He frowned. Hewastoo tired for such a small amount of damage. Maybe it would do him good to rest.
To his shock, a familiar, beloved voice echoed through his head.
Rest, it whispered.
Vale stilled. Part of him wanted to snarl at the voice: all these centuries of silence, and it showed up now, to tell him the very thing hecouldn’tdo for so long?
“There is work to do,” Vale argued, tail lashing angrily. “You are not well.”
The void washed through him again. It was tired, just like him. But also, fond. So fond he almost choked on it. He had been working thanklessly for solong.
“Fine,” Vale gritted. “But not for long. I have an assistant now; I will put her to work.”
Another pulse ran through him. This one was joyful—perhaps the same joy Ivy had described earlier. The first thing it had shown her after she was sprayed with the heatbloom pollen.
Vale started toward his nest. The trees did not bend for him, and he sighed.
He understood his void less now than he ever did. But that did not matter now. He had a new duty: rest for averyshort amount of time and then finally teach his mortal how to trim the eastern rib-thickets.
He arrived at his nest and stopped, spellbound.
He had expected to find it empty. To come across his troublesome new mortal locked in some other mishap. But Ivy was curled up in his nest, her red hair fanned out over the fur. Every time she breathed, the nest fell and rose with her breath.
Like she is part of my void,Vale thought dizzily.Part of me.
Long-dead emotions swelled inside him. He ignored it and climbed into the nest, angling himself awkwardly so as not to jostle her. He fell asleep easily, her warm scent dragging him into sleep’s sweet embrace faster than ever before.
Eight
Two weeks later, Ivy dropped a rib-bone into a pile and stepped back with a triumphant smile.
“Done,” she declared. She looked around the newly cleared eastern rib-thickets, but Vale was nowhere to be seen. Taking away another armful of excess bones, Ivy assumed. Once the bones had been stripped from the trees they were strangling, Vale took them to the nightbeast lair. Apparently, the nightbeasts used them as nests. The bones were also used for Vale’s tool-crafting or, occasionally, crushed up for spell fodder.
Nothing in the void was wasted. Everything thrived off each other. Ivy loved watching it work, and she especially loved it when Vale explained things to her. His explanations were usually short and impatient, but sometimes he seemed to enjoy her questions rather than get annoyed by them, which was nice. Ivy hated being an annoyance. She hoped she had been less of one since that disastrous first day in the wilderness void.
“Master Skullstalker,” she called into the trees. “We’re finished! Should we weed the teeth-lilies next? Or untangle the skull-saplings?”
No reply. Ivy craned her head, watching for a flash of antlers. When that didn’t work, she hesitantly reached toward the void in her head.
The void immediately pulsed back at her. It felt happy enough. Tired, but that was normal. It felt more tired with each day that passed. The crack that started next to the silver pool portal was bigger now, reaching trees and bushes and sapping the darkness out of them. Everything that surrounded the silver pool had gone white. Ivy had never realized how intimidating that color could be until she saw all the poisoned plants around the pool.
Ivy looked around the dark forest, its bright bones and leaping corpsefrogs. It was horrifying, yes. But it was also alive, in its own strange way. How could she possibly be the one to kill it? To steal its keeper?
Vale emerged through the trees, stopping Ivy’s thoughts in their tracks.
“Master!” Ivy beamed, waving like an idiot until she caught herself and stopped. “We’re finished! Isn’t it great?”
She spread her arms to display the trees ahead, which were mercifully un-strangled by wayward ribcages.
Vale barely glanced at them before stooping to gather the last pile of bones Ivy had plucked from the trees. He betrayed none of his tiredness, which Ivy knew he felt. The void let it creep into her sometimes: every day it got worse. Slowly, with Vale sleeping regularly, but still worse.
“Come,” Vale said.
Ivy followed him, hiding her disappointment. And then, of course, her discomfort.
Vale glanced back at her. “Are you well?”
“Yes,” Ivy said hastily.
