45.1 So Far Ahead

General Summary

Days 773 - 774

While we travel, Ausha's taproot magic is the first to be completed and we can now draw upon two separate pools of energy rather than solely mine. She feels stronger and more separate now, but still deeply connected.   When we sail past Rainbow's mountain, the rest continue onwards while Magdalena, Ausha, Starfield, and I ascend to make use of Rainbow's workshop for jewellery and the blood scroll. Arriving is much like coming home - we are welcomed and settle easily into working and socializing. Rainbow, for their part, is stunned to see Starfield alive and well.  

The world thought you died!

  But she is still weak, so Rainbow promises to teach me a little about dragon restorative magic and herblore to help. While Rainbow and I attend to dragon matters, Magdalena and Ausha will work on jewellery before we all come together for the blood scroll. And after that, once things are calm and everything is ready, I will speak with Trillium about Wildfire and our plan.  

Day 775

On our third day on the mountain, I've finished with Rainbow and it is time for Magdalena to give me the workings of the blood scroll. We ascend to the very top of the mountain, where the pure magic is richest and most intense. There, we begin the carvings and magic that will infuse me with the particular magic I've added to Magdalena's foundation:   I had thought about combining trees - grafting one song onto another. And about the song stones from Avan'Nal and the lost cavern Qing Chen and I found. But those are elf songs, and elves are not fae anymore - if I am going to carry songs and hold the responsibility of a Treeborn then I need to be one for both elves and fae. It needs to be about songs, not song stones. And while I might be able to carry song stones to the orchard, I don't know how I would combine other songs...nor would I want to. Songs belong with their origin cycle, unless the singer chooses to leave the way the Vanguard did.   If I think of songs as living things, there are all sorts of pieces in there that I could work with, but the ones that feel most accessible are shade from the sun, structural support like a trellis. I want to be a place where weak songs get stronger and re-establish themselves. That’s the intent of the work I’m doing with lost cycles, so it feels right to have magic for rehabilitating, not reaping or saving or remembering.  My study of heart magic has given me a unique heart song magic that could be a trellis for other songs to follow until they strengthen, and then I have enough of various other magics that when I plant them again, I can give them a little push to keep them safe while the world changes around them.   So that is what goes into the blank space that Magdalena left for me - a trellis pattern for songs to follow my heartsong.   It has been a very long time since I've been so deep in blood magic - the carvings are deep and painful, seemingly more so than it ever has been before. Magdalena is as gentle as she can be - cutting no deeper than she needs to. And finally, we push through the last piece of magic and it feels like my veins are on fire as the world goes white. I can hear myself screaming, but with only the vaguest awareness that that noise is me.   Throughout all of it, there is the steady pulse of my heart, until that stops, and the rhythm continues...until that stops as well and it is just blank and white all around me. Again, I hear the flutter of small wings and the Heart of Song is with me again, fretful.  

Why are you so far ahead? Why are you trying so hard? You're not going to survive this...   Tell my daughter to bring you to an origin tree...you're too weak.

  Amidst the snarling and growling low in my throat, the pain and fury at encountering the Heart again, I manage to ask why she doesn't speak to Magdalena herself.  

I can't.

  When I wake, I force out the only thing I can before fading again:  

Your mother says to bring me to an origin tree.

  When I come to again, I can hear the Heart...and a soft masculine voice that I don't recognize. Snippets of conversation drift around me -

• The first child of the orchard doesn't have wings
• Thalien hasn't fully manifested
• The Wielder of Artemisia's Tool isn't ready
• I won't let another person die for this magic
• Magdalena is nearby, but she can't make it here yet
• She can hear us

And when I open my eyes, finally, I get some explanations directly from the Heart.  

  First - an illusion of me encountering Magdalena's Tree of Day and Night for the first time. From this strange vantage point, I can see the Heart of Song present and watching me.    "Magdalena must be so proud of this one. But as she is, it's not going to work. Then...let's help just a bit. Since she's offering blood, how can I refuse?"   Magically, I see her reach out and complete the blood bond I had offered the Tree. From here, I can see that it wouldn't have worked without her.   "Maybe she'll be the one who gets to hear my song. Wouldn't that be nice? But she's not actually physically here, is she? Where is she...?"   And I see her flit over to where I had entered the Dreaming on the other side of the Northern Grove thicket. She works her own blood magic over the thorns to allow passage for the ones she marks - me, presumably. Alder? The magic between her and the thicket is somewhat adversarial - they are extracting some toll on her for their obedience. When Alder passes through, the trees pull back the thorns for him. The Heart is with me again as I begin my transformation   "This is good. Andstella has been lonely for so long. Maybe this will heal other things too. She'll get her own path - no fate, no price, just hopes."

  This, evidently, is why I can hear her. She tangled her song with mine and has been keeping an eye on me ever since. I feel so empty - these are just facts, I suppose. She tells me that she's proud of Magdalena for teaching someone like me.  

Next - an illusion high above ocean waves with no land in sight. Again, I see the Heart of Song flying until she is blocked by a dozen or so Treeborn. She looks surprised -   "So many of you...why have you come looking for me? It's about the fighting, isn't it? With all of you here, if you could help then we could put an end to it fairly quickly."   I see one Treeborn speak (not one I recognize - though I see Galfen and Temira near him).   "Mother, it's not about the fighting directly. This is about you and the magic that you're bringing back"   She looks at Artemisia - "Is this your working?" and the fae responds - "Seen it, Mother. This one has to change. Can't let it, have to change it".   After a few more exchanges, the fight begins. A dozen Treeborn and summoned Axiols tearing at the Heart, who is trying desperately not to kill anyone. She protests that even if they destroy her, they must know that she will return in some form as long as hearts beat and songs are sung. Still...they destroy her. And promise to be waiting when she returns.

  The Heart tells me that this was Ailanthus.  

And lastly - a grove of trees, probably seasons, though they feel more intense. And light is gathered from the trees until it coalesces into the Heart of Song, greeted by a wizard who carries a mace - Ankhetla? It has been 200 years, and there has been much fighting, even worse than when the Heart was destroyed. Ankhetla describes the Pruning - origin trees being destroyed, Treeborn being killed. And then... Artemisia steps forward and plants a seed that erupts into thorny vines that lash the Heart to one of the trees.   "Mother, everyone knows you can't die. But what you're trying to do? That's what they're fighting so hard to preserve. You can stay here, and I'll keep you company. But you can't be allowed to leave. They can't risk you being able to materialize somewhere else. So sleep. Sleep for a while."   The vines grow outward and I recognize them now as the same thicket that surrounds the Northern Grove today. They cut through the grove and severe the newer trees from the old ones - keeping the oldest songs locked away just like the Heart.   Then, the vision shifts to just outside the thicket, where I see Uncle Red careening towards the Grove. He has Jaedien in his arms, and Akhetla stops him.   "I know Mother doesn't care, but she has always had an extra space for him. If nothing else will move her heart to stop this war...let me bring him to her. Maybe his loss is enough for her to take action, finally?"   Akhetla looks at him coldly and collects up Jaedien, telling Uncle Red to stay outside.   "Tell her that none of us are safe now - that if she doesn't do anything now, it may be too late."   Within the thicket, Akhetla places the body down, and returns to Uncle Red to tell him that the Heart sighed, but nothing more. He turns and races away, and I watch a tiny thread of magic reach from the Heart to the trees and into Jaedien.

  It is a lot to receive all at once, along with the gradual realization that my body is on the verge of death, and I am only being sustained by the Heart's magic.   What were you trying to do that got them so upset?  

This place - Harmony. It is a place where songs converge. I saw that not all of the grandchildren were thriving and none of us had created children who could just thrive. But if there was a mistake...Treeborn were each given one chance to create their lineage. How could they ever have been ready for that? How could they create something that could thrive? What prepares a person for that? When the Eldest and I planted the first tree and gave birth to Treeborn, it was our first time too. I suppose none of us thought much about it at the time - it was just a thing you could do. And since we could do it, I thought they should be able to do it too. Harmony is a method of connecting all trees and groves so that a person who wanted to could move to a different cycle. You've already seen it work - the fae of seasons who became fae of day and night did so because of Harmony. But some fae believed that this was the destruction of their children, that the cycle they'd planted wouldn't be accepted. They thought they would be forced to become other types of fae. Temira was afraid that her fae were doomed to sleep a single time before they abandoned it - endless children with no adults. Different people had different fears about how it might affect things. But the intention was always to create more opportunities to share. I'd hoped it would give us a way to settle some of the fears and put a stop to the fighting, even if it started other conflicts. I needed help from the Eldest and the Source (Kaie) to create it at all.   You are trying to form a trellis to carry songs. Your magic touched Harmony very deeply - you touched something that overwhelmed you. The resonance between your own magic and Harmony was too great. I'm buffering that now, but we'll have to find a way to strengthen you in the face of that resonance.

  Her suggestion for strengthening me is to send one of the Dreamers in my family to the Northern Grove to collect tears from the Heart of Song and integrate them into me. Whoever goes (Liliales - it must be Liliales) would need to be guarded against Ankhetla. This is the argument she was having with Pistil. There are risks she thinks I wouldn't ask my family to take. She can keep my spirit alive and the tree will keep my body from perishing for a decade. But something needs to be done to strengthen me.   From the immense calm of my near-death-state, I feel a twist of fear and anxiety - the first real emotional texture I've felt amidst the whirling information.   And all of a sudden it's all I can feel - fear for Liliales, for Ausha, Magdalena. It has only been weeks since Cereus' magic catapulted us through time and my entire family had to experience my flame going out. But the Heart tells me that I can't effectively reach the Dreaming for more than a few minutes - there's nothing I can do. At most, we could pass messages through Pistil. Pistil the Ephemeral...the Celestial Treeborn thought to have moved 'beyond the Dreaming'. Apparently he found the entrance to Harmony and has been drifting around here and the Dreaming. It was his voice I heard earlier, and he knows about Mistress and Thalien and Liliales.   So the near-overwhelming fear and helplessness subsides just like it does before I handle any catastrophe, boxed up and filed away to poke at later if the catastrophe drags on long enough that I need to let it out. Sometimes, by the time it's safe to feel so much, there is nothing to feel anymore.   In this case, I suppose, by the time it's safe to feel, I'll be dead. And until it becomes certain that such a thing is inevitable, I should focus my attention on the problem, at hand. I expect everyone else will be doing the same thing. I didn't raise a family that falls apart when someone is dying.   What did Artemisia see?

The present, in a jumbled up way. From what I understand, she saw the aftermath of the Pruning and she saw the lie that the creation of Harmony would bring about that tragedy. Which...I don't believe it did. I think Ailanthus would have rebelled anyway. He used Harmony as an excuse to pull others to his banner but his ultimate goal has always been the end of cycles and groves. My children were born from the infinite variety of life, and I've always been so proud of Temira - overcoming her nature.    Pistil found his way to Harmony - he slips back into the Dreaming and keeps watch for me. But until Thalien arrived, he had no one to watch the world for him. He's very excited about the new humans you brought to the grove...I imagine he'll keep me less company when he has children to watch over again.

  But now Artemisia has created the Dream Spike that Liliales collected - whose side is she on? She and Temira both - clearly so aligned with Ailanthus and now seem either vanished or operating as free agents. And Anketla as well...is she really still aligned with Ailanthus?     Are you still in the Northern Grove? Do you want to get out?

Yes...someone has to be able to defeat Akhetla, who is still my jailer. It has been very difficult to realize Harmony under her nose but I think she has not detected it yet. Sometime I wonder after everything came to light and fell apart so badly...if something wasn't done to her to keep her compliant as a jailer. After all, the war is long over.

  My mind-on-overdrive can't help but think that if we're going to the Northern Grove to fetch her tears, we might as well stage a rescue attempt. I'm already putting together a team in my head: Liliales, Qishali, Magdalena, Mistress, Uncle Red, maybe Cereus? The thicket is strange, new magic (the Heart thinks maybe Ailanthus worked with the Master on it) but if they use the bead of time magic from Cereus...surely Magdalena could untangle that in a month?   The Heart interrupts me to say that the time magic Cereus gave me is life-saving magic, something I should save. I wave it off - I trust my family to decide what they'll do. I'm certainly going to point out that they have the resources to do more than just harvest her tears...but whether it's the right thing to do is not my decision right now.   Do you know where Asphodeloideae is?

Last I heard, she was looking for a Zephyr friend of hers.

  I have to laugh at this. Maybe in time, we can all launch a rescue mission for poor Sitka, the Weaver.   Finally, she gives me some time to sit with my thoughts and form whatever passes for a plan. Time doesn't seem to pass coherently here, and I have time to rest as well as sketch out battle plans, letters, thoughts and hopes.