Terran pulled the magi up to the tree. Eris guided the teary star vine to fully ensnare him, holding him in place. He began to stir as they pulled tight.
Dark eyes blinked open. He glanced from Terran to Eris. “Take her,” he spat through the gag, his voice muffled.
Terran held up the iron sword then lifted his shirt, showing where the stone had been. The skin had smoothed even more, leaving a divot where the stone had been, but the burned edges had faded. “You take her.”
The magi stared at Eris, hatred burning on his face. “She will stop you. She knew you would come. It has been her plan.”
Eris leaned toward him. A teary star flower bloomed on the vine over his head. Petals draped down, rubbing against his cheeks. “Whose plan? My sister? Ferisa?” She shouted her sister’s name.
The magi sneered. “You know so little, keeper. She is more powerful than you could ever imagine. More powerful than the High Seat. You think you can stop what is coming?” He laughed, and she pulled the vines tight around him, turning the sound into a cough. “You did well summoning the keepers. Had you not, we would have needed to chase each down.”
Eris turned away, unwilling to look at the magi any longer.
He grunted and thrashed against the vine, but it held him tightly within. Terran stepped alongside her and held out his hand, showing her the dark magi ring.
“What should we do with this?” he asked.
Darkness filled it. Had she not seen Shadow’s vision, she wasn’t certain she would have known what it was. Now she saw only the blackness, like a disease working through the stone. With a surge of energy, she pushed the darkness out of the stone. It cracked as she did. Then she let the vine consume the magi.
“I need to find Shadow,” she said. “He’s injured….”
“I will help.”
“And then we have to stop the magi from destroying the gardens.”
“There hasn’t been enough time to rebuild the gardens.”
“Maybe that once was the case, but it changed when I planted the svanth trees along the edges. They draw from the Source, and the gardens can draw from the trees.”
Terran took her hand. “How do you know?”
“I saw it.”
“You saw it?”
She nodded. “A vision. I don’t know why I think it’s real, but it was too clear to ignore. I think the keepers have returned to the gardens, but their gardens are incomplete. And if the Darkbinders attack, I am not certain anything can stop them.”
Chapter 87
They made their way through the plains, neither speaking much. Terran held her hand, squeezing it more tightly than usual. Eris stayed close to him, welcoming his warmth and his physical presence. A few trees dotted these parts of the plains, mostly scattered birch and maple. She paused at each one and sent a request for the trees to join together, much as she had along the border when the magi attacked.
The Svanth Forest loomed against her senses. She was drawn to it and feared for it. She had been foolish—too foolish to search for understanding. What happened to her garden would be her fault. If she failed—if it fell—that would be her fault as well.
A lingering trail guided her. She discovered it when they left the magi trapped within the tree. Svanth seeds, chewed and broken, were deposited along the ground across the plains. A trail made by Shadow as they passed. In some places, tiny trees already began emerging from the ground. When she came upon them, Eris added cuttings of the teary star vine, helping them grow stronger.
As she made her way north, she felt the pull of another garden. The newly reborn Gardens of Elaysia worked from the earth, struggling like a fresh sapling to reach the sun. If attacked before they had fully established, the gardens would be destroyed again; this time likely forever. The remaining keepers would perish. None would remain to protect the light.
All because Eris had been too foolish. All because she thought she knew what she needed to do. She was barely a keeper, not only a full year of experience. Why should she have been able to summon the keepers when Lira—or even Rochelle—had failed?
“Can you warn them?” Terran asked as they walked.
Eris had considered attempting a warning, but there weren’t any with the ability to read the roots well enough for her to be clear. She could send visions, but what good would that do if she sent a vision of the gardens destroyed? Most of the keepers who had returned would have experienced that firsthand. The vision would seem like nothing more than a memory.
“I don’t know.”
They remained silent for a while.
“I thought I could save her,” Eris said.
Terran pulled her toward him. “She had a choice and made it. There’s nothing you can do about that now.”
“I promised Desia.”
He squeezed her hand. “You promised her you would try. You’ve done all you can to help her. You gave her a chance to turn back.”
She shook her head. “What if they control her as they intended to control you? And if she’s controlled, I need to do everything I can to free her. If I can’t…”
If she couldn’t, she didn’t think she would be able to succeed in stopping her sister. She might be strong enough to stop the magi, but with Ferisa there, she would fear doing anything that might harm her.
“And Shadow?” Terran asked. “What do you intend to do with him?”
Eris hadn’t planned for what she would do with Shadow yet. Attacking Shadow told her the Darkbinders knew more about Shadow than she had learned. What would happen to her—to Shadow—if she were unable to save him?
“I will do what I can.”
They raced onward. Eris kept thinking they would catch the magi, but they never did. They saw no sign of the magi, not even a blemish to the ground, nothing like with the soldiers. She reached through the roots of the forest, and at first found nothing. As she focused, she sensed a connection, faint and distant, coming from the far north. The Gardens of Elaysia pressed back on her.
She still didn’t understand why the Darkbinders attacked now. What had changed that forced the attack? The only thing she could think of was that she had changed. There hadn’t been a keeper of the light until now.
At the Svanth Forest, she stopped long enough to gather a handful of svanth seeds. She tucked these into the pockets of her cloak, hiding them from the magi. The last time she’d seen Shadow, he’d been eating svanth seeds. It seemed right to gather them and store them in her pockets. The necklace of teary star vine remained long enough to grown more svanths if needed.
She started toward the north when she felt the attack.
It came as a subtle sense. Within the grand expanse of the Svanth Forest, the loss of a single tree was a minor thing. Thousands of trees grew there. With each storm, one or two might fall, their time fulfilled. Even then, they still served the forest. Trunks would dry and animals would invade them, turning the tree into their homes. Leaves would fall and decay, nourishing the forest for another generation.
But when this tree fell, it came as a different sense.
Eris paused and listened.
Awareness circled around her, filling her. Within the Svanth, she was able to know everything. And she felt where the forest was attacked.
It pressed on her like a void. The forest tried pushing against it but failed.
But how were the magi able to attack? When Adrick led his attack on the forest ages ago, he hadn’t been able to push against the barriers the forest had in place. What had changed that now gave them access? Why now?
The answer came to her with troubling certainty. Shadow had changed. Whatever darkness they placed around him had changed. He was the guardian. Without him, would the forest—and the energy it fed and protected—be in danger?
“What is it?” Terran reached for a sword he no longer carried. He hadn’t been willing to take the tainted weapon from the magi, leaving the curved sword lying on the Verilain Plains.
“They’ve reached the forest.�
� From Terran’s face, she saw he understood.
“They shouldn’t be able to enter here.”
Eris nodded. “But they have.”
“Can you…”
He didn’t finish. Eris understood. He wanted nothing more than to protect her, but in this—in serving the forest as its keeper—she had to do what she could. There might not be anything he could even do.
“I don’t know. I barely managed with a single magi the last time. They’ve learned how to defend against me.”
“But you were in the plains. You’re stronger here.”
Eris touched his face, wishing they could take a moment and sit, to relax by the peaceful water of the lake as they had in Rochelle’s garden, but that was not to be. Maybe it would never be the future she could have. As much as she wanted it, she had to accept that the Sacred Mother had given her a different path. And it was all she had ever wanted.
The Darkbinders sought to take that from her. A flash of anger worked through her. “I am stronger here. It is time they see that.”
Eris strode through the forest, a keeper determined to protect her trees. For the first time, the trees bent away from her. They didn’t simply create a path for her to work through, this time she could see them shift and move much like what Imryll managed. It felt right that they would. She went to battle the magi to keep the trees safe. She went to be their keeper.
As they passed through the svanth trees, she pulled from the energy stored and wrapped it around her, swirling it around her arms and legs, pulling it so it practically infused her skin, radiating out from her. She pulled energy and wrapped it around Terran, drawing and layering it upon him. When the energy first touched him, he gasped softly, and then a tight smile crossed his face.
They had no weapons, but she had no need, not in the forest.
The forest transitioned from svanths to massive oaks. Teraspals grew in scattered clumps across the floor. They focused the energy of these trees, binding them together, sending that energy toward the svanth trees. Eris saw the pattern in her mind. How had she missed it before? All the time she’d spent tracing the roots and wandering the forest, she’d failed to see the way the forest worked together.
From the oaks it shifted again. Smaller trees, clumps of birch and elm, grew together. All responded to her, bending and moving as they created a path she strode through.
Terran kept pace. His face was a grim mask.
Another tree came down. This time Eris felt it clearly. Anger shot through her as she did. They had attacked her home, her family, and now they attacked her forest. All for what? For the sake of destruction? For darkness?
She would see them stopped. Not out of vengeance or spite, but because the forest needed protection. The Source needed her protection.
Terran grabbed her wrist as they neared the edge of the forest. “Are you certain this is wise?”
“I can’t wait around while they attack. And I can’t wait for them to damage Shadow more than they have. Already, I fear what the wreath of flowers has done to him.”
“I will keep watch while you work,” he said. “Without a sword, there’s not much I can do.”
She looked over at him. The energy she’d worked around him left him with a soft glow. “I think you will be surprised.”
She didn’t have the opportunity to explain. Through the trees, she saw the attack.
Two-dozen soldiers worked, each using axe or sword as they chopped at trees along the periphery of the forest. These were smaller trees. A few ash, an oak, an elm, none quite so tall as they would become in time, none quite like the mature growth deeper in the forest. But they were hers, a part of her garden. The attack angered her.
A long, cloaked figure stood watch, overseeing the work. Ferisa, Eris felt certain of it. She reached through her connection to the trees to determine how many others were with them, but felt only a void where understanding should be.
She surged the energy she’d collected out from her, sending it through the new growth. The attack fought her. Raw iron axes and swords bit at the energy she worked, slicing through it with cold precision. But in this place—in her garden—the depths of her power was different.
She pulled more, dragging it from deep within the Svanth. With this, she bolstered the trees, building them up, drawing more strength into the trunk and branches, holding the life in place, in spite of the attack, so that it bloomed within them.
The power she drew strained against the attack. Someone shouted, the sound distant to her ears. Still they came.
Eris pulled more. The Svanth was massive, its power enormous. She reached beyond the Svanth, drawing deeper, pulling from the Source.
With a surge of wind drawn from the depths of the forest, she pushed against the attack, slicing through them and forcing the soldiers back. Men shouted as the wind she summoned pulled them, lifting and tearing them from the forest.
The wind granted her a new awareness, filling the void. Her power called the wind, surging through the trees as it pressed out and around her, leaving the forest and catching the soldiers in the chaos.
A few soldiers remained. Had they anchored themselves somehow?
Chanting lifted over the wind, the voice familiar to her. Ferisa. Others mixed with it, joining with her sister’s, rising above the wind. The call of power was similar to the last time the magi had come to the Svanth Forest, but stronger, darker. Then, the forest had defended itself. This time, there was a keeper.
Eris drew more energy, pulling from all the trees, from the flowers, dragging deep from the Source. She pressed all of this through the wind, against the chanting, against her sister.
The chanting faltered.
Lightning flickered down. It reached the tops of the trees and crashed, sending sparks and flickers of flame dancing overhead. Another bolt of lightning reached toward the ground. It pierced deeper, reaching through the upper branches, nearly reaching her.
More lightning. Each time, it came closer to her.
Eris diverted some of the energy she’d summoned to resist the lightning. As she did, she recognized this was what they wanted. They wanted her attention drawn elsewhere. But they didn’t know how she had wrapped herself in power. She had wrapped Terran in power.
The attack was powerful, fueled by the dark. Much longer, and she might fail.
She shifted. If she let them choose their attack, she would fail.
Eris stepped forward. Through the connection she shared with the forest, she was aware of Terran moving alongside her. She drew more, pulling more energy from the Source.
As she did, another sense touched upon her, faint and barely there. Had she not known him, she might have missed it. Shadow.
She felt the pain working through him, but more than that, she felt the darkness surrounding him from the Saffra flower wreath.
This was why the Darkbinders would succeed. This was the way they would stop her.
She couldn’t do this alone. All her attention had to be focused on the attack. But she wouldn’t have to do this alone. She had a gardener. She had Terran.
“Terran,” she called. “The flowers.”
She didn’t have to explain any further. He nodded, his gaze drifting to his hands.
He had the same question Eris had. Would touching the Saffra veratrums leave him tainted? Would he lose the ability to serve as her gardener?
Did they have any choice?
She sent another surge of energy to him, layering it upon his hands so that it pressed out from his flesh. It was all the strength she could spare. Any more, and she wouldn’t have enough to face the magi.
Eris took another step. Three priestesses stood cloaked before her, the wind parting around them. Another surge of energy, and the remaining soldiers scattered, leaving only the Darkbinders—the keepers of the dark. Ferisa’s blond hair spilled from the hood of her cloak. The two standing on either side of her held their hands out, reaching toward the trees as they chanted. Blood red stones glittered on their
fingers.
Ferisa glared at her. With the energy Eris summoned, drawing from the depths of the Source, she could feel the darkness working through her sister. It was foreign and distinct, so different than the soft and gentle girl Eris remembered.
In that moment, she knew: Ferisa could be saved.
But Eris couldn’t do it now, not with the energy she drew, not without more.
The sense of Shadow drew her. He lay unmoving behind the priestesses. The wind that had swept away soldiers left him untouched, parting around him as well.
Eris focused on them as Terran circled around.
She had to hold out long enough for Terran to reach Shadow.
Fatigue threatened to drop her. She had pulled as much power as she could, pressing it against the priestesses for as long as she could tolerate without using some of the energy to keep herself moving. The last time she had drawn this much power, she had Terran and Shadow fighting alongside her. Now she fought for Shadow.
“Shadow!” She spoke his name with a touch of power, letting it infuse her words.
His tail twitched, but nothing else of him moved.
The air sizzled around her, and she looked up in time to see lightning and fire streaking toward her. She pressed up, pushing against the lightning. Another surge of fire shot at her chest from one of the other magi. She split her attention to deflect this as well.
Ferisa frowned at her. Eris felt the darkness surge within her sister.
Lightning streaked toward her stomach.
Eris didn’t have enough power or strength to stop it. In that split second, she knew she would fall. She couldn’t stop the attacks on her and the forest at the same time. She would fall. The forest would fall. Darkness would quench the light.
The Lost Garden: The Complete Series Page 69