Sorrow's Son (Crossroads of Worlds Book 2)

by Rene Sears

  "I'll tell the others I'm leaving." He walked inside, and I followed.

  I didn't know what we looked like but both Morgan's and Hawthorn's eyes narrowed as we walked in. Morgan's gaze went from me to Teo and back again, lingering on his lip.

  "I've got to get back home," Teo said easily. "Our uncle Vicente needs me. Thanks for letting me tag along." He turned to Morgan. "I'm glad you're all right."

  "Thanks." She tilted her head and looked at him. "Your uncle Vicente?"

  "Yeah." This time he didn't flinch when he smiled. "Our uncle. Vicente Acosta Rivera." I shifted uncomfortably, and his smile softened as he turned to me. "Remember—call me anytime."

  "I will."

  He said goodbye to Morgan and Hawthorn, ducked his head, and left, car keys already in his hand.

  We were all quiet until the scrape of tires on gravel told us the SUV had pulled away. Morgan had a funny look on her face. "Your uncle is Vicente Rivera?"

  "My mom's uncle really, but yeah, I guess he is." I spun the cords around my wrist. I'd need to recharge them. "Teo wanted me to come with him. I mean...Vicente wanted him to bring me with him. I didn't want to go."

  "I can see you didn't," she said drily.

  I looked down; my shirt was rucked up and there was grass all along my side. I tried to brush it off. "We worked it out."

  She shook her head. "I've never met him, but from what I hear, I don't think he's going to let you go easily if he wants you."

  I shrugged, uneasy. And if he didn't want you...? Well. I had seen how my aunt lived. It wasn't the way my brother lived, sleek SUVs and extra phones just lying around. I had no illusions that I was anything but something useful to my uncle. How could I be? He didn't know me.

  And now I knew what my own wishes meant to him: nothing. Not if he sent Teo to kidnap me. I understood more and more why my mother had wanted to keep me from knowing them. I resented more and more that my ignorance meant I didn't know what to expect from them—or how to protect myself.

  "You don't have to stay and help us," she added. "Not that I don't appreciate it..." Her hand went to her chest, then fell away. She had to be thinking of the tattoo that her sister had destroyed, that she could have used to find the girls. But without it, they were warded and we had no link to them.

  Except—wait. We did. Or rather, I did.

  "Morgan," I said slowly. "I gave Igraine a charm my mother gave me. What if we try to find that instead of the girls themselves?"

  She sat up quickly and then fell back, hand clutching at her side, but her face was alight with hope. "Yes," she said quickly. "There's an energy source on the shelf if you need one."

  I took the source—a wine cork topped with a silver tree—and sat back on my heels and called the image of my little coquí to mind. It was easy; it had been mine for so long.

  And now it was Igraine's. Hopefully it was still with her, wherever she was.

  But I didn't think about her. I focused on the frog, drawing energy from the cork, using my father's spell to trace the energy back to the charm, just as I had found Morgan. Faint threads of silver led to the gate, but then, I had suspected they would. My spiders followed them through, but I couldn't tell where, exactly.

  'They're somewhere on the other side of the gate," I said for Morgan and Hawthorn's benefit.

  Morgan nodded and shoved herself to her feet. Hawthorn and I both slid under her shoulders and she leaned heavily on both of us. "I won't be much use to you if they're somewhere hostile," she murmured.

  "Let's cross that bridge when we come to it," Hawthorn said.

  We staggered to the gate. Hawthorn opened it, a sheet of silver springing to life between the stones of the bridge. I sent a tendril of magic questing through it like a hound on a scent. The magic of the gate forked; it had been used to go both to Faerie and to Strangehold. I expected the trail to lead to Faerie; I was wrong.

  "It looks like they're in Strangehold," I said.

  "No," Morgan said. "It couldn't be that easy." But her face lit up.

  "Only one way to find out," I said.

  Hawthorn reached, and stepped through. I followed, Morgan leaning on me. We emerged on the rickety platform above the abyss, and Hawthorn strode forth as though it were nothing. I was no happier about crossing than I had been before, and there was no one to talk me across this time, but I didn't have time to freak out. Morgan needed me. I told myself in no uncertain terms that it was a magic bridge that wasn’t going to let me fall, then found my old friend the tree on the building and walked, staring straight ahead.

  I didn't fall, and Morgan didn't fall, but I was sweating and clammy by the time we got to the other side. Maybe it would get easier the more times I did it.

  Hawthorn was waiting impatiently on the platform when we got there. "Rose says they’re not here," she said.

  "The energy came from here." Unless Igraine dropped the charm before they even left Strangehold. No. I refused to acknowledge the possibility, because then, how would we find them? I frowned and sent energy questing after the tendril.

  And staggered to one knee, head aching. The energy of Strangehold was like Niagara Falls compared to the little streams of leylines that I was used to. The impressions that I got from the surge of energy were too strong to be useful; I couldn't trace them back to their source. I clutched my head. I could believe that this was the source of magic.

  "Oh," Hawthorn murmured. "Come inside; we'll try that again in the workroom."

  Ten minutes later, we were inside the inlaid stone work circle, where the energy was gentle enough for me to work with. I still ached all over, like a burn on the skin of my magic, but I didn't want to wait.

  I looked for the thread again, and swallowed. Morgan and Hawthorn were watching me expectantly.

  "They're here," I said.

  "Rose says—" Hawthorn began.

  "Not here, in Strangehold. Here, in the source of magic." I quested after the familiar flavor. "I think they're down, if that has meaning here."

  Hawthorn put a hand to her throat. "They’re in the roots of the Tree." I could hear the capital letter she gave it.

  "Was the tree here when you came here, or did Rose create it like she did Strangehold?"

  Hawthorn smiled. "It was here—in a way. There are a lot of metaphors for magic: rivers, winds, elements. Trees. Here at the source, the way we saw it helped shape it, but it's not impossible that someone else coming in new would see it differently—as a current in a river they were being carried along, for instance. Anyone coming in close to Strangehold would see it the way we do, because we've been enforcing our interpretation on this little stretch of the source for decades now."

  I swallowed, trying to take it in. "So elsewhere, it might look completely different?"

  Hawthorn shrugged. "I've never tried to find out."

  Morgan shook her head impatiently. "It doesn't matter what it looks like. Let's go find them."

  "You aren't going anywhere," Hawthorn said. "You'll be no good to anyone if you get yourself killed, and what if we need you?"

  "Rose can hold the fort," Morgan said stubbornly. "What if you need me there? I know you're both capable..." I need to be there went unspoken, but I heard it all the same.

  Hawthorn looked at her, worry drawing a clear line across her forehead. "All right," she said at last. "Rose will see what she can do before we go."

  An hour later, Morgan was held together by bandages and a dead woman's spells, and we were ready to go to the roots of the Tree. Rose appeared before us, a wispy shape, drained by whatever she had done to Morgan. The wisp took Hawthorn's hand. "Come back to me," she said, faint but audible. I looked away, embarrassed at overhearing. Then Rose faded away, and there was no reason for us not to go.

  "It's been years since I came this way," Hawthorn murmured, and then said more loudly, "Down. We go down."

  We walked down the stairs to the landing with the bridge from the gate, and then below it, the vine bridges from the floating plat
forms spread out above us like a spider's web. The stairs kept going down, wrapping around the tree. After two turns around the trunk, we were below the looming bulk of Strangehold and all we could see was the tree itself. Vines and leaves curved around it, smaller plants growing in nooks on the bark.

  Hawthorn seemed on edge, looking back and forth, while Morgan's face was grimly set, focused only on getting one foot in front of another. I wondered what my parents would have thought of this trip. Had my father known about the source of magic, or speculated about it? I knew he would have disapproved of my choice of companions, but I couldn't bring myself to agree with him anymore. Hawthorn wasn't evil. You couldn't say a fae who sequestered herself away in an alternate dimension was bent on dominion over humans. Even Briar, who so clearly thought we were beneath her, had helped us in the end—even if only to help Rowan. And Rowan...well. Just focus on getting him and the girls back, I supposed, and then I could try and reconcile the man who'd talked me across the bridge with the man who had hunted and killed at the queen of Faerie's orders. Maybe it wouldn't be that hard. If I could accept that Lunn was a person shaped like a dog, maybe I could accept that Rowan was a person who had changed.

  Hawthorn tensed, scanning the sky. "Do we need to be looking out for something?" I asked.

  "It's unlikely," she allowed, "but there are creatures who dwell here, consuming magic. They are not intrinsically harmful to us—they do not prey on flesh—but they are not necessarily harmless either. It's best to be wary."

  After that, I kept an eye out too. I wished Lunn was with us. Though I hadn't known him very long, I liked him. I would trust him to have my back.

  It was hard to judge time in the weird silvery light, but I thought it had been about an hour when we stopped to rest. Morgan was pale and breathing heavily. She pulled a water bottle from her backpack, took a long pull, and offered it to me. I swigged a wonderfully cold sip and passed it to Hawthorn, who managed to chug it daintily. My legs hurt from going down stairs for so long.

  "We are close." Hawthorn recapped the bottle and returned it to Morgan.

  "Are we? It doesn't look any different." I peered down the tree. The stairway was wide enough that I didn't feel afraid of the height the way I had crossing the vine bridge, but going to the rail to look over gave me a stomach-churning thrill of vertigo, and I stepped away quickly. There was no sign of the ground below us, just an endless expanse of trunk stretching away into nothingness.

  "Not close to the roots," Hawthorn said. "Close to the end of the area we have shaped by living here. It will get wilder once we leave the stair, but there is a way to the bottom of the tree—a shortcut, if you will." She looked down, then turned to me. "Check," she said abruptly. "Please, Javier, check and see that they are still below us and we are not passing them by."

  I pulled the wine cork from Morgan's house from my pocket, and pulled a thread of energy from it, careful to keep my attention tightly directed so I wouldn't be burned by the vast torrent of energy around us.

  "Yes," I said. They were down, and far, far away. "We're going the right way, but we still have a long way to go."

  Hawthorn nodded, her face set. "Down it is then."

  "Let's go," Morgan said. "I'm ready." She limped forward.

  After another long series of turns around the tree, the stairs abruptly ended, turning into a wide trail. Crests of bark knotted the path. The vines and lichen that had covered the tree so far were bigger here, wilder.

  "This is the end of Rose's influence," Hawthorn said. "From here, she can't reach us at all."

  I took a breath and stepped over the last riser, a small, rickety step that ended on the trail.

  It didn't feel any different just now, but that didn't mean it was the same. I kept my focus close. It was hard, in a way; I was used to sending tendrils of my consciousness questing out into the magic around me. The energy was usually dilute and yet full of information. But now...If the magic close to Strangehold had nearly fried me, what would it do here? I didn't want to find out.

  The trail was narrower than the steps and harder to navigate. I pressed tight to the trunk, and tried not to look over the edge into the vast emptiness.

  "Keep an eye out," Hawthorn said. I looked at her and almost swallowed my tongue. The elegant gown she'd been wearing—despite the pack atop it—had become a suit of armor: light leather studded with metal shaped in curling vines; the vines crept over a metal plaque and bubbled up into red berries like poison fruit. She looked comfortable with her armaments. I wondered which was real—the elegant lady or the graceful swordswoman. Only later did it occur to me that neither had to be a disguise for the other.

  I kept my eyes mostly on the trail in front of me, but I tried to stay alert to whatever might be lurking out there. I didn't want to look down, so instead I looked out into the twilight air around us, and it was there that I saw a disturbance in the silver air, a slight shadow in the sourceless light surrounding us. At first I wasn't sure if it was anything more than a trick of my own eyes from staring out into that light for so long, but I kept seeing it. The torrent of magic was too strong for me to sense if it was something else out there beyond the movement of the magic itself.

  "Hawthorn, what is that?" I pointed to the moving shadow on the sky.

  Hawthorn snarled something vicious in a lilting fae language. "Faster," she said. "It may not have noticed us yet."

  "What is it?" Morgan grunted.

  "I don't know, exactly," Hawthorn said. She had suited action to words and sped up, heading around the vast curve of the tree to take us out of sight of the whatever-it-was. "Rose and I call them dragons."

  "You've mentioned them before. But...dragons?" Morgan was limping more obviously, but she turned to Hawthorn at this. "I thought even in Faerie—"

  "—there are no true dragons anymore. That's correct. These aren't exactly dragons either. They're creatures of pure magic. It just seemed right to call them that." She relaxed a little as we rounded the curve of the tree, protected from whatever was out there by its bulk. We'd come back around into its field of view before too long, but there wasn't any way around that. There was only one road down the tree.

  Or so I thought.

  The vines had been growing wilder, and though the rough path remained clearly visible, the knots that made the trail uneven had grown larger and more cumbersome.

  "Here!" Hawthorn said triumphantly. I had to search before I saw what she was staring at. Some distance above us a dark hole ruptured the expanse of the trunk of the tree. The bark was broken around it, but smooth with age. Vines spilled out, a profusion of green, the largest of them thicker than my wrist. I guessed I knew how we were getting up there. I told myself I could do it as long as I didn't look down. I remembered Rowan telling me to choose a point to focus on.

  "I'll go first," Hawthorn said, "and then Morgan. Javier, do you mind bringing up the tail?" She shot me a significant look while Morgan leaned against the tree trunk, which I interpreted to mean that I was to keep Morgan from falling off the vines as we climbed. I nodded slightly. One more reason for me to get beyond my own discomfort and stay focused.

  Hawthorn leapt up to the first tangle of vine, light as a leaf. Morgan and I exchanged a glance; it wouldn't be so easy for either of us. I knelt and offered Morgan a boost. She launched herself off my clasped palms, clinging to the knotted vines until she could get a foothold. I watched for a few seconds as she climbed, and then there was no reason for me not to attempt it. The craggy bark that had grabbed at my feet, waiting to trip me as we walked, was now helpful. I wedged my foot into an indentation and heaved myself upward, fingers scrambling to find a hold. Don't look down. This felt far more precarious than standing on the trail. I missed the steps with their nice sturdy railing between me and an endless fall into silver nothing.

  My left foot found another knot of bark, and I shoved myself upward again. This time, I caught a vine with my hands, and then everything got much easier. With the vine to hold on t
o, I was able to walk myself up the trunk. Hawthorn was already at the lip of the hole in the tree, and Morgan was pulling herself up more slowly but steadily all the same, hand over hand. I tried to match her rhythm, even though my shoulders were burning in no time from the unaccustomed strain and my hand itched from sap. I spared a moment to hope that the vines weren't some kind of magical poison ivy. I'd hate for our rescue to be interrupted by stopping to scratch at a rash.

  Finally, I reached the hole in the tree. Morgan and Hawthorn helped me over the edge, between two giant splinters of jagged wood. The wood was shiny and smooth, though—whatever shattered it had happened a long time ago. Did it ever rain here or had the pressure of magic itself somehow worn it smooth? No way of knowing. I pulled out my water bottle and took a long swig before pouring some over my sap-sticky hands and wiping them on my jeans.

  I turned around to see where we'd come from. The trail wasn't all that far below us, but the sheer drop sent the hairs on my arms standing straight up and I stepped back hastily. I took in the weird light, knowing we were about to leave it for darkness and whatever was inside the hole. I wouldn't stick my hand inside a hole in a tree at home for fear of what might live there, and we were about to walk into this one. I steeled myself to turn and face the dark, but a smudge of movement on the horizon caught my eye.

  It was far away, a faint shadow on the silver, and then all in a moment it was closer, and so much bigger than I had thought. Was it the same shadow dragon from before? I had no way of telling. It looked at me, a great silver eye whirling gently, faintly chased with blue. It was still pretty far away. It was just so big.

  And you are so small. The thought was laughing and not my own. It was more alien even than Lunn's. I was not "hearing" words exactly, but an impression, an approximation, of a mind that worked very differently from my own. And—it was familiar. This was what—who—had talked to me when I was trapped in Iliesa's spell. What are you?

  I could ask you the same thing. My heart pounded harder than it had when I had crossed the vine bridge, and my mouth was dry, but it was exhilaration, not fear. This was so far outside of my experience.