Page 5 of Cruel As A Tree (Chaos God Sugar and Spice Companion Shorts #4)

Chapter

Five

LILLIAN

" H oly mushrooms," I gasped as I looked at the scene in front of me.

I stepped into the clearing, and the air shifted.

Wetter, thicker, humming faintly with the breath of lush old growth.

Purple plants glowed around the perimeter; those globe-like flowers organized in regular intervals as if they were lights along a garden fence.

The broad leaves of the undergrowth around them were slick with dew, edges fuzzed with soft bristles.

I took another step forward and could smell mint.

I looked down to see a mint-like plant forming a woven dense green pathway leading from where I stood to the center.

At the center, a tree rose. Massive, gnarled, the color of dark ironwood streaked with moss-veined silver, its bark was furrowed deep with age.

Huge flat mushrooms, reminiscent of artist conks but much bigger, spiraled along the trunk, jutting from the bark in wide pink-and-purple shelves.

The lower ones were small, flat, like outstretched palms. Higher up, they thickened and widened, some broad enough to hold two people side-by-side.

They formed a spiral staircase up the tree's flank.

Up high, the mushrooms were even larger, and they held rounded dome-shaped buildings with circular windows and doors.

Several of the mushroom platforms were connected with bridge walkways lined with woven grass railings.

From the edge of one of the lower mushrooms, a waterfall spilled clean over the side, hissing down into a catch basin of polished rock below.

It fed into a clear stream that snaked across the clearing, the edge lined with smooth stones and fernlike stalks.

"I thought the mushrooms I had to grind up in the kitchen were big," I said as I craned my neck to look up at the buildings in the tree.

"I got the idea from the Aetheriani ambassador who visited," Lorthian replied. "He described their palace and the thought took shape."

"Ambassador?" I asked. "I thought you were all hidden."

"I don't hide from allies of Chaos," Lorthian said.

Unease rolled in my stomach as I glanced over at him.

I wondered if I should say it at all. Growing up, it always seemed like any discussion of one team versus another would lead to angry arguments, whether that team was sports, politics, or ideas.

The people around me always seemed to argue to win, not to argue to try to convince the other person to shift their views.

"Isn't Chaos evil?" I asked. "At the Order Academy, all they teach is that all the wrongs in the world were caused by the Chaos God. He made monsters and stuff."

"Did you run from your school because it was good?" Lorthian asked.

I shook my head. "No."

I ran from the school because it was a trap; they made it clear that my life was disposable, and when I tried to find help to get away from a guy who stalked me after I broke up with him, there was no help to be found.

Every part of my experience there that had to do with keeping Order was anything but goodness.

Show me my nest, Veveron demanded.

She shifted on my shoulder, as if she was uncomfortable.

"Veveron wants to see where she can nest," I said.

Lorthian lifted an arm and pointed at one of the rounded buildings that was surrounded by the others. "Her domain is close to the center."

Veveron lifted her head. Protected. Good. Go now.

She dug the tips of her claws into my shoulder.

I headed down the path to the tree. When I stepped onto the first mushroom step, my hand against the firm trunk of the tree, there was no give under my foot.

I stepped up, step after step. I walked past the first level and up to the second where the bulk of the buildings were.

Making my way along the woven grass bridge that connected the buildings, I got to the one in the center.

When I put my hand on the door, it was spongy and soft, and I realized there was a second smaller door at the base of it.

Inside the room was a greenhouse.

Half of the ceiling was clear, letting in light from above as the other half provided shade. There was a stream running through the plants that grew inside the building, and a lifted patch of sand directly in the sunlight, steaming with heat. The room was fragrant with the smell of fruit and herbs.

Put me down, Veveron said, not floating down as she had done previously.

I plucked her off my shoulder and carefully set her down. Something squeaked and rustled in the bushes, and her head swiveled, sniffing the air.

"Is this to your liking?" Lorthian asked.

Tell him I approve, Veveron said.

"She likes it," I told him.

Now leave. Do not bother me, Veveron said.

"You don't want me to groom you first?" I asked.

I will come find you when I want you, she replied.

"You got it," I said, and headed out of the building and shut the door behind me.

"It is a perfect nest for a Saffrill. There are foods of many types, including a rodent for hunting that will not bother her eggs or young," Lorthian said. "She will not emerge until after her eggs are hatched."

"I didn't even know she laid eggs," I sighed.

Then I rolled my shoulders, reaching up to rub one.

There was a stiffness in my neck from climbing up a wall, rappelling down it, and then running for my life.

The only reason I knew how to do that was because I used to go to the climbing gym with my family back in the Mundane realm, but I never did anything quite so risky as I did trying to escape that place.

Sadness washed over me.

I went to the school interview thinking I would go back home afterwards and be a witch or something of that sort. Instead, I got the reality of slavery in the disguise of debt repayment and no way home. I never should have come.

"Let me show you your home," Lorthian said, his voice rich with an edge of eagerness I couldn't match.

That word caused me to flinch again, but I nodded.

I followed him to another building. He opened the door, but I didn't step inside. I could see a lush, looking room, almost cottage core in its coziness... but I couldn't bring myself to care. It wasn't the rooms that mattered to me.

"There is a bathing chamber with hot water to soak in," Lorthian said. "I have prepared a dinner for you to feast upon. This can be your home."

With his words, all of the exhaustion and terror, the flight and the homesickness, all came crashing down on me at once. One tear, then another, began to slip down my cheeks even as I lifted my hand to try to wipe them away.

"You are crying," Lorthian said.

"I'm fine," I said as I swiped furiously at my face, unable to stop the flow. "I'm fine. Everything is fine. I'll be fine."

"But you are crying," Lorthian said.

"I'm just tired, I'll be okay," I said, the tears still sliding down my cheeks. I sniffled.

"You don't like it when I say the word home," Lorthian said. "You are crying now after I said it, and before you recoiled from me."

"I just..." I sniffed again, trying to get those stupid tears from exposing me.

I didn't want him to see me crying. I didn't want anyone to see my crying.

I was tough. I could handle any and all of this.

Of all the times I could have broken down since I got to this realm, now that I was relatively safe was not the moment I thought I would start.

"I just miss my home. I miss my family."

"This can be your home," Lorthian said, repeating himself from earlier.

I couldn't contain it.

The dam burst and I sat down on the ground, tucked my legs to my chest, and pressed my face into my knees. I couldn't stop the sobs, so I muffled them, crying into my legs with garish, ugly sounds that reflected the pushed-down sorrow I'd carried around for too long.

I don't know how long I cried like that, but when I eventually lifted my head to look around,

Lorthian was gone.