"Hutton's Bridge needs your healing knowledge. Without it, they'd all be dead from plague." Bastian stopped abruptly. He reached out and grabbed the shirt of the candle bearer in front of him, pulling him backward. The fog was dissipating quickly. They’d reached the end.
But there was one more battle ahead.
He nodded his head toward the tree, one finger over his lips, then he pointed up.
Adam motioned for silence to the men behind them. The forest was still, their chests, alive with breath, the only movement.
Bastian checked his sword. It was secure in the scabbard. He reached up, hoisting himself into the lower branches of the tree. The branches he’d broken in his fall the last time through were still hanging askew. Still, he climbed, knowing she was up there somewhere.
He emerged above the fog, face to face with the woman in the tree. He reached out, touching her hand. As hard as bark, and as fragile. With the slightest snap he could break off her fingers. He took care to use a light touch. If Sophia’s book spoke true, the woman was as trapped as the rest of them. A slave to the magic she’d wrought eighty years ago.
The last time he’d been there, she hadn’t paid him any attention before the bird flew into view. It was a threat to the village. All he needed was to create a danger to rouse her from her slumber. Bastian whistled a signal to Adam.
A bird flew upward, released from a bag Adam had carried with him. Bastian hated sacrificing the colorful warbler. Short of attacking the woman, he didn’t know of another way to get her attention.
The bird flew up to Bastian, flitted around the branches, and rose higher up the above. The woman’s eyes snapped open, focused on the bird. Her hand lifted. Green blood pumped through her veins, preparing to fire her magic.
“Wait!” Bastian pleaded. “Don’t hurt it.”
Her gaze left the bird and burned into Bastian. “You again. You are dead.” Her green lips whispered like spring leaves.
“I need to talk to you. I’m from Hutton’s Bridge.”
Her hand drifted down to her side. “You must go back. Stay hidden.”
“No.” He argued as gently as he could. “It’s time for us to leave. It’s time for the fog to fall.”
She stared over his shoulder at the fog. “I tried to protect you from the dragon.” The green blood pumped harder, her veins bulging and popping.
“It landed in the village, where it quickly died.” He hoped reassuring her would calm the anger.
“I have failed.”
“No. You protected us. You did as you said you would. But now we can stand on our own again. You must let us be free.”
“My brother to the east tells me Sophia asked for the fog to remain. Every year she visited him, begging them to maintain the fog. We did as she asked.”
Sophia? In the fog? Bastian couldn’t help but think of the book Udor had found in the cottage. How much had she known? What had she done?
“Sophia is gone now too.”
A tear of sap slipped from the woman’s eye. “She was the last of the originals.”
“Yes. Now it is time for us to be freed.”
“Perhaps it is.” The woman stepped from the hollow, vines still connecting her to the tree. She laid a hand on Bastian’s shoulder. “Are you prepared?”
“Are any of us ever prepared?”
Her branch-like fingers dug into his skin. “We only wanted to protect you.”
“You did. You saved countless lives. But now it’s time to let us go.”
Her jaw dropped. A sound like the rustling of leaves in the height of fall tumbled from her mouth. The trees responded, gaining momentum until it appeared the entire forest was shaking in rhythm.
He stood still, not sure what he was waiting for.
The fog began to dissipate. Like a sheet falling from a clothesline in the summer breeze, the fog drifted to the ground. Bastian knew it was gone when the whoops and cheers of his fellow townspeople reached his ears.
When it was done, she looked at him again. “Now what becomes of me?”
“Can you leave the tree? You are welcome to come with us.” Bastian looked at the branches, entwined with her own limbs. He’d separate them one by one if he had to. It was the least he could do for her.
“I am the tree. We live together. We die apart.”
“Then I swear I shall protect this part of the forest as long as I am alive. And before I die, I will teach others to do the same.” Bastian reached out, caressing the bark.
Her eyes closed. “That is the first time I have been touched in years.” The leaves sighed along with her. The trees swayed lightly under his strokes. “If only I could live again like I used to. I had forgotten the pleasures that come with flesh.”