Her appearance had given me no clue that she was the sacred speaker for the tree. She wore rags, her hair was wild and disheveled, and I wasn’t sure if she’d ever had a bath. But she’d become my friend. To see her now, lying in the arms of Mochazon, alarmed me.
Gasping, I stepped back as he hovered over the clearing. The Wult guards clamored beneath him. As the pixie landed, the guards intercepted him in true Wult fashion, with raised swords and spears.
Brodnik grabbed Mochazon’s arm as I approached them, so I decided to intervene before someone lost a limb.
“He isn’t a threat to us. You may release him.”
“Release him? He’s an intruder!”
“Brodnik,” Kull said from behind me, “release him.”
The Wults weren’t in the habit of questioning their leader, but since I’d arrived, it seemed attitudes had changed. Brodnik cast a wary glance at the pixie man before releasing him, then he tromped back to his post, leaving Kull and me alone with Mochazon and Uli.
The pixie woman gave me a weak smile as she reached for me. Gasping shallow breaths, she took my hands in hers. Her dark, scale-covered skin was scorching hot and pulsing with a white-hot magic that made me flinch and pull away from her.
“Uli,” I said, “what’s the matter?”
“She has been afflicted with a strange malady,” Mochazon replied.
“It is the tree,” she said.
“The tree?” I asked. To my knowledge, the tree was the only object left from the world’s creation that still contained pure magic. Weeks earlier, my quest to defeat the Dreamthief had taken me to the pixie lands, where I’d sought it out.
The Everblossom existed in the caverns beneath the Ever Root, a tree that had once been taller than Fan’twar’s mountains, but now all that remained was a collection of petrified roots, which the pixies now called home.
“Something is wrong,” Uli said. “It is calling for me. The tree is in danger. We must go there.” She gasped, and only then did I notice her eyes were glossed over with a milky sheen.
“Now?” I asked, glancing at the dark swamp surrounding us. One of our Wult guards had been wounded and nearly killed while traveling at night. Since then, we’d decided to only journey during daylight hours.
Uli’s eyes glowed brighter. She screamed, her back arching and magic throbbing beneath her skin as her voice echoed through the swamp, making the hairs on my arms stand on end.
“It is the Everblossom,” Mochazon said. “Because she is the speaker for the tree, it is transferring its magic into her.”
“Transferring its magic? What would cause it to do that?”
“There is only one reason why the tree would do this. It senses its own destruction.”
A knot formed in my stomach. “Its destruction?”
“Yes,” Mochazon explained. “Only certain vessels have the ability to carry its magic. It has given its magic to her for now, but if left inside, it will kill her. The tree must be in grave danger for it to purge its magic and transfer it to Uli.”
Uli tried to speak, but her voice was so weak I had to kneel beside her to hear her.
“Without the tree,” Uli whispered, “magic in Faythander will be no more. The poisoning of our world has begun. All magical life… will soon perish.”
Chapter 2
We moved Uli to a cot as she continued to writhe. I brought her a water flask and held it to her lips, though she pushed it away. Mochazon and Kull hovered over me as I tended to my friend. Touching her forehead, I could tell the magic was swelling inside her with such a powerful force that I feared it might tear her body apart.
“Uli,” I said, “how can I help you? What can I do?”
“No,” she moaned. “No, no, no.”
Mochazon knelt beside me. “She has been asking for you since this malady started. She seemed to think you would know what to do.”
“Me?”
He nodded.
“But I don’t know what’s causing it or why the tree would be in danger—I have no idea what to do or how to stop it.”
“Long ago,” Mochazon said, “there was another who was named as the tree’s speaker and protector. The tree became endangered, so it transferred its magic into the speaker, thus ensuring the magic’s safety. Eventually, my people were able to save the tree, and the magic fused with the tree once again.”
“And you believe the same thing is happening to Uli?”
“It is possible.”
“But what is wrong with the tree? I saw it not long ago, and it seemed fine. Has anything changed since then?”
Kull knelt beside us. “Geth,” he said. “We have been tracking him deeper into the pixie swamps. I couldn’t understand why he would choose to travel into this cursed place. It made no sense. Why didn’t he travel to his home in the goblin lands? And if he wished to hide, why did he choose this place? There are more secluded, less hostile places in Faythander, particularly in the goblin lands.”
I looked up at Kull. “What are you thinking?”
“He may be traveling to the Everblossom.”
My stomach sank. “But, why?”
Mochazon’s expression grew grim. “The Everblossom is the most powerful and potent source of magic in all Faythander. Perhaps he wishes to take the magic for himself.”
“Perhaps,” I answered, “but he would be unwise to do so. He can’t simply take the magic. The tree must give it to him, and I doubt the tree would ever willingly give it to someone like Geth.”
“Then he may be trying to destroy the magic,” Mochazon said.
“Surely not,” I answered. “If he destroyed it, then all Faythander would suffer—himself included.”
“Still,” Kull said, “our trail leads us deeper into the pixie swamps, and I know of nothing else in this place that he would seek out except for the tree.”
“Then we must travel to the tree,” I said.
Kull nodded.
Uli groaned. Her breathing became unsteady as the magic increased in intensity, glowing in a white halo around her skin. I reached for
