Page 46 of The Tree of Spirits (Paragons #2)

FLAME AND FROST

C onner laughed off Elandra’s words. “Destroy every single Spirit Tree in the Many Realms? Impossible. There are thousands of Spirit Trees across the Many Realms, many located in places humans would never be able to reach.”

“You’re forgetting that the Spirit Trees are all connected by a single magical force,” Elandra called out through the wall of fire. “And if I poison that connection, they all die.”

“Is she right?” I whispered to the boys. “Can she do what she says?”

They didn’t say anything.

“Oh, crap,” I muttered.

“We didn’t say that it’s possible,” Kato said.

“You didn’t have to,” I replied. “You look worried.”

“How can we look worried? You can’t see our faces. Our helmets are on,” Conner reminded me.

“I can read body language, thank you very much.” I sighed. “And your body language, boys—” I pointed from Conner to Kato. “—tells me that we’re in very big trouble.”

“The magical ‘roots’ of the Spirit Trees bridge the realms, linking them all together,” Kato said.

“By using these connected roots, people can travel between realms. So I suppose, theoretically, if she figured out how to destroy the roots, she could effectively cut off all the realms from one another.”

And then not only would we never find that Templar and never rescue the missing Apprentices, no one would ever go anywhere ever again.

Without the Spirit Trees, there would be no more Blending ceremonies and no more Knights.

Elandra and her Brotherhood would get everything they wanted, and Gaia would suffer for it.

“You need to stop! Leave the tree alone!” I shouted out at Elandra through the flames.

Her manic laugh rose above the crackling wall of fire pushing closer to us. “And why would I do that?”

“Because it’s wrong.” I coughed, trying not to think about how we were probably going to burn alive.

“How naive of you.”

“If you won’t stop this, we will,” I told her.

“So then you’ve made your choice. It’s too bad. I like you, Savannah.”

I couldn’t see Elandra’s face through the wall of flames, but I could hear the disappointment in her voice. She even sounded a little surprised, which proved how crazy she was. Did she really expect someone with magic to help her destroy magic?

“Can you guys put out that fire?” I asked the boys.

“We’ll try.” Kato looked at Conner, who nodded.

Conner morphed his WAND into a bow. He pulled back on the bow string, and it lit up like a strand of diamonds.

An arrow materialized in his hand, and when he released it, it became a shimmering stream of snowflakes that smashed into the fire cage.

He pivoted and unleashed another arrow. And then another.

In all, he shot a dozen magic arrows at the flames.

Flame and frost collided, battling it out for supremacy.

In the meantime, Kato’s WAND had become a fire staff. He waved the staff through the wall of fire, using it to lap up the flames that had escaped Conner’s icy barrage.

But for every flame they defeated, the Techno Knights pumped many more into the fire cage. The flames drew together like thick curtains. They were so beautiful. But the fire’s beauty was a trick, an illusion woven to distract us from the immediate peril we were all in.

I coughed a few times, trying to clear my throat. “What are you doing, Elandra?”

“I told you. I’m purging our world of magic.”

I coughed again. “You can’t do that.”

“Oh? And why is that?” She sounded amused.

“Because humanity needs magic. It’s our only hope of beating the Curse.”

“Magic brought the Curse here!” she shouted, her voice shrill and angry. “It cost me my husband and my daughter. Magic is the problem. It needs to be eliminated. Starting with this tree.”

I glanced at the boys, but they shook their heads.

“The fire is burning really hot,” Conner said. “We can’t put it out. We can only hold it off.” He caught me as I swayed to the side; all that smoke was really going to my head. “And I’m not even sure how long we can do that,” he added.

I fought off the despair, the fear, the sense of impending doom. Falling to pieces wouldn’t help us out of this situation. There had to be something—some way to fix this.

“Elandra?” I called out, trying to appeal to her humanity, hoping she still had some of it left in her, buried somewhere beneath all her anger and pain and hate. “Please, put out the fire. You don’t want to kill me.”

“I had such high hopes for you, Savannah, when I met you at the Black Market. Kylie spoke very highly of you. She said you have such compassion, such a powerful drive to help others.” Elandra sighed.

“But those days are over. You’re working with them now.

You’re working with the enemy . It’s a shame really.

You’re such a clever, resourceful girl. You could have helped me save this world. ”

The inside of the fire cage was unbearably hot, but I felt like a frozen hand had just clutched my heart with its icy fingers.

“I want no part of your scheme,” I snapped back. “You aren’t saving the world. You’re destroying it.”

“You are just like your mother: so smart and yet so naive.” Elandra sighed. “If you refuse to be part of the solution, you are part of the problem. But no hard feelings, ok?”

“No hard feelings? You are trying to burn me alive!”

“No, I’m taking care of the biggest threat to Earth’s salvation: the Knights. You just happen to be standing next to them.”

I could hardly believe what I was hearing. When I’d met Kylie’s mom, I’d never suspected she was secretly a psychopath. Was she really that good of a liar? Or was I just a totally terrible judge of character?

“Why?” I coughed. “Why bother organizing protests against the Summit? If you destroy the Spirit Tree, there won’t even be a Summit.”

“I would think the answer is obvious, Savannah,” she said coyly.

I blinked back the smoke stinging my eyes. “You wanted people to lose faith in the Government and their leadership.”

She was right. The answer was obvious. But it was so hard to think straight when I could hardly breathe.

“And it worked.” Victory resonated in Elandra’s voice. “People have lost faith in the Government. More people than ever before joined yesterday’s protests. The streets were full of them!”

“Ok, so you got people angry and scared. Now what?” I demanded.

“People were already angry and scared.” Her laugh was a smooth purr.

“But now they’re ready to act. Showing up at the protests was just that first taste of rebellion they so very much needed.

And now there’s no turning back. There’s no stuffing this all back into the bottle, no matter how much the Government wants to do it.

And once magic is dead on Earth—once people can’t rely on the Knights and the spirits to solve their problems for them—they will take matters into their own hands. ”

Beside me, Kato and Conner swayed. They’d used up so much magic fighting the fire, and the air was growing thick with smoke. They were probably only a minute or two away from passing out, but they weren’t giving up. They were still battling the flames.

“Put out the fire, Elandra,” I hissed. “It’s not too late to stop this.”

“Of course it’s too late. Magic brought the Curse to us. The Curse took everything from us. It steals everything that we hold dear.” Her voice shook. “The only way to protect what we have left is to expel all magic from our realm.”

Conviction rang in her voice. The kind of conviction that only touched heroes or madmen. But Elandra’s actions were not those of a hero.

She wasn’t going to stop. Not until the Spirit Tree was dead and the three of us along with it.

There is no way out of this.

As soon as I allowed the words to touch my mind, my legs collapsed, surrendering to the horrific truth.

“Savannah!” Kato shouted.

“Don’t give up!” Conner begged me.

They reached out to catch me, but they couldn’t fight this. None of us could. Despair like I’d never felt before crushed me into a tiny, helpless ball.

I watched the flames flicker along the fire cage. Heat drenched me. I could hardly breathe. I couldn’t even keep my eyes open.

Savannah!

The voice pierced my mind—unfamiliar and yet familiar all the same.

“Who are you?” I muttered.

Kato and Conner looked at me like I’d lost my mind.

Maybe they were right. I had swallowed a lot of smoke.

Don’t give up!

A pretty white snow fox appeared before me and poked me with her pretty white paw.

“Is that fox you?” I asked the voice.

Naturally.

“You’re a spirit.”

We can discuss this later. Right now, you need to escape the fire.

“There’s no way out. We’re trapped in a big fire cage. Even Conner and Kato don’t have enough magic to put out the flames.”

This isn’t about how much magic you use. It’s about using the right magic.

“I…don’t understand.”

That’s because you’ve inhaled too much smoke and aren’t thinking clearly.

“Sounds…about right.”

She poked me again with her paw.

“Ow,” I said dully.

Savannah, there is a way out of this. I’ll tell you how, but I really need you to focus. Ok?

“Ok,” I coughed.

She leaned in to whisper to me. Her words fluttered against my ear like little butterflies. I tried to drink them in, tried to focus the best I could, even though it was really hard to think. My lungs were burning and my head felt like someone had hit it with a baseball bat.

Now get up!

I jumped up, limbs flailing, body unbalanced. I looked at the ground, where the boys had passed out. They were hardly moving. Barely breathing. I had to get us out of here now .

The spirit’s words were still swirling around in my head, and they stuck to my skin, drenching my whole body. It was magic—flexible, pliable magic. I pulled at the layer of magic, extending it around the boys. It covered us like an icy sheet.

“Kato? Conner?” I tapped them with my finger—and, when that didn’t work, kicked them with the toe of my shoe.

“Ow,” Kato grumbled, stirring.

Conner was moving too. “Did you really have to kick us?”

“Yes.” I pulled them to their feet.

Conner patted himself down. “I can breathe again.” He flipped back the visor of his helmet. “What did you do?”

“I brought us out of our dimension, just like you did earlier.”

“I…should have thought of that.”

“It’s the smoke. It makes it hard to think.”

Kato had his helmet visor open too. He waved his hand in front of his face, then peered over it at the slightly whirly fire wall. “The flames can’t touch us.” He sounded very groggy. “They can’t hurt us.”

“But it won’t last forever,” I said. “My power is already starting to fade.”

“Mine’s pretty tapped out too right now, at least for a big spell like this,” Conner said.

“So let’s get moving while we still can,” I declared. “Let’s go save the Many Realms!”

Then the three of us linked hands, and we passed through the wall of fire. The flames crackled and flickered, but they didn’t touch us. They didn’t burn our skin or smother our lungs. They just slid right off of us, like we weren’t even there.

Once we were clear, I felt a slight tug, like tissue paper brushing against my skin. My spell dissolved into nothingness.

“We’re back in phase,” Conner said.

Elandra scowled at us. “How did you do that?”

“We did it with magic.” I flashed her a smile that had no warmth. “Magic, your favorite scapegoat.”

She only clutched the bottle in her hand harder. It looked like a bottle from one of my mom’s weedkillers. Elandra must have modified the poison to work on the magical tree.

“Can you guys take care of the fire and the Techno Knights?” I asked the boys, but kept my gaze locked on Elandra.

“We’re on it,” Conner said as he and Kato hurried off.

I heard a swoosh, then a gust of wind smashed into the Techno Knights, pulling them away, toward the boys. Now nothing stood between me and Elandra—and the Spirit Tree that I had to save. It was up to me to stop her.

“You like to blame magic for all the evil in the world, but that’s not fair, is it?

” I said, creeping forward. “Magic isn’t responsible for attacking innocent people at the Tournament.

Or for trying to burn people alive. You did all of that.

” I shook my head. “Poor Kylie. She would be so ashamed of you!”

“I’m doing this for her. For all of us.” Her throat tightened. “I am doing it to save the Earth.” She popped off the lid of the poison bottle. “I’m done talking. This is the right choice, even if you don’t realize it now. You will thank me for it later, you’ll see.”

She prepared to drench the Spirit Tree in poison. I rushed forward, knocking her away. I grabbed the bottle out of her hand before she could make another attempt.

“You’re too late,” Elandra growled.

I turned, staring wide-eyed as poison dripped down one of the Spirit Tree’s thick branches. The white bark blackened, and the leaves crumbled to dust.