by A. W. Exley
Dawn rolled her eyes. What a silly question to ask a gardener. “Seed, of course.”
His hands uncurled and his head dropped to his chest. His shoulders slumped and even his wings sagged. Defeat rolled off him in sad waves.
What did seed have to do with whatever Ava forced Jasper to do…? Then realisation slammed into Dawn and she blushed. No wonder he couldn’t face her. She could only imagine the depth of his shame, if his words were true.
His words were softly spoken but carried on the still night. “She takes my seed to spread her poison throughout the estate. The black vines are the hideous deformity she creates from our union. It is my offspring that suffocates this land.”
Dawn blew out a long breath, and a measure of her pain and heartache dissipated with it. Elijah was right, Ava had thrown the exact weapon that would have made Dawn bolt from the estate. Except she could never be angry at Jasper when he was forced against his will.
Each question answered raised a myriad more. “Why do you not refuse her? If you stood your ground and resisted her demands, what could she do?”
Nothing, surely, but pout and shake her leaves. There would be no point sending an invasion of greenfly to the rose garden when the roses had already ceded that battle.
He met her gaze and his jaw ground. “She can force me to go to her, but she cannot compel me to act against my will. However, I am not the only Warder living on this estate that she can command. If I resisted her for too long—” His words choked off and he didn’t complete the sentence.
Dawn gasped and a hand flew to her cover her mouth. Not the only Warder? Elijah. Dawn doubled over as her stomach rebelled at the idea. She gasped air into her lungs to fight back the revulsion that clawed up her gullet. She recalled her conversation with Elijah; Uncle Jasper has always placed himself between her and us. “No. She couldn’t. Not him.”
Jasper took one step toward Dawn. “She would. I refused her summons once, many years ago. Elijah was just a babe, and still she made him crawl through the maze to her until I’d begged her to let him go from her thrall.”
Dawn dropped to the grass and pulled her knees up to her chest. She leaned into the warm side of Mouse. She needed to think. A winter storm and a freezing blizzard of horrid ideas slammed against her mind. How could a mother use her child? What sort of twisted, evil monster would pervert the maternal bond in such a way?
Jasper took another step and then sat on the grass beside her, so she was between gargoyle and wolfhound. Jasper tucked his wings in close so as not to scrape or disturb her or Mouse. “Whatever you feel or don’t feel for me, I need your help. I cannot free us of Ava’s control on my own. If you will not have me as a mate, at least accept me as Lord Warder. We could rebuild Ravenswing – together.”
Dawn had only ever wanted a simple life tending a garden. She never wanted to face such choices where the lives and happiness of others depended on her. All day she had wrestled with what to do. Part of her wanted to run and lick her wounds. Then the cuts all over her body heated. A faint black spider web had already begun to spread.
She blinked back the tears. Life wasn’t fair. Ava had already struck her fatal blow. How long would it take for the vine to eat away at her from the inside? The people and land of Alysblud needed her. At least she could do something to help them before she succumbed to the poison in her body.
“I will try, but it may be a short-lived victory.” She laid a hand over her chest. “Due to a heart condition, the doctors always told my parents I was not long for this world, and I received a similar admonition from Dr Day.”
Then she held out her bare arms to show the dark smudges radiating out from the cuts. “And Ava’s vine already pollutes my veins. I can only hope to give you sufficient time to find a suitable replacement.”
She couldn’t look at him, not now she had acknowledged the helplessness of the situation. She would battle Ava, however that was done, and do all she could to restore balance to the estate. That would give Jasper a little longer to seek another Elemental who would live long enough to see the garden flourish once more.
“Oh, Dawn. Did you think I would stand by and watch you die and then replace you with another?” His words were quiet, like a gurgle of water over rocks but his tone heavy like boulders.
She faced him. That was exactly what she assumed would happen. Was there any point in them growing to love each other? She would die centuries before him and leave Jasper with a hole like that she bore where her parents used to reside. Better to save him that agony.
He reached for her hand and paused, uncertain. Instead he turned his arm and extended his hand, palm upward to her.
Dawn breathed in and decided to be brave. She placed her hand in his monstrous one. She expected his touch to be cold and hard, but she found warmth. Like a brick wall that soaked up the sun’s heat and then gave it back when you leaned upon it. His skin reminded her of an emery board, and she resisted the urge to smooth her broken nails against his rough surface.
“The Meidh have a human lifespan as the balance for being more powerful than the other Elementals. But a Warder shares his life force with his mate, and if you accept me, we will share my lifespan. That is why I have continued to resist Ava. She stole Julian’s years and left him a drained and vulnerable husk, but she will never have mine for they can only be freely given, not taken.”
She moved her hand over his as the Cor-vitis materialised. The tendril stirred, like a sleeper awakened, and then it inflated and revived.
“Not much of a bargain for you, I am afraid,” Dawn said as the plant wriggled back into life and tentatively crept over Jasper’s stone palm.
“Have you considered that the issue with your heart is not a human problem but an Elemental one?” He raised her hand to his lips and placed a kiss on her knuckles, avoiding the exploratory vine.
“Are other Elementals born with weak hearts?” Did they have doctors who perhaps wore togas and gold laurels on their heads while dispensing celestial cures?
“I don’t think you ever had a weak heart. You were just a plant given the wrong conditions, which is why you struggled to survive. You were a sunflower trying to grow in the shade. Here you have the ideal conditions to allow you to thrive.” The Cor-vitis circled his wrist like ivy tackling a brick wall.
His analogy made sense. A plant could be sickly and near death in one position but once moved to another, could burst into life and flourish. She had improved in Whetstone because it was the equivalent of moving the sunflower to mottled light, allowing it a chance to grow. Here, she stood in the full sun and could reach her potential.
“Length of time doesn’t matter, Dawn. Whether we have one day or a century, I would spend it with you. I hope sharing my life force with you will allow us the time to find a way to remove Ava’s vine from your body. If there is a cure, I promise you that Dr Day and I will find it.”
Peace spread through Dawn’s soul. The contentment that came with hearing a truth that was echoed inside of you. “I believe it infects Lettie also. She told me that she scratched her head on it not long after Julian died. No men who have been injured on the thorns have been infected, and I suspect it only affects women or Elementals.”
Jasper’s eyes widened. “If only we had known. So many years wasted when we could have been finding a way to release her from it, and I would already have an antidote to give you.”
“How could you have known? There is no visible sign, and it was only my reaction to the scratch that made me question if Lettie had a similar encounter.”
He brushed a stone thumb along the back of her hand. “If there is anything you desire, I would do everything in my power to fulfil your wish.”
Her parents stood in her mind’s eye, but she doubted his powers included resurrection. There was something else she desired, a yearning she felt every time the raven took flight from her garden in Whetstone and spread his wings. Since she was being brave and trusted him to hold her hand, she voiced her request. �
��I want to fly.”
He frowned and lines were chiselled furrows in his brow. “Fly?”
“Yes. Can you fly if you are holding me? Birds circle high above and can see gardens laid out below them in a way I can only imagine.” Admittedly it was a silly wish, but perhaps the antidote to a very serious conversation. He had sturdy-looking wings that held him aloft. Surely the addition of her weight was not too much to ask?
He stood and pulled her to him. With both hands flat on his chest, she marvelled at the warmth of the granite. She thought he would be rough and abrasive like hewn brick, but her hands glided over him as though the thinnest layer of silk covered the stone.
He swung her into his arms and Dawn wrapped her arms around his neck.
“Ready?” he asked. No matter the hideous outer layer, the grey gaze simmered with the Jasper she knew.
“I’ll be back, Mouse,” she said to the wolfhound. Then she managed a small smile before her courage abandoned her. “I’m ready.”
Dawn didn’t know if he jumped or if the ground simply fell away, but they shot upward.
She gasped and turned her head, but made sure her hands were locked around Jasper’s thick neck. Laid out below her and caressed in moonlight was the entire estate. Now she could see the spread of the blight. She had thought the hermitage might be the point of origin for Ava’s python vine that she created with the seed stolen from Jasper. But below she saw how it spiralled out from the maze.
Only one spot remained free and untouched.
The lake was a mirror, the sole bright spot that could not be extinguished.
24
Jasper landed by the water’s edge and tucked his massive wings out of the way. Then he eased Dawn’s feet to the ground. She leaned back against his granite chest and stared out over the water. Under the moon’s touch, the lake glowed silver and reflected the stars above. Why did the black vine surround the lake but not venture close to the water? There was something significant in that, which might help Dawn in her battle against Ava.
She let the tranquillity of the lake wash over her as her mind sorted through a myriad of things that drifted past. Foremost was her acceptance of Jasper’s words as true. That Ava had forced him to the assignations in the maze by using the threat of compelling Elijah. That she bound Jasper to make him complicit in spreading her vine over the estate.
If the other woman intended to drive Dawn from the estate, it had nearly worked. If not for the quiet request from Elijah that she consider the situation from all angles, then she may have fled. Dawn didn’t have the luxury of time to wallow in hurt feelings or to take weeks to consider his words and actions before extending forgiveness and understanding.
Her fingers scraped against Jasper’s stone arms. The Cor-vitis wriggled into life on her right hand, even while her left wrist darkened from Ava’s touch. Which would win? If Ava’s vine consumed her, would she become part of the blight that consumed the estate?
She turned in Jasper’s arms. With him in the much taller gargoyle form, her nose was barely mid chest level. At least she didn’t have to meet his serious face when she asked her next question. “If I take Ava’s place, will I become like her? Will I transform into a horrible tree creature who haunts the forested areas?”
Dawn distracted herself by running a hand along a granite forearm, fascinated by the difference between what her eyes saw and her fingertips felt. Cold rock was actually solid heat. He would be magnificent to curl up next to in winter when snow blanketed the landscape.
He flexed his arm, and it was like watching boulders shift under the ground. “No. Ava became what she always was: a selfish, evil thing. I wish you had known my mother, because then you would know a heart should be loving, caring, and nurturing. The heart also usually dwells in the house and sleeps in a bed, not under a hedge.”
Her mind leapt on a more suitable replacement for her twisted image of what the garden’s heart would become. Jasper and Lettie’s mother had founded this garden. She had planned the layout and nurtured everything it touched. It soothed Dawn’s concerns to know she could emulate one woman and not the other. “I cannot meet Serena, but I could continue her legacy.”
Her exploring hand continued up over a bicep, and then she stretched to reach his shoulder. She longed to follow the lines of his huge wings and wondered how he used the claws at each tip. They seemed to retract and extend like cat claws. “I do wonder if Paracelsus ever saw one of your kind that he named your element gnome. It seems more like a cruel jest.”
Jasper captured her roving hand and kissed her fingertips. It was a warm caress, like brushing against a fire brick. “Are you not scared by this countenance? I understand if you find me ugly to behold. It would only take a moment to shift back to my human form.”
“No, don’t change yet.” She lifted her arms to cup a chiselled face and stroke a stone cheek. “When I first saw you in the maze I was afraid. But as soon as you looked at me, I knew it was you. The exterior doesn’t matter, for it is the soul within that I see.”
She didn’t know yet if she could call the swelling in her heart love. A part of her baulked and argued it was too soon, that they needed a slow courtship of months, or even years, to come to such a realisation. Then another part of her trusted that a much larger force knew, even if she didn’t. Just as Mouse gave his whole being and affection in an instant, she could offer Jasper all that she was.
She held out her right hand and the tiny vine wriggled and squirmed as it tried to break free of her grasp. “If I accept the Cor-vitis bond, will it break Ava’s hold over you as Lord Warder?”
Jasper closed his much larger hand around hers, and a green tendril escaped between closed fingers. “No, as she still controls the sanctuary. But it would give me a refuge, a quiet place to be where she cannot reach me.”
Dawn’s mind raced ahead thinking like a general, marshalling troops and trying to surround an enemy. Although admittedly her foes were normally of the insect variety and her battle ground was a few square feet, not hundreds of acres. “It might still weaken her position though and make it easier for you to resist her call.”
Was there a chance that accepting the Cor-vitis bond might drive Ava’s invading vine from her body? It could be her cure, but how would they ever heal Lettie?
“Remember the link runs both ways. Us being bonded will also weaken my hold over her,” he whispered.
“What do you mean?” What power did the Lord Warder have over the garden’s heart?
“Just as she can summon me, I have been able to contain her and she cannot escape the boundary of this estate. If I am free, so is she, and I do not know what she might do to the wider community.” He held his arms around her, holding her in a stone barrier.
“Our actions will be a stone thrown in the lake. Ripples are the consequences we must consider.” Bonding with Jasper could free him and possibly combat the poison in her body, but what mischief could Ava cause before they could defeat her?
Jasper let out a sigh and his shoulders sagged. He dropped his arms and the Cor-vitis vanished. “You can replace Ava without having an emotional connection with me; that would keep her restrained. I won’t have you doing this for the wrong reasons, Dawn. It shouldn’t be because you want to weaken Ava or make a strike against her. Do it because you want the deep connection the Cor-vitis offers. Do it because you desire me, because your body craves to know me intimately, because there is a stirring in your heart.” Then at the end his voice dropped lower and he whispered, “Do it for me, not for her.”
She knew her heart, but he did not. Whatever her reservations about how long it should take to fall in love, she knew in her bones that she wanted to pursue her feelings for Jasper. The quiet spot had silenced the chaos in her mind, and now her path lay clear. “I had already made up my mind. I planned to give you my answer over our celebratory dinner, after we had breached the centre of the maze.”
He froze and his body turned to a statue but his eyes, heavy with expecta
tion, fixed on her. At least he didn’t frown. “And if that dinner had happened, what answer would you have given me?”
She laid one hand on his chest and the other on his cheek. “That I want this. That I desire, crave, and need this connection with you. That I would give you all that I am to be able to care for this land and these people, at your side.”
Hunger and hope flared in his eyes. “You would accept the Cor-vitis and be my bonded mate?”
If she only had one day, she would spend it with him. “Yes.” One word and she gave him everything.
He held her gently as though she were a rare orchid placed in his hands that he was frightened he would break. Then he inhaled and regained his taller posture.
How exactly did one tell a magical grapevine that you accepted its mad offer – sign a contract or dance under a full moon? Another part of her sighed at the thought of being drunk on love for Jasper. “What do we do now?”
A smile spread over his face. “We give the Cor-vitis free and unfettered access to every inch of our skin so it can weave us together.”
Heat surged through her torso. There was one thing that bothered her. He had spent years at the beck and call of Ava, having to provide the seed for her to spread her poison over the land. Would he want to do such a thing with Dawn? Not that she had any plans for monstrous life-sucking vines.
“Can you do this, after what Ava has inflicted upon you? Will it make you…uncomfortable? I don’t want to compel you, like she does.” Dawn dropped her hands to her sides.
Jasper reached for her and wrapped her hands in his. “To think I worried that you would feel forced by events, and you are concerned if I can go through with the act.”
“She made you do something against your will, I would not have you revisit that memory.”
“You will wipe those memories clean. I only ever go to her in my stone form, and I grit my teeth and endure. With you, I would be me – the man – and I intend to take my time to learn everything about you. This is something I willingly embrace, there is no force or coercion.” He raised one hand and kissed her knuckles.
