be dangerous, but what choice would she have if she wanted to help Terran and Shadow?

  She walked around the edge of the garden and reached the svanth tree. It stretched nearly twenty feet high. Tall, but not nearly as tall as those within the Svanth Forest. Branches rubbed against the sheer rock wall leading up the edge of the mountain. Even had Shadow been here, she wasn’t certain she would have attempted this without the need.

  Pausing only to grab her cloak, she climbed the tree, clinging to branches that swayed slightly before asserting themselves and holding her up. The tree seemed to sense what she wanted, helping her reach the topmost branches. Once there, she closed her eyes.

  She had never guided a mature tree like this. For what she intended, she would need to borrow much from the garden and the other trees. And if it didn’t work? She would have wasted much power that could have been used to try to help her escape another way.

  She pressed through the tree, through the roots to where they joined with the other svanth trees. A distant trail worked through the ground, crawling through the mountains as it stretched toward the other svanth trees, those along the border and beyond, deep in the heart of the Svanth Forest. In time, these trees might be able to reach the Source. They didn’t, not yet.

  There was still power in the trees, power that working together allowed them to access. Eris called upon it, drawing it toward this tree, and pressing it through the branches.

  It rose beneath her, taller and straighter than any svanth even in the heart of the forest. She stretched, calling it higher and higher, at first asking the tree to rise and then commanding it. The flowers of the garden lent their strength, adding to that of the svanth trees. The elms joined in. Flowers bloomed along the teary star vine, different than other teary stars, turning the svanth tree into something different, stronger, than the tree would have been on its own.

  Eris swayed a hundred feet in the air. She clung to the branches, afraid to look down, afraid to turn away. Instead, she focused on the energy she drew, calling it from the ground and through the tree.

  One hundred feet in the air.

  The damaged svanth even lent what it could. She felt the blemish that had worked along the roots from the iron pulsing, but the tree responded to her need, sending her higher and higher.

  Eris soared.

  A breeze she could not feel down in the garden caught the upper boughs and pulled the tree from side to side. She clung to the branches, holding tightly, afraid to look anywhere but straight ahead. She fixed her eyes on the rock wall, looking for a place she could grab hold, a place she could climb.

  And then she saw it.

  With one last surge of power, she called the tree to sway, to bend in the breeze, so that she touched the rock.

  She lunged for it, gripping it with tired fingers.

  At first, she slipped. The tree swung away. She dangled, hundreds of feet in the air. Fear roared through her. If she fell, she would die. Shadow would die. Terran would die. The newly reborn Gardens of Elaysia would fall. Nothing would remain of the keepers.

  Her grip failed.

  She pulled from within her, drawing from the energy she felt when she withdrew to avoid iron. That strengthened her, and she squeezed the rock, forming a handhold that hadn’t been there before.

  She scrabbled up the face of the rock and fell onto a flat section. There she lay, breathing rapidly, fatigue washing over her.

  The silver sliver of moon shone down on her. Stars winked in the night sky.

  Even in the darkness, there was light.

  Chapter 85

  Eris rested atop the rock, staring into the sky. A cool mountain breeze gusted against her, playing along the thin wrap she wore. Now that she was back in the mountains, the wrap did nothing to protect her. She covered herself with her cloak and laid her head back on the stones.

  Fitful dreams came.

  She saw the Gardens of Elaysia as they were. The memory was not hers, but borrowed from the message woven into the Svanth Forest by the first keeper. Fields of flowers spreading as far as she could see. Power thrummed within the garden, but something else. There was no coordination, nothing tying together the power. Each keeper worked separately with their patterns, none mindful of what their neighbors created. There was potential here, but it was untapped and unused.

  The dream skipped, and she saw the gardens as they were now, broken and destroyed, nothing but weeds and grasses overgrowing what had once been a place of great power. A row of svanth trees grew where they had not been before. In her dream, she smiled at the trees, knowing they pressed deeper into the earth than any flower could reach. They skimmed along the buried source of power and drew it toward the gardens, cleansing the destruction they had known. It could not erase the memory of what had happened. It could not erase the pain and suffering this place had known.

  Eris shifted, uncomfortable on the rocks. The dream shifted, and she saw flowers blooming, fields arranged in wide swaths of color. Roses, lilies, perisals, corinths, camogines, tulis, and dahlias. All and more, thousands of flowers, different varieties and colors, and all arranged with coordination to the others. Power radiated from the garden. Peace radiated from it. In the dream, she recognized that the need for this to return.

  She smiled and wished the other keepers could see this image. Had they the foresight to work together, to create patterns greater than they could work alone, Eris could only imagine the power that would come from such a place. It could rival the Svanth Forest, tree and flower both thriving, both feeding the source.

  In her dream, she understood what she never understood while awake.

  A sigh escaped her, and she pressed out, wanting the keepers to know this peace. But she was not strong enough, not in her dreams, possibly not even while awake, to send such a message. The dream told her it was important, but she had no way of storing what she saw—no way of sharing.

  Eris shifted again, and the dream changed. There was darkness and light. She saw them both as if she stood on the edge between them. It was a place she had been before. Shade and sun. In the dream, the dark was not something to fear, and neither was the light. Both were needed, both had purpose. She understood.

  She stood, one hand delving into the dark, letting it surround her, letting it fill her. The other hand touched the light pulsing through her. Balance. She sighed. Was this what Shadow wanted her to see? Was this the message he tried conveying by bringing her the vision?

  Eris still didn’t understand the meaning, but perhaps she was never meant to. She didn’t understand the pattern she saw at sunset. She didn’t understand the swirling pattern of the dawn. And, maybe, she could not understand this.

  Rock pressed against her again, and s
he shifted.

  Massive boulders stretched out on either side of her. Soldiers marched with no signs of fatigue, no signs of slowing. A large creature, like a tree lion but larger, stretched out, strung along a pair of poles, carried by four soldiers.

  Shadow.

  The wreath hung around his limp neck. His eyes stared blankly. Darkness swirled around him, but there was light within. The two warred, battling for supremacy. This was not where the battle should be waged, not in Shadow, and not with the wreath of dark flowers.

  Eris seemed to float over him, as if watching from above. Seeing him like this pained her. “Shadow,” she whispered. Power radiated from her lips, augmented by the dream.

  For a moment, he stirred, but then he fell still once again.

  Already, he was failing.

  She focused on the wreath of flowers. It poisoned him just as surely as the taint that worked through the svanth tree had tried to poison him. Energy surged from deep within her, streaking from her fingers, and wrapped around the wreath, slithering like the teary star vine, until it wound around the flowers, burying them in teary star blossoms. His breathing seemed to ease.

  She floated, drifting high above the rocks. Terran was down below with Shadow—she felt the connection between them—but something about him seemed different. He was harder, sharper, than she remembered. A dark light glittered from stones worked into the soldiers’ helms, and she turned away.

  Drifting farther away, she came to her sister. She strode along with three other women. Each wore the same dark wrap. A pale scarf covered their faces, swirling around their heads. Golden hair gave away Ferisa, but Eris would have known her anyway. A bond between them pulsed like a sturdy branch in her dream.

  The sensation was almost enough to toss Eris from the dream. As it was, she receded, drawing away from the dream, leaving her at the edge of sleep. Questions drifted through her mind that she had no answers for. Was this real? Was this a true vision granted by the power she worked, or was this only a dream, her tired and scared mind showing her what she feared?

  She sighed and moved again, drawn forward.

  The dream claimed her again, pulling her into a deeper sleep. She slid, now hovering barely over the ground, her feet dancing over a carpet of leaves and fallen svanth trees. This was a forest. Not the Svanth, but the forest she had started, the barrier she prepared to push back the desolation magic the magi worked. Other trees mixed in, working in small clusters that she only now saw the pattern to. Power radiated from this place, stretching deep, reaching toward the Source, feeding it. As she drifted, she remembered the arid land that had once been here, long before the Svanth Forest bloomed in these lands, bringing life where before there had been none.

  Eris hesitated, almost understanding, but worry for Shadow and Terran pushed her onward.

  She drifted, each step moving her miles at a time. Eris floated above the ground, feeling the pull of something nearby. She stopped and looked down at Eliara. Flickering lanterns lit the city at night, pushing back the dark. Lira’s garden buzzed against her, almost visible with the power it drew. The svanth tree at the heart of the garden, strong and sturdy, now stood even taller than before. No longer did it pull energy from the others around it, now it created it, pushing it deep beneath the ground.

  Eris was pulled onward, moving faster now. She blew past the svanth in the Verilain Plains, registering the life pulsing within, pressing downward, and came to a stop in the Svanth. The forest stretched around her. Life filled it. Power came like a visible thing, radiating around it. For the first time, she understood the connection to the source. Not something the forest drew from—not unless needed—but something it fed.

  She was pulled onward, northward as she glided across the ground. The next svanths, a line of them circling a wide plain that once had been empty but now had the fledgling start of something more, called to her. These svanths drew from the Source, but already, she could tell that would not always be the case. Soon they would feed it. Others grew here, flowers that had not been there the last time she visited.

  In a flash, she had another vision: Power, so much that it was practically visible. Light.

  Eris gasped and shifted. As she did, she pulled back, gliding leagues in a single breath.

  And then she awoke.

  * * *

  Eris crouched at the edge of the rocks and stared down at the garden far below her. Now, one solitary tree rose high above, climbing as if the tree itself sought to break free. The moon slipped past the edge of the horizon, leaving only the twinkling starlight for her to see.

  Her heart pounded at the visions she’d had in her dreams. How much of that had been real? Could any of it have been real? Visions of the past and the future had come to her, but it was the present that scared her the most: Ferisa and the other priestesses making their way toward Errasn, toward the Svanth, with Shadow trapped by the dark wreath of power.

  Eris had no idea what they intended, but if the visions had any truth, they marched toward the Source. Toward the light. And they carried darkness with them.

  She had to do something, only she wasn’t certain what that was. The first thing she had to determine was how to free Terran and Shadow. She needed both of them if she were to stop the priestesses—her sister. And then what?

  She didn’t know. In the dream she had known what she was to do, but now that she was awake, there wasn’t the same clarity. What if the visions were wrong? What if nothing she had seen would come true? If they were wrong and she went north, back toward Eliara, and Ferisa had not brought Terran and Shadow north, she would have wasted precious time she needed to rescue them.

  Except, she didn’t think the visions were wrong. And if they weren’t wrong, what else had she learned in the visions that she needed to follow?

  Now that she was awake, the only thing that remained clear to her was that she had to save those she cared about.

  * * *

  The rocky slope led slowly down. Eris climbed carefully, less fatigued than she figured she would be after spending the night climbing through the mountains alone. The air became warmer the farther she descended, nothing like the oppressive dry heat she experienced in Saffra, but still warmer than was comfortable. A familiar fragrance hinted at the air, like that of teary star flowers, but they shouldn’t grow so close to the mountains.

  The sunrise spread out in front of her, a smear of orange and red mixing on the horizon. Thin wisps of clouds blended with it, adding layers to the colors. A pattern was there, powerful and only hinted at the edge of her vision. She no longer tried to understand.

  When she reached flat earth, she sighed and delved quickly, stretching through the roots, using them to learn where Terran and Shadow might be. She found nothing. Not even a sign of soldiers.

  Could she have been wrong? Could the dream vision have been wrong?

  Pulling energy from the grasses around her, she hurried forward. By midmorning, she had nearly reached the Loess River as it glistened in the sunlight. Her svanth trees were visible beyond it, now marking the border between Saffra and Errasn as it had never been marked before. She saw no sign of Saffra soldiers.

  Eris paused at the Loess and drank. Had they come this way, shouldn’t she have picked up something from them? When Saffra sent soldiers to attack, they had come through these passes, but what if there was another way?

  She turned and looked back toward the Kernig Mountains. Peaks stretched high into the sky, white caps mixing with the clouds in the bright sky. From here, it almost looked beautiful. If she focused, she could nearly sense the svanth trees she’d planted in Rochelle’s garden. Strangely, they seemed to hum faintly within her.

  Behind her, the other svanth trees she’d planted pulled at her as well. She hurried to the bridge and crossed the Loess River. There, she stopped and delved, sending her awareness deep into the roots, pressing toward the distant trees of Rochelle’s garden.

  The connection was almost there. Another few days, and the
trees she planted in Rochelle’s garden would reach the others. Then they could join together, reaching beneath the shores of the river, eventually linked so that they worked together.

  Until then, the trees were still in danger.

  She needed to find where Ferisa had gone.

  Eris reached through the roots, searching for her sister. There should be some sign of her, but she found nothing. No hint of Ferisa or soldiers or Shadow or Terran. Nothing.

  They had to be here. She only had to find them.

  She pressed deeper into the roots, stretching her awareness out from her, reaching toward the Svanth and south, toward Saffra, stretching as far as the connections would reach. She was not alone. Others were there, but she found no sign of Ferisa. From the dream visions, she knew she should find something—some evidence her sister passed through here. If she didn’t, then Shadow and Terran were truly lost.

  She continued her search, but found nothing, not even a void as she had felt in the past, anything that would tell her where the priestesses could be found. Nothing.

  Eris released her connection to the trees.

  Was there another way she could find Terran without using her connection to the trees? A way that would let her see the connections she shared with Terran and Shadow, a way that would reveal them to her when the connection through the roots would not?

  She withdrew within herself. Now that she had done it more than once, it became easier. She pulled the energy back inside her, drawing it away from the trees and sinking it deep within her. As she did, she felt the connections as she had before. They branched off her like a tree, each leading to a different connection. Each led away from her, twisting as they worked toward the other distant connections. She recognized two of the strongest and latched on, pulling herself along the connection as she often did while delving with the trees.