AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“How are we going to—”
I pulled her against me as I ducked into the shadows, and her words broke off with a squeak as we twisted, the world shifting around us. When we opened our eyes there were four solid wooden walls around us, a clean-swept hearth in one corner.
“Where are we?” Her voice was a little breathless.
I crossed the room and pulled open a tall cabinet. “In the village. I’m hoping whoever’s house this is won’t mind lending me some clothing in the name of modesty. What do you think of this?” I pulled out a long blue dress with tiny embroidered flowers along the hem and held it up, modeling it against my torso.
She snorted. “I’m not sure blue is your color.”
I feigned outrage. “What, you think demons can only wear black and red? That’s—”
A rumbling sound met my ears and I broke off, swiveling to look toward the door.
“What was that?” she asked, brow creasing. A second later, the rumble came again.
Levity forgotten, I scrambled into a borrowed pair of brown breeches and a linen shirt, and we hurried for the door. I tried to disguise the way my heart leaped when she reached for my hand.
The rumble came again as we raced through the streets, and a knot of guilt formed in my stomach. Had something happened? Had we somehow made the situation worse? Julian had brought us together again to fix things, and we’d abandoned him. Was it too late? Were the villagers even now paying the price for our stolen moments of pleasure?
“Come on, come on,” Lilin hissed, pulling my hand and running even faster.
Gasping for breath, I spread my wings. “Enough of this.”
“What—oh!” Lilin let out a startled yelp as I wrapped my arm around her waist and lifted her into the air.
“I’m good for transportation, at least,” I said grimly, as I winged toward the town square, just high enough that we were eye-level with the rooftops.
“I can’t see, Abigor,” she said desperately, tightening her arms around me and craning her neck to try to get a view of the road ahead.
“No need,” I said, as we approached the square. I landed without breaking stride, and she twisted out of my arms and ran ahead of me.
I tensed, preparing for the worst, as we rounded the last corner and saw…
Nothing.
Or rather, nothing new: the square looked completely unchanged, the villagers in their enchanted slumber exactly where we’d left them. And at the heart of the spiral of bodies, standing over a blazing fire with hands raised toward the sky, was—
“Julian!” Lilin shouted.
Julian dropped his hands and spun. Though we were still a good fifty meters away, I could see that his expression was lit with excitement.
“My friends!” he roared. “Come, come, come!”
“What is he doing?” I muttered. I leapt over the bodies on the ground, almost tripping over someone’s leg, and finally reached Julian.
His spellbook was on the ground, and piles of dried herbs and mushrooms were beside it. Next to the fire sat a small cairn of stones. Lilin looked from the fire to Julian, and her eyes flashed with horror. “You didn’t,” she said. “Not again—not without us?”
The look on Julian’s face bordered on mania. His eyes were wide and glittering, his movements more animated than I’d ever seen him. “I told you,” he said breathlessly, gesturing in the approximate direction of the woods. “I told you, didn’t I, that I saw something? That it felt different?”
My chest clenched. Lilin’s hand in mine went suddenly cold. “You did say that,” I replied carefully.
He met first Lilin’s gaze, then mine. He was breathing hard. “I told you,” he repeated, pointing. “Now turn, my friends, and look!”
Still clutching each other’s hands, Lilin and I turned. Behind us, as it had been before, was the charred, shattered ruin of the enormous tree. But now, in the very center of the massive trunk, where the wood was splintered and broken, something was blooming.
Dropping Lilin’s hand, I stepped toward the tree, my mouth falling open. Somehow, in the small space of time since we had destroyed half the village, a second tree had taken root. It sprouted from the heart of the broken giant, where there was neither soil nor water. Though its trunk was hardly wider than Lilin’s delicate wrist, its branches spread wide, and its lush green leaves barely trembled in the wind. Scattered here and there were flowers, heady and red; I inhaled their sweet scent, then turned to see Lilin’s bewildered gaze.
“But…” she began, staring at the impossible tree. “How?”
