Chapter 21: Through Thicket and Wayward Storm
Those who follow will not know their strength, their weakness, their beginning, their end. They will only know the world as we left it, broken and bleeding, Devoured by a greed more potent than love, a fire more fierce than time. And they, the light willing, might have hope to overcome. Or perhaps will succumb differently.
Gideon's Call
A moon in Blue Stone passed so quickly. Training with Aster – I never beat her even once – taught me a lot. Jasmin did eventually manage to pay Aidan actual money for books. Where she kept her coin purse was a mystery, but I let it slide.
Roisin spent the time doing the work of a local Lady: hearing the complaints of the town, helping where she could, sharing food and time with the people. She was, at last, growing up and becoming who she was meant to be. And for some reason, that hurt. Nevertheless, I was proud of her.
Asha and Aidan were inseparable. Each sun, he arrived with books for Jasmin and one or two for Asha. They read together, played together, and event slept on the floor together more than a few times. When we at last went to leave, he made her promise to return when they could properly enjoy Blue Stone without the adults.
We did, as Roisin and Jasmin desired, make sure to hold a proper wedding for them while in Blue Stone, and for the second time in her life I saw Roisin wearing a dress. She looked like magic.
Sleeping in a bed is a luxury I will never again take for granted. We were back on the road, using bedrolls in tents, and I immediately missed the large plush bed in the children's hall of Thornleaf Manor – there was no way I was sleeping in the bedroom next to Roisin and Jasmin, as they made entirely too much noise.
The road to Shallowroot Thicket was at least a moon if we took our time and avoided the straightest route. Jasmin knew a 'shortcut', and the horses were well-rested and well-fed. So by her estimation it should've taken half that time. She and Roisin had made it fairly quickly when Vaelis was with them but not entirely lucid, so I had faith.
As the sea faded behind us, Ma and Da's song found its way to my lips. Not the celebratory version, but the one Da sang to Roisin until she was five.
"Eve and morn, and far from home," I sang the words to Asha softly, but Jasmin and Roisin quieted once they noticed, "Though shadows come and sorrows roam, this war and tears and our weary hearts, will pass if we recall The Stone."
Roisin's eyes were soaked as I continued through the verses. She'd not heard that version of the song since Da started singing the other version to her. Asha fell asleep in my arms as I sang.
I'd originally believed, but realised eventually that the song was from Ma's hometown, but Da seemed to hold more nostalgia for it than her. He made it his own every time he sang it, so I listened when he sang alone, committing every syllable to heart.
Eve and morn, and far from home
Though shadows come and sorrows roam
This war and tears, and our weary hearts
Will pass if we recall The StoneThe world is bleak, chills to your soul
A wind that cuts through steel and snow
And loss is lost at last through to the end
You're safe with me, within The StoneO, calm your heart, still your aching breath
I'll watch you dear, till you succumb to death
Though waves and wind and sorrow groan,
I'll keep you here, love, safe in The StoneNo Ma, no kin, no peaceful sights abound
Our world's full of hellish stormy sounds
But joy and peace lie in the place we love
The Stone protects, dear, from all aroundO bring your heart near to my own.
Still your breath, and calm your tone.
No wind nor waves, nor sorrow groan.
Not here, my love, not in The Stone.
It was a shame, really, that Ma couldn't be here to see her baby girls all grown up and saving the world. And a right despicable thing that Da couldn't see Roisin had found her own shield and fortress in Jasmin. We'd gone so long without them it was a challenge to recall their faces some suns. But we had the memories and the lessons to push us forward.
Asha's Answer
No one warned me before it came into view that Shallowroot Thicket was somewhere between an expansive boggy marsh and an immense acidic swamp, but just the same we arrived at its border just twelve suns after leaving Blue Stone. How does one demark the border of such a place? Well she might go by the craggled trees or the sparse animal life. An intrepid adventurer might suggest the place where the ground goes too wet to walk proper.
Roisin marked it by the moment her nose filled with, in her words, "a miserable air of foul texture and smell, like stagnant waters and sorrow."
The moment she announced we were close, we dismounted our horses to save them the trouble of carrying us and walking through the muck that was to come. Asha spent the time on Jasmin's shoulders, since the woman seemed unfazed by any amount of extra weight. Roisin told me Jasmin once ran for two full suns at top speed carrying not just my sister but also all their gear. I was inclined to believe the tall tale after watching the woman move through the world with such grace.
Walking through shallow wetness on a path that seemed desperate to swallow our feet – and us with them if we were careless – we made our way through on a path Jasmin and Roisin seemed far too confident walking, and we found ourselves at last standing in view of Aurelin's temple.
It was an odd thing. The trees in Thornwood Hallow seemed to beg for even the slightest brush of the stones that comprised Salora's temple deep in the forest. But everything in the Thicket longed to be as far from Aurelin's temple as possible, reaching instead for a goddess who was no longer there to serve her domain. Even Roisin and Jasmin seemed to slow their steps the closer we got to the monument, but my own feet moved faster.
The temple longed for a goddess, and my heart longed for a place I'd never seen. A home that belonged to someone I would never become. A garden too long neglected and overrun with stagnation. I don't know when it happened, but eventually I was walking on dry earth, my feet no longer plunged into the black water of the Thicket, and I was running toward Aurelin's temple.
Devourers. Great golden lizards of various sizes covered nearly every surface of the stone structure. I'd begun growing accustomed to seeing and expecting groups of five, but this was something else. A family of the things, growing, replicating or procreating, nearly overrunning the bounds of their home. No. The place they stole in the absence of the proper owner.
And I could do nothing for them. We'd learned that in Violet's Repose. But we couldn't just leave them there.
"Well that's not what I was hoping to find here," Roisin caught me up and set a hand on my shoulder just as I began to spiral. "Good news, though, is that Jasmin and I should be able to manage this."
"It's odd, though," Jasmin began the work of setting Asha on my shoulders, "that they keep themselves away from the deimward platform – they're not even getting close to the stairs."
"No point in worrying over specifics just yet, darling," Roisin kissed Jasmin's cheek, then turned to me. "You get Asha up on top of that platform and stay while we work. She doesn't know how to fight, and you can't do anything to these."
"We could try goldroot," I offered, already letting my feet follow Roisin's orders, "but I suppose Em said that was a risk."
"It is," Jasmin called after me, "because eating goldroot is like drinking a cup of coffee that keeps you going for the rest of your suns." She laughed at something, probably Roisin making a gross comment, and added, "Stay quiet and move slowly and smoothly once you step into the temple's space. They react to those things."
A long walk around the temple separated me from the stairs that would get me up to the platform, which gave me plenty of time to think. Why would they avoid that area? Why were they bound within the temples? More than that, if they were bound, then how did five of them get to Violet's Repose? Mysteries within mysteries.
We entered the temple space, but the lizards just stared at us, not making a move. They weren't swishing tails or tilting heads. If not for the active flames covering their bodies, I might've assumed them rugged gold statues waiting to crumble at the edge of time.
My feet carried us to the stairs, and I began to climb. Sounds of combat began behind us. With them, the shrieking. Asha covered her ears against the noise. Good girl. I continued my way up.
Just as before, a gentle force sped my ascent. Almost a hundred steps. I counted each one as I left the fighting to Jasmin and Roisin. When at last we reached the platform, I saw a small altar covered in various objects. Flowers, bottles, jars, a few rolled parchments and scrolls of various types. Several books. But what caught my eyes in particular were two flowers, left by Jasmin and Vaelis when they visited with Roisin many moons before.
They'd told me the story, but it was different to see in person. A silverthorn and a bloodleaf. Like sisters, bleeding melting into something magical that might save the world or burn it to the ground. The silverthorn had long since wilted, but the bloodleaf looked as though it had been plucked that very hour. Still they painted a majestic picture, and my heart ached.
There should be three more flowers there. Goldroot, snowpetal, and voidstem. But the world was still healing. Time would bring the goddesses where they belonged.
· That's very poetic, but perhaps check on your sister. ·
I'd not seen Jasmin and Roisin work together before. I'd seen Jasmin fight, sure. She was an animal with the mind of a poet and the skill of a mistress of the blade. Calculating and clean with every move. Roisin was surgical precision and speed, everything she needed to make up her size disadvantage. Watching them fight the Devourers together was watching dancers perfectly in rhythm with each other.
Each one knew where the other would be, when she would be there. No words passed between them, only brief looks and touches. This wasn't the practised skill of two women who trained and fought together for a lifetime. It was the perfect synchronisation of love and trust in everything brought to bear in a high stakes moment, and their individual skills highlighted that better than anything else could.
Jasmin fought with dagger and sabre, though one was less helpful in the fight than the other. Roisin said Jasmin had been a fencer when she was still a proper noblewoman, but the sabre was an extension of her arm. Precise, perfect, deadly.
Roisin only used that same sabre I'd seen as we entered Blue Stone. It was an awful thing, but she moved like it was leading her and not the other way round. The sword drove the battle, and Roisin was there to facilitate its glee.
But there were too many Devourers. One misstep would mean everything fell apart.
Worse. With each one that fell, it seemed two or more Devourers were ready and willing to take its place. All the while, Roisin and Jasmin couldn't keep fighting forever, no matter how well or far Jasmin could, no matter how scrappy Roisin might be. It showed. They were slowing down, taking swipes from the beasts that they should've been able to avoid.
Red blood was beginning to mix with the black sludge that served for blood in the Devourers. And yet we could do nothing.
I'd long since set Asha down to survey the fight. I hadn't noticed her wandering to the altar or retrieving the flower. I'd've scolded her for putting her hand so close to silverthorn, but she came to my side holding the bloodleaf flower and looked up at me.
"Aunt Rosie's going to be okay, Momma," she said. Her eyes looked wrong. Not the earthen brown I'd known for so long. Not the ash or grey or even the blue of Davian's family. They were starstreaked, with red spikes spreading outward from the pupils like some sort of flames. How long had they been like that?
Her hand held the flower out, like instinct pulling her forward, and I watched as brilliant scarlet red flames spread from her shoulder to her wrist, not quite touching the flower. Asha's cold-flame felt like dreaming.
"Is it okay, Momma, if I help?" Her eyes were begging. I couldn't say no.
"Show me, sweetie, what you have in you."
The cold-flame moved that last little bit, engulfing her hand, then the flower, and I watched as the stem grew thick in her hand, shifting from its dark wood-green to ruby-red as it extended into a long curved thing. It looked like fire frozen solid, a bow made of soul and blood and blossom. This was Asha's moment to step from ordinary into divine.
While it had no string, Asha seemed to have no issue drawing the bow, a cold-flame arrow forming fully nocked as she did. A deep breath in, then out, then in, then out, then in, and held. She held it for several seconds before releasing the arrow, a thunderous volley of fire and destruction flew from the platform down into the fray.
She repeated the action four or five times, drawing the attention of the Devourers away from Roisin and Jasmin. That's when she changed. She was no longer just some little girl. She was a Huntress, and the Devourers were her quarry. Precise, singular bolts of her scarlet fire struck down Devourers one-by-one like they were little more than festival amusement targets to be hit with balls.
As the Devourers' numbers thinned, Roisin and Jasmin were able to get back into the fight, quickly culling the ones that Asha had hit but not neutralised. Victory was theirs before I fully had time to understand what I was watching.
My daughter. My sister. My sister-in-law. And me. We were the next generation of divinity. And we were terrifying. More than the most hellish beasts.
· Couldn't agree more. ·