Page 19 of Thorns & Fire (The Ashes of Thezmarr #2)

Wren

‘Knowledge is the victor over fate. The mind is a blade’

– Drevenor Academy Handbook

‘T HIS CAN ’ T BE ...’ Wren breathed, staring in disbelief.

Where once she had wandered across dust and ruin, stretches of green stretched out before her. Many of the gentle slopes were blanketed in lush grass, swaying in the breeze like the waves of an emerald ocean. Dotting the landscape were wildflowers – splashes of purple and yellow among the heather.

Wren twisted in her saddle to face the others, waiting for someone to tell her she was hallucinating, that she’d finally gone and lost her mind. But Torj, Kipp and Dessa’s expressions were etched with the same shock as her own.

‘You said it was a wasteland,’ Dessa said, shaking her head at the rolling verdant hills.

‘It was,’ Wren replied. ‘Since its fall, it has always been considered dangerous, with shadow magic lingering beneath the surface. It’s why no one ever ventures here... They didn’t want the same curse afflicting them.’

Convinced they were in the wrong place, that they’d taken a wrong turn and had ended up in some beautiful, wild part of Harenth, Wren checked their positioning.

She looked for the landmarks that had so often guided her back to the cottage after she’d struck a name from her ledger, fully expecting to find them missing.

They were not. They were, however, much changed.

The murky, swamp-like pond that had been her guiding point home many a time was exactly where she remembered it, only now.

.. now it was a great, sapphire-blue lake.

Still unable to believe her eyes, she looked to the north, where the ruins of the palace were meant to be.

There they stood, untouched but for the grove of saplings that had sprung from the ground around the fallen stones.

All around, pockets of land were teeming with life. The very air seemed different – rich with the scent of earth and growing things, rather than the dust and despair she remembered.

‘Embervale?’ Torj prompted, bringing his stallion up alongside her. ‘What’s happened here?’

‘It...’ A startled laugh escaped her, and she shook her head. ‘It wasn’t like this when I left...’

‘I second that. It was more like a graveyard,’ Kipp offered.

Wren jumped down from her horse, brushing her fingers over the tall grass, half expecting it to crumble like ash at her touch.

But it was real . Soft, full of vitality.

.. Her mind reeled, trying to reconcile this growing paradise with the barren lands she had left behind.

Six months ago, she would have sworn on her life that, like her, Delmira was beyond saving.

But now? Now... she didn’t know what to think.

Kneeling, she took a handful of earth from the ground, rolling the damp sediment between her fingers, feeling how different it was from the arid dust in which she’d once attempted to plant seedlings.

It felt like a lifetime ago that she’d first come here alone, lost and broken, so full of rage that she’d punished the already ruined lands with her storms.

‘Embervale.’ Torj’s husky voice cut through her thoughts again. ‘Let’s find this plant of yours, then we need to leave. This – development... It must be reported to Thezmarr.’

Wren wasn’t sure why, but she didn’t like the sound of that. Feeling strangely protective, she swung herself back up into her saddle and asked, ‘Why does it need to be reported?’

‘A ruined kingdom is one thing,’ he told her. ‘But fields of land that have prospered seemingly overnight is another.’

‘He’s right,’ Kipp said, brow furrowed. Wren could count on one hand the number of times she had seen the strategist look so serious, and every single one of those occasions had been during the shadow war.

A knot of apprehension tightened in her gut. ‘Alright,’ she acquiesced, squeezing her mare’s sides with her heels. ‘This way.’

Wren urged her horse forwards, her companions following close behind. She was aware of Torj’s gaze on her, on the land around them. She could feel him assessing every detail with a Warsword’s keen eye.

The rhythmic thud of hooves on soft earth echoed her racing heartbeat. Every familiar landmark they passed left her more astounded – and more unsettled.

‘See there?’ she called out, pointing to a meandering stream, where she’d once broken down, sobbing uncontrollably as she grieved her friends and eldest sister. ‘That was nothing but a dry riverbed when I left.’

The water sparkled in the sunlight, its banks lush with reeds and flowering plants.

A heron stood motionless in the shallows.

Wren wanted to revel in the joy that warmed her chest, but Torj and Kipp’s reactions unfurled something else inside her – a cold tendril of worry, snaking through her stomach as she led them in the direction of her cottage.

She hated it. At long last there was something good in this world, and it couldn’t be celebrated?

A gust of wind carried the sweet scent of blossoms, and with it, a chilling realization.

As a barren territory, Delmira had been safe...

She glanced to her left, her gaze meeting eyes of striking sea-blue.

‘You understand, don’t you?’ Torj said quietly.

Slowly, she took in the thriving parcels of land around them and nodded. ‘No one wanted it before. But now...’ she managed. ‘Now it’s a prize.’

Torj’s voice was grim. ‘Exactly.’

The prickling feeling of dread intensified as they crested a familiar hill.

There, nestled in what had been a gnarled forest, stood her old home – the four walls that had housed her ruined soul for half a decade.

The ramshackle cottage was still in disrepair with its sagging moss-covered roof, but now it was surrounded by a riot of wildflowers.

‘This is where you lived?’ Torj asked, swinging down from his stallion and taking in the potions lining the windowsill within.

‘Yes,’ Wren replied, not sure why she was suddenly feeling self-conscious.

Torj cupped his hands around his eyes to peer inside. ‘It’s very you...’

Wren balked. ‘What? Messy and chaotic?’

‘No.’ The Bear Slayer shook his head, a hint of a smile playing across his lips. ‘Wild and extraordinary.’

It was far from what she’d expected him to say, rendering her speechless.

In the end, she chose not to respond at all.

Instead, Wren dismounted and led her horse to the water trough, as she had done a hundred times before.

Only this time it was different, for Torj was beside her, and Kipp and Dessa.

For the first time, she was in her homeland, and she was not alone.

As though he sensed her conflicting emotions, Torj’s hand found her shoulder. The fleeting warmth calmed her, offering a solace that she was yet to find elsewhere.

‘Lead the way, Embervale,’ he said, his voice dancing along her bones.

Putting some much-needed distance between them, Wren made for the forest and wove through the dense trees, noting how even here, parts had flourished.

Toadstools had sprung up from the ground, and wild geranium had bloomed, along with dog violet and bluebells.

Before, this place had been cold, with a haunted feel about it.

Every part of her mind was screaming that this couldn’t be the same forest she’d roamed only six months earlier.

.. but she couldn’t deny the floral scents on the breeze, or the rustle of wildlife in the undergrowth.

On foot, Wren took her party deep into the forest, to where she had happened upon the bush all that time ago. Back then, it had been a mass of thorns and leaves. But now...

‘Here it is,’ she murmured, dropping to her knees before a tangled mass of verdant shrubbery. It was competing for space with dandelions with jagged leaves thrust skywards and several wild poppies, their scarlet heads nodding as she disturbed their patch.

Wren pushed the other flowers aside. Heart-shaped leaves, in a tapestry of green.

.. Exactly as she’d left it. Only now it had blooms adorning its stems. Every petal bore the luminous quality of pearls, their edges ruffled like waves breaking on a midnight shore, guarded by thorns sharp enough to draw blood.

‘I didn’t misidentify it,’ she muttered, reaching for the silvery-white flowers unfurling from the greenery, frowning. ‘It is a silvertide rose...’

‘Then what’s the problem?’ Kipp asked over her shoulder.

Wren sat back on her heels. ‘I don’t know. That’s the problem.’

Dessa sat down beside her and unsheathed her own harvesting knife. ‘What do you need?’

Still in shock, Wren let her friend’s question ground her as she turned to her. ‘See? What would I do without you?’

Dessa laughed. ‘I’m sure you’d manage. But go on... Tell me how to help.’

Nodding, Wren pointed. ‘Samples of everything. Those there: cut just above the root; don’t damage the leaves. I want some whole from root to petal, some cuttings, and samples of the soil too.’

‘Understood,’ Dessa said. ‘How are we transporting everything?’

From a narrow pocket in her satchel, Wren pulled out the special wrapping Farissa had given her. It was soft in her hands, with a pale silver hue to the shimmering fabric.

‘Is that—’

‘Silkspore, yes,’ Wren told her.

‘And for those of us not versed in weird alchemy?’ Kipp quipped.

‘Silkspore is what Master Alchemists use to transport living samples of plants,’ Wren explained, carefully unfolding the material on the ground.

‘It has preservation properties that maintain the perfect humidity and temperature for the wrapped specimen, while naturally repelling any insects or fungi.’

She took her own secateurs in hand, their familiar weight – not at all their sentimental value – grounding her.

It was delicate work, and the forest seemed to hold its breath around them.

The only sounds were the soft snip of their tools and the occasional rustle of leaves overhead, the Bear Slayer and Kipp saying nothing.