Send Me Their Souls (Bring Me Their Hearts #3) - Sara Wolf Page 0,111

light of the moon, of the sun, whatever faint light you can find.

I battle the urge to destroy with every memory I’ve gathered—Fione’s apple-cheeked smile, her gentle hands. Malachite’s smirk, ruffling my hair. Lucien kissing me, the hollow of my throat, the way he breathes when he holds me—all the memories stand like soldiers, like the soldiers once gathered outside Vetris’s walls, like the eclipseguard gathered in Windonhigh, like the valkerax gathered in the Dark Below obeying eternally the Bone Tree, like Crav and Peligli and I in Nightsinger’s forest, waiting to fight for her. To die for her. Over and over again.

Love. Not-Love.

TOGETHER, the Bone Tree’s demands go soft, for just one moment. together.

It wants to be together. Of course it does. Everybody wants to be together with the one they love. Fione wants to be with Varia. I want to be with Lucien, with all my friends. Malachite wants to be with us. Crav and Peligli want to be with me.

The Bone Tree wants to be with the Glass Tree, again.

Because it’s lonely out there, isn’t it? It’s a lonely world if you aren’t together. And the Trees have been lonely for a thousand years.

I’m sorry, I think. I’m so sorry you’re alone.

And then it lets me go.

For just one second, the magic and the sedative come roaring back against the Bone Tree’s suddenly weaker grip, and the darkness of sleep consumes me in one fell swallow.

I see it all.

In that one moment of the Bone Tree’s vulnerability, I see it all, like looking into a deep, clear, still pond. I see the Bone Tree, its roots tangling back into the roots of a bigger tree, so much bigger and standing alone. I see the Glass Tree in the distance, roots tangling into the same tree, the same massive tree, and the roots of that tree spiral outward, like millions of hairs connected to each and every one of us on Arathess—every human, every witch, every celeon, every beneather, every frog, every bird, every leaf, every berry. Everything. Everyone.

Not alone.

Muro stands under the great tree, smiling.

The great tree, connecting us all. Pulling us back in when it’s our time, and growing us back out, over and over again.

The Tree of Souls.

No one is ever really gone.

Muro reaches his paw out, six eyes smiling brighter. And above him, the Tree of Souls with two gaping wounds in its trunk, bleeding black. And like a conversation, like an embrace, I know it’s the source of everything. The destruction. The anger. The hunger. Yearning, wounded, alone. He was right. Muro was right. He’s there, waiting for me, and he’s right. I’ve felt both Trees’ pain. They’re alone. All alone, and hurting.

I know what I have to do. Because I know what it’s like to be alone.

I understand now.

I have to put the Trees back together.

24

WATER

RUNNING RED

Without me awake to perceive it, time moves rambunctiously. The sound of the waves reaches me first, grinding my worries smooth with that great gentle symphony. When my eyes flutter open again, I’m on a beach, the golden glow of a bonfire lighting the velvet-blue sands. And around me sit three figures, their backs to me as they look out at the sea moonlit by the half-full Red Twins.

I take a moment before I say anything to let them know I’m here. To just admire them, admire the fact they’re here for me when I wake up. That they’re still here at all, alive and well enough to sit on a beach even after a valkerax attack.

Brave Malachite, armor stained slightly red—bloodied and then tried to wash it off. He’ll be fine, won’t he? He’ll protect Lucien, no matter what. No matter how old they get or how much they argue—he’ll always be there for the prince. And I’ll never be able to thank him enough for it.

Sweet Fione—wrapped in a woven blanket and trembling, her mousy curls still frazzled with the chaos of battle. She’s stronger than even Lucien, than anyone I know. She’ll understand better than anyone that I did what I had to. She understands love. And she, too, understands what it’s like to be alone. She’ll do great things for Cavanos—whatever grand, fair Cavanos Lucien decides to build.

Serious Lucien. Lucien, in all his midnight glory, black hair and black eyes piercing out into the night. It hurts to think about him alone. But he won’t be. He’ll have Malachite and Fione, and someday, a girl who reminds him of me. A