by Sara Wolf
he will leave you, like everyone else.
I squeeze my eyes shut and force my body to move, to curl up on his lap and hold him down, hold him here with my weight, with my everything. My murmur is small, unsure, fractured. “So are you, Your Highness.”
I say it because I want him to kiss me. And he knows. I feel a gentle hand lifting my chin, and the short, salt-scented curtain of his hair envelops my face, his lips on mine like a goodbye and the sunrise bathing both of us in its weak, fragile pearl light and I make a decision like a hammer stroke, then and there.
It won’t come to that.
That night isn’t an easy one. Even with Lucien at my side, I can’t sleep at all. I slip out of bed, careful not to wake him. He needs all the rest he can get for the…everything. Everything ahead of us. The fight. The fall. And the rise, after.
The halls of the Black Archives are patrolled by the matronics at night, but the smaller halls where they can’t fit have night watch polymaths, their silver robes softly illuminated by the handheld white mercury lamps they carry. Word of newcomers carries fast in an enclave dedicated to knowledge, and they all nod at me as I pass—well aware of who I am, of what I am. It’s almost strange, to be treated like nothing special. Like a non-threat, when Vetris treated me as everything but. Breych, this place. Only recently have I learned Arathess is much bigger than its hate for Heartless.
The cool stone floor feels good on my bare feet, and the windows display the midnight ocean like a proudly sparkling black jewel. Bit by bit, I can feel my body settling even as my mind buzzes—Varia’s out there still. The stars in the sky look less beautiful and more like spears pointed dead at all the world.
Dead.
All of them.
All of them, if we don’t do something.
Windonhigh, Helkyris. Other continents. Everyone else is too busy protecting their own. But our own is us—one another. Fione, Malachite, Lucien, and me. Yorl. Varia, too. She’s one of us, no matter what she’s done. She’s in over her head. She needs us.
All of us, protecting one another in our own ways.
If the world won’t fight, we will.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a flash of ochre tail rounding a corridor. But…the only celeon I’ve seen here is Yorl. And that color, it’s definitely his. But why is he up? Shouldn’t he be where we left him—studying the book with Fione? Is he resting, maybe?
“Yorl!” I call out, trotting after him. “Wait up!”
I round the corner he disappeared behind, but there’s nothing. No one, as far as I can see down it. I do a pivot, catching another flash of ochre to the right.
“Hey, Yorl!” I shout. “Seriously, slow down!”
My words echo hollowly about the stone, but I lunge around the corner this time, determined to catch up with him. My burst of speed is cut short as the right hall widens into a massive, polished balcony of volcanic glass. It overlooks the ocean, the long stretch of it disappearing at the moonless horizon: pitch-black on pitch-black, streaked with silver starlight.
Except in the very center is a tall streak of yellow fur with vermillion patches. Yorl. No—not him. Too tall to be him. Too bent-backed. Whiskers too droopy with age, tail silvered on the very end like an old man going white. Dewclaws too long and hard to be young.
The celeon turns and smiles at me, voice a rumbling purr.
“Ah. Zera. We meet at last.”
Green eyes, a broad muzzle, the same coloring. It has to be Yorl. But it’s not. It’s more like an elderly version of him. It might just be the starlight, or the reflection of the white mercury lamps off the black-glass balcony, but I swear the celeon’s outline shivers like water. Like hot gas. Like he’s not all…real. He seems to follow my thoughts and looks down at his own body, then back up at me with a wry, white-whisker smile.
“I see you’ve noticed my curious state. You’re the first one—the first mortal to notice me at all. And that’s a comfort, in its own way.”
“Who—” I stop myself. “There’s no way! Are you Yorl’s—”
“Where are my manners?” He cuts in smoothly. “I am Muro Farspear-Ashwalker.” He motions with his paw to the balcony railing. “Please. Join me.”
“You’re supposed to be—”
“Dead?” He laughs with all his yellowed fangs. “Yes. But then again, so are you, are you not?”
Muro—or the ghost of him, I can’t decide—turns to face me head on, the shimmering near obscuring him. But it can’t obscure his face, every clear whisker and bristle and old scar between the fur. It can’t obscure the way his emerald green eyes replicate twice down his face, and then twice again, three eyes on either side of his long, proud, lionlike nose.
Six eyes.
My brain spins, but he just laughs softly. “We seem to have the same ailment.”
He looks like me when I turn into the monster. When I Weep to control it. Six eyes. But that’s like…a valkerax. Did he…
“You…” I gulp, stepping closer to see him better. “Wait, how did you get a—” I stop, mulling over the strangeness. “Blood promise?”
Muro’s smile is more approving than Yorl’s. “A blood promise. Correct.”
“How?”
“The same way you did: I befriended a valkerax. Not as effectively as you did, I’ll admit. You, it seems, were much more skilled at it. You could simply talk! I, on the other hand, had to spend years in the Dark Below watching, baiting, cajoling, getting bitten.”
“Hey!” I protest. “I got bit, too.”
Muro’s laugh is louder this time, so loud it scares a frog from a nearby tree.
“That you did. Many times. And terribly.”
My mind churns. How does he know that?
“I’ve been watching,” he admits. “Not you, though you are very interesting. Yorl. I’ve been watching over him. I saw it all—his journey to replicate my research, the way he helped Varia and worked with you and that valkerax.”
“Wait, you were watching us that whole time?” I swallow. “Are you…dead? Yorl said you were. And if you’ve drank a blood promise, then—”
“Yes,” he agrees, but his expression never changes from its mildly pleased state. “I died an old man, when Yorl was young. My age finally caught me in some sickness. But I’d held on to the blood promise my valkerax friend gave me all those years ago, during my research. And in the name of polymathematics, and with little life left, I took it.”
Muro motions down to his finely silvered fur. “It wasn’t a blood promise given under sanity, so it wasn’t as effective as yours. But it was effective enough.”
I frown. “You’re worse than Yorl! Haven’t either of you ever heard of the expression curiosity killed the cat?”
At this, Muro’s laughter echoed. “That it does. Quite literally. He takes after me so fiercely, the silly thing.”
Muro. This is Muro Farspear-Ashwalker, the brightest celeon polymath to ever live. Or die. Lucien’s parents called on him years ago to try to heal Varia’s habitual nightmares of the Bone Tree. His research helped make the white mercury blades during the Sunless War. He was the one who brought the Hymn of the Forest to Gavik’s attention, an act that kickstarted Gavik’s vendetta against Varia, trying so hard to kill her before she could get the Bone Tree and destroy the kingdom.
With a cold chill in my spine, I realize she succeeded in that one.
And Muro knew. He knew she was chosen by the Bone Tree. He knew about valkerax, more about them than anyone. I walk up to the balcony tentatively, my frame dwarfed by Muro’s sheer height. Even old, he’s tall as sin. Was. I still can’t decide if this is some sleepwalking dream of mine or not, but the way Muro’s outline shivers each time he blinks makes me think it has to be.
“Is this…a dream?” I ask.
The celeon thinks hard on this, and then holds his paw up lightly.
“I’m not sure. Perhaps, and perhaps not. I know very little and can explain even less. Time is a fickle thing, in my state.”
“How can I see you, if you’re dead?” I blurt.
“Because of our blood promise—we are connected. A blood promise is a conversation, forever. Surely Yorl told you that. The Tree of Souls connects us all, and the valkerax understand this best.”
I wrinkle my nose. “I can see who Yorl got the ‘talk frustratingly cryptically’ trait from.”
“Indeed.” Muro chuckles, tail thrashing. “He’s a good boy, and a strong one. Even stronger now, in no small part because of meeting you. I thank you for that.”
“I didn’t—”
“Please,” he interrupts kindly. “Spare me the modesty. I’ve seen enough of it from you for a lifetime. Or a deathtime.”
I knit my lips, and it twists into a smile. “Okay. You got me.”
“For a while, yes,” he agrees mysteriously. We watch the sea together for a second, and then, “Do you know what a soul is, Zera?”
“Uh.” I glance at him. “You? Shimmery, kind of here, kind of not?”
“Possibly. I’m not sure what a soul is, myself. Here in Arathess, we talk of the ‘afterlife,’ but rarely do we speak of what part of us goes there. Is it our bodies? Our minds? Or something else? Our feelings, our essence, our memories, a great mishmash of our lived experiences—it could be any of these, or all of them.”
The ocean laps below us, the sound soothing against his cryptic words.
“I may not know what a soul is, Zera, but I may be able to tell you where they are. In humans, their soul resides in their heart. In valkerax, it is in the blood—the marrow that makes blood.”
“Their…bones,” I say slowly. “The marrow in the bones?”
He nods. “It’s why the Bone Tree is made of their bones, and why the Glass Tree must have a sliver of itself touching a human heart for it to create Heartless. They are Trees made to control two different creatures, and the only way that is done is by the soul.”
I blink, reeling. “How do you know all that?”
“When you look past all the labyrinthine twists and turns here”—Muro smiles—“there’s really much to be learned on the other side.”
I don’t get it. I don’t get it, but he smells like Yorl—copper and sun-warmed fur—and that’s the only clue this might not actually be a dream.
“The Tree of Souls,” Muro starts patiently, “is a special creature. It is alive, as you or I. Well, you.” He smirks. “Regardless, it is a creature. It, too, has a soul. And it gave that to us, at the very beginning of Arathess. It gives that to us every day—but only some of us are able to grasp it, hold on to that great gift.”
He tilts his maned face over to me, six eyes gleaming. “I’m speaking, of course, of witches. Of magic.”
“Magic,” I breathe. “Are you saying—magic is the Tree of Souls’…soul?”
He chuckles. “Perhaps I went too quickly in too short a time. You’ll understand for yourself, someday, when you join me here. But you’ve already taken the first steps to understanding, haven’t you?”
I knit my brows at him, confused.
“The dreams,” he clarifies. “Of the Tree.”
“I mean, sure. I’ve had a dream about the Trees. The two tree rosaries,” I say slowly. “But I haven’t had any grand, spontaneous moment of understanding, nothing like you’re talking about—”
“Truly? No feeling of sureness in you? No strange feeling that seems like it comes from outside of you, but one that is so sure of itself regardless?”
I freeze, then mutter, “That feeling of wrongness, like if I didn’t put the trees together—”
“—something terrible would happen,” he finishes for me, leaving a beat for digestion. “The Trees communicate through dreams. The Glass Tree speaks to witches. The Bone Tree spoke to Varia in her dreams. But when you arrived in Vetris, it was neither the Bone Tree nor the Glass Tree that spoke to you. It was their mother, and their true self. The origin. The Tree of Souls spoke to you.”
I remember every dream-moment painfully—the tree covered in stained glass crying out in pain, in loneliness, turning the glass on me when I got too close. That was the Tree of Souls? The origin of all magic on Arathess? The tree Fione and Lucien looked so wary talking about on the ship?
“Why me?” I instantly demand. Muro’s chuckle is despairing this time.
“I cannot do much more than guess—it may have known. The Tree of Souls is connected to us all, and perhaps it knew what you would become.”
“Beautiful?” I try. “Smart? Stylish?”
“It knew you would be touched by both the Glass Tree and the Bone Tree.”
“So is Varia,” I argue. He nods.
“True. But she is only witch. You are Heartless and valkerax, all at once. She has felt the Bone Tree’s pain but not the Glass Tree’s. She has not felt the pain of both the Trees as you have. You have felt the Tree of Souls’ pain as no one else in the world has.”
I watch him tilt his muzzle up to look at the stars, and he shimmers so violently, the ochre of his body almost entirely melts into the black.
“Ah. Time is so fickle.” He pivots to me, that eternal smile in place. “I will see you again, Zera, someday.”
“Wait—” I reach out for him, but my hand passes through him like air, my fingers making the shimmer worse. “There are a million things I want to—”
“Tell Yorl I am proud of him, would you?” he interrupts, soft and yet determined.
I catch his emerald eyes, all six of them gentle, and I nod. “I will.”
And then I blink, and he’s gone. No increments, no fragments. Just there and then gone. But somehow, as I trace my steps back to the cool bed and Lucien’s arms, I know he’s not really gone at all. It’s the blood in me, the promise in me. It’s a feeling. A knowing.
I know I’ll see him again.
I’m tempted to write off Muro’s appearance as a dream. Wipe it away clean as a passing fancy, as my mind trying to explain everything to me neatly, wrapped up in a bow. As a convenient dream. I want to forget, and snuggle deeper into Lucien’s embrace in the morning. But Muro’s words linger, insisting realness into my blood, staring back at me as my dusty feet from walking the halls late at night.
It’s a feeling, deep in my unheart. My soul.
I just…understand it was real.
Lucien tries to ask me about it, but I have no words for it, offering him my wrist limply. He holds it, and the air thickens with the hum of magic as he skinreads me. He can see what I’ve seen easily—it’s only thought-reading that’s truly difficult, or so he’s said. And I trust him. I trust him enough to let him see, now, and he frowns.
“Who was that? It looked like—”
“Yorl?” I offer. “Yeah. I think it was Muro, his grandfather. Like, his ghost or something. Or his…soul. Is that even possible? With magic?”
Lucien looks as lost as I feel. “Perhaps. I know so little, compared to any other witchblood my age. But why would he appear to you now?”
“I don’t think he chose to.” I frown. “It just…happened. He said I could see him because of our blood promise.”
“Well then.” The prince nods. “That’s Yorl’s territory, isn’t it?”
My murky thoughts carry over into the morning meal in the mess hall. The polymaths are poring over some shoddy pieces of paper, all of them strangely identical in their black ink letters. A “printing,” I hear one of them call it, though I have no idea what that means. As far as I can gather, it carries news, because the polymaths won’t stop whispering among themselves.
“Helkyris has fallen—”
“Naturally. If their western armada falls, Helkyris falls. That’s a given—”
“If the armada succumbed to the flying valkerax, the
n Avel’s spear-runners have no chance.”
“The Mist Continent is done for. The valkerax will move on to the Star Continent next, no doubt—it’s the closest.”
“Where are the beneathers at a time like this? Surely they’re not sitting on their thumbs in the Dark Below letting all this happen—”
“With the political anarchy they have no one to rendezvous with above—not Cavanos, not Helkyris. It takes more time than you’d think to deploy their forces up from the Dark Below, and their ancestral bureaucracy ensures a mired response to say the least—”
At our table, Malachite throws a very effective glare at the polymaths. They shut their mouths near instantly at his dangerous eyes, going back to their porridge and hushed discussions of whatever experiments they’re working on.
“I hate it here,” the beneather scoffs. “All this sun, and nasty sand. This whole place is basically one big barn for people who wanna act like they know everything.” He looks at me and shoves a scabbard across the table. “Here. I got a polymath to put it together.”
I quirk a brow up at him, the hilt so familiar, the grooves of it—
“You didn’t,” I breathe, pulling the blade out. Father’s blade, or the replica of it, the handle still the original but the blade remade by Lucien. Mal got the pieces I’d been carrying around for so long put back together. My heart swells at the feeling of it in my palm.
“I did.” Malachite grunts. “No mushy thanks needed.”
I immediately jump up from the table and pull him into a hug across it. “Thank you! Malachite, thank you so much.”
“What did I just say?” the beneather squawks awkwardly, freeing himself from my grip and sitting back down with the biggest flush on his cheeks. “No fuckin’ thanks. Just use it to defend Luc. That’s all I ask.”
I throw a smile at Lucien, and then back at Mal. “Understood.”
“When is Fione gonna be done, anyway?” The beneather tries to quickly change the subject. “I keep checking on ’em, but they just tell me to stop bothering them.”
“We should check on them together, then,” Lucien agrees. “Knowing Fione, she’s probably conveniently forgotten to eat or sleep this entire time.”
