Treacherous Witch

44. Goldentree

"Look."

She felt that presence again, Shikra's. Somehow it directed her attention. First to the queen's green eyes, bright, catlike, as that ghostly figure shone with a golden light. Then to the chamber below the temple, where her darkness had dissipated, and Avon and Bakra were locked in battle. But they were hardly moving, as if they were trapped underwater, or in one of those dreams where time slowed down...

What's going on?

She couldn't speak. She had no mouth.

But there was the goldentree below... She focused her perspective, and all at once she saw herself: Valerie, head bowed against the tree in a trance-like state...

Shikra had no body either. But she could speak, move, take a form of some kind... This ethereal magic, this presence without matter... Valerie could do it too. She looked down and saw transparent hands. She imagined the red dress, its shape, lithe limbs, dark hair...

"Well done."

The queen's smile lit up the heavens.

Valerie took in an imaginary breath. "Your Majesty. Is it really you?"

"Yes. You can save me, Valerie. You can bring me back. I'll show you how."

The queen gestured with a glimmering hand, and Valerie descended into the silvertree forest with her. That golden halo... The blessing of the goldentree. She recognised it around Shikra, as she felt the same power within herself.

It is her. The queen.

They were passing through the forest, the ruins of the silvertree stumps still a sad sight around her. One living tree ahead bathed them in its splendour, and Valerie felt a shock of recognition.

"Your tree," said Shikra, turning to face her. "The tree where you received your first blessing."

The silvertree at St. Maia, still standing. So her dream had been true. It occurred to Valerie that the spell was probably intact only because she had survived.

"I—I don't understand," she said.

"I've been waiting for you," said the queen, her voice soft and kind. "Guiding you. And now that you're here, all we have to do is step through..." She gestured at the silvertree. "And everything will be restored."

It was too much. Without the anchor of her body, she felt lost and confused.

"I don't..." Her form flickered; she controlled it. "What do you mean, guiding me? You've been gone for over two years. How are you here? What is this place?"

"Of course." The queen shook her head. "Forgive me. You have no idea how many times I've tried to fix this. You've done incredibly well to get here, and now that you have the blessing of the goldentree too, it's time for you to know what that means. I must warn you: the truth I am about to reveal may be unsettling. It will change everything you have ever known. Do you wish to hear it?"

She trembled. Did she want to finally hear the truth? After chasing the blessings of the silvertrees, grabbing on to any scrap of magical knowledge she could find, there was only one answer to the queen's question.

"Yes!"

Shikra gestured around them. "This place is a kind of limbo. It exists outside the normal boundaries of our world. The trees exist in both planes, but what happens in one affects what happens in the other. Our connection to the goldentree gives us an anchor to this world too, a form of existence in spirit and without body. So when I died, out there in the physical world, the goldentree brought me back here. I've been wandering this place ever since. Look. Take a look at the tree."