The Promised Queen (Forgotten Empires #3)- Jeffe Kennedy Page 0,118

block because I was trying to go from a physical body in this reality—Vesno’s or Ibolya’s body—to an astral realm. My connecting to them via Calanthe went from a physical body to the astral realm and back to physical. To find Ambrose, I should try to keep to the astral side.

The orchid on my finger stirred, petals unfurling to larger and lusher extravagance, nearly glowing in the starlit night, its sweet scent stronger than ever. Taking my cue from it, I allowed my consciousness to open, to bloom in the gentle nourishment of darkness and dew. Letting the wind and water carry me, I flew over the curve of the world, looking for the iceberg of Ambrose’s power.

I found him, a beacon of green solidity that indeed spanned a number of dimensions. I recognized the feel of his magic, like the sacred silence of an ancient forest. I had done it! In my eagerness and excitement, I raced forward, barely managing to skid to a halt as I became aware of three other presences.

One, like a pyramid of translucent obsidian, loomed over the others, so immense I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around it. Though it looked in shape like a pyramid, with five points, it also projected into other realms, almost like a starburst. Seen from another dimension, it flattened to a pentagram. It didn’t seem to notice me, so I eased back, feeling much like a bee carefully extracting herself from an orb-weaver’s complex web.

Another presence, this one like a sphere of old blood, spun in space and time, ripples of expression crossing its globular face. With a volume far exceeding its surface, it seethed with power, the occasional bubble burping up from deep within. The way it spun slowly in place, it seemed to be turning to look my way. I pulled back. Before I got far, a tentacle of red something snaked out to seize me.

I struggled against it, extracting one part of myself, only to find another part ensnared. It swarmed closer, examining me, a rotten scent of unholy avarice choking me to unconsciousness. I knew this presence, also. It had held my hand as it ushered me into death, smiling kindly and asking what it was like to feel my body die around me.

Panicking, I thrashed in its grip, only sinking farther into its influence as its ponderous attention turned to me. I knew on a level beyond conscious knowledge that I’d only tripped over part of its awareness—that it was largely focused elsewhere—but that once it concentrated more fully on me in this plane of reality, I’d be fucked sideways, as Sondra would say. Hearing her dry assessment in my head helped to steady me.

But it didn’t help me to break free. I’d foolishly—like the naive amateur I was—stumbled into depths I couldn’t swim. Con would kill me for this.

Though if I couldn’t extract myself, he wouldn’t have to.

Then a blaze of purple light, jagged as lightning, fast and feathered, zoomed through the tentacle holding me, severing it and setting me free. Where the pyramid and the sphere were ponderous monuments, this presence was all roaring flight, shards of purple ricocheting around in prismatic light, anchoring and protecting me. I knew this presence, too. I’d been in an astral plane with it before. Calanthe’s verdant inner heart.

I withdrew back to myself—but careened headlong into the green I’d first recognized as Ambrose. Like a tree, his astral presence had a solid trunk, with branching roots and limbs extending through various realities.

Not back to Your body, Euthalia, his presence communicated to me, my name an image of the good and true blossom. He showed me how those malicious presences could follow if I retreated to my physical form. Then he drew me into the leafy branches, hiding me there as the purple presence zoomed a distracting display. The bloodred, seething sphere slowly turned away again, forgetting us.

The purple lightning landed on a nearby branch, the shards coalescing into feathers.

Merle? I wondered, and both presences agreed.

Ambrose asked what I’d been trying to do and I tried to wordlessly communicate my desire to follow the team to Yekpehr, to watch and be ready. His understanding flooded me, and the tree self of Ambrose shivered, leaves turning inside out, until we stood on a glass surface.

No, not glass—ice. The pond I’d showed Ambrose in Cradysica. Where we’d traded questions and answers. Ambrose stood before me in his usual, human-seeming form, leaning on the staff with the emerald atop