Solara Brightbloom's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

Solara stood at the base of the heart-tree, empty of light. The bark had split down the middle. Deep inside the split, the rot glowed sick and dark. She reached her hand toward the gap, but she could not see where the blight began or ended. The core of it hid too deep. She could not heal what she could not find. "I don't know where to put my light," she said. "Even if I had any left." "Then you need eyes that read blood," said a voice behind her. A dark fairy stepped from between the roots. Red streaked her black hair, and old scars marked her arms. She looked at the tree the way a healer looks at a wound. This was Crimson Thornwhisper, a blood fairy who worked the magic other fairies feared. Yawen went still and put himself half between the women. Solara had never seen him wary of anyone. "I felt this rot from far off," Crimson said. "Blood magic tracks blood. The tree bleeds." She did not smile or soften. "I can find your core. That's what you want. I'll tell you where to burn." "Why help me?" Solara asked. "I'm looking for something that isn't here. But I hate this blight more than most." She shrugged. "That's the whole reason. Not noble." Yawen spoke low. "Her magic takes." "It takes a little," Crimson said. "I won't lie about that." She held out one hand. "A drop of yours. I read the rot through you. Then you'll see it plain." Solara looked at the split trunk. She had no plan of her own. She pressed her thumb against a thorn on Crimson's wrist wrap. Blood welled. Crimson closed her fist over it and shut her eyes. Cold crept up Solara's arm. Her own pulse thudded slower. "There," Crimson breathed. She opened her hand and touched the bark. Red light traced the wood. It ran down into the split, deep and deeper, and stopped at a black knot low in the heart. "That. The rot starts there and climbs. Kill that knot, the rest dies." Solara saw it clearly now, a fist of black buried where the two halves of the heart pulled apart. She knew at last where her healing must go. But she felt the cost. Her arm hung numb. The reading had drained what little strength she had scraped back. "You're weaker now," Crimson said flatly. "I did say." Yawen's cold pressed at Solara's other side. Between the frost and the blood-drain, her banked fire guttered. She had found the target. She had no fuel to strike it. She stared at the black knot deep in the split, close enough to touch, and her hands shook too hard to burn.