We continue on. I reach out to trail my fingers across the petals of a large black flowering plant. “Touch that, and you’ll be hallucinating for over a day,” Sitri warns.
I yank my hand back in alarm. “Seriously?”
He laughs softly. “No, that one’s fine but that one over there really will do that and that’s one of the milder ones, so best not to touch anything.”
My eyes grow wide and round and he laughs. “Why are there such dangerous plants out here in the castle garden?”
“Just because it’s dangerous doesn’t mean it’s not worth preserving.” He bestows me with a pointed look, and I shoot a withering glance toward the sky.
Right. Like me.
Despite my annoyed display the words loosen something in my chest. Something I didn’t even realize was still screwed too tight.Just because it’s dangerous doesn’t mean it’s not worth preserving.Am I worth preserving? After everything I’ve done? It implies that I’m still of value. But what is about me that’s of value? Me or…if I’m to believe Div…my magic?The Great Rite flickers through my mind and I’m accosted by a series of sharp flashes of heat. Is that what this is about?
I’m still puzzling over that when I catch a glimpse of something buzzing above the foliage. I focus in on it and my vision suddenly hazes. I halt in my path, blinking rapidly. My vision doesn’t clear, everything a mess of blurred together colors.
“Oh, I should probably warn you that you can’t look directly at the sprites or they’ll blind you.”
“Too late!”
“Don’t worry. It’ll wear off in about five to ten minutes.”
My heart rate which had climbed rapidly slows back to a normal pace. “The cats are spies, the flowers will make you hallucinate and the sprites will blind you. Anything else I need to be aware of?”
“I think that pretty well covers it,” he says, laughing. “Come on. This isn’t what I wanted to show you anyways.” He tugs me forward and I stumble slightly.
“Here,” he demands when I stumble again. Pulling me in front of him, my stomach flutters chaotically as he wraps his arms around my chest from behind. The daemon has slowed to a dull, steady thump in the background. I suck in a deep breath, inhaling the various humid, floral scents along with his as he steadily leads me forward.
“Wow, this is a really nice garden. Wish I could see it.”
He laughs softly, warm breaths coasting over the back of my head. “Should I describe it to you?” He grabs my jaw and tilts my head to the left. “On this side, we have…plants.” He tilts my head in the opposite direction. “And, this side, more plants in the plant variety.”
“You have a way with words.”
"If you really want to know, there’s Digitalis purpurea and angels' trumpet, some pokeweed.”
“Ugh, you might as well just call them plants.”
He laughs again the sound like a deep silky mahogany that swells in my chest. I savor it, stowing it away for dryer times.
He continues to lead my tottering form down the winding path and eventually comes to a stop. “This is what I wanted to show you.”
He unwraps his arms from around me but quickly finds my hand again, smoothing his thumb across my palm.
“Still blind?”
“Still blind,” I sigh, but then as if on cue, the world around me begins to take shape. “Oh!”
We’re in a large clearing. Decorating its center stands a billowing tree, its limbs split, tangled and twisting all the way where the trunk plunges into the ground. Above us, a lush violet curtain. Hundreds and hundreds of flowering blooms draping down to enclose us under a thick canopy above our heads.
“Wow,” I breathe.
“It's very old. They say one of the only trees to survive the Flood.” I take a few steps forward, marveling. He lets me loose and I drift closer to survey the tangled trunk and rub my fingers over the peeling bark.
“The story is that a God fell in love with a mortal woman. When she became ill and he couldn’t save her, he settled for turning her into this tree.”
“That’s awful,” I murmur.
“Thats one version anyways. The other is that she didn’t return his affection so he turned her into this tree as a punishment.”
