I chose another memory at random, pressing it into the root, my hands nearly sinking into the spongy soil with the root. When the children had grown their little houses, their echoes of the village the Imperium had stolen from them, they had gifted the trees more than their teeth and their labor. They had given the trees their grief, the pain in their hearts that was unending and as rich as the finest compost.
They might not even understand, they might only know that they had sacrificed, but they had grown something and taking that action had helped them feel lighter.
But I understood. I poured my grief at losing my home into the root, and under my hands it became a sapling and then a tree, blocking out the sun, rising above the pale willows around it.
I was already moving, even as the children circled the tree, pressing their hands into it, gasping in wonder at the gifts it provided, the memories of their people, the knowledge of generations of elves.
I found another spot, placing a root in the ground and choosing a memory of my sister, when I had caught her crying one night, when she had asked me why we needed to be sacrificedand I had repeated what our mother always said, ignoring the pallor of her skin, the crescents she had cut into her palms with her nails.
I poured my grief into the soil, giving it away, and realized that in giving it away, I was letting other emotions take hold inside me. Without grief, I began to feel forgiveness, but also anger. How dare our mother demand this of us?
How dare she ask children to fight her war for her? Were we worth so little?
I grabbed another root, running away from the hands that tried to hold on to my shoulders, shoving the root into the ground, placing with it a memory of my mother stroking my hair and singing me a lullaby, even though I was long past the age where I needed such comfort to fall asleep.
I had been sacrificing for so long, grieving a future for my country that would never come to pass now that I had Tallu by my side, and all that left room for in my heart was anger at the woman who had demanded it, at the nation that had not been strong enough to defend itself against the Southern Imperium, and so had claimed my sister and me as sacrifice.
I smelled smoke, felt the rage building up in my throat, felt it coming out of my mouth as hot lava. There were screams, the smell of something burning, and I realized I was burning the last of the elder tree roots.
“Airón,” Tallu said. He covered my hands with his, pulling the roots I clutched in the silk scarf free and putting out the flames with his own flesh.
His skin blackened and bubbled, and I gasped, crying out.
I shoved back from Tallu, aware that all of the plants around me had burned. Covering my mouth with my hands, I forced the lava back into my throat, trying to draw my rage back inside of me, but that was the danger with fire magic. Like the volcano the dragon had set to life, my rage could not be contained until it burned itself out.
I sat back on my heels, screaming up into the air, watching theflames burst from my flesh, spout from my mouth like a torturous, horrible song.
My mother had sacrificed me and Eonaî. She had treated us as things. She had decided when we still grew inside her belly that we would not be children, but the tools for her revenge.
There had never once in my entire life been a moment where I had been allowed to choose my own destiny. Spider might see the golden thread that wrapped around me, holding me to my path, but I had never even had the illusion that I would be allowed a choice.
My mother had never loved me.
The thought dampened my anger, banking my fury. It had been so deeply held, the suspicion that I was a thing, not a person, and yet I knew it was untrue.
There had been a memory… I had given it away, and as soon as I had given it away I had begun to doubt my mother’s love for me.
I tried to remember, but the missing past was a gaping wound in my mind, akin to the missing tooth of the elven child.
So I searched my mind for other memories of my mother and came up with more. Yes, she had been cold, but she was a northern queen.
She had forced herself to be cold because she had once told me that men built houses, but women built kingdoms. Then she had stroked my cheek and told me of the house she had imagined I would build someday with children and wolves and as many spouses as I wanted.
Around me, the ground still smoldered, but I felt the fire going out inside me.
My mother had taught me to play a strategy game from Ristorium, spending hours each winter over the course of years until I finally was a capable opponent.
My mother had come into my room the night before Eonaî and I had left for the Imperium and sat next to our beds, crying into her hands when she thought we were asleep.
Tallu approached, kneeling in front of me, ignoring the embers that lingered on the ground. He stroked the back of his hand over my cheek.
“Are you back with us?” he asked.
I closed my eyes. I could still smell the burning flesh on his palms, the acrid scent horrible. Tallu stroked the backs of his fingers up to my temple and I opened my eyes, grabbing his hands. His palms were blackened, bubbling with blisters.
I bent my head, kissing his fingers, kissing his palms. What had I done? In losing my grief, in sacrificing the part of me that felt empathy not just for my mother and the horrible decision she had been forced to make, but also for all of the potential harm the Imperium could do to the Northern Kingdom, all of the harm it had done to Tavornai and Forsaith and the Ariphadi desert, I had given up the part of my soul that made me myself and yielded to an anger that ate at me.
Closing my eyes, I drew on my desire to heal Tallu, feeling it rise in me with a certainty that was more comforting than the anger had ever been.
