“You have to stop,” Levi said. “You’re taking too much. Use it. Do something.”
“I don’t know what to do!”
They were standing very close, holding hands, as Levi struggled to pull back the power Iason had taken during their strange vision-sharing. But he’d turned the power to magic, and Levi couldn’t take it back.
It had to gosomewhere.
“Do something, wizard,” Levi managed, because he could feel it threatening: the cataclysm, the sort of storm that happened over the sea and turned the clouds into funnels, sucking the ocean itself up into the air. “Or the only thing left in Mislia will be me.”
ChapterFour
Iason stood in the center of a storm. He could feel it forming around him, currents of magic whipping his body like lashing autumn winds, and he couldn’t control them any more than he could control the breeze. Levi had told him to do something, anything, but Iason wasn’t a mage. He didn’t know the spells that mages were taught as soon as they summoned their demons. He barely recognized his own memories. It was as though he were an outsider looking in, being told someone else’s story, another man’s life. All of it was too distant to grasp, slipping away into the shrieking darkness.
What did he know?
Death. Poison. The groan of his aching muscles as he fought the king’s guards in Staria, the pain in his knees as he knelt before the king. The dark of a ship’s hold, a foolish girl unfolding a handkerchief of stolen plants.
Elderberry. Basil. Dandelion. Holly and heather, meadowsweet, pale yellow broom flowers. He knew the touch and scent of every blossom from Mislia to Staria. He’d dug them up by the roots to learn their properties, to make some use of them while Alistair whistled up his clever little spells. Sophie had seen him take cuttings from her aunt’s garden and grind them into poisons and pastes in the attic. Even when he remembered nothing else, Sophie knew he would remember them.
Starchy roots, belladonna, hemlock. Even the most useful plants often had poison in their roots or stems. Even the deadliest flowers looked beautiful. Iason sank to his knees as the ground shook and shifted to form a small, rocky mound overlooking the reef. He gasped as stems and vines burst from browning earth, twisting over him like thin green snakes, some growing into slim trunks or branches, blocking out the sun. Magic sank into the earth around him, and the air grew thick with the scents of Starian and Mislian plants twisting together, forming a dome over his body as the last of the light disappeared.
He crouched there in the dark and felt only the frantic thumping of his own heart. Then he heard voices: Sophie’s, tight with fear, and Levi’s low rumble. The dome trembled and creaked, and Iason reached out to touch it and found smooth bark at his fingertips. Something made the tree shiver and crack, and light appeared through a split in the trunk as Levi dragged it open with his bare hands.
“Get out of there, wizard,” he snarled, and Iason reached for him. Levi hauled him out, not caring that Iason’s chiton ripped on the jagged edges of the hole in the trunk, and Iason fell against him, blinking hard in the light. Sophie was standing beside the tree, looking up at it with awe.
“I don’t know how,” she said, “but you made a tree out of flowers.”
“A poison tree,” Iason said, looking up at it. The branches were bone white and glossy, and multicolored flowers blossomed in the dark leaves. “I… didn’t intend to make that.”
“It makes sense, though.” Sophie tapped the trunk with her knuckles. “You always knew so much about flowers. You were the one who told me about lilies and cats, remember? And elderflower.”
Levi gave Iason a dubious look, and Iason scowled. “I know about them because I trafficked in poisons.”
“Yes, but it’s still lovely,” Sophie said.
“It nearly killed you,” Levi said, and Iason turned the scowl his way. “Did you not hear me when I called you a wizard? There’s a reason your sort don’t usually live long. You take on too much magic, and when it has nowhere to go…”
Iason shuddered. “If I didn’t make that tree, I would have died?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Though you’re tied to me, so maybe not. Maybe it would have just destroyed your mind. Which is why breaking this bond with me is in your best interest, wizard.”
Iason looked up at the poison tree. “I always thought I didn’t have any magic at all. Who were those people, in the visions? The ones I didn’t know—the person weeping blood, the man with the horns…”
“My siblings,” Levi said. Then he smiled.
“What?”
“This is the second time you’ve used my power to create something new,” Levi said. “You claim to have been an assassin? Perhaps you were in the wrong profession.”
“I know that,” Iason muttered, but as he looked at the tree, something light fluttered in his chest. “I don’t think I could become a gardener. Most of the plants I know how to cultivate could kill you. To which point, Sophie, show me your hands. I don’t want the tree to have given you a rash of some sort.”
“Can poison even kill me anymore?” she asked.
“Yes,” Iason and Levi said.
Levi shrugged when Iason gave him a sharp look. “Eventually.”
Sophie sighed and showed Iason her hands, which displayed no sign of irritation, then climbed down the mound of earth Iason had made to fetch the buckets used to carry water, materials, and to keep the fish alive. Iason eased closer to Levi, who straightened, beads in his braided hair clinking softly.
