But just to be sure, I picked an object off the fireplace mantel. Heavy and oval-shaped, with a patina surface nicked in silver specks.
My thumb caressed the whetstone. After years of frequent use, each pass of the blade’s edge scoured my heart with memories of a knight extending this present to me.
I gave the axe a quick run through until the rim glinted. Through the blade’s surface, my reflection stared back, symbols etching my countenance like the tangled roots and leaves of a fabled tree.
Mama had told me the story. While carrying me inside her womb, she’d been traveling and happened upon the greatoak. Admiring its beauty, Mama chopped off one of the tree’s lower branches, intent on crafting a future weapon for me, something I would wield later in life.
Lore spoke of sentient trees in that region of Autumn. According to Mama, the oak bristled. Harvesting from the bark without permission was sacrilege to such trees, but she’d fled before the enraged oak could snatch her.
The incident haunted Mama throughout her pregnancy. Out of fear of retribution, she hid the piece of wood in a chest, never daring to construct that weapon for me. But on the day her water broke, she’d been rummaging through that compartment and cut her finger on an oaken splinter. By sunrise the next day, I greeted this world with markings scrawled across my infant skin.
The discovery plagued Mama, which intensified over the years. Although I found the motifs beautiful, she believed the tree had branded me as a target, out of punishment for Mama’s deeds. From there, she concluded every tree in Autumn scorned Mama on the oak’s behalf and sought to harm her daughter.
The foliage imprints identified me as the oak’s future victim. Mama feared someday the trees of Autumn would have their compensation and kill me. While I grew up, she restricted me from attending school, making friends, or leaving the cottage for longer than a few minutes.
Did I buy any of this? Yes and no.
Nature had magic. It blessed and cursed people in different ways. Some people learned to communicate with each other when they shouldn’t be able to, the atmosphere channeling their words to each other the way it did between Jeryn and Flare. Although the female couldn’t speak, the couple heard her voice in a way the rest of us couldn’t.
Other people developed bonds with the fauna like Nicu.
Or they read signs in the wind like Aire.
The oak’s reaction to Mama was plausible. But reigning figures of nature attacked on their own, not in packs like wolves. Every tree in Autumn wasn’t out for my blood, merely to avenge its kin. Otherwise, I’d be dead by now.
To me, the curse had nothing to do with aesthetics or assassination. It had to do with pain. The markings hurt whenever I cried onto the symbols or heard any mention of the tree. But even that wasn’t the issue.
No, the problem was the imprints also stung whenever I threw myself into battle. That made it agonizing to fight, hindering the ability to protect myself.
That was the oak’s true punishment.
Still, I managed. I handled my shit like everyone did in this world.
I couldn’t protect Mama from herself. But I could protect her physically. So while growing up, I drafted and forged my axe, making improvements to its construction along the way, and fell in love with the craft of smithing.
As for Mama, she’d grown traumatized by the past. Her mental state deteriorated to the point where she stopped woodworking and once chained me to my bedpost when I was nine so I wouldn’t leave our home. Formerly the Master Carpenter of this nation, she became a husk of herself.
To pacify Mama’s worries, I started wearing the hooded cloak. I made this decision shortly after the bedpost-chaining episode.
Slowly, she loosened the reins on me. But the warnings were always the same whenever I stepped outside. “Don’t let the trees see you.”
So the cloak evolved into a shield. The ultimate falsehood.
Lies became safer than the truth, soothing Mama’s phobias. I told her what she wanted to hear, then told otherswhat I wantedthemto hear. Eventually, those lies led to more, and more, and more.
To this day, Rhys wouldn’t have known about Mama’s condition if not for the Masters. Profiting off this knowledge, they forced me to carry out their dirty work, such as killing Merit in The Shadow Orchard.
Now His Royal Fuckwit expected me to extract information from Aire about his mission. Though the king wasn’t a patient man, he’d gotten used to my messages coming at a slow rate. Additionally, Summer’s army kept Rhys busy, and he’d finally stopped assigning minions to randomly monitor our home. I had become a trusted source, enabling the king to parcel his cult off to greener pastures. Based on those factors, I had a month before Rhys would follow up.
Thirty days to end this charade. Thirty days to take him down.
Mama never shared the whereabouts of that infamous tree. No matter how many times I had asked, she feared I would go searching for it. But the second Briar shared her own tale, the pain in my skin had flared. And because this happened whenever someone talked about the tree of my origins, everything became clear.
Briar’s tree. Mama’s tree.
One and the same. It had to be.
From there, another uncanny clue had jogged my memory. Chiefly, it circulated around Rhys’s note today.
