The Grove(101)
Saleria considered his words. She wasn’t so sure about the Permanent magics, since that was not an area of expertise for her; she had never been interested in Artifact construction, and not very good at it. Barely good enough to pass the required basic classes, in fact. As she pondered the problem, her gaze fell upon his workbenches, narrow tables hauled in from the town and set up between two of the no-longer-moss-covered altars near the southeast corner. The middle table was bare, but the left held a collection of beakers, flasks, and other implements of the Alchemist’s trade, and cutting and pruning tools on the right table.
Between her and those tables were three pools, each with a vine or two hanging low enough to cross her vision with their verdant, sap-oozing tendrils. The combination reminded her of something he had said. “I think . . . I think it would be more useful to use the saps as they actually are. To use them to make concentrated potions. I barely passed my Artifact construction classes, but I wasn’t bad at alchemy. I’m rusty, and probably nowhere up to your level of expertise, but I could make a good assistant. I do like the idea of using unwarped energies to encourage the health and vitality of the surrounding land, but as you yourself said, force-feeding a plant too much magic isn’t healthy for it, so we’ll need to do other things with all these excess energies as well.
“So we should bottle the various saps and experiment to find ways to make use of them . . . and sell them so that I can pay you a decent salary for all your hard work, plus hire a handful more of other Hortimancers and Alchemists—oathbind them to work for the Keeper and the best interest of the Grove and Katan, or something, but that shouldn’t be too difficult to arrange,” she dismissed. “I’ve heard any number of excuses over the last three years about why I couldn’t get a second helper, and the budget has been one of the biggest ones.
“If we make the Grove pay for itself, they’ll have no fiscal objections to make. And with that petition request of yours, approved and prayed over by me, and signed by both sets of Gods, they’ll have no other ground to stand upon for any of the other changes I’ll want to make.” Staring off at the worktable, she nodded firmly at the thought. “That’s what we’ll do. That’s what feels right.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Aradin agreed. “You’re in charge.”
“Even if you and Teral manage to each attune to a rift, outpowering me two-to-one?” Saleria asked.
“You’re still in charge,” he reassured her. “It’s your Grove. We’ll make recommendations, but the ultimate decision is yours.” He watched her brow slowly furrow into a frown. “What’s wrong?”
She sighed, striving to explain it. “I’m not sure, but . . . I guess I’m not used to the whole not having to fight for control over what I want to do with the Grove. I think that’s why I sort of fell asleep, as it were. Fell into the dull-witted acceptance of my traditional routine.” Rubbing at her brow, she tried to shake it off. Honesty prompted her to add, “I’m rather grateful you woke me up to my own rights, even if it’s going to cause both of us a lot of work—speaking of work, I need to get to work on those prayers. Did you want to keep working on this, and see if we can attune me to at least one of the rifts? Or were you going to go handle your laundry first?”
“I’d rather go handle my laundry. We should also consult with the other Guardians via your new mirror,” Aradin added. “Teral says he got the impression from the memories passed down to him that it helps to have a clue on what to do before you try. To be frank, the Grove will still be here tomorrow, but both of us would like clean changes of clothing to greet the new day.”
“Take a bath while you’re at it,” Saleria teased lightly, tapping him on his chest. “Teral worked up a bit of a sweat from the look of him this morning. I’ll be fine on my own while you’re gone . . . and I can cut you the slack, my new, official apprentice, because you let me sleep in this morning.”
Stepping close to him, she looped one arm up behind his neck, tugged his head down into range, and kissed him in thanks. It wasn’t their first kiss of the day; they had done so earlier while picking up their staves at the back shed. But it was a nice way to part company. Aradin enjoyed it for a few moments, then hugged her and stepped back.
“Not much more of that, or I might be tempted to profane the Sacred Grove with the sight of our naked hides rolling around on all this moss,” he muttered.
“It’s a marriage Grove; I sincerely doubt They’d mind. The real problem is that we do have work to get done, and only so many hours of daylight in which to do it,” Saleria returned dryly, but let him go. Plans or no plans, there were still plenty of prayer petitions to attend to today.