Benjamin Tate - Leaves of Flame

“I’ve been busy, Aeren, trying to balance the awakening of the Wells, battling the sukrael in the lands not protected by the Seasonal Trees, battling the Wraiths.”

“Battling Walter, you mean.”

Aeren frowned at the interruption of his Protector, Eraeth’s voice barely a murmur. But then he focused on the bundle nestled among the stacks of papers and other detritus of the maintenance of a House of the Evant. “Is that who this is for? Walter?”

“For all of the Wraiths and the Shadows,” Colin said, and heard the defensiveness in his voice. He sighed. “But yes, this is for Walter.”

“It’s been seventy-two years since the battle at the Escarpment and the signing of the Accord. Walter and the Wraiths have caused little problem since the planting of the Trees thirty-three years ago.”

“Not here on Alvritshai lands, or where the other two Seasonal Trees hold sway, but outside of their influence…” Colin shook his head. “Walter and the Wraiths are only biding their time. The Trees were not meant to last forever.”

“How long will they last?” Eraeth interjected.

Colin shrugged. “I don’t know. I suspect hundreds of years, or longer, because of the Lifeblood they are imbued with. But we will need a way to defend against the Shadows and the Wraiths no matter when the Trees fail.”

Aeren’s eyebrows rose. “And this has nothing to do with Walter and what happened between the two of you?”

Colin said nothing, his brow creasing in irritation. For a moment, he felt the wooden bars of the penance lock across his neck, biting into his wrists. He felt Walter’s foot connecting with his stomach, Walter’s arm pressed into his throat, choking him.

The memories caused his hands to clench into fists.

Aeren sighed, and Colin saw Eraeth nod knowingly. “Eraeth, have someone bring us some wine, perhaps some bread and cheese.”

Eraeth moved to the door as Aeren motioned Colin to the balcony. They stepped out into the night air, chill even though it was nearing summer. Nights in Caercaern were always cold, and the temples of Aielan had rung the chimes for cotiern hours ago. Colin moved to the edge of the balcony, hands resting on the lip of stone, and glared out over what he could see of the tiered city. The streets of the third tier were empty, only a few windows glowing softly with lantern light. From the second tier, the Winter Tree cleaved the cloudless night, its silver leaves shimmering in the moonlight. Colin kept his eyes on the Tree, a new wall surrounding the marketplace where it had been planted.

“Does this mean that you won’t help?” he asked. His breath fogged the air with bitterness.

“No. You and I both know how dangerous the sukrael are, how deadly the Wraiths. But I will not help you out of any need for vengeance. I’ll help because, as you say, the Wraiths and the sukrael-including Walter-have not vanished. They will return at some point to plague us. You are letting your personal feelings blind you. I can see the tension in your shoulders, in your stance.”

Colin’s hands gripped the edge of the stone hard enough he could feel grit scraping free beneath his fingers. He drew in a deep breath… and then exhaled sharply, releasing the stone and pushing back from the edge, trying to calm himself. He caught Aeren’s gaze where the Lord stood in the half-light coming from the inner room and shook his head with a troubled smile.

“You’re right. I’ve been working on the heartwood and practically nothing else for too long. I’ve lost myself to the effort, the failure upon failure.…”

“You are too hard on yourself. You’ve done more than expected in our efforts to fight the sukrael and the Wraiths. You brought us the Winter Tree-even if the gift was unexpected and, perhaps, unwanted by some. And you’ve managed to halt the preternatural storms that plagued the plains, as well as the occumaen, by balancing out the power of the Wells.”

“None of that has solved the real problem. It’s only bought us time.”

Before Aeren could answer, Eraeth appeared behind him, accompanied by a servant with a platter of wine, bread, and cheese. Aeren motioned for the servant to set the platter to one side and then dismissed him. He poured each of them a glass, Colin raising his wine and drinking without really tasting it, still thinking about the heartwood, about Walter, about the Shadows.

Aeren joined him at the balcony, stared out at the Winter Tree, then said casually, “Perhaps you need a different kind of fire for this heartwood… a different kind of forge.”

“Like what?” Colin muttered in frustration.

“What about Aielan’s Light?”

In the confines of the meeting room within the Order of Aielan, Colin grunted and shook his head. It had taken him a moment on that chill night over forty years ago to understand that Aeren did not mean the metaphorical Light that the Alvritshai used as a representation of Aielan, but the literal white fire that lay in the depths of the Alvritshai mountains of Hauttaeran. Every acolyte of the Order of Aielan must at some point immerse themselves in the white flames hidden in the catacombs and halls that riddled the mountains behind Caercaern before they could become true members of the Order. Aeren had done so before the deaths of his father and elder brother had forced him to ascend as Lord of his House and give up his ties to the Order. Occasionally, he wore the pendant that signified his passage. Colin had entered the white flames himself in the years following the Accord, after studying the Scripts of the Order as if he were an acolyte himself, although he had never officially been part of the Order. He couldn’t become a true member, since he wasn’t Alvritshai.

But he should have thought of Aielan’s Light on his own. After all, he’d used the white flame to create the seeds that had become the Seasonal Trees. He’d only immersed the seeds in the flame then, so that they could absorb some of the properties of the fire itself, so that they’d be imbued with its power and be more resilient and harder to destroy. But attempting to wield the flame, to use it as a tool to shape the heartwood.…

He hadn’t known if it had ever been attempted, hadn’t known if it could even be done.

But if it could be done, then Aielan’s Light would be perfect. A natural flame, but completely unlike the fire of a blacksmith’s forge. It would not burn like the fire of a forge; it would not incinerate the heartwood or cause it to explode. It was a fire like the power already resident in the wood he needed to mold, alive and somehow prescient.

It was a fire under the control of Lotaern, the Chosen of the Order.

As if the thought had summoned him, the door to the meeting room opened and Lotaern stepped into the room, followed by two members of the Order of the Flame, the guardsmen taking up positions on either side of the door as Lotaern halted at the edge of the table. The stylized white flame of the Order stood out on the chests of the two guardsmen, signifying they were members of the Order’s internal Phalanx. Lotaern wore the robes of the Chosen, a subdued dark blue, flames stitched into the sleeves and collar. He carried no visible weapons, but both guardsmen rested hands on the pommels of their cattan blades. All three were tense, but it was the weariness in Lotaern’s bearing-even though the Chosen stood tall, back straight-that caught Colin’s attention. He appeared tired and worn, and with a start Colin realized that he had to be nearly two hundred years old. No. Two hundred was too young. If Lotaern had been the Chosen when Aeren was merely an acolyte, it meant that Lotaern had to be closer to two hundred and fifty. Perhaps more.

And for the first time, Colin saw that age, as if it had been draped around his shoulders like a blanket. The changes since the Accord and the planting of the Winter Tree were subtle, yet striking. Wrinkles had appeared around his eyes and mouth, breaking the usual smoothness of Alvritshai skin, and his dark hair had lost some of its sheen, appearing dull and somehow brittle. It suddenly struck Colin that he had not thought the Alvritshai would age. Aeren and Eraeth, Moiran and Lotaern, had been such a constant part of his life since he emerged from seclusion near the Well that he’d assumed they’d remain with him forever, unchanged.