Benjamin Tate - Leaves of Flame

“I agree with the Chosen,” Peloroun cut in. “We do not know what kind of power he holds. We should allow the Order of Aielan to investigate it, to confirm its intent.”

“Your lands aren’t the ones being attacked,” Lord Saetor replied, an edge to his voice. “If it were your people dying beneath the sukrael’s darkness-”

Lords rose from their seat, some in protest, others arguing to accept the gift, the tumult rising. Colin felt his arm beginning to tremble and lowered his hand, cradling the seed close to him. Anger lashed through him, and disgust. He should never have brought the subject before the Evant, should have known that the decision would not be reached easily, even with the Tamaell’s support. He and Aeren had hoped that the Evant would seize the chance for protection without question, but there were still too many within the council who did not trust Aeren or Colin, even after the events at the Escarpment. They had assumed Lotaern would support them, even though it ate away at his newly won power with the Evant. They had assumed that he would see the benefits of freeing his warriors of the Flame for other purposes, and that it would more than likely fall to the Order to care for the seed.

“Fools,” Colin muttered under his breath, glaring around at the cacophony of noise, the power of the seed pulsing with his own blood. “All fools.”

The power would not wait for the Evant to come to a decision. It had already been awakened.

He turned toward the platform, caught the eyes of the former Tamaea. She reached out and touched Thaedoren’s arm, the Tamaell’s gaze shifting from the bickering lords to Colin.

His lips pressed into a thin line as they regarded each other-

Then he nodded.

Colin moved, not waiting for the Evant to be called to order. Permission had been granted; the wishes of the Lotaern and the lords no longer mattered. He headed for the stairs, saw a blur of blue-and-red motion out of the corner of his eye, Eraeth and four other Rhyssal Phalanx surrounding him a moment later. But they didn’t impede him. Two darted forward and cleared a path up the stairs to the hall’s inner doors, Eraeth motioning the waiting Phalanx there to open the chamber. They scrambled to draw the doors back, even as Colin heard Lotaern shout out a warning from behind them.

Colin and his escort spilled out through the main stone doors of the Hall, past the thick colonnades, and into the blinding sunlight of the marketplace. The clamor of the Evant became the roar of thousands of Alvritshai vying for attention or haggling for a bargain, the plaza packed with hawkers, carts, tents, and animals. Alvritshai in the conical hats of commoners wove through the makeshift paths toting baskets and bundles, stopping to inspect wares or chat with friends and family. Children dashed between bodies, and messengers and pages darted through every opening as they rushed to deliver their notes.

Colin halted on the edge of the morass of people, Eraeth coming up beside him.

“Where?” the Protector asked bluntly.

Colin drew in a deep breath, felt the power of the seed building, drawing upon the life-force of the crowd around it. He wouldn’t be able to control it much longer. But the seed couldn’t be placed just anywhere. It had to be within the walls of Caercaern so that Thaedoren and the White Phalanx-and Lotaern and his Flame-could protect it.

But it needed room. Lots of room.

“The center of the plaza,” he rasped. Eraeth shot him a questioning look, but he shook his head. “There’s no other choice. We don’t have much time.”

Eraeth barked orders, the Rhyssal Phalanx closing in tighter around him, and then they plowed into the crowd.

Eraeth drove straight toward the center of the plaza, ignoring the cries of protest as the Phalanx shoved people out of their way. At the heart of the group, Colin struggled with the seed, its pulse now locked into his heartbeat, threading through his body and drawing on his own power. He could taste its urgency, frigid and silvery, like snow, the sensation coursing through his skin, making him shudder with cold. Eraeth glanced back, caught the look on his face, then barked new orders. The Phalanx broke through the center of a tent, cloth ripping as tables were knocked aside and pottery crashed to the ground. They tipped over a cart laden with melons, nearly trampled a gaggle of old women, who shrieked and scattered like hens, and then Colin could hold the power within no longer.

He shouted a warning toward Eraeth, even as the Phalanx drew back from him. He could feel the power slipping outward from his grasp, glanced up to see shock and horror dawning on the faces around him. The crowd, Eraeth and the Phalanx included, pulled farther back as tendrils of light began flickering upward from the stone around him. As the light intensified, Colin scanned the area, saw that they’d nearly made it to the fountain, noted the discarded blankets and abandoned tables of merchants, then noticed that the light curling upward around him was centered on one spot, one location.

He stepped forward, thrust a tarp from a collapsed tent aside with his staff, bared the stone of the plaza beneath in a wide circle, the seed clutched to his chest with one arm as he worked. Then he fell to his knees, setting his staff to one side.

The light emerging from the ground came in sheets, rising like steam or mist. On the far side of the veil, Eraeth and the rest of the Phalanx were herding the Alvritshai in the plaza back, farther away from Colin. The Protector met Colin’s gaze for a brief moment, then broke the contact as more Phalanx arrived in the varied colors of the other Houses. Colin caught sight of Aeren, Peloroun, Lotaern, the latter two looking furious, and behind them all, Thaedoren. The Tamaell broke through the widening circle of Phalanx, stepping close to the swirling light.

Then the urgency of the seed pulsed deep into Colin’s chest. He gasped at the intensity, felt his body shudder in response.

Lifting the seed toward the sky with both hands, he released the power of the Lifeblood, the Confluence, and the White Fire inside him. It surged through his arms, into the seed, and the last restraints on the power locked inside it collapsed.

With a harsh cry, he drove the shaft of the seed into the stone before him, felt it pierce deep. Beneath his hand, the knot atop the staff writhed. The pale white bark split beneath his palm with a crack of splintering wood. He hissed and lurched backward, stumbled on the detritus left behind by the market vendors, but caught himself. Grabbing his staff, he continued backing up. White light licked up around him, flowed through him, touching and tasting, rising higher as the stone beneath his feet trembled. It recognized its creator.

The crowd gasped when the seed quickened and the sapling that sprouted from it shot skyward, higher than the tendrils of light, piercing upward, growing in the space of heartbeats, seeking sunlight. The sapling thickened, the bole of an immense tree emerging, its bark dark, nearly black, limbs thrusting outward from the trunk like spears, splitting, branching. The groan of stressed wood filled the plaza, punctuated by sharp cracks and sizzling, hissing pops. And still the immense tree strained upward. Roots pierced the stone at the trunk’s base and dove back underground, grinding the stone to dust as the trunk thickened and spread. Buds appeared on the thousands of branches, burst open between one breath and the next, thick silvery leaves unfurling. Colin stepped back once, twice, tilted his head so that he could see the branches reaching outward, obscuring the sky, stretching out over the crowd below.

That crowd stood stunned, the Phalanx no longer trying to usher the gathered Alvritshai backward. Some had bolted and were thrashing their way through those too awed to move. Even the lords of the Evant and the Tamaell had stilled, gazing up in wonder at a tree nearly five times as large as any tree they had ever seen before. It would take twenty men, hands linked, to encircle the trunk alone.