Solara Brightbloom's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

The black knot pulsed inside the split trunk. Solara watched it climb. New rot crept up past the fork, faster now that the core lay bare. Her hands shook. She had no fire left to strike, and no way to slow the spread while she rested. If the knot climbed beyond her reach, she would lose it for good. "It's moving," she said. "I need time I don't have." Crimson crouched at the roots, watching the dark veins grow. The blood fairy had found the core for her, then drained her doing it. Now she studied the tree like a problem she half regretted. "You won't get time," she said. "Not standing here." Yawen stepped close. His cold rolled off him. "I can freeze it," he said. "Stop the spread. Not kill it." "Your cold drains me," Solara said. Every time his frost touched her, her light thinned. "Then don't stand near it." He knelt at the split and pressed both palms to the bark. Ice spread from his hands. It sheeted over the black veins and held them fast. The rot stopped climbing. But the cold reached Solara too. Her banked fire guttered lower. She backed away and it steadied, just barely. The knot was pinned now, frozen in place. She had her time. She still had no fuel to burn it. A soft glow moved through the roots. A turtle crawled toward her, its shell marked with faint symbols. Warm light curled off its head like steam. Behind it came the coyote and the goose from the shadow wall. The goose fixed its dark eye on the frozen rot and hissed. Solara knelt. The turtle pushed its head against her open hand. Warmth flowed into her arm, slow and steady, filling the place Crimson's magic had emptied. Not a blaze. A trickle. But it did not stop. "It heals," Crimson said. She sounded almost surprised. "That's real magic. Take it while it lasts." Solara held the turtle and drank the warmth in. Her numb arm woke. Her pulse climbed. The banked fire in her chest grew from an ember to a flame. Yawen held the ice. The rot stayed frozen and could not climb. She fed on the turtle's gift until her hands stopped shaking. "Now," Yawen said. "Before I have to let go." Solara reached into the frozen split. She laid her palm on the black knot through the ice. Her light poured out, gold and hot. It sank into the core. The knot cracked. It hissed and shrank and blackened to ash. The frozen veins above it went gray and dead. She pulled her hand back. The knot was gone. But the tree was not healed. The dead rot still clung to the trunk, and the roots stayed pulled back and bare. She had killed the source. The tree itself hung silent, waiting to be brought back to life.