As she stepped outside, Octavia understood why the world seemed so dark when she left the tunnel-rigged cabriolet. The settlement lay in the deep shadow of the Lady’s Tree.
The trunk may have been a few miles away, but it was also miles wide. Past the canopies of normal trees, the Lady’s trunk was a rippled wall of green and brown and the impenetrable black of nooks and crannies that never saw the sun. Her lowest branches were well above the normal woods. Specks of birds hovered like ground pepper. Octavia craned her neck. All she could see was green. All she could smell was green—that lush freshness that made her think of verdant early-spring mornings when the tulips and weeds shoved their way through the wet soil.
The Tree. She saw the Tree.
Despite her anger, despite her wavering faith, Octavia dropped to her knees and into a folded Al Cala pose. The sobs she had held in check now gushed out, racking her chest, contracting her entire body.
This was the Lady she had seen so many times when she closed her eyes. This was the breeze that had somehow stirred in her bedroom and dried her tears for so many years.
“Miss Leander?” Lanskay cleared his throat.
“I know. I know.” Octavia pushed herself upright. To think, two weeks ago she had been awed to simply hold a green branch the size of her arm. Lady, you are beautiful. In answer, that familiar breeze touched her cheek, gentle as her mother’s sleeve once was.
Voices and songs buzzed around her. The new headband did its duty as she followed Lanskay along a well-tamped dirt street flanked by wooden boardwalks. The settlement was a full-fledged town several blocks in length, the weathered buildings all logs and shingles. Somewhere beyond, though, was an even greater aggregation of bodies. Without even seeing it, she knew the army encamped there to defend their stake in the Tree.
No mooring towers in sight; they would have been useless while the Tree was veiled. Taney will have his ships pestering Caskentia and trying to slow its army down, but I see his urgency in hiding this camp again. If Caskentia manages to get airships with infernals overhead, this place will be like a black cat in a snowbank. It’ll be a massacre . . . but one with positive aspects as well.
Caskentia could win the war at last—and Mercia no longer contains its cursed king. We may have a chance to blossom again.
But there would still need to be a Tree to continue healing the land.
Like pinpricks, she felt the attention of Wasters, the repetitions of her name. Men bustled all around—rangy soldiers with hardened eyes like feral dogs, boys hauling packs, wagon after wagon of supplies and machinery.
A high, frenzied neigh cut above the noise of battle preparations. She followed Lanskay across the street.
King Kethan stood at a corral. He wore new clothes like that of any Waster, plus boots and a frayed-rim bowler hat. He’d even been provided with a new tie for his long hair. The horses in the corral reacted as if to a mountain lion—they crowded at the far side, the lead mare braying a challenge.
“Grandfather,” Octavia said, catching Lanskay looking at her askance.
Kethan faced her with a strained smile. “I fear our manner of transport will be problematic.”
“Not if I can help it. Lanskay, where are our horses?”
“Over there. A man’s bringing them around.”
She assessed them with her eyes and senses together and nodded approval. Wasters knew their horses. The legs were sound, feed adequate, hooves trimmed and shod. As they neared the King, the horses’ nostrils flared.
Alonzo’s not going to lose so much as his little toe. Not if I can help it.
“Stop there,” Octavia said. She approached, a hand extended for the reins. The Waster looked at Lanskay for approval and then backed away. “Shh, shh. Listen to me.” She leaned close between the horses. They immediately calmed, ears perked.
She had healed most all kinds of animals before. At the academy, some days were more about livestock than people. The difficulty was that animals, like people, had to acquiesce to a healing—at some level, they had to understand. It didn’t always happen. Octavia didn’t need a healing now, but she did need understanding. If she encircled both horses with honeyflower, it would strengthen her insight, but she had neither the herbs nor the time.
But they were in the shadow of the Lady, and Octavia possessed power of her own.
“Lanskay, what are these horses’ names?”
“Names?”
“Yes. Names.”
He conferred with the grooms. “Doxy and Chocolate.”
Names possess power. She knew that, as she flinched at the men’s whispers. “Lady, here in your shadow, with this change in my blood, hear me,” Octavia murmured. Heat prickled against her skin as if she had initiated the forming of a circle. The men felt something, too. Boots scuffed as they backed away.
“Doxy.” The bay with a white snip on her muzzle perked up her ears. “We will travel with a man who smells like death. He is a good man. Let him ride you.” The horse’s black eyes stared into Octavia.
“Chocolate.” Despite everything, the name made Octavia smile. “You will be mine. The man’s smell will bother you, as it should, but don’t let him scare you away.” Chocolate whickered and rubbed his face against her arm, as if pleading for a lump of sugar.
“Thank you,” Octavia murmured. Like that, the heat faded. She realized, then, how quiet it was. She turned. All the activity in the street had stopped. No one stood within twenty feet of her—no one but King Kethan, Doxy, Chocolate, and the small herd of horses that now lined the corral to stare. Several of the Wasters held their shotguns slack in their grips.
“Um. What?” she asked, glancing around to see if she’d missed something.
King Kethan approached, his steps slow, a hand held out toward the horses. “You glowed.”
Like Adana Dryn. Like the Saint’s Road. She looked at her arms and saw the same white cloth as always. “Am I still glowing?”
“No. It ceased.”
“That might have actually come in handy in the tunnel.” She laughed, the sound edging on hysterical. The pitch of her voice seemed to alarm the horses more than Kethan’s presence.
Lanskay edged forward, his motions tentative as if he might drop to his knees before her. “The saddlebags are packed with enough food and water for the day.”
“Understood.” We won’t try to escape.
“I hope to see you by nightfall.” He grimaced and stepped back.
She and Kethan mounted up. The horses were nervous, sidestepping with twitching ears. Octavia pressed Chocolate to a trot as they headed out to the street. She couldn’t help but note King Kethan’s smile and the strange calmness in his song. He was riding a true horse, and his joy seeped to his very soul.
I love to ride horses, too. The rhythm, the breeze in my face, that sense of flight over the ground. So many things I’ve taken for granted, as part of being human.
The traffic was still at a stop as men stared after them. She flinched at the distant mentions of her name, her identity, the words striking her like flicked beans.
Someone will ask Alonzo what I did, how I did it. If I make it back, he’ll demand answers, too.
Actually, he’ll demand even more answers if I don’t return. And I’ll likely hear every query.
A thin belt of green meadow separated the settlement from the thick woods. The road dead-ended there, dwindling to a mere footpath. Octavia took the lead. Shrubs and vines towered above her. The smell was intense, as if she could chew the greenery in the air. Birds sang and rattled in the branches above.
Chocolate’s ears flicked, his coat shivering as if he was harassed by flies. Then Octavia felt it—the prickling warmth like that of a circle. “Grandfather, I think we crossed the line into the Lady’s domain, quite literally.”
“I agree.” Kethan’s voice was a low rumble.
The sounds of animals intensified. The trees crowded ahead like cats at feeding time, branches and leaves in a tight, verdant weave. She couldn’t see the Tree now but she felt its looming presence, the shade covering them like a strange sort of nightfall. It occurred to her that she should be very cold—it had to be near freezing—but she felt fine.
An odd pile of bones and long green branches was stacked along one side of the path. The branches buzzed slightly with the life essence of the Lady. Octavia stared, taking in the large shape, then noticed green movement amidst the bones. She assumed it was a snake and prepared for Chocolate to lurch away, then noticed the leaves, the shape. My horse. Jasmine.
As she rode by, white buds opened to her as if in an offering. She pressed a hand to her chest and bowed her head. “Peace to you, sweet mare,” she whispered.
“ ‘God take you, warrior steed, to fields of clover, not bone,’ ” intoned King Kethan.
Tears burned her eyes. Caskentia still used that prayer when they burned and buried horses that fell in battle. It was one of the few times she had ever seen soldiers cry.
They crossed a churning stream and rode up an embankment. The path thinned, the light at their backs vanishing completely. The King’s heart raced, his song more chaotic. He’s nervous. So was she. This was no normal forest. Foxes, raccoons, and vague shadows crawled through the undergrowth. Five deer flashed through the trees. A moose stared at them, his antlers broad and heavy as if he carried the world upon his skull. It was as though every animal on the continent was congregating here, whether they belonged in the Waste or not; maybe somewhere, saltwater seals played in a pond where small whales breached. At this point, nothing would surprise her.
Heat seared Octavia’s skin as if they approached an infernal. They did. She reined up.
The threem strolled into the path some twenty feet ahead. In the deep shade, the gray body was cast in black, its scaled skin sleek. The equine form stopped to regard them; it stood about fourteen or fifteen hands in height, comparable to a common riding horse. Eyes glowed red. The muzzle curved outward like the snout of a sea horse, the nostrils large and tinged in crimson. It had no mane. Instead, a double black ridge of scales trailed from forelock to croup, where a leonine tail lashed. It moved with the grace of a snake, exuded the mood of a nightmare.
Beneath Octavia, Chocolate convulsed in sheer terror, song lurching. Octavia immediately dismounted. A glance back showed King Kethan doing the same. Octavia grabbed the reins at the bit as she made soothing sounds.
“Grandfather, did you learn anything about threems in your extensive reading?”
“That they are not supposed to exist.” He sounded more intrigued than frightened. “ ’Tis beautiful.”
“It is, but so is a fire, and that’s what it will breathe at us if we don’t elicit some level of approval.”
“I must venture forward first. I am no innocent, not by any definition.”
“Neither am I. I’ve killed. I’ve been party to too many deaths these past few weeks.”
The threem’s song was unlike anything she had ever heard. It consisted of frenzied drums, like a herd of horses in a gallop across cobblestones. She had no idea how to parse those musical lines.
“Lady!” called Octavia. “Neither of us is innocent. We know that. We can’t change the past. Please let us by, threem.”
The threem’s finely tapered ears flickered. It understands, just like a gremlin. She had a hunch that cheese or silver wouldn’t win a threem’s heart—no, it was too dignified, too noble. Her mother’s advice repeated in her mind again, what Octavia should do if she ever met royalty.
Octavia curtsied, her satchel jostling against her hip. She heard Kethan move behind her.
Sinuous as a ripple of silk, the threem stepped on across the path and vanished into the piled vines. Octavia released a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. “My mother always said manners were of vital importance,” she said, grunting as she remounted. She shifted the satchel to a more comfortable position.
“Mothers are wise in that way.”
Chocolate was still skittish as they crossed where the threem had trod. “My mother would also go apoplectic if she knew I was calling you ‘Grandfather’ and not genuflecting most every time you breathed.”
King Kethan laughed. “When I cross the infinite river, I will tell her that I granted you full permission and that it was a joy to know you as part of my family.”
Emotion caught in her throat. “That . . . that means a great deal to me. I . . . I like the idea of you and my parents being together. I think you’d get along like gremlins and silver. Our families . . . I’m glad you got to meet your great-granddaughter Rivka, but I so wish you could have seen Viola—Allendia.”
“I wrote her a short letter in the village. ’Tis addressed to Balthazar Cody, to be forwarded to my daughter. A courier left with it not ten minutes before we reunited. I know you will speak to Allendia, if you can, but I wanted this chance to send her my words and tell her of my pride.”
“Was it in code?”
“Must you ask?”
“She’ll treasure it beyond anything in this world. I don’t know how it will go when—if—I talk to her in person again, I . . .”
“Grieve for Devin Stout’s choices, but do not feel guilt for his death. I may spread rot, but he was rotten.”
“I know that. Logically,” she said softly. Her sudden need for Alonzo’s presence, his strength, almost doubled her over. Exhaustion soaked her to the marrow. When did she sleep last? Or eat? There had to be food in the saddlebags, but they needed to press on, regardless of how her mouth now watered at the thought.
I like how crusty bread crunches between my teeth, how maple syrup is silken across my tongue. A silly thing, to wish for a paper-wrapped bar of chocolate here and now, but even camp beans and stale crackers would grant a certain kind of joy. It would mean eating. Tasting. Chewing. Doing things a Tree cannot do.
Something chirped above and a green being floated down from the trees. Leaf, gliding down like his namesake.
“Oh, Leaf!” This is better than any chocolate bar. Being a trained war-horse, her mount barely reacted as Leaf landed on the low nub of the saddle horn.
He chittered a greeting and leaped up to Octavia’s shoulder. He pattered a rapid circle around her head and then sat on her left shoulder.
“Greetings to you, gremlin,” called King Kethan. Leaf chirped in his direction.
“Come to say good-bye?” she whispered.
He made a crude noise that normally indicated a need to treat with bellywood bark.
Songs drifted out of sight. Young, healthy, female. Slow to approach. Octavia held up a hand to stop King Kethan. “Hello?” she called.
The girls emerged like a pack of wolves, slinking, wary. They wore black oilskin coats like so many Wasters, but many of these were singed by fire. Salvage from when a Waster didn’t show proper respect to a threem. Their visible skirts were tattered and torn, their feet bare yet unhurt. “Hello,” Octavia repeated.
“I know you.” One of the girls stepped to the forefront, smiling. Her yellow hair was tied back in a braid, but Octavia recognized her from when it had been wild and free. The girl couldn’t have been any older than fifteen.
“Yes! You were the one in the Waster camp two weeks ago! I was so afraid for you.” Octavia shifted to dismount but the girl held up a hand. Leaf groused and settled himself on her shoulder again.
“We’ll walk you along this next rocky stretch but I don’t want to delay you. She’s waiting.”
Octavia counted nine girls as she rode on. The youngest looked to be about twelve, the oldest maybe sixteen. “The Wasters assumed you’d all been eaten by threems.”
“The bastards!” snapped the youngest.
The yellow-haired girl nodded. “The threems don’t bother you if you give them space and respect. The second anyone raises a gun, they’re toast. Literally.”
“You’re all from Mercia?” Octavia asked. They nodded. “Considering all the tea they make, there must be more girls.”
That earned scowls and expressions of dismay. “There are hundreds,” said a girl with dusky Frengian skin. “Most of them are so scared they do their job and get the bark. The Wasters tried to get lots of sisters, so while one is out working the other is kept hostage.”
Oh no. These girls must reside in the settlement. More lives to be lost in an attack.
“Is there no outcry in Mercia?” asked King Kethan, rage clear in his voice.
“Some,” said Octavia with a grimace, and nodded to the yellow-haired girl. “I saw a newspaper article about you, with a picture of your father.” The path rose, strewn with boulders, and Chocolate slowed to place each hoof with care.
“Of course you did. Daddy has money.” She didn’t look happy that she was missed; instead she seemed disgusted.
“The Tree is visible to the air now,” Octavia said. “Caskentia is preparing to attack. If they bomb—”
“They won’t,” said a girl.
“You’re going to become a new Tree,” said the other.
“He has the seed. She’s so happy he’s finally here,” said another.
Eerie, how they all speak in a sequence. “How do you know . . . ?”
“We’re her daughters now,” said the yellow-haired girl. “When we sleep here, we dream wonderful dreams.”
A girl with curly black hair held up her arms. “My hands are finally healed. I used to work a sewing machine twelve hours a day.”
“My step-pa don’t beat me no more.”
“I’m not ever leaving here!” At that, they all smiled and nodded.
I don’t doubt that some of their situations have improved, but certainly there are people back in Mercia who love and miss them. But their minds . . . their smiles . . . they seem almost vacant.
The soft patter of a waterfall grew louder as they followed a switchback. The air—it was so clean, so pure, it almost made her giddy. At the curve, Octavia reined up. “Oh Lady,” she whispered. That was not blasphemy.
The sight before her was the most beautiful she had ever seen. The waterfall began high up on the Tree, pouring from a shadowed crevice, and fell for at least a quarter mile. Shafts of light angled downward. Multiple rainbows wavered in the mist. The Tree’s surface consisted of mottled, vertical strips covered with lichen patches that would have been meadows if stretched horizontally. Long-necked pink birds glided past the water like cherry blossoms adrift. Far below lay more trees. Gnarled roots led down to a small lake that looked to be flecked with birds of every possible color and size. At water level, the roots had eroded to resemble tumbled river stones.
She couldn’t speak. Words could never have done it justice. Leaf’s little body rumbled in an honest-to-goodness feline purr.
It took effort to prod her horse onward and drag her own gaze away, but even then, she looked over her shoulder until the vista was obscured by rocks and brush. The path grew steeper. The girls followed, picking their way among the boulders, their feet sure as goat hooves. The way was littered with dry red bark fragrant like a fine spice mix—a dash of cardamom, cinnamon, and nutmeg, reminiscent of all the glories of a Fengrian bakery. Octavia thought of Rivka with a quick prayer. Up another rise, and she could see the Tree itself ahead. The path led directly to a cleft in the trunk.
The Lady is there.
Tingles warmed her skin. Redwoods lined the grassy path, their shaggy tops extended far beyond sight. She had only seen such trees along the northern coast. She smiled until she rode alongside.
They were rotting, and not a dry rot—their trunks oozed a viscous gray substance like motor oil, the smell of greenery replaced by a foulness like rotting fish. The needles were still green but somewhat limp, as if suffering from a sudden drought.
“It’s affecting the entire forest, like a disease. Even some of the animals are getting sores like this,” said one of the girls.
“This is the sickness of the Waste, even after all these years,” Octavia murmured. “The Lady is still here, yet this is happening.”
“Not for long,” said the girls in unison.
They passed the final normal tree, its stink heavy in the air. Only the darkness of the cleft lay ahead. She and the King dismounted.
King Kethan stood before his horse and stroked her long muzzle. “I am glad to have ridden one last time,” he murmured. “Thank you.” Doxy snorted at his hand, no longer afraid. He smiled.
Octavia looked around, at a sudden loss. “I don’t want to set the horses free. I want to think that I’ll need one to ride back.”
“We cannot go beyond this point,” said the yellow-haired girl. “We’ll stay here until nightfall. If you don’t return, we’ll take good care of them, and so will you, after.” Her bright smile sent a vicious chill through Octavia as she handed over the reins.
“Miss Octavia Leander. Granddaughter.” King Kethan opened both arms in an unmistakable gesture. She didn’t hesitate with her hug. His arms were thin cords, gentle in their strength. Leaf hopped to his shoulder and did a quick circuit around both of their heads. “ ’Tis my sincere hope you shall ride away, and ride on with Mr. Garret. You possess my eternal gratitude for your kindness to me, but even more, to the land I love greatly and have burdened so.”
“Peace and mercy to you, Grandfather.” She pulled back, the dust of his deteriorating clothes falling away from her enchanted robes. With a small chirp, Leaf leaped from Kethan and glided to Octavia’s shoulder. He sat upright, his wings tucked close.
Side by side, Octavia and Kethan walked into the darkness.
THE ENTRANCE TO THE Tree evoked the blackness of a dank basement at the end of a long, wet winter, when the root vegetables are starting to soften and the mold grows fuzzy and bold. A cold breeze stroked Octavia, like the breath of a frozen god. Even if she had pulled out her glowstone, it would have done little good against the spirit of this place.
Octavia’s feet knew to walk on. She could hear Kethan beside her, his new Waster boots clomping heavily. His song showed anxiety and calmness together. She waved a hand in front of her, worried about walking into something. Her steps slowed at the thought of walking into nothing at all, even if it seemed unlikely at this stage. Make it this far, fall into a crevasse. That does seem like my sort of luck. Leaf chittered by her ear.
Soft light lay ahead, like the first blush of dawn behind thick clouds.
Rough cloth brushed her face. She recoiled with a gasp, swiping it away. The object tore off in her hand and she recognized the smell then—tree moss. It fragmented in her grasp. Against the light, she could see more swaths of moss ahead. They fell in mighty tufts, like heavy curtains in a fancy hotel. She tried to dodge the moss, as did Kethan, but it seemed to dangle every few feet. Looking up, she couldn’t see a ceiling. Moss stretched up as if it attached to an invisible sky.
They emerged in a domed chamber. Polished wood formed the walls, the brown and red whirls begging to be touched. Swaths of moss dangled down but most of it stopped well above their heads. The floor was the same wood as the walls, though covered in a sheen of dust and disintegrated moss. Theirs were the only footprints.
“Foremost of all, the answer is no.” The woman’s voice emerged from nowhere, everywhere. She sounded young, her accent foreign.
“No?” echoed Octavia, spinning around to find the source.
“You are the most appropriate vessel for the seed. You have been since you were born. I knew the instant your mother and father came together. I knew you in the womb. I knew your first breath. I knew that someday, you would come here. I would make sure of it.”
How, Lady? Why me?
“I will answer the best that I can. Yes, I heard your questions. I can hear you when you think of me, just as you now hear people close by when they speak of you.”
A spirit Octavia’s height formed in the center of the chamber. The white mist was tinted in color as if the being stood in fog. Beautiful caramel skin and luxurious thick, coiled hair showed her Tamaran heritage. She wore an antiquated version of medician gear, the robes accented in Dallows sky blue, the body beneath curvaceous and strong. As she stepped forward, the contents in her pockets chimed in various notes, the sounds of glass jars and coins and various other treasures.
Beyond that, the Lady had no song. No life.
“My human body, of course, is long gone. I am projecting my form as I best remember it. It took me centuries to make this sanctuary, a place to house the echo of my humanity, the only place where I can still speak aloud.” She faced King Kethan. “No, no. I’m not ignoring you. Never. Not even when you were locked in the vault. I couldn’t afford to ignore you, or the seams of life would have utterly unraveled.”
“I am sorry.” The words escaped his throat with a sob. King Kethan collapsed to his knees.
“Oh, Kethan.” The Lady said his name with the intimacy of a wife, a mother, a sister. “This was never any sort of judgment against you. No karma, no divine retribution. This was all Evandia’s very human desperation to have you live again as king, and her impatience as you fought against the seed. I have seen many people die when they chewed the Tree’s leaves, but not even I knew what would happen to someone who ingested both the seed and leaf.”
“I have only yearned for mercy. For my Varya and Allendia,” he whispered.
“I know.” The Lady walked up to him, jingling with each step. She glided like a dancer, no footprints in her wake. She laid a hand atop his head and he leaned against her hip as he sobbed. Though she appeared vaporous, the Lady was solid to him.
“There was no way to save him from afar?” asked Octavia.
“You are going to learn that there are great limits to what we can do. We encourage life. We’re zymes in the soil, chewing through decay. We’re gremlins, and know each piece of their living flesh.” The Lady grimaced. “We’re aware of everything, but it’s impossible to focus on more than a few things at a time.”
“Hence the use of a circle,” said Octavia.
“Yes. Circles grant us a space to focus. To act outside of a circle, to act outside of our direct influence, is draining. To scratch your cheek to save your life, to make that boy in Leffen speak with you, taxed months of my life away.”
Scratch my cheek? Octavia struggled to understand, then remembered the odd sensation of a branch scraping her face when she stood on the street in Leffen—it seemed like so long ago. The invisible branch at her cheek had caused her to turn just in time to dodge an assassination attempt.
Minutes later, Octavia thought she had saved a small boy struck down in her stead. The boy had come back to life long enough to utter the enigmatic phrase “Listen to the branch, look to the leaves.”
“You prognosticated,” said Octavia. “You knew I would encounter the Tree’s branch and the leaves.”
“No, I didn’t,” the Lady corrected gently. “Nothing is as straightforward as that. I see dozens of paths. I saw many where you may have met with either the branch or leaves, or none at all. As Kethan astutely noted, the Tree is finite. I don’t see beyond my continent. I have lived. I will die.”
“What of God and—”
“God? What of God?” The Lady burst out laughing. The hysterical pitch of her voice caused Kethan to jerk away and Leaf to edge back on Octavia’s shoulder. “Don’t go into this expecting divine insights from above. The prayers you hear—and the curses—are the ones that go to you. That means very few outside of the battlefield wards, these days. As for what comes beyond life, Kethan would know more than me.” She shrugged, her black hair swaying. “In all my years, he’s the only one who fully crossed beyond and returned to stay.”
“I . . . I remember almost nothing of my time between life and this half-life.”
“I know.” The Lady sounded supremely disappointed. “But the fact that you returned at all is vital. Your body’s song went somewhere and it came back—reluctantly—but it came back.”
The floor groaned beneath Octavia. Leaf squawked and took flight. Branches emerged from the smooth floor and, in the space of seconds, formed a high-backed chair.
“Sit.” The Lady pointed at Octavia. “Your legs are hurting.”
“I—I’d like to stand, I don’t know how much longer I—”
“Trees stand. They don’t have the luxury of sitting.”
Octavia sat. The chair was smooth, the green wood stripped of any twigs or leaves. It perfectly fit the curves of her hips and buttocks. She was reminded of how Alonzo’s body fit against hers—his lips, his height, his hands on her waist. Grief clogged her throat. I’ll never know more than that.
“If you see dozens of paths into the future—”
“Octavia.” The Lady said her name, and Octavia felt like she’d smacked her head into a metal beam. Suddenly she was glad she sat. “You were born to be the next Tree. I didn’t shift your cells. I didn’t make you a medician. The magic was there, brought together by your parents. When you were able to float a patient beyond a circle—when you listened to the rhythms of zymes—I was amazed along with you.”
Octavia froze. That sense of isolation she had known her whole life had always been balanced by the surety that the Lady knew, she understood.
“Of course I knew and understood.” The Lady flicked a wrist as to dismiss the thought. “I understood you were here to take my place. In that, maybe there was divine intervention. I have already gone fifty years longer than I should, and with Kethan’s burden and the factories and the war . . . I think I only have a few days left. The roots are rotting out.”
“Lady, I don’t want—”
“Do you think I care what you want?” The spirit of the Lady rounded on Octavia as her words quaked through the walls, the floor, shivered moss from above. Leaf squawked from up high—she could spy him as he clung to moss near the ceiling. “I’m not God, to satisfy all your wants and wishes. I can heal. That’s all I can do, and I can’t even heal everyone. The shortage of blessed herbs—that’s not simply because of the war. It’s my own weakness. There were days, in the Tree’s youth, when medicians planted full fields of pampria. Row upon glorious row. Now there’s no magic left in the soil to spur the growth. I can’t even deny all healings to those who I wish to die—those Dallowmen, harvesting the very signs of my death, my peeling bark, and making tea from it.” Octavia felt flecks of spittle from her vehemence. “It takes more effort to kill than to let live.”
“She wants to live and love.” That came from King Kethan. He still knelt on the floor, his gaze level.
“Yes! Everyone wants the same, and what can I do? Almost nothing, even as I’m aware of everything from the bud of a single larkspur to an old man’s final breath. Even more, I know them at the very end and they know me, even if they never heard of the Lady and the Tree.”
Like the boy who died in Leffen, who spoke of her; Alonzo’s message when he returned by the grace of the Tree’s leaf; the woman at the sod house.
“This is cruel,” said King Kethan.
“LIFE IS CRUEL.” The Tree convulsed. There was a long pause. Octavia felt a cool breeze again, like the long breaths of Al Cala meditation. “Octavia knows the value of the lives she saves because she knows her own loss. She knows that her whole village burned in the span of minutes, and who was left to mourn? Her, the Garrets, and the families of the thirteen Dallowmen of the Alexandrio. No one else in Caskentia cared. They each knew their own grief. She’s a good medician because she cares. She remembers.”
The Lady turned to her again. “I know you want to continue as a medician, but you can’t. Without a Tree, there are no more herbs, there is no more healing magic. I am not even sure if you would still be able to hear bodies’ songs here. Perhaps if you went across the sea, to the land of another Tree, but not here. But even if you could hear them, soon enough there wouldn’t be any blessed herbs. You might be able to hear and do nothing.”
Octavia wanted to coil into a tight ball of agony. “If you haven’t always been here, what kept the land going before? Was there another Tree?”
“Of course. Otherwise medicians would have not existed. But he was weak, as both a medician and as a Tree. His legacy was the jealousy of Caskentia, the curse on the Dallows.”
“And you,” Octavia said.
The Lady laughed like a gale at sea then stopped, her expression one of surprise at the sounds she herself was making. Does not know how to laugh anymore. Octavia took care to edit her own thoughts to keep them her own.
“Yes, I suppose I am his legacy. I know what the tales say of me. ‘The mourning mother.’ ‘The one who begged God that she might treat the suffering.’ ” Venom dripped from the words. “When I talk about the cruelty of life, I know it. Yes, I mourned. Yes, I mothered. But becoming the Tree is not a proclamation of morality, no more than surviving a threem is proof of virginity. The Tree creates magic, and the magic creates herbs and medicians, and the best of medicians becomes the next Tree, and so the cycle continues.”
“Who were you, Lady? Before?” asked Octavia.
The spirit’s mouth opened, her expression one of puzzlement. “I . . . I’ve been called Lady for so long. I don’t remember my old name.” She shook her head. “But I . . . I had three children. Their names, I know. Cameron, Aidan, and Cassandra.
“When they call me the mourning mother, it’s because my grief shook through the land. It haunted the dreams of medicians. It caused pampria to weep red. I was forced to leave my children as orphans. It’s because I had to know their laments to the Tree—because I raised them with faith—and could do nothing to help when Cassandra died in child labor at thirteen, when a wagon crushed Aidan’s spine at eighteen and left him paralyzed until he brought a knife to his gut three months later, when Cameron strangled five consecutive wives and cursed them for his impotence.”
Octavia’s lungs felt heavy, her body cold. No sympathy toward me. No choice.
King Kethan bowed his head, a fist pressed to his chest. The Lady faced him with a tender smile. “Yes. You know what it’s like, to a degree. To lose a child and be powerless against it. To be bound in one place when your mind is everywhere else.” The Lady rested a hand on the top of his head again. “So many thousands of books are bound to your soul and memory. Their ultimate loss is the only reason I grieve to do this.”
There was a split second when Kethan frowned in puzzlement, and then a spine of wood erupted from the floor at a ninety-degree angle. It impaled Kethan with a horrible crunch of atrophied organs and flesh. Other branches spontaneously crackled forth and grabbed hold of his shoulders to clutch him upright. His song wailed, the screech of a toddler blowing into bagpipes. Even knowing this was the Lady, Octavia couldn’t help but lunge forward, her hands reaching to open her satchel.
The chair bound her. Green branches snared her ankles, girthed her lap, and forced both arms back to their rests.
“Kethan!” His name sobbed out of her. Octavia needed to be there, to lay her hand on his brow, to ease his passing as she had eased that of so many soldiers at the front. She craned against the restraints and screamed. “Peace to you, Kethan! Go to Varya! Allendia loves you. She’s never forgotten you.”
Octavia knew Kethan heard her by the shift in his song as it softened—that through the frenzy of his pain, there came the peace of a steady flute. His agony didn’t ease. His wound didn’t heal. This time, he was truly dying.
The Lady stood between them, her expression impassive as she watched Kethan. Her hands rested atop her rounded hips.
“Let me go to him!” Octavia yelled.
“I have him.” The Lady said it with tenderness.
The spear of the Tree moved. It retracted and traced a circle like an oversize scalpel. Kethan moaned, his frail form falling slack in the branches’ grip. His lungs, his body, deflated.
Leaf squawked and dove downward. One of the branches lashed him aside. He impacted on the far wall with a fleshy smack.
“Leaf!” Octavia screamed. Her wrists and shoulders burned as she tried to thrust herself forward in little jolts. In response, the branches squeezed. She couldn’t so much as wiggle. Octavia knew by Leaf’s song that he was merely bruised and dazed, but that didn’t stop her rage.
“Chimeras.” The Lady shook her head, her lips curled. “Men meddling with things they shouldn’t. But I can’t stop all life. It just happens sometimes, even in a circle.”
Kethan’s song dimmed.
Leaf crawled to her. He dragged his wing, the one that wore the silver fork. “Come on, Leaf, come on,” she whispered. Alonzo could have been swatted in the same way. Still could. Death is harder, but she can still kill.
The branch withdrew from Kethan. Its forked end balanced a nugget the size of a hulled almond. The Lady plucked it up and held it to the light. “So many years since it was stolen. So many years it has been in the wrong vessel. But now . . . now. Peace to you, Kethan,” said the Lady.
Hot tears streamed down Octavia’s cheeks. “Good-bye, Grandfather,” she whispered. As if he’d been waiting for the words, his soul departed their world.
“Soon enough, peace for me as well. Once you’re rooted, Octavia, my time is done.”
The Lady walked to Octavia, smiling, the seed cradled in the plush nest of her palm.