Page 191

Eyes closed, Velhya gathered her collection of tokens in a raised fist. Wren could see her plan now—Velhya would overload her power to destroy the Rootflesh. She’d force Voryx from the vessel, buying the Cycle one more chance without Wren losing herself in the process.

The avatar shuddered, falling back under the Rootflesh’s control. Velhya stood steady as an ancient oak, rooted in the Cycle itself. The Rootflesh blinked. Its focus settled on Velhya. For the first time, fear flashed across its gnarled features.

“NO!” the Rootflesh screamed.

Velhya slammed the tokens to the ground.

The night went white.

Wren squeezed her eyes shut but the afterburn of Velhya’s defiant pose flashed against her eyelids. A shriek burst through the air—a chord yanked out of tune. Then a hot gale smelling of decay and lightning roared past her so strongly it nearly tore her from the guardian’s grasp.

The crushing weight of Voryx’s presence was gone from the Heartwood, but he hadn’t been destroyed. Simply driven away. When the light faded, darkness settled once more.

Silas and Velhya were gone, and the Witherborn with them.

Chapter 50

Silence’s Wake

Wren barely noticed the ash gathering around her hooves. She didn’t care that tracks of filth washed down her cheeks with her tears. All she could see was the empty space. The spot of stone, cleared of rot as if scrubbed clean. The last place Velhya stood.

Without the avatar, the light in the Heartwood was dimmed once more to the small auras of the glowing mushrooms. Even those were darker now, as if they also felt the weight of what took place. Dawn was breaking beyond the trees, the sky turning shades of gold and purple, too beautiful for a moment like this. But time advanced, even when Wren couldn’t.

Slowly, the remaining Guardians gathered. Wren watched them—these strange elemental creatures without faces or expressions—and wondered how it was possible she could read their grief. It was in the slow, intentional way they approached the vacant spot of stone. They knelt, in their way, and she pressed her eyes closed, wiping hot tears aside.

A crack resounded from the Binding Bough—loud enough to shake the stones—startling her. The wound in the trunk no longer pulsed. It widened, fissures spreading up the tree’s length like black serpents. Branches crumbled to dust. The massive tree groaned and folded inward on itself, the hollowed trunk collapsing into a mountain of splintered bark and shattered roots.

The ground rumbled with the sound of it, dust and debris clouding the air, rushing in a gust so fierce it nearly knocked her from her hooves. A cage without a purpose. It didn’t seem possible to her. It had survived hundreds of cycles, but now it was nothing more than piles of shattered bark deep in the forest where few would even know it had existed at all.

Wren was starting to feel things again. Aches in her muscles. Exhaustion pounding in her head. A deep emptiness existed where her Spirit should have been.

Then a cry of anguish echoed, so grave it froze her heart. She turned toward the Gladeans clustered together across the rift. Ivon hovered over Hollis. His body shook as he cradled his son. The others only stood, faces drawn, heads bowed.

“I’m sorry.” Leora knelt beside them, weeping silently and shaking her head. “I’m so sorry.”

For a moment, Wren was in her kitchen again, holding her father as he closed his eyes for the last time, her mother’s wail driving the pain deeper. They weren’t in Thistlehold. It wasn’t her mother. But the sorrow—it was the same.

She stared at the scene for so long she barely heard the rumble of earth as Garin made a bridge between the broken platforms, or the heavy rush of footsteps that followed. It was only when he grabbed her shoulders that Wren noticed Orzen at all.

She blinked up at him. His skin was slick with blood, not all of it his own—looking at her like he was afraid she’d disappear if he took his eyes from hers.

It hit her all at once. Silas’s deception. Seeing her father again in the Hollow Heart. All they’d lost, with nothing but sorrow to show for it. All she’d nearly sacrificed in the name of protecting the Cycle. Her knees buckled.

He caught her, easing them both to the ground, drawing her close as if trying to hold her together by sheer force. She collapsed into him, the sound of her own broken cries muffled against him.

“I almost let Voryx—” Her throat closed around the words. “She wouldn’t let me. I tried to stop her. I couldn’t reach her.” Wren swallowed the sob clawing up her throat, but it only made the grief worse. “It was supposed to be me.”

Orzen’s arms tightened around her. “It wasn’t meant to be you.” His chin moved against her shoulder as he shook his head hard. “Velhya knew that. She chose this.”

He sounded so sure. She didn’t know whether it was truth or comfort, but she clung to it anyway. It was selfish to believe it, to be glad for Velhya’s sacrifice. Shame and fear swirled inside her. They bled into the relief that she was still there. That he was. The weight of his arms was the only thing that kept her from plunging deeper into despair.

He pulled back, close enough he couldn’t hide the ache in his eyes. “I was scared you wouldn’t hear me…you wouldn’t listen.”

“I nearly didn’t.” She rubbed the tears from her cheeks. “If she hadn’t stopped me…”

He nodded, the muscle in his jaw flexing. “Then I owe Velhya more than she knows…I still—” He swallowed and squeezed her shoulders. “We still need you.”

Her pain was too great to feel any comfort from his words.