Llew placed a hand on the bark, and it seemed to shiver under her touch. Nothing happened at first, and then whoompf! Life flooded from the tree and into her. She almost released the touch and fell back giggling as her belly tickled. She lifted her shirt to check, and a few strands of fine cotton and twine fell from her clothing – the stitches that had held her together until now. Her skin was smooth. She was whole. Mostly whole.

But the tree was still talking to her. Amid the yells, thuds, cracks, and cries, Llew focused on her tree and let it tell its secrets. And Aris’s. Images flashed through her mind, but the most vivid was of the tree itself, and two people. One figure had a hand on the tree’s trunk, while the other hand gripped the arm of a man who was struggling to flee. Aris. The man was Aris. And the other figure was an Aenuk. The way the power flowed through that silhouette; she knew. It was that unbreakable grip. Even an Immortal couldn’t fight that. Power leapt from Aris – just as it had slithered into him that fateful night – traveled through the Aenuk and into the tree. No exploding people here. Perhaps Anya had interpreted the image wrong.

She placed one hand back on the trunk and stepped around it until she faced Braph and Aris, both taking a moment to catch their breath.

‘I know what to do,’ she said. ‘The tree told me.’

Aris sneered. ‘Do you know how crazy that sounds?’

‘An Aenuk stole your power. No wonder you hate us so much.’

Aris laughed. ‘And do you know what happened to the Aenuk?’

‘And do you know what would happen to a Syaenuk?’

Aris flinched with annoyance. He scanned the ground around him, lunged and brought the axe up. Growling, he swung at Llew and the tree. Llew didn’t have the strength to stop him. All she could do was twist out of the way, but she wouldn’t let him separate her from the tree – it was her savior, protector. Braph ran at Aris, shouldering him aside, saving the great tree another injury. Aris stumbled aside and Braph rolled past him, out of easy reach. Llew reached out again, her fingers brushed Aris’s. A vibration tingled between them, but he pulled free before she could get a firmer grip. He spun to face her, panting, and looking very tired, blood still seeping from partially healed wounds. He was no longer healing fully. He looked at her. He looked up at the tree. Braph clambered to his feet behind him.

There was an odd grumble and squeak. A familiar sound. A hungry stomach. Llew arched an eyebrow at Aris. He glared at her. The cuts on his face were no longer closing and blood trickled from an eyebrow and his nose.

‘Come on. I’m dying to find out how this works,’ she said.

‘The moment you leave the tree, it and you are dead.’ Sweat ran down his face, mingling with the blood, and he panted heavily. They’d worn him down. He had little fight left.

‘Oh, I’m quite happy to stay right here.’ Llew, on the other hand, still had her health and her tree.

Braph inched up behind Aris in a half-crouch. He, too, looked battered, but not broken. Aris’s eyes twitched. He knew Braph was there. He looked back at Llew.

‘You can’t trust him,’ he said. ‘He’ll only use you. And you can’t stand there forever. I’ll be back.’

He ran, no faster than a normal person, but was soon gone from their sight. Llew’s body slumped, releasing the false bravado.

Braph stood off to the side. Hisham and Karlani lay near each other. And Jonas . . . She walked around the tree, still wary of stepping too far from it – both she and it were vulnerable without each other. How long would it take Aris to heal? She hoped a long time but wouldn’t dare place her faith in that hope. They’d slowed his ability, but what would it take for him to get it back? A decent meal? Or a full night’s sleep? Neither was long enough, yet either would need to be.

It was too dark under the forest canopy to see anything, and the meadow was full of clumps of tussock, providing perfect hiding places for a body.

Not body. She couldn’t think like that.

She’d seen Aris fling him away, but in the midst of the fight she couldn’t remember where to.

Braph surveyed the ground around himself and shrugged. He started wandering the area, stopping by Hisham first.

‘This one’s alive.’

‘What about her?’ Llew indicated Karlani.

‘Riddled with puncture wounds,’ Braph said. He crouched down. ‘But she’s alive for now. Want me to finish her?’

It would be so easy. Have Braph kill Karlani. One less problem to worry about. But Llew couldn’t do it. Despite everything, Karlani on her own wasn’t a bad person. She could just do with choosing her allies more carefully. ‘No.’ Llew shook her head.

‘You’d be putting her out of her misery.’

Llew shook her head again.

Braph acquiesced, pushed himself to his feet and continued his reconnaissance.

Llew was struck by how odd that exchange had been. Braph had asked her if she wanted someone killed. And he’d respected her choice. Didn’t make her like him any more.

Braph brushed tall tussocks aside with his foot. He wandered in a large arc around Llew and her tree. She watched him idly scouring the ground until he paused, cocking his head, and then he stepped across a few rows of tussock, away from Llew.

‘Oh, here we are.’

‘You found him?’ Llew tried to stretch taller to see. ‘Is he—?’ She glanced around the clearing, making sure there was no Aris to be seen, that it was safe to leave her tree’s side, then she started to walk over, afraid of what she might find.

Braph poked whatever lay before him, presumably Jonas, with a booted foot. ‘Seems to be. He’s not in a good way, though.’ Braph scratched his head. ‘He won’t fight again for a while, possibly ever.’ He crouched, assessing the broken Jonas with a certain clinicalness. He looked back at Llew, then off into the distance, lost in some thought. ‘Unless . . .’

‘What?’ She could see Jonas’s shirt and trousers, his lines broken by the long grass between them. She closed her eyes, breathing deep, steeling herself for what she was about to see, and stepped forwards.

Jonas’s hands and face were flecked with blood, but it was the added shine to his leather vest and deep green shirt that held Llew’s gaze. A black stain spread across his middle. The shirt itself wasn’t cut. Silk. Impervious to an axe blade, apparently. Flesh, less so. One of his legs lay at a very wrong angle, twisted from somewhere above his knee.

‘Oh!’ She put her hand to her mouth stifling a sob. ‘He’s alive?’ She fell to her knees by his side.

‘Careful. He’s not dead yet. Move him, he might be. We can’t tell the true extent of his injuries. It could be worse than it looks.’

How could it be worse? Llew stopped herself from scooping Jonas’s head into her lap. She reached out tentatively and brushed the back of a finger across his cheek. He was cool to the touch. Was he dead? She shifted her gaze to his chest. It rose and fell ever so slightly. She kept watching to make sure it wasn’t a trick of the light, or her own hopes making her see things, and she saw it again, and again. His breaths were shallow and stuttered, but he breathed. He lived.

‘Why does this tree not shimmer?’ Braph asked.

Llew turned to where he now stood leaning back, studying the Ajnai.

‘The one in Quaver glowed,’ he said. ‘This one doesn’t. Is it broken?’ His gaze lowered to the damage Aris had caused.

The tree’s normal background murmur suddenly turned into a babble as it dived into Llew’s memories of the Quaven tree with what she could only describe as glee.

‘No, it’s not. It just—’ Llew stopped. Of all people, Braph was not a person she wished to spill her secrets to.

‘Just what?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Do you trust me?’ Braph asked.

‘About as far as I could outrun you.’

Braph displayed his silent laughter in an open grin.

‘You can fix them, you know?’

‘But they’re Kara.’

‘I am Karan, and I’ve used your blood to heal before.’

Llew scowled at him. ‘How?’

‘Well,’ Braph swept his gaze over the bodies littering the meadow. ‘Before I tell you that, perhaps I’d like a little something in return.’ His eyes settled on Llew. ‘You buried your babies there, didn’t you?’

Llew tried to give him nothing. How did he even know there had been more than one? Jonas. Of course. Llew had been incapacitated and he’d needed to talk to someone, and Braph had been there. He smiled like she’d given him everything.

‘I wonder what it means,’ he mused. ‘I really must return, some day, and pay my respect to my nieces, or nephews.’

Llew couldn’t even begin to voice her dislike for Braph considering himself related to her children. He was only Jonas’s half-brother, after all. A very, very small half.

‘How do we fix them?’ She laced her voice with all the ire she felt, which only served to amuse him.

‘The crystals. All they are is highly condensed Aenuk blood. My device let me extract just as much as I needed when I needed it.’ He looked back down at Jonas. ‘In fact, I’m starting to think the only reason I could use it is because I’m Karan. Turhmos has still failed to achieve results, and I’ve given them highly detailed plans of the whole process.’ He moved back and crouched by Jonas again, looking on his brother with something approaching sympathy. ‘My guess is it has something to do with the way the magics work. Aenuk magic is all about channeling. You shift life from one place to another. Karan magic is all about beefing up what we already have, but it seems to be centered in our muscles, limiting what we can do. Add a drop of Aenuk blood in there, though, and bam!’ He emphasized the word, slapping fist to forearm stub. Llew jumped. ‘We can do anything.’

‘Do it,’ she said without hesitation.

‘I need to take one of the horses and head to the nearest town.’ He swung around, assessing the landscape. ‘Hinden is my guess.’

Braph had helped them up to this point and Aris still lived. They’d seen him weakened, but it was clear a collaboration was still required to finish him. She was almost certain Braph could see that, too. Perhaps trusting him was going too far. Counting on him to save his brother was less of a stretch. One thing that was certain was they would get nowhere just standing around.

‘Do it. Go,’ she insisted.

‘Don’t let them die,’ Braph said. ‘I need— we need them to live. And they have to be alive to use your power themselves.’

‘Don’t take too long.’

Braph almost smiled, then turned and ran back to the horses.

With a groan, Hisham pushed himself up to sitting. Blood darkened a couple of patches on his clothing, but it seemed the blood wasn’t free flowing. Not while the arrows were still in place, at least.

‘Where’s Jonas?’ he asked.

Llew took the steps required to place herself approximately halfway between the two Quaven lieutenants. ‘Down there.’

‘Is he—?’ Hisham started.

‘He’s alive,’ said Llew. For now.

Braph kicked his horse into a gallop, wheeling it around to face back to the road.

‘Where’s he going? You can’t let him go.’ Hisham grimaced and clutched one of his many sore spots.

‘He’ll be back.’ Llew hoped so. Braph still needed Jonas. They all still needed him. A cold chill settled in her bones. They still needed him to fight Aris. She looked down at the beaten, broken mess of the man and another sob escaped. She clapped a hand over her mouth. She couldn’t afford to break down. Jonas was broken, Hisham was broken. She couldn’t break.

‘He’ll be alright.’ Hisham went to stretch a hand up, gave a small yelp and retreated.

No matter how tired she became, Llew didn’t dare sit or lie down. If Aris returned hoping to find the tree unprotected, he would be disappointed. She could feel the tree’s confidence in her and it settled inside as if it were her own. It was mingled with a sadness, though. The tree was aware of the damage Aris had done, and it fell outside the tree’s ability to heal. Llew examined the angled cut, appreciating the tree’s strength while acknowledging the delicacy of the whole thing. The tree was huge, powerful, ancient. And it was immobile. It now relied on Llew to protect it, yet she couldn’t stay. She would have to leave, and Aris would make his move then. The tree needed her, but she couldn’t save it. No, she could only use it and leave it to its fate.

‘It’s not fair!’

‘N—nuf’s fair.’

She looked down, mouth and eyes wide. Jonas was awake.