To Scale the Emerald Mountain (The Willowbane Saga #1)

29. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

ELLYA

A lec sits staring at me for a moment, unspeaking as he processes what I’ve said.

“You have Seen this,” he finally states, not questioning my words at all, only giving me inherent blind trust.

“Yes. A couple moons’ ago,” I say quietly, the vague statement enough for Alec to know when this vision came to me. Understanding flashes in his eyes, twisting something sharp in my ribs.

Sitting up straighter, I recount my vision to him.

“Her thoughts mentioned that she cursed the tree to tie magic solely to herself, and she then killed the tree, shortly before banishing her siblings.”

Alec doesn’t have the flash of surprise that Locane did over my revelation of the gods being Ellhora’s siblings, nor does he seem surprised by anything I’m saying at all, same as Nana. A twinge of discomfort gnashes at my gut, disappointment in myself for offering Locane that secret forming a black pit in my stomach.

Distracting myself, I inspect the detailed diagram on the willowbane tree and its purposes as a conduit for power, taking in the multiple large veins running through its center, wondering if perhaps those lifelines were where all the gods’ magic should have flowed—not just Ellhora’s .

“My vision of Dhystros when I was sixteen, creating the emerald, he seemed to think his magic was always meant for this world, but not in the form of the emerald. I don’t think the gems were meant to exist.” Bringing my eyes up to meet Alec’s, I find him with a finger against his lips, his thumb resting under his chin. Contemplative.

Finally, he huffs a sigh. “Yes, that has been my assumption as well. And why I wanted to give you this particular book on the willowbane tree. To give you the tools to come to these conclusions. Do you remember any of your earliest visions?”

I shake my head in denial and repeat Nana’s theory on why I can’t recall those memories.

“The first vision you ever had was of Ellhora creating the littaweeds of the Plains of Ire. When you were six.”

“She did?” I ask, surprised. I rub a hand over the knee of my dress, smoothing it out excitedly.

Alec nods, his intense eyes dripping with pride. “From what was gleaned, it was after a particularly brutal battle in Quinndohs during the Original War. Ellhora used strange magic, a tainted version of the earth magic she was said to hold as well as the ability to command the sky.”

I interrupt him suddenly. “She could command the sky. I Saw her lightning fading from where she used it to break the land apart,” I say excitedly, giving him that finer detail.

“Well at least her power is one thing the historians got right.” He offers me a smile before continuing. “Ellhora changed the landscape from a field of grass and wildflowers to the life choking littaweeds in an act of warfare.” Alec rubs the pads of his fingers against his thumb absentmindedly, pausing his words as he’s lost in a memory. “Her hands in that vision were as black as Locane’s are now. All the way to the wrists. Users of forbidden blood magic show their darkness with black stained fingers.”

My eyes are wide and shining with excitement, pieces of the puzzle snapping into place. “They were black in my vision of the banishment as well. Only it started with her fingertips. It then spread to her wrists after Ellhora called upon the earth and sky.”

“If her fingers were already black, it seems she was familiar with blood magic even before the banishment.”

“Perhaps when she tied the willowbane tree solely to herself.”

“If the stain she carried when poisoning the land had only spread after the banishment, it seems the war raged well after that act, discrediting the idea that the war ended when history claims.” Alec’s voice is barely a whisper, his dark eyes showing the same wildness that’s making my heart race.

We sit silently, both feeding off of this new energy that emits between us.

Suddenly, a peal of laughter from gardeners outside flows through the open window, their indiscernible voices cutting through our intimacy to remind me the world outside still exists. It’s as if sound has been restored without me even noticing that it had been lost to me at all.

Barely pulling back, I realize I had been leaning into Alec again, his body also arching towards mine, our noses nearly brushing. This close, I can easily see the dark brown tones of his eyes, small flecks of black peppered around his blown pupils. Sweat builds under my arms as intrusive thoughts of an identical set of eyes demand to be recalled, extinguishing the glimmering moment that passed between us.

Fear instantly flashes over Alec’s striking features as he witnesses me begin to retreat into myself. He leans his head back quickly, opening his mouth to speak, apology drowning his lively eyes. But then, heavy footsteps break me out of my surreal panic and I turn towards their source cutting through the towering bookshelves.

Kraeston’s booming voice calls out from the shadows, “I was supposed to be off today.”

He rounds the corner, finding Alec and I tucked into the cozy alcove, still sitting huddled together, and gives us a beaming smile.

Alec shoots him a stern look, his expression alone screaming at Kraeston to stop speaking. Kraeston winces slightly, obviously also receiving a mind-to-mind scolding to accompany Alec’s scathing glare.

It occurs to me that in his own panic, Alec reached out to Kraeston using his mental gift, asking him to come interject when I began to pull away, surely hoping to make me more comfortable given my acceptance of Kraeston these recent weeks.

Turning to scowl at Alec, he’s schooled his features, holding nothing but calm and careful ease as he settles back into his chair, raising his muscled arms behind his head in an exaggerated stretch.

Perfectly innocent.

My mouth drops to spew angry words, fire beginning to itch in my cheeks. But I’m cut off by a deafening clap of thunder that rattles the room, storm clouds rapidly gathering to snuff out what was left of the twilight sun, plunging the room into cool and shadowy darkness.

My head swivels towards a window, the scent of fresh rain and clean desert sand wafting through its open frame on a breeze ruffling my hair.

“Please, Elly.” I turn towards that pleading voice. “Let us help you understand,” Alec asks, timidly as the dawn sun coaxing a flower to unfurl .

Kraeston closes the distance between us and claps a hand on my shoulder and giving me his signature warm smile. “Come on Princess,” he says. “It will be fun.”

I swallow hard, glancing back and forth between the two men, feeling more at peace than I have in a very long time. My rage and anguish I’ve been cradling and clinging to suddenly seems feeble, like a feral dog dropping for a nap.

Alec reaches over and powers a flicker lamp on a spindly table with a drop of his magic as I turn back to Kraeston, both patiently waiting for my answer.

Another clap of thunder rolls across the city, a strange sense of possibility washing over me with the rare desert storm.

“Okay,” I relent.

Alec lays on his back across a desk, throwing a gilded apple into the air and catching it with precision as he thinks, the massive wall of glass windows behind him acting as a stunning backdrop of thrashing stormy skies. A bolt of lightning strikes, illuminating his form in an ethereal glow.

The visual is very distracting.

We haven’t left this room for hours, moving on from the cramped alcove when our bodies and stacks of books became too much for the space. Our time has been spent dissecting the events of Ellhora’s involvement with the tree and theorizing on why only some of the world’s population was gifted with magic. We’ve surmised it’s because the power transfer didn’t occur through the tree as it was meant to—thanks to the Mother—the resulting gems making things unpredictable.

My tired mind hurts with all the books I’ve soaked in, trying to reacquaint myself with still lost knowledge that Alec had personally taught me throughout the years.

I can’t help but think Kraeston lied when he promised fun.

The trickster himself paces back and forth in front of the wall opposite the windows, a gargantuan map of the world painted across its surface.

“All these books,” I gesture widely to the endless texts flipped open in front of me, “insinuate that this world was new and fresh when the gods arrived. If everything else seems to be a lie, is this as well? And if Ellhora wanted to send the gods back to ‘where they came from’ should we not assume that’s where she came from as well, given that they’re siblings? And where is that exactly?”

“I can answer one of those questions,” Alec offers, sitting up and letting his legs hang.

My head lifts to him expectantly.

“That book,” Alec indicates his head to the tome of myths, “states that the gods come from a different realm, a world favored by the Fates where magic was born in the race of the Fae through the first willowbane tree. The realm of Rayveshan. It claims that Dhystros created and spoke to the beasts of his homeland. That Mattyas was responsible for the balance required for the realm to thrive. That Serraphina touched the lands and brought forth beauty and prosperity.”

“And what does it say of Ellhora?” I ask quietly.

“It says that she ruled behind their father’s back with fear, using her powers of earth and sky in whatever way she needed to control the people. Building mountains of protection for warring clans or razing crops with fire from the sky.”

“If they’re siblings, how are their powers so different?”

Kraeston chimes in, plopping down in a chair. “Legends say the royal Rhellescie family didn’t have bloodline gifts like we do, power inherited from mother or father. They supposedly had divine magic, hand selected by the Fates for their favored royal line. The faerie stories you were so fond of as a girl found their origins from this book. Though not many of those original stories of the Fae still exist.”

Alec nods grimly. “I personally witnessed a book burning in Halliveen where two of these texts were destroyed. All heresy against the Mother is to be scoured by fire.”

“By the school of zealots?” I ask.

Kraeston laughs jovially. “That’s one way to refer to them.”

Glancing down at the tome, it hits me just how rare it is; and how deeply Alec must trust me to hand it over so willingly. “Locane told me of a book that mentions the gems, only indirectly. Is this it?” Taking it in my hands, I flip to the green title page that had earlier caught my interest and place it on the floor in front of me.

“It is,” Alec replies, his stare drawn to the page.

Alec hops off the desk abruptly, striding on long legs to the table holding our refreshments, pouring himself a hefty drink from a crystal decanter, his shoulders carrying new tension. Squinting my eyes at him, I watch as he throws his head back, draining his glass in two gulps. Alec runs his hands anxiously through his already mussed hair. He shares a knowing glance with Kraeston, their eyes barely flickering to meet, passing something between each other I can’t decipher.

Unfurling myself from the floor, I narrow my eyes to their silent exchange. I stride to the table Alec leans against, the warmth of his body radiating towards me, and collect the book of translations next to the tray of food. I retake my position on the sandstone ground and try to make work of finding the correlating pages of annotations to the story with such haunting pictures.

“I can read it to you, if you wish,” Alec offers quietly.

My head pops up, my brows raised. Alec is relaxed against the table, one foot crossed over the other, but I can see a vein jumping rapidly in his neck, alerting me to his racing heart, each beat seemingly working in time with my own.

“You’re fluent in the language of the gods?”

“I am,” he says casually, uncrossing his feet to walk to where I sit. He joins me on the floor, slowly turning the book to face him, its binding scraping softly against stone. “I briefly studied the tongue as a much younger man. I began again nearly eight years ago.”

Lightning strikes, golden light briefly flashing as rain patters against the glass windows.

Alec lifts the book, his fingers splayed against the ancient binding. He cocks a brow at me in question, waiting for my permission to read the story. Kraeston watches us stoically, the willowbane tree on the map peeking over his shoulder where he sits.

“Go on then,” I encourage.

A glimmer of a smile traces Alec’s lips before he begins reading, reciting the words rapidly in their original language—the timeless foreign words rolling off his tongue.

Something about it makes heat creep up my stomach and the burning fire around my heart dance joyfully. My lips part, a shaky breath sneaking past them.

Kraeston snorts a laugh, breaking me out of Alec’s trance and effectively decimating the strange mounting tension. “I think she was expecting you to read in a manner she understands,” he calls out, his amused tone only a shade too loud .

Alec looks up from the book, his ill hidden smile still lighting his eyes. “Of course. Apologies.” He then offers me a smirk, eyes roving over my form, aware of the reaction his stunt has pulled and telling me he isn’t sorry at all.

He clears his throat once, snapping me back to our task, and begins to read:

“In the heart of the forest, there lived an ermine.

“When the small stoat opened its beady eyes of liquid black, the Fates said, ‘We give you a white coat, so you will always know you are set apart.’

“And though not large or mighty, the ermine was cut above the rest.

“Throughout his realm, he fashioned himself a king. He forged a crown of nail and tooth before then resting atop his throne of twigs and leaves, the ruler of the forest.

“When the stoat said, ‘Live,’ his surroundings would transform; a boulder becoming a bird; a drop of rainwater becoming a chrysalis, its heart holding something new.

“And oh, how the King of the Forest’s children sang for him!

“But every time the sun folded to sleep, a new orchestra would arise, a great crescendo culminating at midnight. In the late hours, the ermine king was denied rest by the creaking chirp of night crickets and cicadas, calling to the darkness in a melody of praise, much the same as the birds of the day sang to the stoat.

“And then, so came a storm; a companion of the night; an idol born anew.

“The earthen smell of ether and rain blanketed the forest with its sultry arrival. Roiling clouds smothered the sky and thunderclaps shook the world, pulling even the stoat’s creations of light from their evening slumber, waking them to see glazed green of wet leaves. The stoat tried to calm the cawing and baying of his children; their frantic dance moving in time to the forks of static light racing across the sky.

“Madness gleamed in their glassy eyes, unseeing for anything but the power of the storm.

“And when morning light came again, yellow rays of sun presented a mosaic of death, the creatures lying dead on the forest floor at their creator and king’s feet, their racing hearts failing in the frenzy of the storm.

“A stain of brown soaked across the ermine’s back, marring it away from its pristine white shine, the truth of his children’s awe of another too much for him to bear.

“At least you are close to me again , the ermine thought with resentment as a burial was performed during another night storm, a mockery of a ceremony to show the rain and the night that his children would sing and dance for them no more.

“The ermine made its bitterness its own song, sitting alone atop his decaying throne, the leaves long since brittled and browned. Each tainted note that he hummed to himself staining his coat darker from root to tip. But still, he found consolation in his children entombed at his feet.

“Until up from the ground covering the corpses came shoots of tender green grass. Tight blooms of flowers towered between the stalks, new life blossoming despite the ermine demanding his children stay dead, finding fertility even in death.

“The stoat’s crown of tooth and nail twisted—a halo of claw and fang—blood from gnashing wounds dripping in his eyes and tinting them red. And though he created again, his new children were only shadows of his once lively creatures, melding and morphing them to adhere to his bitterness, to have no voices to sing at all, until all that was left was a shroud of darkness and hate around what was once a kind heart.”

Alec finishes reading the fable, softly closing the book and placing it back on the floor by my knee.

My blood races, beating loud in my ears. “A heart shrouded in darkness—as in an emerald in a cave?” If I hadn’t had that vision, the story would have been far too vague for me to come to this conclusion. My heart races at this clue to where the emerald was hidden. Had Locane pieced together anything of true value from this story?

“I would say so,” Alec says, his voice tight.

Picking up the book, I quickly thumb through the pages, easily picking out the stories relating to the other four gems, given the heavily featured colors of blue, red, white, and purple, all interspersed between other stories. “Do the others give mention of where they might be found?”

Kraeston kneels beside me, gently closing the book and taking one of my shaking hands in his own. “Slow down, Elly. One step at a time.”

I open my mouth to argue, wanting to know more, wanting everything, but Alec stops me, his muffled words coming from between his hands covering his face—clearly exhausted. “He is right, my clove. That is enough for now.”

Kraeston tries to stifle a yawn behind his fist, his red rimmed eyes apparent. My own exhaustion scratches at my aching eyes, my adrenaline easing down, and with it my will to continue diving into the myths on the gems.

As Kraeston and Alec begin picking up our mess strewn through the library, one nagging question that I’ve been unable to shake slides past my lips. “If our gifts supposedly came from less than honorable methods, why do the devout followers of the Mother not discriminate against our people? Hate us for still holding the magic supposedly stolen from their goddess?”

Kraeston sighs heavily, rolling out his shoulders before he begins stacking our books. “Because in the Mother’s love, the gifted children of the betrayers are blameless for their ancestors’ actions,” he says with mock care and affection.

Alec and Kraeston’s eyes meet briefly and they both laugh—loud and joyous as if it’s some kind of joke.

Alec takes over stacking the books we pulled from the massive library, leaving them on a wheeled cart to be reshelved. “A shallow excuse. The non gifted masses of the Mother Continent are too prideful to admit that they both need and covet our gifts. They instead stand firm on the moral high ground of the peaceful Mother’s love, clinging to her image out of need to have something of their own. A symbol can hold just as much power as magic itself.”

“I’ve always thought it was all bullshit,” Kraeston says. “Maybe it’s because I grew up listening to your father’s stories and therefore doubting everything. But it astounds me how the masses cling to their ignorance.”

It always amazes me the pretty lies people are so willing to believe simply because they’ve heard them enough.

Locane’s words from the night he told me about the gems echo in my mind. A shameful part of me wholeheartedly agrees with him.

“So then you’ve always believed the gems were real?” I ask Kraeston, standing and twisting my body to unkink my back.

“Curious, but skeptical. King Rhoyner was quite skilled at planting the seeds of doubt while passing everything off as nursery rhymes. At least in those early days. ”

A shadow of heartbreak crosses Alec’s face at thoughts of his father still whole and sane, before the madness of the quest took hold, snagging Locane on the way down with him. He wipes the emotion away quickly, letting out a bitter laugh. “Indeed, he did.”

Alec turns and walks to the table of snacks, reaching for the decanter of liquor yet again. He takes a deep swig straight from the container, forgoing a glass, Kraeston watching him with something resembling concern. Before I can comment, Alec swoops down to grab the small book of translations by my foot, handing it to me. “You know how to find me if you have more questions.”

That tug in my gut pulls at me, emphasizing his words, and I struggle not to stumble forward into him, our uncompleted bond rebelling against his impending departure.

Alec gives a nod to Kraeston, endless gratitude showing in his expression before he disappears.

My body trembles as I stare blankly at the spot he was previously occupying. Throughout the evening, Alec was distant, both physically and with his words, up until he began reading from the old book, letting Kraeston act as a buffer between us.

But I caught his lingering, longing glances when he thought I wasn’t paying attention. With each of his searing gazes at my back, the light encasing my heart would pulse and flare brighter. That tether connecting us becoming steadily more insistent that I be closer to him, that I tear down the distance I continue to put between us. Each time I would swallow those urges like a ball of thorns in my throat and lean deeper into our task, trying to find distraction in the information, both things that I desperately needed.

I return to my chambers, continuing to war with myself whether I should have been there, researching with Alec at all.