The Evertree

  Abeke finally seized Conor’s sleeve. She tightened her fist around it and pulled him toward her. The boy groaned at the movement. His eyes opened for the first time – initially, he looked disoriented. Then he glanced down and gasped.

  The threads of the fabric snapped.

  Conor fell. Abeke gritted her teeth and hung on tight. Conor slammed into the side of the wall, grunting in pain. Abeke hung desperately on to his sleeve, but she could feel her grip slipping. Just when she thought she could hold on no longer, Uraza stretched her neck out and seized Conor’s arm in her mouth. She tugged, careful not to break Conor’s skin with her teeth.

  “Pull!” Abeke shouted, working as one with Uraza. Conor looked up at her and used his other hand to grab her wrist. She clenched her jaw. Then Rollan joined her in pulling Conor up, and together they dragged him back over the side of the tower.

  The three collapsed in a heap, right as two Greencloaks came running.

  “What’s all this?” It was Olvan, and his eyebrows were furrowed.

  Abeke stayed where she sat, still trying to catch her breath. Beside her, Uraza blinked water out of her violet eyes and swished her tail. She seemed agitated, enough so that she actually growled at the Greencloaks whenever they got too close to her.

  “You tell us,” Abeke finally said to Conor, who looked unsure of what had just happened himself. The side of his cheek that had slammed into the tower was already beginning to bruise.

  Rollan leaned back and rubbed his shoulder. “Yeah, what was that all about? Recreational attempt at flying? If you wanted to do that, you should’ve let Essix know ahead of time.”

  Olvan turned his piercing eyes to Conor. “You were climbing the battlement, boy?”

  Conor didn’t say a word. Abeke watched him carefully as he pulled himself into a sitting position and wiped the rain from his face. He seemed deep in thought. She couldn’t guess what he was possibly thinking about, aside from having just narrowly escaped death. It took her a moment to see everything wrong with him – he looked particularly pale, and whether his hair was plastered to his face from rain or sweat, she couldn’t tell. Dark circles rimmed the bottom of his eyes.

  Olvan helped him to his feet, threw his own cloak around Conor’s shoulders, and guided him away from the battlement. He motioned for Abeke and Rollan to follow. “Let’s get you three out of the rain. This is no way to start a morning.”

  An hour later, Abeke, Rollan, and Conor were sitting in the dining hall in fresh, dry clothes, all wrapped in blankets and sipping hot porridge. Abeke’s braids were still plastered to her scalp, matted down with rain. Steam rose from their heads. She sipped her breakfast gratefully, thinking that if only the porridge had a touch of Niloan spice in it, it could be the best thing she’d ever eaten in her life. Nearby, Rollan was gulping his own porridge down, not even bothering with a spoon. It was the first time this week that Abeke had seen him with an appetite.

  Olvan and Lenori sat nearby, as if they feared something else might happen if they left Conor alone. Conor just stirred his bowl of porridge. His eyes focused on nothing in particular, and Abeke thought she could hear him muttering under his breath. Briggan sat beside him with his muzzle in Conor’s lap. Conor stroked his head absently.

  Abeke finally decided to break the silence. She nudged Conor. “So … what happened up there?” she asked him carefully. “Sleepwalking?” She didn’t want to accuse him aloud of what she knew they all feared – that Meilin had sleepwalked too, when Gerathon controlled her through the Bile. But Conor seemed to hear the concern in her voice.

  “It’s not that,” he said, hesitating. “At least, I don’t think so.” Conor stayed silent for a moment longer. Then he put his spoon down and nodded. “I’ve been having dreams again … ever since Shane took the talismans.” Rollan sucked in his breath sharply, but Conor went on. “I’m okay, but I haven’t slept well, and I keep dreaming the same things night after night.” He hesitated. “I woke up in the middle of the night last week too … and found myself climbing the battlement.”

  A chill ran down Abeke’s spine. She didn’t want to think about what might have happened if Conor hadn’t woken himself up in time, and if no one had been around to help him.

  Rollan raised an eyebrow. “You could’ve, you know, told someone. I would have happily stood outside your door and whacked you in the head every time you tried to leave.”

  “Rollan has a valid point,” Olvan agreed. “Why did you leave Briggan in his passive state after your first incident, and tell none of your friends?”

  Conor shrugged, looking guilty. “I would have, except I had a night when nothing happened. So I thought it went away. I even locked my bedroom door – but I must have unlocked it in my sleep.”

  Lenori leaned forward, the beads around her neck clacking together. Her eyes were warm with concern. “What dreams did you have, Conor?” she said gently. “Do you remember?”

  Conor took a deep breath. “They started a few weeks ago.” He frowned. “There’s always an ape. And the shadow of antlers. A bright flash of light. Golden leaves.” Conor looked out the window, his expression distant as he relived the vision. “We are all in the middle of a battle. The ape attacks me. I fall over a cliff, but a man riding an eagle soars overhead. At first, I think it’s Tarik coming to my rescue.” Rollan stiffened at the late Greencloak’s name. “But when I reach out to take his hand, I see that it isn’t Tarik at all. It’s Sha –”

  Conor cut himself off, but Abeke still winced. She knew the name hanging on the tip of his tongue. She knew it all too well.

  Conor cleared his throat. “Anyway, he pretends to save me, and then he lets me fall,” he finished, shooting Abeke a sympathetic look.

  Abeke tightened her jaw and tried to push Shane from her mind, but it was hard not to imagine his face. Hard not to imagine how Shane had looked when he rode away on Halawir’s back with the talismans. And now Conor was having dreams about it.

  How earnest and sincere Shane had seemed, when he sailed to Greenhaven with her and convinced her to vouch for him, when he’d asked for her help and lied through his teeth without a single flicker of his gaze. How silly she had been, to believe him. I love that you have that much faith about people. You really are amazing.

  The words echoed, familiar and cruel, in her ears. How stupid.

  “Abeke.” Conor’s voice jerked her out of the memory.

  “Huh?” she blurted out.

  Rollan was staring at her too, with a concerned look on his face. “We said, are you okay?”

  Abeke shook her head, blinked, and straightened. Her mouth set back into a line. “I’m fine,” she replied. “Conor, what do you think your dreams mean? Are they prophetic? I thought you couldn’t do that if Briggan was in his passive state, and you said –”

  “I know,” Conor agreed. “That’s what I thought too. But it keeps happening, night after night. I don’t know what’s causing them, but I know they mean something.”

  “What do they mean, then?” Rollan said.

  Conor took a deep breath. His eyes darted to Olvan before settling back on his friends. “Kovo has stirred in his prison. I think Shane and Zerif have reached him, or are going to reach him soon. We’re going to fight a great war in Stetriol.”

  The hall fell silent at Conor’s ominous words. After a moment, he went on. “I don’t know what the golden leaves mean, but … every time I saw them, I felt a heartbeat under my feet, something deep and powerful in the ground.”

  “The heart of the lands,” Lenori murmured in wonder, and everyone turned to her. She nodded at Conor. “There is an ancient myth among the Amayan tribes of a place in Erdas that is the origin of all life – humans, animals, even the Great Beasts. The tale calls this the place where the heart of our world still beats. Perhaps what you felt was the birthplace of Erdas. If so, there is a lot more at stake than we thought.”

  Abeke’s heart skipped a beat. She had heard similar myths as a little girl, tales that named N
ilo as the first of the lands.

  Rollan cleared his throat. “Did you see anything about Meilin?” he asked, the hope obvious in his voice.

  Conor met the other boy’s eyes reluctantly. “I saw her and Jhi fighting Greencloaks, with the Conquerors at her back. They disappeared into the fray.”

  Rollan’s entire posture drooped. His face darkened as he returned to his porridge. Abeke could tell that Conor regretted saying anything at all.

  Olvan sat taller in his seat and gave the three as comforting of a look as he could. “These are visions, not yet truth,” he reminded them. “All is not yet lost. And we received several new messages this morning.”

  At that, Abeke leaned forward. “From whom? Where?”

  “Our friends Finn, Kalani, and Maya will arrive in Greenhaven tomorrow.”

  Maya! Kalani! It would be good to see them again. Finn too. Abeke waited for him to list a few more names, but the elder Greencloak finished, and the hall settled back into an uneasy silence. Her face fell again. Her father’s name was not among them. Why was she surprised? Still, she managed a smile. “No others?” she asked hopefully.

  Olvan shook his head, clearly dismayed that he could not give her better news. “With Conor’s prophecy, we cannot wait any longer. We will take two parties and set out separately.” He looked at the others. “Abeke, Rollan, and Conor – you will travel with a small patrol of our best Greencloaks. You will move faster and more stealthily this way, giving you the chance to search for Kovo’s prison and the stolen talismans. I will lead a larger force of Greencloaks from a different direction and meet you there. Too many Conquerors will be gathered in Stetriol for your smaller team to face alone – our forces will provide a distraction for the Conquerors, so that you are able to get through and carry out your mission.”

  A brief silence fell over them. Abeke saw Rollan’s eyes wander over to the empty chair beside Lenori. Tarik would have sat there. He would have been at this meeting, and his presence would have reassured them. Now there was only an echo of him in the air, a ghost. Abeke knew Rollan must be thinking about that now. He pushed his porridge bowl away, as if suddenly uninterested.

  “What about Tellun?” Rollan muttered. He looked around. “I mean, there’s still the Platinum Elk.”

  Lenori shook her head. “I have not seen nor felt Tellun’s presence.”

  Olvan folded his hands before him. “We cannot afford a separate mission to find Tellun and the Platinum Elk. There is no time to lose.”

  “Conor said he saw a shadow of antlers in his dream,” Abeke added. “Maybe that’s where we’ll find Tellun too, at the heart of Erdas.”

  Rollan nodded, probably relieved that they could finally be on the move again. If they had to wait any longer to go after Shane and rescue Meilin …

  Conor still had a troubled look on his face. Abeke reached out and tapped his arm. “What’s the matter?” she said, a knot of dread tightening in her stomach. “Is there more to what you saw?”

  Conor nodded. This time, his stare focused not on his friends, but on their spirit animals. He met Essix’s piercing eyes, then looked at Uraza lounging beside Abeke. His own hand stayed on Briggan’s neck, buried in the fur.

  “In my vision, I saw Briggan, Essix, Uraza, and Jhi in the battle with us. I saw … I saw Uraza overwhelmed by Conquerors, and Briggan’s tattoo disappeared from my arm. Jhi was helpless, and Essix was nowhere at all.”

  Silence.

  “I think …” Conor said slowly, as if unwilling to say the words aloud, “that our spirit animals may not survive this war.”

  THE PRISON DOOR WAS UNLOCKED.

  It was always unlocked. Gerathon saw to it, because she knew that it made no difference for Meilin. She wanted Meilin to sit here, cowering against the wet, mossy dungeon wall of her prison cell, staring for hours at the door that taunted her with the freedom she knew she couldn’t have.

  Meilin wrapped her cloak more tightly around her and snuggled against Jhi’s fur. She couldn’t sleep. If she could see herself in a mirror, she knew there would be dark circles under her eyes. Whenever she did manage to sleep, she dreamed of her father. She would wake thinking that he was alive – alive! – somehow, maybe even here with her in this cell. But then the images from her dreams would fade away, and reality would settle heavily back into the pit of her stomach.

  Her fingers played numbly with a sash tied around her waist. They had cut away her manacles. No point in escaping. She couldn’t trust herself anymore, not in her current state. Even now, with Gerathon far off doing … whatever she did, Meilin could feel the subtle, menacing presence of someone else in her mind, coiled in the shadows and waiting to lash out when needed. She shuddered at the memory of the snake’s domination – the helplessness of not being able to control her own limbs and actions. What would she do if she escaped the dungeons and went back to her friends, anyway? Betray them again?

  “At least Abeke is free,” she whispered under her breath. Abeke should have made it back to Greenhaven by now, with Shane in tow. Meilin couldn’t understand Abeke’s attachment to that boy, although a part of her sympathized, wondering how it must feel for Shane to have been used by the Conquerors – to watch his sister die like that. She hoped the Greencloaks had accepted him too, and that they were both safe now.

  Beside her, Jhi made a deep sound in her throat that set her entire body humming. Meilin paused in her thoughts to look up at her panda. Jhi returned her gaze with wide dark eyes. She knew what the panda was trying to say.

  Don’t worry. The others will return for us. This won’t go on forever.

  “No,” Meilin snapped for the hundredth time. She recalled Abeke and Shane leaving her, promising that they would return for her. She’d let them go. “They’re not coming back. There’s no point. I don’t even think I want them to.”

  One look at Jhi’s mournful gaze was enough to send guilt shooting through Meilin’s heart. She patted the panda’s fur. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.” She sighed. “Oh, Jhi. What will happen to us?” She laughed a little, a sad sound. “Do you think … do you think the universe made a mistake, pairing the two of us together? Do you think it knew how I would treat you?”

  When Jhi only made the rumbling sound in her throat again, sending soothing tremors through Meilin, she shook her head. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to have a Great Beast at all. But I’m glad I do. She squeezed Jhi’s side softly. Once, she would have forced Jhi into the passive state and kept her there, too annoyed to deal with Jhi’s insufferably patient, sympathetic expression. Now, she couldn’t imagine sitting in this cell without the panda’s presence nearby. “Forgive me, Jhi. I’m just … so tired. So tired of not having my thoughts be my own.”

  Jhi licked her hand in reassurance. Meilin leaned against her, soaking in her familiar comfort, and closed her eyes. The image of Gerathon’s smiling jaws and slithering body disappeared, replaced instead with Rollan’s lopsided grin and Conor’s encouraging voice, Abeke’s clear laugh.

  The prison door’s hinges squealed. Meilin shot to her feet right as Jhi let out a low growl.

  It was Shane.

  He looked more tired than she remembered, the bags under his eyes dark and prominent, but it was still unmistakably Shane. His silhouette was stark against the opening of the cell, looking uninjured. His shirt was unbuttoned low into his chest, almost casually.

  A surge of excitement and fear cut through her melancholy. Meilin could hardly believe her eyes – she didn’t even know how to feel. For a moment, the two just stared at each other in complete silence.

  Finally Meilin found her voice. “You came back …” she whispered.

  Shane nodded. “I did.”

  They had come back to rescue her, after all.

  In spite of everything, Meilin burst into a grin. She felt a sudden urge to hug him. The dark thoughts that had plagued her just a moment ago suddenly vanished. If Shane was here, then that meant he and Abeke had made it back to Greenhaven!

/>   Abeke has reunited with the others.

  It meant all sorts of things. The questions started to spill out of her before she could stop herself. “Is Abeke safe? Are there others with you? Did you come with Greencloaks? The east stairs of the dungeon are crawling with –”

  “I’m here alone.”

  Meilin wrung her hands. She looked uncertainly around the cell. “How are we going to get out of here? And even if we do – if I go with you – Gerathon can still see and control everything.” She gave Shane a determined look. “You shouldn’t have come back. Just leave me here, and go help the others. I’ll only make everything worse. I –”

  Jhi’s growl cut her sentence short. Meilin shot her a quizzical look. “What’s wrong? It’s just Shane.” She glanced back to him. “Shane, we have to …”

  Her words faded away. Meilin frowned, suddenly hesitant. Something seemed different about Shane’s expression … in fact, something seemed off about this entire encounter.

  “Shane?” Meilin said. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong,” Shane replied. Even the sound of his voice seemed different – colder, somehow, a far cry from what she remembered. “I just came by to check on you.”

  Meilin raised a skeptical eyebrow. In the past, her instincts had always guided her thinking and actions. Even now, with her trust in her own perception shaken by the Bile, she wanted to rely on her gut feeling … and her gut was telling her that something was horribly off. A low growl continued to rumble from Jhi’s throat. Meilin took a step back.

  Then she noticed something peeking out from the opening of his shirt. Part of a dark mark. A tattoo? She frowned, focusing closer on it. Yes, it looked like … reptilian teeth, protruding from a jaw of scaly skin. She gasped. The rest of the tattoo disappeared inside his shirt, but Meilin didn’t need to see all of it to understand.