The flowers were too beautiful to simply throw away, so Leslie meticulously replanted all of them. Beth watched her and then asked Romalia, "How did he pull that off anyway? Just basic conjuration? I know the black poppies come from his magic—Rachel said even Deactivated Cultivators can do that—but that he got a purple iris is really impressive, even majikally."
"As terribly ironic as it may be to say, Rodi has always had an incredible knack for flowers and plants of all sorts! I've often thought he might actually have the Nature Flower Element as another one majikally, and if he doesn't, he is so close to it that he can use it in conjunction with his conjuring to do impossible things. In this case, I would lay my bets on him asking Aria, who asked Iris, who gave permission, and allowed him to conjure the purple iris because it was for Tasia." Romalia smiled. "Tasia's clip is proof enough of the fact that Aria and Iris clearly like each other." She laughed. "Which is almost funny, really, because Aria has always been known as the grumpy world because we so rarely ever reach out to make allies and friends. Being the only Shadow, we've always felt very different and alone."
That Aria, so weak and sick, would spend precious energy to reach out to Iris not once but twice truly did say a lot about how much it loved Rodi, and perhaps loved Tasia equally. Beth could not shake the feeling that somehow Aria viewed Tasia with as much love as its Ruler Cultivators. And maybe, possibly, Iris herself may be changing in her Core to move closer to the blend of Light and Dark inside her latest Dual Cultivator. That might explain a lot, really. The four Dark planets behind Protea and the four Light planets behind Delphinium had always produced Cultivators with those matching cores as well, but if Tasia had both and might become Gray . . . it would seem logical Iris might change as well.
Putting it aside, Beth said dryly, "So if the king thing doesn't work out, Rodi can go into the florist business."
Romalia bit back a laugh. "Impossible as it is to envision my son settling down to something so prosaic, I don't deny he'd be good at it. He always finds the perfect flower, or bouquet, for any who asks." She watched Beth walk away and then glanced over as she saw Rachel returning from the deeper trees. It wasn't the first morning that Rachel had been sick upon waking or upon smelling food. She had her suspicions, to be sure, and walked over to Tasia and Raine. "Rachel," she said without preamble. "It can't be the stress. She's a Defender, and you lot are built to have high endurance. It also can't be an illness because Cultivators as a whole literally cannot get sick at all. So . . . the mother of two would like to offer a third option."
"You win the prize for the third option," Raine admitted. "I noticed it the day we met her, but didn't say anything because I had already encountered the surprising reaction from Kacey for telling her she was pregnant. Rachel also mentioned she expects to be like her mother and probably be the second/last Cultivator of Statice, so I got the feeling she really would be surprised to hear she might not be."
Tasia nodded. "I've been trying very subtly to help with the morning sickness without her realizing, but it's another of those things where getting hands on is easier. Also, we didn't want to scare her. This is, er, not an ideal time, you know?"
"Well, I think we'd better clue her in so we can make things easier on her." Wryly, Romalia said, "I was sick every morning for months when I carried Rodi. The sheer force of his personality and power influenced me since I'm not as strong as he is. Megan was a breeze, though she's no power slouch herself."
"Tell me about it," her daughter-in-law muttered. "Somehow she helped arrange things so that I got both engaged and married without my knowledge."
"Out of curiosity," Raine tilted her head, "if he had asked you, would you have said yes? You both expected to have to part, to never be together because you were literally worlds apart, but if he had asked . . . would you have said yes?"
"No," she said honestly, "because until he kissed me the first time, I still struggled against my pride. Something happened to me then. Something my Sight forced me to see. I knew then that I had to throw away my pride if I did not want to spend my life grieving for what I could have had." Something ancient and eternal moved in the swirl of her eyes. Something that was the now and the then. Something that was her emotions and something that was someone else's. Echoes of her emotions . . . and echoes of her ancestors. "Pride is cold comfort when it means forsaking the man who is my destiny."
As she walked away, Raine rubbed her hands over her arms. "Sometimes," she said quietly, "there's an . . . echo on her voice. In those moments, I'd swear she was speaking for someone else as well." She glanced at Romalia and something in her eyes made her instantly alert. "What do you know?"
"I don't. I can only suspect. It is Tasia's right to explain when she eventually learns herself." She shook it off. "Well! Do you suppose I should tell Tasia how to best handle her husband?" She smiled as she sensed a sudden ire from not far away within the trees. "Or do you suppose she can figure it out herself?"
Theo stopped next to her and said gravely, "Never meet my mom. You'd get along far too well."
They set out on the road ten minutes later, and the further they got from the ocean, the stronger the gusts of wind over the dead plains got. They had left the trees behind a while ago and followed the plains along the line of the ocean. There were still trees and bushes throughout the plains but they were thin and decayed enough that they offered little to no protection from the gusts.
A particularly strong one caught everyone unaware and sent Emily and Tasia both tumbling backward. Emily landed in a bush and Tasia kidded to a stop in front of one in the shadow of a tree. As the Ice Cultivator shook her head, she caught sight of something in the bush. For a moment, she felt tempted. Very tempted. She let it go on a hidden sigh and allowed a friend to help her stand.
Theo was no slouch, however. "Problem?"
She contemplated her words. "I've decided not to get mad. I've also decided to plan my attack."
Theo glanced at the bush, saw the edge of a familiar boot that there was not enough shadow to hide, and just smiled. "I adore you."
Everyone gathered behind two of the larger trees to cut down the wind striking them and wait until it calmed again. Raine studied Rachel closely and then switched places with Rhya so she could stand next to the older woman and gently press a hand to her forehead. "You're still not doing well from this morning," she said.
"Yeah, well, I'm holding it down. Ugh. I haven't been sick like this since before I Activated and got my immunity."
Ryan coughed. New as his Physical Healing magic may be, and small as it might function, he could still catch the obvious even at range. "I would think you've technically never been sick like this before, Rach."
Rachel stared at him, and then looked at Raine who lifted a brow. A look at Tasia and Romalia found mutually lifted brows, and even the others had begun to stare. "Wait. No." Rachel shook her head hard. "Are you trying to tell me I'm pregnant?!"
Dryly, Raine said, "I've learned not to tell people that unless they ask."
"Damn it, Raine, I'm asking! Am I pregnant?"
"You bet." She bit back a laugh and grabbed for Rachel when the other Cultivator sat down hard on the ground. "Easy. Breathe." She knelt and calmly pressed a hand to Rachel's stomach to spread soothing majik. "Here. Let me help."
Everyone else behind that tree clustered closer, and the others behind the other tree quickly scooted over to join the group. Rachel felt more than a little dazed and puzzled. "I can't quite reconcile this. I can't. I turn thirty-four next month. I guess I just assumed that Allister and I would never have children."
"Well, where's that logic coming from?" Storm asked dryly. "The fact that you're past the average twenty-six or so age where the Blossom Field Cultivators usually have kids? Well, I think that Rhya and Leslie's parents way passed that personally, so I'm marking it off the evidence list. You can't compare yourself to our generation either because, hey, we're mixed ages already, and I'm not convinced that 'Year of Births' thing wasn't also related to the stagnated magic of Blossom; three or four years between ages across a generation sounds perfectly reasonable, you know? And you can't compare yourself to your own adopted mother because you couldn't be related blood to her because that would just be weird if your soul mate was like your uncle. Ew, no."
Rhya started giggling before she could help it. Storm really did sound like a hilarious blend of Navidan and Julianna half the time, with his ability to be perfectly logical and use deductive reasoning but be sassy at the same time. "Storm, do you like to cook?"
He blinked at her. "That is . . . very left field and seemingly off-topic. What?"
"Do you like to cook?"
"He loves it," Beth said dryly. "And he's been going nuts because he wants to feed all of us on this trip and we keep forcing him to let us take turns. He's been feeding us as a whole since he could reach the stove and oven! Which he cheated on by standing on a box, really, but that's beside the point."
Storm stuck his tongue out at her. "So I like to feed the people I love! It's not a crime. You won't let me coddle you lot any other way, so I stuff you with home cooking." It dawned on him why Rhya had asked. "Let me guess. A Gladiolus thing."
"It really is!" Rhya giggled again. "Aunt Julianna says that Cultivators of Gladiolus just love to nurture and care, and that the easiest way to give love is to give food! There's an old joke that you guys don't have genes; you have recipes!" She hugged his arm. "So you should do the cooking now, okay, because that's what you want. And you can make things to help Rachel with the baby!"
"She does manage to come full circle most times," Leslie said dryly, "even though she may take side roads to get to her point." She grinned at Rachel. "You're going to be a wonderful mother! And, oh gosh, Aunt Claret and Uncle Sabin will have so much fun as grandparents!" As she said it, she realized something. "Oh," she added softer. "That's . . . so wonderful. So perfect." Her lips trembled. "It's always been . . . it always happened that Ruler Cultivators in Blossom Field never got to see their grandchildren. There cannot be more than three generations of Defenders alive at a time, though Rulers are not so bound, but . . . it just happened. That none ever made it a normal lifespan, let alone immortal. History is stained with our blood. So that the one Cultivator who waited millions of years to have a soul mate and a child should get to be the first in history to be a grandparent . . . it's so wonderful. Maybe everyone will get that gift, too." She nodded firmly. "We without soul mates must diligently look for them, and then once everyone is legal if we're not, we work on the future generation."
Theo looked at Tasia. "You're becoming a terrible influence. She's getting that ability to make the absurd sound reasonable."
"Ha, sorry, she already owned that one."
Emily suddenly felt a chill down her skin as she heard a calling in the winds. She had been enjoying the conversation, and now she felt worried. "Can we move on?"
"Is something wrong?" Tasia looked at her sharply.
Something in her eyes seemed to pull the truth out of Emily. "I just feel weird. There's a disturbing presence in the air. I feel like something's breathing down my neck." Her eyes closed as she automatically focused on the feeling. "The wind is saying something. I can hear it carrying a message somehow." Her eyes flew wide as she realized what she had said. "I mean . . ."
The others said nothing and for that she was grateful. And proving they trusted her instincts—which really only felt more unnerving for her—they all began to make their way once more across the plains. The further they went, the harder it got to move. The smallest of the Cultivators found themselves walking behind their taller partners to keep from being accidentally blown away.
There was a benefit to the gusts of wind, though, as Emily could no longer deny she had some affinity for them even frozen and Deactivated. While the others had to fight to continue on, the wind seemed to simply flow around her and not touch her. By tacit agreement, they stuck her in the front.
"What is causing this anyway?" she demanded of Romalia. "I'm not a goddamned windbreaker!"
Romalia stayed ducked behind Storm and sighed. "My understanding is that you met the Icewings. Well, unfortunately, that wasn't the only version of that beast my dear brother unleased on Aria. There's one for every element. Airwings, as you might guess, have the Air Flower Element—or something like it—and directly target those of the same to take their lifeforce. They care not if the owner has magic, majik, or is normal. If they feel the Air Flower Element inside that person, they go after them."
"So that would be why there's that big ugly brown beast flying right at us," Rhya said conversationally.
Tasia grabbed Emily. "Get down, Em."
"Gah!" Emily found herself eating grass as Tasia shoved her flat. She lifted her head again to see everyone else had dropped flat in turn, and the Airwing had missed everyone in its first pass. With everyone so low, it could not get a decent shot at them. She looked at Tasia and asked, "What's the opposite of Air to kill it?"
"Air."
"Oh you're kidding me, right?"
"Afraid not, kid. Some elements are opposite to themselves. The other ones like that are Illusion and Shadow." She shoved Emily's head down again to avoid another close pass of the monster. "For the record, it's Metal/Glass to each other, Light/Dark to each other but also weak to Shadow, Fire against Ice against Thunder against Water against Fire, and, maybe weirdly, Memory/Nature to each other."
Leslie held up a hand without lifting her head. "Not so weird. Nature, being sun-based, grows stuff, which usually takes time. Memory is time-based. Remind me to tell you about me trying to practice increasing the growth rate of some plants while Rachel was trying to practice changing the speed of time. We're lucky our mothers didn't ground us."
The Airwing made another pass, and this time it seemed obvious it was very much going after Emily. "Raine!" Tasia snapped.
Metal magic flowed around Raine's hands and then shot at Tasia. It formed into a long sword just as the Airwing got close, and its beak closed around the blade as Tasia shot to her feet. "Go, Emily!" she ordered. "Get to safety! Thaw or not, I don't care. You need to be somewhere safer than here!"
"But—!"
Burning caramel eyes pinned her. "Don't make me compel you, Em." Gentler, Tasia said, "Go."
Emily scrambled up and started running, her heart pounding wildly. Tears burned her eyes. A part of her did not want to believe that she had any sort of power, but the rest of her knew it was true. She was the only one left, and she was the only one who could do anything. Either she denied the truth and her friends died, or she finally accepted everything and saved them all. She knew she had to accept it, and as soon as that thought cleared her mind, she felt a powerful warmth moving through her soul as if something she had fought to deny had at last thawed. She did not need to look to know she now had those baby Marks the others had gained in thawing.
The soft voice in the wind called her, and she followed it almost blindly. The plains ended abruptly in a slanted hill and she couldn't stop in time. She went tumbling painfully down the side, rolled down to the bottom, and then skidded to a stop with a groan. She carefully sat up and shook her head to clear the stars circling it. She rose to her knees to stand but stopped when she heard the soft voice whispering again, this time inside her mind directly, Hello, Daughter of Hyacinth.
She nearly couldn't breathe for the first time in her life as her heart raced madly. A soft whorl of wind came down like a tiny tornado and she gingerly reached out to catch it in her hands. Across the swirling air, she could see echoes of her memories. "Hello," she managed.
It's so hard to be afraid, to find the will to shove past fear and be brave. You have been brave for so long, Emily. You tempered yourself like Raine's steel, refused to be caged like the wind. But bravery is merely the will to step past fear, not the lack of fear itself. Courage is a lack of fear. Only Lead Defenders have as much courage as bravery, but their courage comes from so often needing to be brave for their team that they learned to stop feeling some types of fear. It is a painful burden to bear, to be courageous. Is that what you think you have for yourself?
She said nothing for long moments and then slowly sank down onto her knees in the grass. It burned. It burned to admit that she was afraid. Yet, she had to be honest with the voice in her mind because otherwise she was lying and she would never be able to Activate. "No," she whispered. "I've always been afraid. It's not courage; it's bravery."
Which is still a terribly valuable commodity in a Defender. Fear tells you when things could be dangerous, and bravery allows you to fight back in the face of it. Courage allowed Tasia to stand tall and fight the Airwing head on despite a disadvantage. She feels no fear for this action because she can't, because hesitation could doom everyone.
"And . . . because she believes in me," Emily realized with a start. "Because she's knows I'm afraid, and she believes I can be brave."
And so you can. Look back at what has forged you, Emily. Help me help you Activate so you may help our friends.
It was bitterly hard to look back at the moments that had forged her, but she forced herself to do it. "I'm an orphan. My earliest memory is of being placed on the Care House doorstep and told that I'd be picked up in a few months." The memory was no less painful over two decades after the fact. "My father never came back for me. He promised he would, but he didn't. I was maybe three when he left me there and to this day, I've never seen him. I stopped believing in promises. People break their word without guilt or consequence. I'm just so damn afraid of being alone. Being called different, or being betrayed."
Then you and Tasia truly do share more in common than you may realize. You've felt it already. Talk to her, and you'll learn something.
"Huh." She took another breath and looked critically at everything she had said. It was time to grow up and let herself try to heal at last. "I want to trust my friends," she said softly. "I want to believe in our promise together." Her eyes began to glitter fiercely with blue and white. "I want my magic. I want to believe in my magic. My friends need me, and I'm not going to let them down!"
Air magic the same color as her streaks welled up fiercely around her body and whipped her short hair into a wild tangle. The tornado in her grip solidified into the Mask of a Hyacinth Defender, and she felt the burning of her sprout Marks blossoming at last. Her buttoned shirt did not go up high enough to block the Flower Mark on her chest, and she looked down to see the hyacinth blossom. It looked . . . really nice. As if it belonged.
As she pulled on the Mask and called her armor, that felt nice too. Comfortable. She felt no unbalance for what she had done; if anything, maybe she felt balanced, and whole, for the first time in her life. And she felt something more. Something unexpected. Something that flowed through her body separate of the magic she also felt and soothed the bitterness in her soul. Maybe, just maybe, this was the way things were supposed to happen. Maybe . . . there was such a thing as majik. She could feel it deep inside. The power to change. Before she examined that, however, she had an overgrown buzzard to deal with!
Back at the fight, Tasia's armor looked more than a bit ragged, and she had more than one bloody wound. The others stayed low at her command and did not try to interfere; they knew that charging in would make it more dangerous because those with offensive magic would do no damage, and Raine did not have time to make weapons for everyone. Instead, Raine worked to heal anything that looked too terrible, and Theo and Rhya took turns shielding those not fighting. They didn't dare try to shield Tasia; that might make the Airwing go after the rest of them. Striker had retaken his natural form and aided his mistress as best he could by creating distractions for her to gain a breath.
Unable to bear it, Leslie tried to stand up, only to have Tasia's powerful voice snap, "Stay down, Leslie Ann!"
Leslie literally hit the ground against her will, as if her body had ceased to be under her control. Her wide eyes stared at her twin as she realized she had just been subjected to a powerful compulsion that she suspected no one could resist. Maybe . . . maybe not even her mother or aunt, who only had compulsion work on them when they let it work. She did not think Tasia would need permission. It would have been scary, if she hadn't felt so utterly sure in Tasia's powerful need to never do harm.
Romalia herself felt stunned speechless. She had never known of anyone who could use their voice to command instant submission. The mystical cadence of Tasia's voice had grown stronger from the damage to her soul—not weaker—and it felt like a prelude to something more. What was it that her voice would someday have to do?
The Airwing swung around to come back at Tasia but pulled up sharply and swung around instead. Everyone turned their heads, and they found Emily in Mask and armor charging across the plains with fury on what could be seen of her face. "Go, Em!" Theo shouted. "Tell me you have offensive magic!"
Actually, no, she didn't, but she didn't need it. She had a better idea. "Incoming, Tasi!" Air magic swirled up around her and she hurled it at her Lead.
The magic impacted Tasia's blade and turned it solid blue. She shot forward on a shout that briefly paralyzed the Airwing and then hacked downward with all of her considerable strength. With a weapon now carrying the Air element, she struck right at the Airwing in its most vulnerable state, and she cleaved it entirely in two. The halves did not hit the ground before they dissolved, and she slowly straightened. "As I thought," she murmured. She turned and smiled at Emily. "Nice."
Emily stopped beside her and dusted off her hands with a decisive nod before pulling off her Mask. "Defensive is as useful as offensive in more ways than you think!" She turned around to look at their friends. "You guys alive?"
"You are awesome, Em," Beth told her with a grin as she sat up.
Her cheeks turned a bit peach as she shrugged her shoulders. "Well, it was a choice between either saving myself or saving you guys. And, you know. You guys aren't so bad once someone gets used to you." She laughed as Ryan hugged her tightly. "Yeah, go ahead and say it."
"Told you so," he said smugly.
"Yes you did." She eyed Leslie who was smirking at her. "You're still a prissy princess."
Leslie promptly stuck her tongue out at her, and everyone started laughing.
Later that night, Emily moved her blankets over to Tasia's and sat down next to her quietly. Tasia lifted a brow at her, and she smiled sheepishly. "It's been pointed out to me that we have a lot in common. So . . . can we talk?"
* * * * *
The castle stood in the distance well away from the Resurrection Cultivators. It was a study in architecture with arched walls and high towers made from shadowy gray stone that had once been tenderly aged by the world and now looked bled of life. It was the home of the royal family, but the man now ruling had not been the heir to the throne. He was a cruel and unjust man, and he was not the rightful king. The world died under his rule.
Twenty years ago, he had seen in a crystal ball the faces of seven people who would become powerful Defenders and rise to defeat him. In an effort to forestall it from happening, he had sought them out, frozen their Seeds, and left them for dead. Yet they had survived. They had gathered. It had seemed very likely, probable even, that the Rebirth Cultivators could find a way to thaw them, so he had stolen the frozen ones away to Aria on the assumption they would flounder and die.
Somehow they hadn't. He could not even determine how they had thawed their Seeds and Activated themselves, and it seemed less important than the crucial fact of why they had done it: they wanted to destroy him. They had allied with his misbegotten nephew and sister, and they wanted to remove Armand from the throne he deserved.
His hands tightened on his crystal globe, and it shattered into millions of shards that slowly drifted to the floor. Fury boiled in him as he realized that everything he had thrown at them thus far had been defeated. They had used it instead to make themselves stronger. Yet, they did not have the one thing that could destroy him: infinite majik. Oh, certainly, they had a potential sorceress, but unless she evolved she was no threat, and she did not belong to the right lineage anyway.
Still, it wouldn't hurt to continue to try and destroy them. They would be pests at the worst, and he did have a few other pets on his palace grounds eager to be sent into battle. He dusted off his hands and left the room, pleased with his new plans.
Behind him he left the shattered remains of his crystal globe. Down the face of the broken edges, blood dripped silently in a chilling omen for his future. The Mystic Sorceress was already evolving, and as she evolved, the Arian Draconis grew stronger.
The False King's time was limited.
©Stacy J. Garrett. Do not reprint or redistribute without permission.
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