Marigold,he said, not in words, but in a pressure against her blood, a vibration of sap and soil.You hear me.
Goldie’s eyes flew wide. Her gaze whipped wildly to Splice. He was flat on the ground, chest pressed to the earth like he’d been slammed there by the same force that tore Tamsin’s knife free. He dragged his face up from the soil, a streak of dirt cutting across his cheek, his eyes suddenly, blessedly glowing white.
A bead of bloody sap shone at the corner of his freshly bitten mouth.
He winked.
A cacophony of otherworldly voices surged upward from the earth, a symphony of vengeance that shook the chamber and fixed itself upon Tamsin’s frozen body. The air thickened, vibrating with a power that was wild, ancient, and utterly merciless.
“You, who fed me poison,”hissed a voice that was not a voice but the rustle of a billion dead leaves skittering across dry ground. It was the Grove Core itself, its consciousness fully roused at last. Its wrath filled the air like smoke.
“You, whose greed shackled my slumber,”boomed a second voice, deep and resonant, the sound of granite cracking and roots splitting the foundations of the world. Mycor. No longer a distant pulse, but a present and furious power.
“You, who orchestrated my end,”intoned a third voice, thin and sorrowful, echoing from the shimmering ghost of Elijah Pell.
The ground around Tamsin began to writhe. Thick, thorny vines, black as tar, erupted from the soil, snaking toward the witch, their movements alive and intelligent. Hedges of bone-white thorns burst from the ground, their branches glistening with an unnatural, chilling frost.
Small, pale things began to push their way through the soil. First finger bones, then the curve of a rib, then the hollow-eyed socket of a human skull. Elijah's bones, rising from his grave, glowing with the same spectral light as his spirit.
The clearing became a whirlwind of elemental fury. Mist and smoke swirled around Tamsin, the vapors twisting into accusatory, screaming faces. The vines coiled tighter, the thorn bushes closed in, and the bones of the murdered boy assembled themselves at her feet.
A high, thin scream tore from Tamsin’s throat, a sound of pure terror that was swallowed by the roaring symphony of vengeance. The chorus of the ancient powers closed in,their judgment absolute, their voices weaving together into an inescapable verdict.
“YOU WILL FEED THE SOIL YOU STARVED,”roared the Grove Core, the words like stones grinding against each other.
“YOU WILL LIE IN THE GRAVE YOU DUG,”shrieked Elijah, his sorrow replaced by a cold, final fury.
“YOUR LEGACY WILL BE ROT,”boomed the Thornfather, the pronouncement echoing from the very bedrock of the world.
Tamsin began to chant, her voice a desperate, shrieking counter-spell. She clawed at the air, tracing frantic, useless sigils with her fingers, but her magic was a flickering candle against a hurricane. The raw, ancient power of the Grove Core, of the god, and of the ghost simply laughed, a sound like wind howling through empty branches.
Vines wrapped around her arms and legs, tightening like pythons. The bone-white thorn bushes closed in, their barbs sinking into her flesh. The skeletal remains of Elijah Pell clattered up her body, locking her in a macabre embrace.
The vines squeezed. The thorns tore. The bones ground against her own. With a final, sickening sound of rending flesh and snapping bone, the collective fury pulled her apart. Her blood sprayed across the thirsty earth, a final, unwilling offering to the land.
Tamsin’s last scream was absorbed by the soil, and then, a profound silence fell over the Grove Core, broken only by the ancient, satisfied sigh of the land itself.
The Grove Core’s judgment withdrew, slowly and deliberately. The vines loosened first, sliding back into the earth like spent veins of magic. The thorns retracted next, their blood-slick barbs folding inward like closing teeth. Finally, the bones of Elijah Pell settled gently to the ground, the furious animus leaving them as the land reclaimed its dead.
Only when the last shiver of power faded did Goldie realize she was kneeling in the grass, trembling, breath still ragged from the blast. The air hung heavy with the metallic tang of blood and rain-soaked earth.
“Goldie.” Splice was suddenly at her side, unsteady but entirely focused on her. He cupped her face with shaking hands. “Are you hurt? Tell me you’re all right.”
The warmth of him, the solidity, cut through the terror like sunlight breaking through storm clouds.
But the scene before them refused to settle into peace. Elijah Pell’s pale bones gleamed faintly in the dim light, and the torn remains of Tamsin Donover lay sprawled beside them, half-sunken into the fresh, dark loam the Grove Core had turned over for them both.
Elijah’s flickering spirit faced Goldie for a moment, his sorrowful features softening into something that might have been a gentle, grateful smile. Then, with a slow, deliberate grace, he drifted to Jonah’s body and knelt, laying an incorporeal hand gently upon Jonah’s still brow. For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then, a silvery light shimmered from the body, and a second soul rose from the mortal remains.
It was Jonah, but not the man Goldie had known. This was a younger Jonah, the age he would have been when he first lost his brother, his spectral face wide-eyed and free of decades of confusion and pain.
Jonah’s spirit looked down at his hands, then up at the face of his brother. His mouth trembled, and a choked sob escaped him. He reached out, and Elijah moved into his arms. They embraced in the center of the Grove Core, a long, silent reunion of two souls finally reunited.
After a long moment, Jonah turned his tear-streaked spectral face toward Goldie and Splice.“I’m sorry,”he whispered.“I’m so, so sorry.”
Goldie managed a shaky smile, pushing herself up into a sitting position. “It’s okay, Jonah. Really.” She summoned a tiny flicker of her usual sparkle. “Since you’re dead now, it’s probably okay to say that I thought you werereallycute, by the way.”
A laugh, bright and free of all its earthly burdens, shimmered from Jonah’s spirit.“You were kind to me, Goldie,”he said, his form beginning to grow fainter.“I’m glad you found the Assistant.”He looked at Splice, a look of true peace on his face.
