Send Me Their Souls (Bring Me Their Hearts #3) - Sara Wolf Page 0,103

tell you where they are. In humans, their soul resides in their heart. In valkerax, it is in the blood—the marrow that makes blood.”

“Their…bones,” I say slowly. “The marrow in the bones?”

He nods. “It’s why the Bone Tree is made of their bones, and why the Glass Tree must have a sliver of itself touching a human heart for it to create Heartless. They are Trees made to control two different creatures, and the only way that is done is by the soul.”

I blink, reeling. “How do you know all that?”

“When you look past all the labyrinthine twists and turns here”—Muro smiles—“there’s really much to be learned on the other side.”

I don’t get it. I don’t get it, but he smells like Yorl—copper and sun-warmed fur—and that’s the only clue this might not actually be a dream.

“The Tree of Souls,” Muro starts patiently, “is a special creature. It is alive, as you or I. Well, you.” He smirks. “Regardless, it is a creature. It, too, has a soul. And it gave that to us, at the very beginning of Arathess. It gives that to us every day—but only some of us are able to grasp it, hold on to that great gift.”

He tilts his maned face over to me, six eyes gleaming. “I’m speaking, of course, of witches. Of magic.”

“Magic,” I breathe. “Are you saying—magic is the Tree of Souls’…soul?”

He chuckles. “Perhaps I went too quickly in too short a time. You’ll understand for yourself, someday, when you join me here. But you’ve already taken the first steps to understanding, haven’t you?”

I knit my brows at him, confused.

“The dreams,” he clarifies. “Of the Tree.”

“I mean, sure. I’ve had a dream about the Trees. The two tree rosaries,” I say slowly. “But I haven’t had any grand, spontaneous moment of understanding, nothing like you’re talking about—”

“Truly? No feeling of sureness in you? No strange feeling that seems like it comes from outside of you, but one that is so sure of itself regardless?”

I freeze, then mutter, “That feeling of wrongness, like if I didn’t put the trees together—”

“—something terrible would happen,” he finishes for me, leaving a beat for digestion. “The Trees communicate through dreams. The Glass Tree speaks to witches. The Bone Tree spoke to Varia in her dreams. But when you arrived in Vetris, it was neither the Bone Tree nor the Glass Tree that spoke to you. It was their mother, and their true self. The origin. The Tree of Souls spoke to you.”

I remember every dream-moment painfully—the tree covered in stained glass crying out in pain, in loneliness, turning the glass on me when I got too close. That was the Tree of Souls? The origin of all magic on Arathess? The tree Fione and Lucien looked so wary talking about on the ship?

“Why me?” I instantly demand. Muro’s chuckle is despairing this time.

“I cannot do much more than guess—it may have known. The Tree of Souls is connected to us all, and perhaps it knew what you would become.”

“Beautiful?” I try. “Smart? Stylish?”

“It knew you would be touched by both the Glass Tree and the Bone Tree.”

“So is Varia,” I argue. He nods.

“True. But she is only witch. You are Heartless and valkerax, all at once. She has felt the Bone Tree’s pain but not the Glass Tree’s. She has not felt the pain of both the Trees as you have. You have felt the Tree of Souls’ pain as no one else in the world has.”

I watch him tilt his muzzle up to look at the stars, and he shimmers so violently, the ochre of his body almost entirely melts into the black.

“Ah. Time is so fickle.” He pivots to me, that eternal smile in place. “I will see you again, Zera, someday.”

“Wait—” I reach out for him, but my hand passes through him like air, my fingers making the shimmer worse. “There are a million things I want to—”

“Tell Yorl I am proud of him, would you?” he interrupts, soft and yet determined.

I catch his emerald eyes, all six of them gentle, and I nod. “I will.”

And then I blink, and he’s gone. No increments, no fragments. Just there and then gone. But somehow, as I trace my steps back to the cool bed and Lucien’s arms, I know he’s not really gone at all. It’s the blood in me, the promise in me. It’s a feeling. A knowing.

I know I’ll see him again.

I’m tempted to write off Muro’s appearance as a dream. Wipe