Page 1 of The Garnet Daughter (The Viridian Priestess #3)

Chapter

One

SOME TIME BEFORE

T he forest no longer murmurs softly—it shrieks. The trees demand an audience, beckoning me to listen to their cries. With every hair on my head, the sacred mountain speaks to me and only me.

The voice is crisp, but the words are a mess of whispers and screams in my ears, of deep baritones calling out to me and pulling me away, or perhaps pushing me forward. They offer no coherent sentences, but the message is always clear.

I must leave Frith.

I hear it even now, the dark sound new to the mountain as the conjunction representatives are escorted to the tree line to exit our village.

They came for my world’s sacred stone and the one we kept for the planet Viathan.

Now those very stones are to join their sister on another world, reunited in one of Cosima’s temples.

They will remain there until the planetary conjunction is complete, when all three of our worlds line up perfectly for a time and then drift away from each other all over again.

“What did you whisper to Priestess Ferren?” I ask, waving to her one last time. It hurts to witness her expression now, but I will see her again, this I and the mountain know.

Selene adjusts her crossed arms as we observe our departing visitors until the forest swallows them up. “Mary was not here to make sure the secrets of this mountain and its people are kept. I reminded her of that importance.”

Selene’s harsh protection is ever present, ever choking. The closer Ferren and I became during her stay here, the pricklier Selene turned. To her, my unexpected friend stands for everything she and my mother had run from, and everything she was trying to save me from.

The Cosima representative, Mary, was a friend of Selene’s, but the last time she visited our village during the previous conjunction, I was young and not permitted close to the visitors.

She is well known in our village and often spoken of by those she has helped transport here for a different life.

She assists those who wish to leave their current situations and that drew me to her.

When Selene’s gift informed her through the leaves that Mary perished while traveling here, my thought-out exit plan dissolved like the waterlogged branches consumed by the moss layer of the mountain.

I’ve dreamed of a ticket back to my mother’s home planet, before she and Selene left while I was still within the roots of my mother’s womb.

She is not here to answer the questions I have of Cosima, she was taken from this world before I knew what to ask, and Selene either refuses me or will only paint a negative picture.

Part of me is missing, or maybe part of a life that could have been was taken from me and I long for the pieces I might find out there, along with a reason for my increased restlessness.

I thought another opportunity to continue my departure plan became available when I met the rest of the representatives, but that was also quickly abandoned when I became close with Ferren during her stay with us.

What started as a fascination of her life within the priestess order, a path that would be mine if I were raised on Cosima, soon turned into a genuine friendship, so asking her for such a favor didn’t seem right.

There is only one option to see the plan that took root in my mind years ago and has been begging to be fulfilled. My last hope is the unconventional Viathan pilot called August, currently guarding their skyship at the base of the mountain.

My interactions with him during his stay in the village were brief, but each one was pleasant, if not a little flirty . . . on his part. I didn’t get to know him well, but Ferren mentioned his kindness many times, how warm his welcome was to her even though they come from opposing worlds.

I will fold the distance to the base of the mountain today and convince him to take me off this world. The party traveling down the mountain will take days, but I must ensure my passage as soon as possible. Even now, my skin is crawling to fold.

The deep shade of the forest blots our visitors’ last silhouette. “I can make mutton stew if you like.” I attempt to confirm Selene’s movements for the rest of the day.

“Make only enough for yourself. Conjunction ceremonies will resume now that our guests have gone, and the elders have requested my attendance.” She gages my expression.

“Oh, well, perhaps I will collect some items that have run low in Ruth’s apothecary and take her family’s company.” I lean in before turning back toward our home. “Save the mutton for another day.”

She follows me into the gathering room. “Where will you forage, Calliape?”

“Not far, on the village edge,” I answer, so naturally that the lie spreads guilt across my insides with sinking discomfort.

“Must you do that today? The forest is not safe, now more than ever.”

“My traps at the tree line need to be checked, and many supplies were used when the representatives were here. They should be replenished.”

She rolls her eyes to the side, agreeing with my feigned statement of the reason for scarcity, then blocks the exit with her form, not willing to come farther inside, perhaps subconsciously. “Has there been anything out of the ordinary in the forest since your last forage? Anything I should know?”

“Nothing the leaves could not have already told you.” I wrap a long strip of linen across my chest and over my head to keep the damp of the moss layer from slowing me down with chill.

Among Selene’s gifts is her ability to convene with the flora on Frith, the leaves themselves tracking the intentions of those who brush against them.

The roots send her information through the ground and make privacy impossible as a young woman finding her way here.

Years ago, after a horrifying conversation about her approval of my first intimate partner, leaving us both fuming and me especially embarrassed, I demanded reinstating my privacy.

A ward she placed and I’ve tested, and later when her protection became smothering in other ways, I constructed my own.

“You know of what I speak.” She gives me a flat look.

She refers to the voice I heard in the darkness.

The night it first made itself known, I was so terror-stricken I folded right into her bedroom.

She pleaded with me to relinquish my mental defenses so she could understand, but my escape plans for Frith dominated my thoughts and she would prevent my departure if she discovered them.

If my wards were not so strongly placed, she would know every footstep I took in the forest, every voice, the roots sending her information on my intention and whereabouts.

A privacy I am not willing to give up for the sake of safety again.

When I look up from tucking my hair into my hood, she is watching me, holding my eyes and waiting.

“I heard it recently, yes.” I clear my throat and walk back toward the front of our home. “But I refuse not to go in the forest, Selene?—”

“All I am asking is for you to be careful. We do not know what it is, and danger is present more than ever. Perhaps it is the mountain echoing such things to you.” She tucks a dark curl of my hair into my hood.

“I am always careful.” I muster a smile.

Selene is my only family, not in blood but of spirit, and her protection is well intended.

There is love between us, but I cannot stay hiding up on this mountain any longer.

There is honor in collecting supplies for one’s village, but it is not for me.

There has to be something greater somewhere out there in the three worlds and it’s calling me toward it.

“Alright then.” She claps her hands together. “I will see you this evening at the gathering fire.”

I nod. “Until then.”

The bright rays of the sun wash out the colors of the village momentarily as I step on the wood slats of our porch.

Many people are out soaking up the warmth and preparing the fronts of their homes with brightly colored flowers and strips of fabric.

I wave to our neighbor and the young child she carries wrapped at her abdomen.

Her older Mother-blessed child suspends some decorations above her blonde head and giggles as I pass.

The village thrives with preparations and renewed energy since our visitors departed and a tranquil mountain life can be resumed.

I walk down the nearest path, away from others’ sight line, to fold the distance without notice.

So many are Mother-blessed here, from ancient Frithian lines or other worlds’ refugees, but I’ve made a habit of popping in and out just out of view to ease the natural startle that happens when one is here and then disappears to somewhere else.

In the next step, I fold to the moss layer of the forest, the damp smell of plant life and decay heavy even in my first breath.

The distance from the village path to here is covered in a blink.

I’ve tried to slow the process down to see if a sort of entry point opens for me, but the closest I’ve come to viewing my gift is a blur of light and colors as the world folds to my desired spot, as instinctual and subconscious as taking a step along a familiar path.

The moss layer is teeming with life, pushed to this side of the mountain as the representatives descend on the other. The stones shield them from the forest’s defenses and deter its creatures for safe passage.

I run my thumb along the underside of a clary willow leaf and then another, searching for one with the most predominant veins to gather for a sweeter tasting tea.

I pluck several, checking them for slug marks before stuffing them in my satchel.

Foraging has always been my excuse to leave the village, but it is second nature and one of the few things I will miss of this world.

An animal shrieking in the darkness draws my attention, forcing me to keep moving and chasing the sun beams trickling through the dense canopy above.

I find the nearest spice oak and spot a sturdy limb that can hold me and climb to it, stretching my long limbs to reach the foliage, which provides relief from sleepless nights, and I’ve had many.

I cut a few of the curly leaves from their stubbornly thick stems, leaving some behind before moving down the branch and cutting some more.

Only taking what I need and ones soon to be dropped by the tree itself.

I place the last of the leaves I dare to take from the branch and jump down on the moss layer, the cushion like standing on a downy pillow in some spots.

Another animalistic cry jolts me in surprise, eliciting an almost subconscious fold farther down the mountain. I land just within the mountain’s ward, looking out to a vast valley of dancing grass between this mountain and the next.

The light just outside the tree line is blinding, brighter even than the top where I came from, lacking any shade to filter the sun from beating down on the vegetation.

I scan the lowlands like the formidable night predators of the forest until I catch the shape of something out of place.

A smooth structure with unnatural edges and the stiff wings of a blackbird, the top adorned with a back fin.

I fold closer to it, assuming this is the Viathan skyship. I’ve never seen one stationary; my only memory is the underside of the one that brought Mary to the summit so many years ago.

I crouch, hidden within the trees and larger boulders that scatter the edges of this prairie.

My heart thumps against my chest as my eyes run over the lines of the vessel which transported the representatives from one world to another.

The thought of it taking me back with them is enough to make my skin break out in excited bumps.

Movement under the low-hanging ship belly elicits a quick duck behind the nearest boulder, as if I’ve been caught spying and am not here to communicate with the Viathan pilot.

Shaking away my ridiculous reaction, I peek out, squinting to make out the features of the man who runs his hand down a seam of the skyship, brushing it with care.

It must be August. He is the only one here, but still I feel a sense of unease from not being able to confirm as the man turns away and crawls under the ship itself.

I stand to see the strange behavior clearer. He lies on his back, tool in hand and cursing to himself. I tuck my lips between my teeth, refusing to find him amusing, and with a steady exhale, I fold the distance, crossing the high grass of the valley to the skyship.

To my side, I notice tall black sticks mounted to the ground in a line, a dotted chain of small beacons with blinking lights creating an oddly constructed fence around the vessel.

As I step past it, the light changes.

Odd.

I round the wing where I saw August working on the metal belly, but all that remains is a patch of grass flush with the ground where his body weight smashed the airy vegetation.

I examine the spot and then the skyship's surface as if it swallowed him up in the time that it took me to fold here. But as I turn to investigate the other side, a strong hand grabs me, guiding me backwards until I’m pressed into the ship’s wall, the action so fast my teeth grind together.

The little cushion my hood would have provided has fallen down from the too quick force.

I brace my instincts to fold with every cell of my body, until my eyes focus on my captor holding me with a firm grasp.

August’s mouth turns up in a sly grin. “Hello, Calliape.”