Where dry and ashy dirt once lay, forgotten and sucked dry, now rich and abundant soil lies ready to nurture life. The first small buds of weeds have started to peek out, a nuisance for later but a positive sign for now. The very air in the garden has changed, the scent of life here once more, and even without my knowledge and skill, a garden can flourish here.
None of this needs to be said to Prince Soren. Not a single word could describe it better than what his own eyes are forced to see.
My mind still fills with them though, every word that would be wasted if given life, because he's already proven too stubborn to accept anything I say.
This is what the high fae have forgotten. This is why the land withers. Every innocent witch you killed, every one of my kind who chose to hold to our traditions and reject Kharl’s war, all of them gave themselves to the land, over and over again. All of them lived in the cycle of life, and youmurderedthem. Senseless killings because the high fae trust only their own, care only for themselves and those who they exploit.
This is why your people are ruined. Not me.
CHAPTERTHIRTY
Soren
The witch spends the rest of the afternoon cleaning out the medicinal garden that she just revived, pulling out mounds of dead plants and piling them up by the wall in one corner of the grounds. I move my chair so I can watch her and Roan at the same time, but she ignores my presence. The resolute way that she can disregard me while I’m painfully aware of her is infuriating but there’s nothing I can do about it, not without making my own obsession known.
She continues to duck back into the healer’s quarters to check on him, but she never speaks, her eyes staying far away from me as she works around me. Firna’s explanation of the witches' betrayal had caught her temper and set it alight. Working tirelessly to burn off that energy, she’s a fury of limbs and brute force.
Watching her pour her magic into the earth was difficult, my hand hovering by the hilt of my sword the entire time as I waited for those silver eyes of hers to flick up to me and hurl that power in my direction.
My experience with witches is mostly limited to those on the battlefield and watching them run out of power within a few hours of casting small energy balls towards their enemy. She broke a curse a few nights ago, kept two high-fae soldiers unconscious for hours, broke out of her cell, held Roan's life in her hands as she dug poisoned arrows out of his chest, and still, her magic hasn't waned.
If anything, it's grown.
When she raged and opened another connection with the earth, the color in her cheeks came back, and as she stood up and flicked the dirt from her dress, she looked as though she’d just woken up from ten good hours of sleep and eaten a feast of only the finest foods.
If only she could give some of that health to Roan.
Just before the sun hits the center of the sky above us, Tauron and the soldiers who remained at the battle in the Outlands return, the slain soldiers slung over the backs of their horses as they bring them home to the funeral pyres here.
I hear this from Tauron himself when he bursts into the healer’s quarters still streaked with blood, both Roan's and our enemies’.
“What news?” he asks, his gaze roaming over Roan desperately before he looks around the room for the witch. “Why isn't she here healing him?”
I turn toward the gardens and watch her work. “She’s done everything she can for him. Without any supplies, he'll have to do the rest himself.”
Tauron sneers and steps farther into the room, stopping to glance down at the state his own body is in. He doesn't care about appearances, but he watched as well as I did when the witch scrubbed everything that was to go near Airlie and the baby, the same way she scrubbed everything in the healer’s quarters. She never once cared about the state of herself in the dungeon, so it points toward a care for her patients.
He gives the workbench a wide berth and steps toward me. When his gaze finally lands on the witch where she’s working outside, he inhales, and his brow furrows.
“What in the Fates has she done?” he rasps, his voice ringing with wonder before he has a chance to hide it.
“She walked out there, gave a blood offering to the earth, and in return it gave her…life.”
He takes another deep breath, and the long exhale quivers with unease. It mirrors the same uncertainty I feel in my own chest but, no matter our misgivings, there's no denying it. The fate of our lands, which I was so certain was to be destroyed by the witches, may yet find salvation.
“How many did we lose?”
Tauron scowls. “Twenty. It was those damn archers. They must have been waiting there for days, left over from the raiding parties Roan and the Outland soldiers had been dealing with since he arrived. It was an opportunistic fight, and far more deadly than it should’ve been.”
I rub a hand over my brow and pull it away only to find I've spread the diseased blood of my enemy onto my palm.
Tauron grimaces at my hand and then me. “You're covered in blood. Go and get cleaned up so we can tell Airlie about Roan together.”
I doubt that Airlie is unaware. Firna would have been forced to tell her something by now; our arrival wasn’t a quiet affair, and my cousin has always been like a bloodhound when given a half-truth. I've been expecting the door to be kicked open and Airlie to stomp her way in, the baby tucked in her arms as she barks out orders for her husband's treatment.
“What’s shedoingout there?” Tauron mutters, scowling over his shoulder at the witch.
I lean forward in my seat. She's still just clearing out the planters, no shocking change to explain his ire. “I told her she’s sleeping in here from now on, so I suppose she's decided to make the place her own. I doubt we're in any danger from her growing some herbs.”
