12.
PRESENT DAY
Lotte was thrown back when Maloru transformed, landing hard on the rocky ground. The same ground which Maloru's roots could barely dig into. Fintan flapped about, twilling urgently.
Do something. Do something. Do something.
At some point in the night, the blaze was going to reach them. Yomi elves were protectors. Their natural magicks could ward off even iron bullets during the daytime. That's why the humans engaged in battle only during the night, when the Yomi protections were weakest.
And that was also when the deadly Leilan elves were strongest.
Do something, DO SOMETHING!
How did the trees move, though? Maloru was just a small tree compared with the towering, majestic Solles trees Lotte had seen on that other battlefield. Obviously, he wasn't big or strong enough to break the hard wintry earth as they had done.
Lotte pictured young Yomi elves in the high cities of Lasuran, growing in sweet, soft soil rich in nutrients and overflowing with wild magic.
Maloru made a magnificent tree, but how could he compare to that?
She unslung her pack. She'd only ever enchanted objects and herself, but enchanting other people was entirely possible. That was what all those elven tattoos were all about.
She had even helped Poe with his tattoos on occasion. He had shown her how to mix Thilorite and Margar, the black and red elven inks used in Leilan tattoos. In her abandoned home in Sullivan tower, she kept a set of needles especially for the task.
But she couldn't tattoo a tree. And she didn't have red elven tears, phoenix ash, unicorn hair, blood of the moon and siloni oil.
While she could enchant old leaves to burn using only muddy rainwater and a twig, she wasn't about to start experimental enchantments on her friend.
Or was she?
Was there even a choice in the matter?
"Think, think," she muttered, slapping her forehead. Fintan attacked Maloru's pack before flying over to her and dropping two objects into her lap.
The first was the elven canteen, still a quarter full. Maloru had been conserving the water, sipping only a little bit at a time. "It's silly, I know," he had said to her only this morning. "What could such a small amount of water do for me, really, when elves my age had probably drunk lake-fulls of it since birth?"
The second object was the vial of Maloru's tears, still considered terribly fresh since they were only three days old. They wriggled and sparkled inside the vial, as if the sun never actually set for them.
Right. The tears were power, protective, healing. The water would be a good solvent, but it wouldn't be strong enough to prevent the tears from escaping. She needed some kind of binding agent that was water soluble and strong enough to keep he enchantment together for a few hours.
Like resin.
Lotte knew better than to ever use the chemical kind of resin that humans sold in powders. For starts, she abhorred the smell. But it also had absolutely no magical conductivity.
She looked up at Maloru who looked, even in tree form, grim and terrified. "I don't suppose you could produce me some resin?"
Maloru's branches rustled as if disturbed by a breeze.
"Was that a yes?"
Another rustle.
Lotte bit her lip and dug through her pack until she found her last empty vial and a knitting needle. She didn't have a knife with her, this was the only sharp object handy.
She approached Maloru. She knew that technically, trees would produce resin from under their bark to protect themselves, but she really didn't know how that would work. She doubted it flowed like blood. With a shaking hand, she raised the needle.
Her eyes closed on their own accord. She touched the needle to the bark, and pulled it back. She'd have to stab with a bit of force, which she'd be able to muster once she'd stop shaking.
Fintan made an odd nose, attacked her hand and prised the needle out of it. He let it fall on the ground before he plunged his beak-like snout in the rough bark at the trunk.
The whole tree shuddered. Maloru was in pain. Lotte cried in alarm, but at the same time, somehow, managed to thrust her hand forward with the open vial. A transparent, greenish-gold liquid oozed out, almost as if it were blood. She capped the vial just as Fintan began scooping up little plants and dirt from the ground to press onto the wound.
Lotte mimicked him, still shaking. "Are you okay?" she asked Maloru.
His leaves rattled in reply.
When she was sure the wound in his trunk was no longer bleeding, she laid out her ingredients and brought forward a mixing bowl.
Something was missing. None of these things had any pigment. The pigment was more for her than it was for the ink. It would be hard for her to see what kind of enchantment she was making with invisible paint.
She squeezed her eyes and opened them. She thought about everything she lost. All the things she wanted and couldn't have. She thought about Poe.
She squeezed her eyes again.
Then she thought about the strange boy...man...creature in the tower and his loss of someone named Sia.
That did the job, a few tears escaped her eyes. She caught the little gemstones at her chin and threw them into the mixing bowl, crushing them with a stone until they were a powder.
Real elven tears could be broken only with a diamond-edged file, but her own were rather brittle.
And they made a beautiful, vibrant red.
She first mixed in the water, stirring until her bowl looked like it contained aged wine—or fresh human blood. Then she added the thick resin. The mixture began to twinkle, motes of gold appearing like sparkles in the red. The green tinge of the resin deepened the colour, giving it cool hue.
Last, she spilled in a few tears. They weren't so eager to escape into the night as they were during the morning, but she could feel their jumpiness as she stirred them inside and closed the vial with the remaining tears.
Her newly formed ink began to glow so brightly, she worried that the light would give them away to the human airships that were still trying to battle the flames in the valley below.
She wasted no time, dipping her unicorn hair brush in and began painting Maloru's trunk. There were remnants of Poe's blood ink on the strands of the brush—which was a perfect addition. She could feel an exhilarating hum of power mount with every brush stroke.
First, she gave power to his natural magicks. She'd never learnt how to do such a thing, but it was rather simple to figure out. All she had to do was draw Maloru as he wished to be; a tall, strong, magnificent Solles tree with the power to protect himself and his brethren.
She put in as much detail as she could, concentrating on the roughness of his bark and the strength of his boughs, the lushness of his leaves. She gave him a canopy as beautiful as his curly hair in his day-time form. Of course, she added a few details from the Solles trees she had seen before, like the flexibility and the perfect symmetry of branches and trunk.
Now, she had to find a way for him to move. No matter how much she thought of it, trees couldn't run. Nothing she knew about Yomi magic suggested that they would have an ability that was frankly so... so forceful.
"That's it!" Lotte exclaimed.
They didn't have the ability, because it wasn't theirs. Just like Yomi protected the Leilan elves during the day, the Leilan elves powered the Yomi at night. Yomi enchanters created healing tattoos on Leilan, so Lotte could create the power of movement for Maloru.
Could she?
She dipped the brush into the ink, and paused.
No, something wasn't complete. It wouldn't be enough. She wasn't sure she had enough power in her to do such a thing, but also, she didn't think such an enchantment would stand well all by itself. There needed to be something to back it up. If she were a full-blooded elf, she'd be able to use her own natural magic to do so, but she wasn't.
So what could she do? Was this hopeless?
Lotte's eyes strayed down towards the valley, where the fire was eating away at the woods below. She could see the glow amidst the trees. How long did they have?
Absentmindedly, she stirred the ink with her brush. What was she to do?
Fintan landed on her shoulder, resting his head on her head.
She put down the bowl so she could push down her sleeve. "I don't know if this'll work," she said.
But she had to try.
She ran to her pack and retrieved a paper package she had purchased yesterday at the chemist's in the town they had visited.
It contained a set of needles and some rubbing alcohol.
She took a simple bottle of blue ink and brush and traced the desired enchantment on the inside of her forearm.
Then came the hard part.
"This is going to hurt."
She took the first needle and began to trace the design on her arm, one puncture at a time, making the dots as close together as she could. Beads of gold blood welled in places where she had gone too deep. At first, the pain was not so terrible, but it increased in magnitude and ferocity as she moved through the design, the first punctures began throbbing while the new ones burned.
When it was complete, she brushed over the design with the magic ink.
And a tattoo was born.
The design was simple. She'd drawn three interlocking symbols, the twice crossed out Yomi T that represented the Solles trees, the Leilan flame star that represented their power. Both inside the asymmetrically divided circle that was the ancient elven symbol of half—Lotte.
She completed the enchantment on Maloru's trunk. Lotte had never heard about an enchantment that surpassed a single object. It was going to be an enchantment that connected two people. There were dangers to such things. But, in her heart, she could feel this was the right thing to do.
It was easier to draw a more detailed design on Maloru. She drew walking legs, accenting their motion with swirls and arrows, and inside them she drew the exact same symbol as the one on her arm.
She moved back when her work was complete.
Nothing happened.
But it would work.
Once the ink was dry enough, it would work.
It had to work.
To distract herself, Lotte added one final enchantment to Maloru's trunk. She didn't think she had it in her for more, but after today this ink would be useless and, if they were to survive the night, Maloru wouldn't forgive her if she didn't at least try.
She went round him and began drawing a band of upwards pointing arrows. From those arrows, more arrows branched out. The complete design was a crown of arrows connected to each other like threads of lace.
When she was done, she felt light headed from her work and terribly warm. She couldn't stand the smell of smoke anymore and there was a strange crackling sound in her ears.
She began organising their things, putting away her tools, hanging both their packs from Maloru's branches.
If she couldn't get Maloru to move, maybe strengthening his natural protections would help him endure the night by the time the fire reached them. If the fire reached them.
Maybe it wouldn't.
She looked down into the valley to see its progress.
Orange light reflected in her eyes. She grasped Maloru's branch to steady herself.
The wildfire was at the hilltop.
"Move, move, please move," Lotte cried, wrapping her scarf over her face. She had breathed too much smoke without even noticing. All her thoughts and efforts had been narrowed down to completing those enchantments.
She hugged Maloru's trunk.
The heat and light crawled towards them.
It was too late now.
"Oh, please move, please," she said, eyes stinging from fire, smoke and sorrow. "Please."
She could run. She would run. The flames might chase her, but she'd escape. She'd have to leave him behind. What use would it be if they both died here?
It made sense to survive, but the pain in her chest was making her senseless.
Lotte didn't believe in fate, or destiny—she didn't even know the difference between those two things—but this wasn't how this was supposed to go. Maloru's journey wasn't supposed to end here.
She grabbed onto the lower bough, digging her fingers into his bark. "Move," she commanded. "Move."
Trees couldn't move. That was a fact.
"Move, move, move, move, move..."
She could feel the lick of the flames on the brush below. They caressed this mighty tree in their path, hungry, always hungry.
"I said, MOVE!"
Her arm burned at the tattoo. Maloru lurched, with her on top. She almost fell off. The earth shook. The fire sent out longing fingers.
But it was left behind as they sped away. Down the other side of the hill, away from the carnage and destruction. Trees were shoved aside, bushes torn to pieces. They left a deep furrow in the land behind them. Dirt and rock stirred by Maloru's mighty roots.
The night ran up to swallow them, and they moved on, guided by the red light of Lotte's gaze.
Instead of seeing the dawn, Lotte felt the precise moment when Maloru began changing from a tree into a boy. They had stopped already. She thought that maybe they passed the wretched valley of war altogether, but she couldn't be sure.
She oozed off Maloru and onto the ground, nursing her throbbing arm.
And there he was, all smiles and glowing joy, more luminous than a summer sun. "Lotte," he cried, grabbing her into a hug. "You did it! You were incredible."
She nodded lethargically.
"Are you okay? Show me your arm. I can help it heal."
She opened her mouth to say she was fine, that she just needed a moment that—
She tried to speak those words. She tried to make a noise. She tried to say something, anything.
Her lips opened and closed, her tongue moved over the roof of her mouth.
She tried to speak.
She tried to hum.
Then she tried to scream.
But there was nothing.