The Heartwood Crown

by Matt Mikalatos

  “How?” Shula asked. “How did they do this?”

  Lin looked at her like she was a child. “By stopping death,” she said. “By removing the heartwood. There is no more death for the Elenil, but also no more life. Do you see?”

  Shula wasn’t sure she did see. She knew the Elenil were long lived. In fact, people like Hanali and Rondelo and Gilenyia were considered children even though they were hundreds of years old. She wondered about that, though. Why were they the youngest of the Elenil? Why weren’t there any actual children? “So the long lives of the Elenil are tied to Aluvorea?”

  “Of course. The magic comes from the well beneath the world. The trees bring it up through their roots.” She held up the pod. “The magic comes in many forms, like this seed. The Elenil have trapped it here, instead of letting the seeds grow where they will. No new magic sprouts. No old magic dies. It is weak. Vulnerable. It has no core.”

  Madeline held out her hand for the pod, turned it over in her palm. “My dad used to take me hiking, and we would see pods like this sometimes. He said this kind only opened when there was a fire. The rangers had discovered they needed to do controlled burns sometimes or the forest wouldn’t be healthy. Forests—the kind with this sort of seed pod, anyway—need fire.”

  Lin’s eyebrows rose. “Yes. But the Elenil keep the firethorns carefully in their territory. The firethorns should move through the woods from time to time, setting flame to the old and opening the seeds of the new. The Elenil make sure this cannot happen.”

  Madeline pulled at the Queen’s Breath on her neck, resettling it slightly. “So if I put on the Heartwood Crown I’ll be able to, what? Restart the forest?”

  “Yes, yes! These old things will come to life again. There will be new magic. It will heal the Wasted Lands and spread the forest. Then the firethorns will burn the woods, making space for the new plants, the new magic.”

  Shula took the pod and cracked it against the stone. Nothing. Madeline said it would open with fire. Shula let her hands warm and get hotter and hotter until flames rippled alongside her fingers. The pod got hotter in her hand. Its skin started to blister, then to split open, and when it popped, a bright geyser of light shot out of it straight into the air, and sparkling seeds like glitter fell into the trees around them. Madeline gasped and actually clapped her hands. Shula smiled. It was like a firework. She wished Yenil had been here to see it. She wanted to use her fire to set off more of them.

  “It will heal the Wasted Lands,” Madeline said, her voice almost dreamy.

  “But the Elenil will lose their immortality,” Shula said, looking at the burned husk of the seedpod in her hand.

  Lin’s eyes lit up. “All magic will burn away for a few days, to be reborn for another century. No, the Elenil will not have so much of it, but such is the way of the trees.”

  David came running into the camp. He had a knife in his hand, and he looked around, confused. “I saw an explosion of light,” he said. “I thought you were being attacked.”

  “It was a seed,” Shula said. “Magic.”

  David glared at her. “I’ve been working pretty hard to cover our trail, Shula. Then you send up a flare?”

  “Sorry,” Shula said. “Honestly, I didn’t know it would do that.”

  David frowned, then seemed to relax. “Okay,” he said. “How could you know in a place like the Sunlit Lands? You could smell a flower and turn into an ogre. The rules here take some getting used to.”

  “I am sorry, really,” Shula said. David had an earnestness to him that she found endearing, and when he saw work to be done, he stepped up and did it without asking permission or wondering aloud if it would be useful. If you didn’t know where he was, you could assume he was doing something helpful.

  “No harm done,” he said and smiled at her. “It was about time to get moving again, anyway.”

  Madeline groaned. “Just ten more minutes!”

  Shula took Madeline’s hand and helped her to her feet. “David’s right. We have to assume the Elenil saw that magical explosion.” Shula thought about the whole forest alight with such explosions, as the magic renewed itself for another hundred years. It would be an incredible sight. But there were Elenil patrolling these woods, people whose job was to protect the forest from the flames. “Unless . . . I could set the whole forest ablaze,” Shula said. “Jump-start the magic again, break the dam. Then it won’t matter that there was one flare of magic—there will be hundreds of them.”

  Lin put a hand on her wrist. “It will not matter if there is no one to wear the Heartwood Crown. She who wears the crown shapes the character of the magic. Without a Queen’s Seed planted in someone, they cannot wear the crown. Without the crown, they cannot shape the magic. The magic, unshaped, grows wild and dangerous. Unpredictable. Swayed by whim and folly. Those would be dark times. The forest must not burn until someone wears the crown.”

  David helped Madeline onto her urudap. “It will be dark times if the Elenil come across us here. Me and Shula can’t hold off many of them.” Shula noted again how quick he was to help, how slow to complain, and felt bad that she had been the one to wrestle a moment of annoyance from him.

  They moved the rest of the day largely in silence. Lin occasionally pointed out the special berries and plants of the forest. Addleberries and faerie’s bell were the most common—faerie’s bell looked identical to the plant that Madeline called foxglove. There were also lightweed and silkflower. By late afternoon, the temperature was falling, and they had come to the edge of a wide swamp. There was no longer a place they could walk without being ankle deep in water.

  “I can go no farther than this, nor can these beasts,” Lin said. “We are forest beings, and this is Patra Koja.”

  Madeline’s brow wrinkled. “Patra Koja is a person.”

  “He is a person and a place. He is the swamp, and the swamp is him,” Lin said. “I hope you find what you are looking for. I will go around the swamp and meet you on the northern side. After you are done here, when you are ready, I will guide you to Inyulap Anyar.” She said a word to the urudap, and they pulled Gilenyia’s litter from their backs. Lin moved away from the water and into the forest without another word, the urudap trailing behind.

  “I’ll carry her,” David said, and he lifted Gilenyia. “She’s cold,” he said. “I don’t think she has long.”

  Shula helped Madeline wade into the swamp. Without their guide they weren’t sure where to go, and Madeline only said, “Where the water is deeper.” Shula wondered how Madeline would know this, but she said it with certainty, like she had been here before. So David did his best to take them the most treacherous way, into the deepest paths, carrying Gilenyia with him. Shula did her best to help Madeline follow. A snake slithered by on the surface of the water. Fish sometimes brushed against her submerged legs—at least, she hoped they were fish. The mournful calls of strange birds vibrated against the water.

  Madeline had more than exhausted her strength. She walked in a strange half-dreaming, calling for help even while Shula had her arm around her, even when there was nothing more to be done to help. Shula slipped on an underwater log, and she and Madeline both went under. She lost her grip on Madeline, and when Shula surfaced, her friend did not.

  Shula screamed for David, who was already on his way toward them, having heard the splash of their fall. Shula thrashed in the water, looking for Madeline and unable to find her. They couldn’t lose Madeline this way. Not like this.

  There was nowhere for David to lay Gilenyia so he could help. He dragged the mud with his feet, trying to find Madeline, trying to calm Shula. “It’s going to be okay,” he said, but she could hear the panic in his voice. It had been too long. She wasn’t sure if it had been ten seconds or two minutes, but she kept saying to herself over and over, It’s been too long, it’s been too long, we have to find her.

  Then a strange creature rose from the water, branches like antlers on his head, his skin green with scales, his hair and beard made
from moss and leaves. He was broad shouldered and heavily built. There were claws on his fingertips and webs between his fingers. Madeline was in his arms, unconscious, water dripping from her limp body, like something from a 1950s horror movie. Shula lit on fire without thinking, and David stumbled backward—whether from the monster or her heat, she didn’t know. He managed not to fall, though. Shula stepped toward the swamp thing. “Let her go,” she said.

  The creature didn’t step back or seem alarmed at all. He had eyes like red berries, and they turned slowly toward her. His head hung too low in the front, and his back rose in a hunch behind it. She couldn’t help but think this was caused by the rack of antlers on his head, which, as she looked at them more closely, she could see were branches. Wisps of moss hung from the points, and a few yellow leaves still clung to the twigs.

  “I will not harm you,” the thing said, and when he spoke, his voice sounded strangely like crumpled leaves.

  “Shula,” David said, “put your flames out.”

  “But he—”

  “I can’t come close to you while you’re on fire.”

  She put out the flame, reluctantly. David came alongside her. “Who are you?” he asked the creature.

  “I am Patra Koja, of course. It was not my intention to frighten you.” He lifted Madeline’s body, as if this was evidence. “But to help.”

  “Promise,” Shula said. “Promise you won’t hurt her.”

  Patra Koja tilted his head, and the moss that he had instead of hair swayed with the motion. “Who can make such a promise? For often we harm one another without meaning to do so. But I promise that it is not my intent to harm her, or you.”

  Shula and David exchanged looks. “Okay,” Shula said. “But if you hurt her, I’ll burn this place down to the water.”

  The strange plant man smiled at that. “I do not doubt you would try. Now. I am concerned that your friend has lost consciousness, and while wearing Queen’s Breath, too. So come quickly.”

  He turned and walked with a rapid stride, the water eddying behind him. They followed him through chest-deep water. Shula tried to help David, but he said it was easier now, with some of Gilenyia’s weight carried by the water. She could see in his face that he was tired, and sweat rolled down from his hairline, but she took him at his word.

  Patra Koja stopped at a raft tied to a tree stump. The raft was huge, easily the size of the bottom floor of a house. He laid Madeline gently on it. He took Gilenyia from David and laid her on the raft as well. Shula gratefully pulled herself out of the water and then gave a hand to David.

  Shula found a mattress of sorts made from old leaves. She and David put Madeline on it, then worked together to get Gilenyia on another. Patra Koja piled dead leaves and small dry sticks between the two women.

  “Would you please start a fire here?” he asked Shula.

  “Okay,” she said, and lit it with her hands. She and David came close to it, working to get dry.

  Patra Koja laid one enormous green hand on Gilenyia’s forehead and the other on Madeline’s. “Both are unwell,” he said. “The Elenil is almost beyond the reach of my magic.”

  Shula crowded close to him. “What about Madeline?”

  “What about her, child?”

  “Can you heal her?”

  His face crumpled. The leaves in his beard made a crackling sound. “No, child, no. She is not sick in the same way as your Elenil friend. She has been made sick by one of the Elenil. There is a curse of sorts upon her, and I cannot heal her unless that curse is lifted.”

  Shula felt the small torch of hope she had been carrying flicker and die. “Of course you can’t,” she sighed. She should have known better than to think it was a possibility. Everyone she loved died, and she loved Madeline.

  The plant creature studied Madeline carefully, then lifted her arm, tracing the network of magical scars. “Though I think it may be that I can use my magic to bring those who cursed her here. There were two of them—or three?—many years ago.”

  “Wait,” David said. “You’re saying that Madeline’s sickness isn’t . . . natural?”

  “What sickness is natural?” Patra Koja asked, his eyes wide. He seemed to be asking with complete seriousness.

  Shula felt like she had stepped backward off an unexpected cliff. She was falling, flailing, trying to make sense of what was happening. “You’re saying someone did this to her,” Shula said. “Someone chose to make her sick.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you can bring them here?”

  “Yes.”

  There was a sudden jolt of hatred in her, like hitting the ground after that long fall. “Then do it. Please.” She would very much like to know who had cursed her friend.

  Patra Koja sat cross-legged at Madeline’s feet. “The Elenil woman first, or she will be beyond my skills. But for both I must make preparations.” Vines began to grow from his arms and legs, wrapping around the logs beneath them and stretching into the water. “Please keep me from catching on fire.” Then he closed his eyes and sat very still. A slight breeze blew over him, and the leaves on his head rustled. Vines grew up from the water and covered Madeline. Shula’s first instinct was to tear them off, cut them, burn them. But David quietly put his hand on hers and gave a firm squeeze. She took a deep breath. She would trust Patra Koja. Because she didn’t have another choice.

  Then more vines grew up, like snakes, and covered Gilenyia.

  23

  THE ZHANIN

  The wind is not love

  The breath of the world is not love

  That is only shared life

  FROM “THE OCEAN,” A ZHANIN SONG

  Jason crouched behind a log, watching the Zhanin warrior. He was a hulking brute of a man, his face a network of scars. Lamisap lay on the ground beside him, unconscious and no longer green. The Zhanin had turned off the magic again, and since Lamisap was a person deeply connected to magic, it had shut her down too.

  Remi, the flying cat who was not a cat, perched in a tree beyond the warrior. She was watching him with her yellow eyes, the tip of her tail flicking back and forth, as if waiting for a special sign or signal from Jason. He didn’t have one though. He had told her repeatedly that he barely knew Lamisap and that he needed to head toward the carnivorous forest and find his fiancée and his unicorn and also a dragon so he could find out the price of saving the Sunlit Lands.

  He hadn’t heard anything from Baileya. No sign of Delightful Glitter Lady, either. So now he was here, watching this shark warrior who had set a trap for him, trying to figure out how to save his guide. He had no weapons. He had very little experience.

  He mentally listed his assets. Unicorn (absent). Warrior fiancée (absent). Various friends who could light on fire, fight like crazy, ride horses, shoot arrows, and so on (all absent). Ability to receive one room-temperature chocolate pudding per day via magic (present). Commitment to telling the truth no matter what comes (present). A big mouth (also present).

  Well, this was crazy, but what else was he going to do? He stood up and waved at the Zhanin warrior. “Hi! I’m over here.”

  Remi stood up on her branch, her eyes round in disbelief. Her claws dug into the wood.

  The warrior took three steps toward Jason, a massive scimitar in his hand. He hesitated. “You have received a death penalty,” he said.

  “I’d like to talk with you about that,” Jason said. “Doesn’t seem like a fair trial, what with the fact that no one ever talked to me. All this talk about the imbalance of magic? I don’t think I had anything to do with that.”

  “I have neutralized all magic near here.”

  Jason shrugged. “The only magic I have is pudding cup deliveries. I mean, I like them and everything, but they’re not much help in a fight.”

  The warrior seemed confused about this. “Pudding cups?”

  “Unless I was fighting someone with really bad eyesight who wore glasses or goggles or something. Then I could sling pudding at their glasses. That
might be an advantage. Or if there was a bad guy with a dairy allergy. An extreme dairy allergy.”

  “Come to me or I will kill your friend.”

  “Are you going to kill her after you kill me?”

  “I would have no reason to do so.”

  “And are you going to kill me if I come over there?”

  “Yes.”

  “I respect that honesty,” Jason said. “I’m a little disappointed in your answer, but at least you told the truth.”

  The warrior stepped toward him. “If you will not come to me, I will come to you.”

  “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

  Remi rolled her eyes, spread her wings, and glided down to land gently beside Jason. She looked up at the Zhanin warrior and said in a cold, emotionless voice, “If you come closer, you will regret it.”

  The Zhanin gaped at her. “I have turned off all magic in this area.”

  “I am not using any magic.”

  “You are a flying cat,” he said.

  “I am not a cat,” she replied, an edge coming into her voice.

  “You are a talking cat.”

  “I fly, and I talk, but I am not a cat,” she said, a clear warning in her tone. He stepped toward her, and Remi gave a weary sigh. “I warned you,” she said. She glanced at Jason. “Hold on to something.”

  “Hold on to—?”

  Remi’s claws extended into the log she stood on, and she began to flap her wings. They went faster and faster, and wind whipped around her. Jason grabbed a tree trunk. He tried to shout at Remi, but he doubted she could hear him over the wind.

  The warrior moved forward, a look of grim determination on his face. The wind loosened his ponytail, and it flew behind him in a raging storm of hair. He leaned forward, hard, his arm holding his scimitar over his head. The wind grew stronger. Jason dug his fingernails into the tree. He had chosen the right place, because the wind was pushing him into the trunk. He wrapped his arms around it and gave it the biggest hug he had ever given a tree. He loved this tree.