It’s hard to comprehend that one of the greatest works of my life is reduced to ash drifting on the wind, her strange beauty settling like black snow on the stones of Wolfspire Hall. I couldn’t save her. But she saved me. She saved us all, really.
Leaning against a linden for support, I slide down to my haunches, my chest racked by sobs. The weight of all I’ve lost is crushing. After the saboteur, and now Prima … can I ever create again? Would it even be right? How can I continue as a puppetmaster, knowing what wreckage and ruin can stem from my hands? I shudder, remembering Laszlo dancing to his death in the saboteur’s arms.
In the process of wiping the wet from my eyes, I feel a hand on my shoulder. My lungs tighten. It can’t possibly be …
No, the hand is not gloved and wooden like I hoped, but gnarled and work-worn, its hold strong as roots of oak. The unflinching face of the old tree woman bends over me like a branch offering shade.
“It’s the maker’s pain, isn’t it? I feel the same torment each time one of my seedlings is chopped down, or a great giant is felled by lightning and the flames take hold.”
“How do you bear it?” I ask, my eyes welling up again.
The old woman smiles a twisted smile, the wrinkles in her face rippling like ridges in bark. “Because each end, each small death, gives life to the new. In every tree that falls, creatures will find shelter and birds will drop seeds to sprout from its rotting depths. A tree only grows by rising from the layers of many deaths that came before.”
She gently tugs my arm, pulling me to my feet. I am taller than she, but even so, I do not feel like I am looking down on her. Quite the opposite.
“So must you, Pirouette Leiter; find a way to grow, to squeeze life from the ashes left behind.” She grips my hand roughly, trying to imbue some life into me.
“But what if it happens again?” I ask her, clinging to her branch-like fingers. “What if more lives are ruined by one of my creatures? I feel as if I should never touch a chisel or blade again. If I never see another blue moon, it will be too soon.”
She shakes her head. “You should know by now that magic, just like the truth, can’t be hidden. The blue moon will always rise and men will always hunt for ways to make the things they most desire. But you will know the moon’s power and your own strength next time as a master, not just as an apprentice.”
“Next time?” I don’t think I’ll ever be ready to face another blue moon. But before I can say as much, the old tree woman releases me and turns away. Soon, she is nothing but a mist fading into the night. Though it won’t be night much longer. A rim of early morning ruptures the sky above me.
I press my cheek to the tree’s knotted side and close my eyes.
“How?” I ask the linden. “How can I begin again after all this?”
The wind ruffles the tree’s remaining leaves above. It lifts the dried remnants of fall off the forest floor and whips them into the air, only to set them down again. But the tree does not answer.
It dawns on me slowly, like a leaf dropping from the canopy, that I cannot hear the linden’s voice. I press my hand to her side, shoving my ear up against the bark.
Silence.
I feel my way to the next linden, and the next. To the oak, and the halsa nearby. All quiet. The only sounds that reach me are the wind and her sighs. I slam my hands angrily against the tree trunks, one after another. I’ve been shut out, locked away from a world that used to belong to me. The trees’ voices are lost to me, too.
“Lost,” I whimper, a great silence rising up around me like a barricade.
When did it happen? How had I not noticed?
And then I realize: Prima. When I awakened Prima. I couldn’t hear the saboteur’s voice either, when she held me fast. The demanding blue moon had taken its tithe already; it could be nothing else.
In the next heartbeat, I wonder, What of my curse? Was it taken too?
“Piro.” Bran’s familiar voice pulls me back from the deep silence. “What are you doing out this far?”
I whirl around to search the dark for his face.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m doing any more.”
He finds me, lacing his fingers with my own. “It’s so dark out here, so far from the fire. Even with the moonlight.” He shivers, looking around. “This is what I was talking about. These woods make me uneasy. I know it’s different for you, but aren’t you ever afraid out here?” he asks, looking up at the towering trees.
Am I afraid?
There’s only one way to test it.
“No,” I say shakily, taking a deep breath. “I am not afraid.” Then I hold my breath a long moment, waiting.
I am afraid. Of everything.
Of what comes next. Of not knowing how to live without my father. Afraid for Prima, with a whole territory-worth of burdens suddenly resting on her shoulders. Afraid of what I might build that could take on a life of its own. Afraid of what it means to no longer have the guidance of the trees.
But I stand with Bran, breathing long and deep, as many breaths as I dare, feeling my fears wash over me, one by one, like wet strokes of paint. No splinters besiege me. No slivers surface to wound me. I can hardly believe it.
“Come on,” Bran says, wrapping a blanket around us
