Crossroads of Canopy (Titan's Forest #1)(113)

“It’s well that you did not,” Audblayin said, as the two white-robed Servants sank to their knees. “New life does not need love to grow, but I have felt it, stronger this time than ever before, and I will grow it too, wherever I can. There will be no more slaves in the Garden. Adepts will serve by their own free will or not at all. Stand up, you two who have pledged yourselves to me. I go to see the king, and I require formal robes and a suitable retinue.”

“Of course, Holy One.” Iririn jumped up and went into the Garden. Unar thought she might vomit with envy at the way the wards parted for the woman.

“Aoun, my Gatekeeper,” Audblayin said, and another spasm went through Unar’s body at that. Aoun belonged to this woman, body and soul.

She would never use that body for what I would use it for, Unar thought, her treacherous body aching in a way she had never thought it would ache again.

“Holy One,” Aoun said, his composure recovered.

“This is my middle-father, Bernreb. I wish him to be my Bodyguard. He cannot enter the Garden. He cannot go to the night-yew tree. I wish a house to be built for him, here, outside the wards.”

Aoun inclined his head.

“I’ll send a message begging the wood god for his assistance with this task, Holy One.”

“There’s no need. The Godfinder is suited to the work. I will move away so that you may speak together. She will be allowed to use my power.” Audblayin gave Unar an unreadable glance. “For this undertaking alone, Unar. Do you understand?”

“I understand, Holy One,” Unar said. Oh, she understood. She was not to try to force her way into the Garden. She was not to try to extract any secrets from Aoun. Like Bernreb, she would loiter outside the wards, but that didn’t mean she was not bound to serve and obey.

She laughed, darkly, as the goddess turned away, leaving her with a man who still made her skin prickle and her hands clench to keep from touching him.

“What is your desire, Gatekeeper?” she asked distantly, pleasantly. “What design shall I sculpt for you with the limited magic I am to be permitted?”

“Unar.”

“Yes, Aoun?”

“How is it you haven’t changed?”

“But I have changed, Aoun. Just not where anybody can see.”

He nodded. Unar felt his magic gently touching her bones where the spines had been set. For a moment, he stood back, appraising her, and then he closed the space between them and folded his arms around her. Dependable as living wood. As pricked by the pain of Unar’s spines as the tallowwood had been, and as forgiving.

Unar couldn’t speak. Her face flushed and she dared not move. She must still be sleeping inside the tree. It couldn’t be real. Aoun did not hold people. He stood apart, as aloof as a god.

“Audblayin would grow love,” he whispered into her hair. “Grow a house up around us, Unar.”

She cooled her heat and urgency by melding with the tree, drawing on water seven hundred body lengths below, in the darkness of Floor. The bodies of Servant Eilif, Kirrik, Frog, and fifty unknown soldiers were part of the soil that sated the great tree’s hunger. River, sky, and sun all came together to form the wooden shelter that sprang up around them, shutting away the light.

Aoun let go of her. She staggered. He was laughing softly, relighting the lantern.

“Is this much like the place where you’ve lived?” he asked, the lantern light revealing a room not so very different from the hearth room of the three hunters’ home.

Issi came in through the open door and beamed at them.

“My father will be happy,” she said at once.

“But not you?” Unar asked, silently cursing her for intruding.

“I am not staying here.” She lifted her chin, a proud huntress, daunted by nothing. “I am going to Odelland. There is a warrior there, called Aurilon, who has never lost a duel. If she will teach me, I will learn from her.”

The fool whisked away and was gone. Bernreb and Leaper replaced her. The boy immediately began to howl.

“This is just like home. What did I even climb up here for?”

“You won’t live here, Leaper,” Audblayin said, passing through the doorway behind him. She was robed in cloth that seemed made of dewdrops, her spines covered and her feet booted. Unar realised the robe was covered in cut diamonds. The goddess’s gaze went from Unar’s face to Aoun’s. When it returned to Leaper, her expression firmed. “You will live with the Godfinder in Airakland, far away, at the other end of Canopy.”

Unar felt as though she had been slapped.

“You don’t trust me to stay close to the Garden,” she said.

“I’m trying to make it easier for you, Unar,” Audblayin answered. “It will be easier for you if there is no temptation.”

Unar looked at Aoun. She looked back at Audblayin. Her heart felt heavier than stone, and for a moment some of the old self-loathing, the old anger, swept through her. It would be easier if she did let herself fall. For Aoun. For Audblayin. For everyone.

“The god of lightning,” Leaper said with awe, already seeing through the sister he hadn’t known was a goddess, but whose power over new life clearly failed to capture his imagination. “Yes. Airakland. Yes! Have you been there before, Godfinder?”

Godfinder. There it was again. A little piece of a less glorious destiny. A clue to why she had been born with such a powerful gift and sent to the Garden.