Benjamin Tate - Leaves of Flame

They paused to rest twice at Aeren’s insistence, Vaeren anxious to keep moving, pacing even as the rest groaned and settled against the ice wall or, like Petraen, threw themselves flat on the ground. Boreaus passed out cooked meat he’d saved from the last few roasts. Without the sun, they couldn’t tell how much time had passed. When Aeren called a halt for sleep, Vaeren shot him a dark glare and drew breath to protest, but a soft yet sharp word from Siobhaen kept him quiet.

Colin tried to rest, but couldn’t. Lying flat on the rough ground, he stared up at the darkened ceiling of ice. The Lifeblood tingled through his skin, even though they were still distant. He could taste it, like leaves and ice and earth all mingled together on his tongue. It pulsed in his blood as well. In the dimness of the small fire they’d kept burning, he reached up and pulled the sleeve of his shirt back and looked at the swirling black stains that wound around his arm, like oil beneath his skin. If he concentrated hard enough, he could sense it shifting around within him, down both his arms, tendrils of it reaching into his chest.

It had gotten much worse after the Escarpment, no matter how much he tried to keep it at bay, no matter how long he stayed away from the Well or kept himself from drinking the Lifeblood. The need to create the Trees and then his obsession with the knife… they had both taken their toll.

He dropped his arm, then rolled onto his side, startled when he looked across the fire and saw Siobhaen watching him, her brow creased with a frown. She turned away as soon as she caught his gaze, troubled. He thought about moving to speak with her, since it was obvious neither of them could sleep, but he hesitated and eventually rolled away from the flames to face the darkness of his shadow against the ice wall.

He slept fitfully, the Lifeblood seething inside him.

“We’ll reach the well today,” Colin announced when they woke, the others packing up what little they’d taken out the night before. He noticed they kept their cattans free, their clothing loose. Here inside the cavern, they didn’t need the heavy clothes to keep the harsh wind at bay and so were dressed in layers mostly to protect against the cold. “Stay near me at the Well. And don’t drink from it, don’t even touch it.” He pulled back his sleeve enough for everyone to see the black marks, heard one of them suck in a sharp breath, another whisper “shaeveran.” He caught all of their gazes with a hard glare. “It will change you, even with a touch.”

Then he spun and led them down the tunnel. Everyone stayed close, and everyone was on edge. Colin drew their tension around him like a cloak, his focus on the Well, on what he would find when he reached it.

He nearly gasped when, from the darkness ahead, he saw a faint flicker of bluish light.

“What is it?” Vaeren spat behind him. Only then did he realize he’d halted in his tracks, that he stood with his staff angled defensively before him.

Eraeth and Aeren came up on his left, Siobhaen to the right. He motioned to the faint glow with his staff. “There shouldn’t be any light.”

Both Vaeren and Eraeth reached for their cattans. They shot each other annoyed glares.

“What does it mean?” Aeren asked.

“The light comes from the Well. It means that something has definitely disturbed their balance. This happened before, when Walter and the Wraiths began awakening the Wells the first time.”

“So it doesn’t mean that someone is at the Well now.”

“No. But someone has been to one of the Wells somewhere and manipulated it.”

“Back in Caercaern, you said that none of the Wells have been touched,” Vaeren said.

Colin frowned at the harshness in his voice. “I said none of the Wells that we know of have been disturbed.”

Vaeren’s eyes narrowed at the distinction, but before he could say anything Eraeth broke in.

“Vaeren, Siobhaen, and I will take the lead,” he said, “Colin and Aeren the center, the rest behind. We’ll use the torches until the light ahead is bright enough we can see without them.”

He didn’t wait for an argument, simply stepped forward, drawing his cattan. A moment later, Siobhaen and Vaeren joined him, their own blades bare, moving cautiously but quickly. A short time later, Eraeth motioned for the torches to be doused, their bearers grinding them into the soil and smothering their flames with their feet. The bluish light filled the tunnel, and as it grew, Colin picked out a faint pulse to its glow. The pall of the Lifeblood fell across him, heavier and heavier the closer they came, throbbing in his skin in time with the light. His grip tightened on his staff and his heart quickened, falling into the same rhythm.

The tunnel widened, the ceiling reaching away at a slow slope. Eraeth increased the pace, the group fanning out.

And then the tunnel ended, expanding into a huge chamber, the ceiling of ice rising into a massive dome. The ground rose slightly, the wind-torn grass of the tundra giving way abruptly to trees. Water dripped down from the heights in a slow, steady fall of rain, and as they stepped forward to the edge of the forest, they could feel the heat pressing forward, damp and humid against their faces. Colin wiped the wetness from his face with one hand, saw many of the others doing the same. The rain pattered against the wide, flat, copper-colored leaves of the trees as they entered the grove, runneling down the smooth edges and dripping from the sharp yellowed tips. Within twenty paces, Colin’s hair was plastered to his forehead, water seeping in under the edge of his clothing and settling uncomfortably against his skin. He noticed the others pulling at the collars of their shirts and shrugging their shoulders as they adjusted to the annoyance.

They continued forward, the forest silent except for the rainfall, the white-barked trunks of the trees slipping by on either side. The Phalanx and the Flame had circled Colin and Aeren and were scanning beneath the foliage, swords bared, but they saw nothing.

After a long moment, and at a backward, questioning glance from Eraeth, Colin said, “It should be just ahead.”

Ten paces beyond, the land rose in a steep ridge, the boles of the trees falling away as it flattened into a circular stone plaza.

The Well stood in the center, its edge rising from the flat stone to waist height. There was nothing else in the plaza, although when he had been here last, Colin had found evidence of other structures built on top of the stone, their foundations still visible as outlines on the surface. The strange trees surrounded the plaza on all sides, their branches draping over the edge of the platform in places.

“How can there be trees?” Aeren asked. He whispered, but his voice breaking the near silence still made some of the Phalanx start. “No sunlight can reach down here.”

“The Well,” Colin said, moving out from the edge of the platform toward its lip even as he spoke. “The Lifeblood keeps them alive.”

The group reformed, Colin drawing up to the edge of the Well to stare down into the depths of the perfectly flat water, the bluish light washing up over his face, the rest hanging back. He could taste the Lifeblood now, wanted to reach out and drink it down, feel its coolness in his mouth, slipping down his throat and suffusing his body with warmth. The need was an ache. When he reached one hand forward, it trembled. He stared at it, the skin pale, nearly translucent, the marks that had pulled free of the cover of his sleeve a hideous black in contrast.

“I need to see if I can find out what has happened through the Well,” Colin said. “I won’t be aware of what’s happening around me as I work.”

Eraeth immediately ordered the rest of Aeren’s Phalanx to spread out, halfway between the Well and the trees. Vaeren grudgingly did the same, sending Siobhaen, Petraen, and Boreaus to join them. Both Vaeren and Aeren remained close to Colin, who turned his attention completely on the Well and the pulsations of light.