Send Me Their Souls (Bring Me Their Hearts #3) - Sara Wolf Page 0,113
parts,” Fione agrees, smoothing down a strand of my stray hair.
“Your Yorl friend wouldn’t shut up about all the parts,” Malachite insists. “Kept blathering on about how they’d be great for ‘making a cure’ for you, or some crap like that.”
I watch the polymaths, picking out a single one in the crowd with ochre ears and a swishing tail. Yorl’s so kind. Kind in that thorny way of his, but kind nonetheless. He wants to make a cure for my valkerax blood promise. A cure that will come too late, when I do what I have to. He’ll be fine, too, won’t he? The Archives are smoldering, the fortress of black volcanic rock crumbling and smoking in some places, but still mostly intact. He’ll have his books, and he knows my friends, now.
All my friends, united. They’ll be able to help one another when I’m gone.
“Fantastic.” I flash a winning smile at Lucien. “At this point, I’ll take anything that’ll make me more human and less warbeast.”
Everyone falls silent, the sound of the waves filling in. Fione’s periwinkle gaze is somber, lit by the moons and sadness as she looks at the valkerax body parts strewn and bleeding.
“I wish it didn’t have to be this way,” she whispers.
“Wishing and doing are two different things.” Malachite’s words are hard, but the way he puts his pale hand on her shoulder is gentle.
“What do we do, then?” Lucien asks. “You haven’t told us what the book’s translation said.”
Fione looks to me. “I wanted to wait until you were awake. It’s important.”
“I am now.” I smile at her, but it feels strained. She stands, her skirts skimming the sand and her shadow thrown long by the bonfire. She folds her hands, working her fingers in and out of one another nervously, and then all at once she drops them, going still.
“It’s impossible to destroy the Trees,” she insists. “There’s nothing that can destroy them. No fire, no weapon, no magic.”
“Then how do we stop Varia?” Lucien asks.
Fione inhales and steadies herself. “The Tree of Souls is the origin of all magic on Arathess. And the First Root is one of its roots—the only one that we’ve ever seen. It may have other roots; research suggests it must have other roots. But even the Old Vetrisians couldn’t find them.”
“So there’s only the First Root,” Lucien murmurs.
Fione nods. “There is only the First Root. To make another Tree, one must split the First Root. That creates a divide in the magic, and from that divide grows a new Tree.”
I frown. “Like pruning a rosebush. Cut back one stem, and it makes two new ones.”
“Exactly,” she says. “Using the First Root, the Old Vetrisians split the Tree of Souls once to make their Bone Tree, and the witches used the other side of the split to make their Glass Tree. The split weakened the Tree of Souls considerably and changed the workings of magic as we know it.” She looks over at Lucien. “It’s why witches inherit their magic in pubescence and not from birth. And it’s why the Old Vetrisians were able to do so much more than modern witches can now. They were simply more powerful.”
“I see,” Lucien starts. “So we find the Tree of Souls and the First Root. Then what?”
“We split the root again. That will weaken the Tree of Souls again—and by proxy the Bone and Glass Tree—and theoretically release Varia.”
“You mean…” I trail off. “Split them into a new tree?”
She won’t meet my eyes. “Into two new trees. We must split the Bone Tree’s offshoot and the Glass Tree’s offshoot to weaken the Tree of Souls as a whole. This process will create two additional trees.”
“So…so that what?” I can feel my hackles rising. “So that mortals can use them to magically control more creatures?”
“Zera—” Lucien starts.
My fists are shaking, and I clench them hard. “Two new voices. Two new types of Heartless. Two new ways for people to inflict magical suffering on others. Is that what you’re saying we have to make?”
Fione doesn’t flinch, meeting my gaze now with a steadiness. “It’s the only way to free her, Zera.”
“The valkerax won’t be freed though, right?” Malachite asks.
I simmer quietly as Fione nods.
“Most of them will still be tied to the Bone Tree, obeying its primary command to remain in the Dark Below,” she clarifies. “A few might escape its hold—hopefully not enough to be a threat to the upworld.