17

THE TREE
OF SOULS

At this point, I’m willing to believe anything. Even things I’ve never heard of before.

I’ve seen the Bone Tree’s power firsthand. I’ve seen how it melded with Varia, embedded itself into her very skin. I’ve seen myself heal from dire things—beheadings, fires, guttings. I’ve seen Windonhigh, like an impossible myth sprung from an old bard legend—a literal island in the sky. I’ve seen massive, heavy valkerax fly—I’ve seen them overcome the Bone Tree’s brute power by Weeping.

I’ve Wept. I’ve done what I thought three years ago would never be possible.

All that to say at this point, I’d be a fool to dismiss even the wildest idea.

At the sick look on Lucien’s face, I called Malachite belowdeck and gathered four mugs of cold barley ale from the tap room, spreading them among our somber table. The ship creaks in our silence.

Malachite’s the first to admit confusion. “So what if they were the same tree? What does that even mean?”

Fione traces the book’s page thoughtfully. “I’ll need more time to truly turn it over. And the Black Archives’ resources will help clarify things. But for now, the best I can do is guess. I’ve heard of the term ‘Tree of Souls’ from only one place.” She looks up at me, mousy curls bobbing. “The Old God’s supporters, their rosaries—they call that the Tree of Souls.”

My mind flashes back to Y’shennria, to her wood-carved, naked tree rosary she kept with her at all times, stroking it in times of distress or difficulty. She’s an Old God worshipper—that’s why she’s been admitted into the relative safety of Windonhigh at all. She adored that rosary—leaned on it like a true friend and confidant.

“What does it actually mean, though?” Mal presses.

“It means,” Lucien says, “if we were to interfere with the Bone Tree, we could be interfering with the flow of all magic. Forever.”

I go still. “Do—did the High Witches know about this?”

“Presumably,” he says. “Which is no doubt the major reason they decided not to help us interfere with the Bone Tree. If we did, we’d be interfering with half of the Tree of Souls.”

“And if we were to destroy both trees,” Fione says, looking over at me pointedly, “theoretically, we would be wiping all magic from Arathess. Forever.”

“Wait,” I start. “So Gavik was wrong? The Glass Tree wasn’t made from a piece of the Bone Tree?”

“Correct.” Fione nods. “He was so scared by the Bone Tree, by Varia getting it, that he had his polymaths investigate as much as they could. And they came up with that hypothesis—that the Glass Tree was made from a splinter of the Bone Tree.”

“But it’s not.” I frown.

I see Fione’s hand shake, before she hides it quickly in her sleeve. “If this older text is to be believed, no.”

“So this Tree of Souls is important. And the Old Vetrisians split it? So how does it still give witches their magic?”

“It’s been physically split.” Lucien stares into his mug with glassy eyes. “But its magical imprint is still intact. The Tree of Souls still exists, but not on a physical level. That’s why it only ever comes to witches in dreams. Dreams are how it moves—how it communicates, and how it gives witches their magic.” He sucks in a sharp breath. “But the wound of being split like that—it must be hurting. Terribly, and for so long. For a thousand years now.”

pain like eternity, the hunger sneers at him.

“So, wait.” Malachite holds up one long-fingered hand. “You’re saying a thousand years ago, Old Vetris decided the only way to stop the valkerax was to split this super-important magic witch tree? And the witches just let them?”

“Let?” Lucien scoffs. “The Mist Continent was on the verge of ruin. They did what they thought was the right thing—they used the most powerful tool at their disposal.”

“And the most mysterious,” Fione agrees. “I didn’t…I didn’t even know it was real. All these trees, lost to time, to the crumbling of Old Vetris, and then consumed in the fires of war.” She inhales deeply. “No doubt the Old Vetrisians had little clue as to what would concretely happen if the Tree of Souls was split. But they decided the short-term benefit was worth the unknown consequences far down the road. And that ‘far down the road’ is our reality, right here and right now.”

Her periwinkle eyes dart over to me, and we share a silent moment. We talked earlier of consequences, too. About what would happen if we destroyed the trees. Both of them. That’s what I want above all. I want the valkerax and the Heartless to be free. But if it means I destroy all magic, too, I—

I don’t know if it’s worth that.

All magic. All magic, ever. Forever.

It would change the world. There wouldn’t be any more witches. The valkerax—who knows how they actually fly? Maybe that’s magic, too. Maybe the Wave that gave the celeon sentience… Would that go away? Would the celeon revert? Would Windonhigh come crashing to the ground? What would happen on the other three continents I can’t see? They have magic there, too. Everywhere. Different magic, everywhere. All gone.

Because of me. My decision.

There’s a stretched-thin silence, like old worn skin over an older drum. One too-hard beat, and it will break—gape open into darkness.

“We need more information,” Fione says first. “We could be jumping to illogical conclusions without all the facts. Or even the majority of facts. Once we’re at the Black Archives I can translate more—we should wait to decide until then.”

“Sure, whatever.” Malachite puts his hands behind his head. “I’m leaving the thinking to the rest of you, honestly. Just keep in mind I’m team ‘don’t-let-the-valkerax-out.’”

I look over at Lucien, his face drawn tight. I can see the wheels of his brain working, quietly, swiftly. What would it mean to get rid of magic? What would it mean for Cavanos, for his kingdom?

What’s left of his kingdom?

Thankfully, the tedium of dinner and cleaning dishes and waxing the seals in the hull takes over. But it’s still not enough exertion to exhaust my brain—not in the slightest. When curfew falls I stay awake, staring up at the ceiling-floor of the ship, all our hammocks swayed gently by the ocean’s lull. Most of the sailors snore, a few of them draped over their hammocks in impossible positions. I jolt out of my skin when one of them sits bolt upright and starts punching the air, except the air happens to be the sagging weight of the sailor’s arse above him. The above neighbor is too drunk to wake. I suppress a laugh at the ridiculousness of it all, grateful for the reprieve.

Lucien’s hammock is next to mine, Fione’s above me, and Malachite’s above his. I can see his dark silhouette breathing gently into the stale, sweaty air. I know he’s not asleep. How can he be? This changes everything. Even if Fione warned us not to jump to conclusions, the questions still ring clear as bells in our heads.

If stopping Varia means destroying all magic, is that a worthy cost?

She’ll be consumed by the Bone Tree in a few months. She acknowledged that herself. She’ll die. We could let her rampage until she perished, but she wouldn’t be the only one. People would die by her hand, her power. Untold numbers of people.

But how many people would die without magic?

The witches of Cavanos would be defenseless, truly and totally. Witches all over the world would have to learn how to piece reality together again after a total destruction of their way of life. And that’s not even taking into consideration “far down the road.” Anything could happen down the road. Future generations would have to grapple with the decisions we made here and now. And their battles might be far worse than ours. A chain never-ending.

It’s too big to dwell on. It feels like if I give it more thought than the bare minimum, it’ll bend my mind into itself until there’s nothing left but fear.

great fear, and great hate, the hunger whispers.

I’m scared of falling asleep. Of seeing Varia in my dream again, connecting to her. I’m scared of the dream I had in Vetris—those two naked tree rosaries I felt I had to bring together. I know now what the thing that felt lonely is called. That feeling of wrongness that’s plagued me ever since then. The Tree of Souls.

Is that what the hunger is? That “wound” from the splitting? The Glass Tree’s hunger is in my head, and the Bone Tree’s hunger is in Varia. Is the hunger punishment for bisecting the Tree of Souls? I know it’s what’s been calling to me this whole time. Not the Glass Tree. Not the Bone Tree. But both of them. The thing they both are—the thing they both used to be. It’s been dreaming, reaching out to me through my dreams.

The tree of bone and the tree of glass will sit together as family at last.

I roll over again, chasing the Hymn of the Forest out of my head only to see Lucien’s sleeping outline is gone. His hammock is empty. Did he go abovedeck for some air? It’s not a bad idea, and I swing my legs over and stick my feet in my boots to follow him. He might need me. And even if he doesn’t, I need him.

We need each other, if we’re going to make it through this.

The salt air is crisper at night, gilded sharp by the full light of the Blue Giant, its cool incandescence completely unfettered by any mountains or hills or forests. There’s only the sea to soak it up, and the wood of our comparatively little ship. Lucien’s at the bow, watching the ship’s prow carve the water white. The helmsman nods to me, and I to him, the deck guard walking lazy circles and smoking a pipe, the smell of vanilla tobacco lingering on me as I lean on the rail beside the prince.

“It’s hard not to feel small,” I say. “In the middle of all this. Especially with a moon that big.”

The Blue Giant wordlessly looms on the horizon, dwarfing the ship, our sails, and casting a long shadow of us on the choppy water—a ship, and two people at its jutting prow.

“I wanted to be a good king,” Lucien’s voice comes out hoarse. “I wanted to—I saw what my father was doing to the country, and I didn’t want to be anything like him. I promised myself I wouldn’t close my ears to my people. I promised I’d use my power and wealth for good, not for fear.”

I want to reach for his hand on the railing, but this seems important. I don’t want to distract him. And, deep down, I don’t want to feel his unmoving hand. Not right now. Not when I’m afraid more than ever of losing him.

He clenches his working hand. “And then I realized, somewhere along the way. Somewhere between stealing my hundredth gold bracelet from some noble’s wrist to give to the urchins to pawn for food, I realized it. A kingdom is only as good as its king. Which means the cornerstone of the people’s well-being relies on what kind of person the king is. And left in a vacuum of power and pleasure, the majority of people become selfish. Princes raised to be kings most of all.”

“A king’s worth is one potato,” I say softly.

He looks over at me and smiles, his broad lips sad.

“Yes. It’s a system doomed to untold cruelty at worst, and negligence at best.”

“So…what will you do?”

His hawk-eyes pierce back out at the ocean. “Change. I don’t know how, precisely, or when. But if I’m to do what’s best for the people, for my people, then I must change things. Even if it means upheaval. Even if it means temporary strife. The fact that I must change it alone is a burden. But it’s my burden to bear. And, hopefully, the last.”

“You could just be king,” I insist. “You would be a good one.”

“That…” He chuckles, the sound bitter. “That’s the conceit, Zera. Don’t you see? Thinking that one person alone could decide justly and without bias the correct thing for millions of people…that is what being king means. It’s an impossibility. But it’s a convenient one, isn’t it? If the king is bad, if the people are suffering, it’s the king’s fault, not his ministers’. Not the systems in place that make the nobles richer and the people poorer. The king’s. An arbiter of impossible decisions and a scapegoat to place blame on all in one.”

I’m speechless. His words strike deep, and are terrifying.

“To think I could rule a country alone, decide what’s best for a whole country’s people completely alone… I’d be no better than Varia. I’d be holding on to power fearfully, instead of hopefully, and using it as a weapon as she uses the Bone Tree and the valkerax.”

“Lucien—”

“You made your decision.” He turns to me, our chests close now. “You said you would choose, no matter what. That to choose was your right. And you’re correct. To choose is your right. But to choose is everyone’s right, not just yours. Not just mine. Not just the king’s, and not just Varia’s. It’s all of ours. That’s why I have to stop her. That’s why, even if she’s my sister, even if I love her—”

His voice splinters, throat bobbing, and he reaches out for me. I take his hands in mine, holding them close to my face so he knows I’m here. So he can feel my heat, my realness.

“This.” I laugh a watery laugh. “This is why I fell in love with you.”

“Self-aggrandizing speeches?” His smirk is reluctant.

“No. Your sense of justice. The way you stay true to what you believe is right. I don’t think anyone can be right all the time, but you.” I tilt my face and kiss his palm. “You come the closest to anyone I’ve ever met. You think about other people before yourself. Always. You’ve always put others first, me first, and I—”

I glance up at him.

“If this is what you want for yourself, then you should have it. I don’t know what a Cavanos without a king looks like, but…I’ll help you. I’ll help you figure it out. Until the very end.”

His kiss is slow, hot and lingering against the cold sea air. There’s an edge to it, like a razor buried deep and begging to press into skin, and the soft sound that escapes my lips doesn’t sound like me. It sounds like someone sweeter. His hands find my waist, pulling me flush into him, and that’s when I know—all of him. I want all of him, no matter what that means, no matter the trembling in my body, no matter how or when or why. I want to touch him, every inch of him, and my fingers snake in his belt, under his shirt, feeling all the hard contours I’ve only seen up until now, only been tempted with—

“Well would you lookit that.”

The voice is a bucket of close, freezing water, and Lucien and I practically leap away from each other. The watchman stands at the railing beside us, puffing on his pipe and pointing beyond our shoulders, down. He flashes a toothless grin up at us with a single word.

“Moon jellies.”

Both our faces on fire, we peer over the railing. But all my fiery embarrassment sheds the moment I see the ocean—or rather, the sight beneath the ocean. Lights. Thousands upon thousands of flickering lights, flashing between red-blue to pink-green to yellow-orange and back again like perfectly circular rainbows. Some of them float closer to the surface, bobbing with gelatinous ease along the gentle waves, their tentacles drifting behind them like banners of the finest Avellish lace. The whole sea a dark emerald, but aglow with rainbow light.

“I’ve—I’ve read about them,” I whisper, grinning over at Lucien. “But I’ve never seen them!”

His laugh rings as he snakes his hand into mine. “Me neither.”

“Huh.” The watchman puffs his pipe. “It’s good luck, you know. ’Specially for lovers.”

“Oh?” Lucien’s eyebrow quirks.

“Ach, the usual. Together forever in bliss, etcetera etcetera.”

“Look at that one!” I gasp, pointing at the water. A light a hundred times the size of the others rises up from the depths, its massive circular head an awe-inspiring umbrella of vivid color and soft light. It’s nearly the size of the dinghy attached to the ship, and Lucien makes a choked noise when it floats closer and the massive tentacles prod at the ship’s hull, the gelatinous lace reaching curiously up toward us. I squeeze Lucien’s hand, wide-eyed and grinning huge at him.

“Oy!” The watchman barks down at it. “Leave ’em alone! They’re havin’ a romantic moment up here, you know!” Blithely unaware of the irony of his words, he picks up a nearby broom and bats at the tentacles with it. “Back! Back, you!”

Lucien and I glance at each other and devolve into laughter. Despite its titanic size, the moon jelly is so slow, it’s all comedy and no threat, and at some point the broom gets stuck to the jelly’s tentacle and the watchman fumbles it and the cleaning tool goes crashing into the water.

“Ach, fine! Keep it, then, you scoundrel!” He shakes his fist at the giant moon jelly as it floats away, dragging the broom behind it in its nest of lace. He turns to look at us. “Back to bed with you two, afore the gods send another one for ya.”

I make a facetious little salute before bouncing off, pulling Lucien along with me. The lingering heat in my veins from his kiss radiates, burning my cheeks even as we settle in our respective hammocks again. Hammocks are impossible for two people. I know that. Still. Still, I want him now more than ever. And I know he feels the same, because he decides to sleep facing me, a knowing smirk on his face.

“They’ll have real beds in the Black Archives,” he murmurs. A promise.

“Maybe.” I feign impartiality. “Or maybe there will only be beach.”

“Then”—his smirk grows—“there will only be beach.”

“You—!” My face blisters red as I roll over and hiss. “Go to sleep.”

His laugh is so gentle and deep, it sends a prickle up and down my spine.

“Reluctantly, I assure you.”