Quiet Day

“It’s quiet today,” Llew said when Jonas reached her.

Jonas listened to the sounds of the farm; the near-constant baaing of sheep, sawing of wood, hammering of nails, susurration of the wind, the occasional bellow of a cow, squawk of some unknown passing bird. Even the soft tink as Delwynn placed another filled vial into the collection bucket. “Hmm.”

“The tree. It’s silent.”

The Taither tree was dead? But Llew’s tranquility spoke of something different.

“For some reason, Braph is leaving it alone today. It’s …” She gave him a side-eye. “… thinking.” She watched for his skepticism. He didn’t give it. He believed her.

“What about?”

“You.” She smiled. “I’ve shown it everything I know, and it’s— Well, I don’t know. It’s gone quiet. But I think if it couldn’t help I would feel something.”

“Does it know what Braph was doing to it?”

“He’s been drilling holes. Draining the sap.”

As Rowan suggested he might. If he could make crystals from the sap, what sort of power would he be able to access? Jonas could barely imagine. Llew’s blood, when he had been a full-powered Syakaran, had been addictive. Sap wasn’t blood, but still, Braph was a genius.

“And the trees are connected to everything. If he can draw power from that, it’ll be even more than his son can provide, won’t it?” Her tranquility was replaced by haunted anxiety and Jonas wanted to kick himself for turning the conversation. “That’s what he really wants. It’s not back-up. It’s his goal.” She let her head roll back against the tree she sat beneath, defeated once more. “I wasn’t meant to be a fighter. I just wanted to live. And if Braph had never found my mother in Quaver, I would’ve. I would’ve had a mother and a father, and a future. I never thought I could hold so much hate . Not for a single person. But I do, Jonas. I despise him. He took everything from me. And killing him won’t even bring it all back.”

Delwynn kept working, though he endeavored to keep his movements small.

Llew looked at Jonas. “But, if it wasn’t for Braph, I wouldn’t have you.”

Not much of a consolation, especially now.

“No good’ll come from thinkin’ on it too much.” Jonas gestured to their new team constructing the new accommodation block; Syakaran Karlani working alongside Aenuks Sam, Winnie, and Blink, plus the rest of the Turhmos soldiers. “Look what you are buildin’. If Braph is the reason you’re on this path, will you thank him?”

Llew laughed. “Gods, no.”

Her expression dropped, she scowled, turning inward.

“Is Braph back?” Jonas asked.

“No. It’s … It’s my ma. She’s been hurt. The Taither tree is healing her.”

Karlani arrived with an armload of twigs and placed them in the center of the cartway. She gave Llew and Jonas an acknowledging nod. “Need anything?”

They both shook their heads and murmured “No,” which Llew followed up with a quiet “Thank you,” even as she kept her focus inward, seeking to hold the connection with her mother.

Delwynn raised a hand. “I’m nearly done here. Can you please spin out this batch?”

Karlani nodded and waited while Delwynn stoppered the last vial and placed it with the the others before racing off again.

“How did your ma get hurt? Does the tree know?” Jonas asked.

Llew shook her head. Delwynn eased the needle from Llew then went to help free Llew’s other hand from the sling that kept it pressed to the tree, but Llew shook her head again.

“It doesn’t know. But she’s like me.” Llew looked up at Jonas. “She’s been drained of blood.”

Delwynn glanced between them and Jonas acknowledged him with a nod before he left, and he focused back on Llew.

Llew’s ma drained? That didn’t make sense. Braph had his Immortal son, and now the tree.

“Ma?” Llew drew still, concentrating.

Jonas’s attention was briefly diverted as Garnoc arrived with more wood for the pile. He turned back to Llew to find tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Llew?”

When their eyes met, she said, “Ooh. She does not like you.” She managed a laugh through her tears.

“I hope she knows how you feel about Braph.”

“She does.” Llew became somber. “But she loves him,” she whispered.

And Llew wanted him dead. Jonas didn’t say it, just in case Llew had kept the thought from her mother.

Not surprising . Jonas glanced at the Gravinator. Aren’t you an enterprising bunch? Irritation washed through him, not all his own. Well, we’ll see who gets their way when next we meet .

Jonas turned the flare of anger at Braph’s invasion into a mental lash. His brother’s presence disappeared and fatigue took anger’s place. Damn it. He couldn’t even protect himself from Braph. How could he take the fight to him? He leaned into his crutch, and wished he’d grabbed both.

“She’s gone.” Llew sighed. “She lives. But something tells me I’ll never have a mother again.” She looked up at Jonas, resignation turning to concern. “You alright?” She stood.

Jonas cursed silently. He couldn’t lie to her.

“Braph was in my head. I shut him out, and …” He hated to admit it, but he had to. Hiding his weakness from Llew had so far proven detrimental. “I’m tired.”

Llew watched him a moment and he could see her processing what he was and wasn’t saying. “Damned Braph,” she murmured, a hint of venom flavoring her words. She stepped back and sat in her chair again, reached for the Gravinator needle.

“Stop,” Jonas pleaded. As exhausting as it was to say, he said, “Please, Llew. Take a break. I’m sure I’ll live long enough for this batch to be purified. We both—” he needed to take a breath to keep talking. “We both need a break from that contraption.”

“Are you sure? I’m getting pretty used to it, now. I can keep going.”

“No. Please, don’t.”

“Fine. But how about we sit right here in these chairs anyway. They’re not the most comfortable, but not so bad without needles sticking in us.” She gestured to a spare chair still nearby. Jonas had to sit on the ground for blood transfers, as the process relied on gravity to work, but they’d brought out a chair for the between times. “And you let me know before you get too tired to insert your own needle. Promise?”

“I promise.” Jonas managed a smile and sat heavily on the chair. He leaned into the back of it and let his head rest against the tree.

An hour not attached to the Gravinator was a welcome reprieve for them both. They were far from free.

***

“Ah!” Braph spun away, grabbing his head. New to magic, his brother was no stranger to packing a punch, even a mental one.

Of course, flinching or ducking was pointless. Purely instinctual, which irked Braph.

He straightened, wiped at his nose, his hand coming away with a smear of blood. “Huh.”

Orinia stood before him, questioning.

“I’m alright.” He brushed his knuckle on a sleeve. “Are you fully healed?”

Orinia nodded. “That tree …” She glanced at it over her shoulder.

“Yes. It is special, even among Ajnais.”

“Which is why you drill it.” She held his gaze for several moments, her expression unreadable. Previously, she’d clearly disagreed with his desire for the sap. Having now healed from it, Braph had expected she would be even more against his putting holes in it, but he didn’t sense that now. “And it heals, with access to all that power. All the power in the world, as far as I can tell. It even connected me to my daughter in the heart of Turhmos.”

Braph stepped toward her and placed his hand beneath her ear. “And you told her you love me.”

“Did I?” She leaned into his touch. “She told me she wanted you dead.”

Braph laughed. He supposed it made sense that the trees didn’t need words to communicate. He’d certainly heard no such declaration from Llewella through Jonas’s ears. “And she is providing my brother with blood in the hope he can achieve just that.”

“You sound doubtful they’ll succeed.”

“Jonas has lost half a leg and hasn’t rid his body of the Karan-weakening micro-organism. She is keeping him alive, but he is so riddled with the bug there is no way to kill it without killing him, and not enough power in her body to return him to full power, for more than a few minutes.” Braph stroked Orinia’s jaw with his thumb. “He is a walking dead man. They’re just not willing to accept that yet.”

Orin scuffed his foot across some gravel.

Braph withdrew his hand. He glanced at the Ajnai. He wanted to get back to work, but with all the excitement, they had missed lunch and Orin was a growing boy and an Immortal who had likely had to exert healing efforts that morning. They hadn’t spoken of what had happened – all Braph’s attention had been on getting Orinia to the Ajnai, and then he’d found himself distracted by the desire to check in on Jonas. Orin was well, of course. How could he not be? Braph hand grasped the handle of Jonas’s knife – his knife. It wasn’t the only one, no. Just the only one with the Vastergaard gryphon shaped into the handle. Surely, now Quaver understood what would happen if they messed with his family again.

They visited the nearest restaurant for a late lunch. The place had been in the process of closing but were persuaded not to. The lack of other patrons and the evident desire of the staff to interact with Braph and his family as little as possible made for a peaceful meal, after which they returned to the garden and Braph settled back into work, and even Orinia helped with lining up and emptying buckets and monitoring the simmering collection pot, leaving Braph to focus on drilling holes and keeping the sap flowing. He kept his hand pressed to the bark, pushed power through it, drilled and fitted spiles while Orinia kept bowls moving from spiles to simmering pot and back. Even Orin joined in eventually. Apparently his parents had made the job look like fun.

They worked well into the night, setting a good rhythm and pace between the three of them. And went to sleep with a nearly full pot of sap simmering gently.

***

No one was less happy than Jonas to acknowledge he could wait little longer than it took Rowan to purify the Aenuk magic for him to need it.

Once again, the initial rush of magic was over within seconds, but the difference between the before and after was stark. Jonas felt … normal. He hated it. He accepted it. He signaled for his crutches, and Garnoc helped him stand.

“We’ll need to collect more.” Again, Rowan’s tone was regretful.

“I know.” And Llew resigned.

And, once more, Jonas seethed with a rage that she should suffer because of him. But he had promised to accept it; or, at least, to behave as though he accepted it, for Llew’s sake.

A small bonfire had been set alight, and Edwyn and Ivor nurtured it, crouching upwind of it, and carefully layering sticks from the rest of the woodpile.

Lyneth and Elka worked at a trestle-table, washing vegetables, and telling others to bring them more vegetables and cuts of meat.

Karlani continued to bring armloads of sticks and logs. She had built up quite a pile of reserves that could keep the fire burning through the night. There was every chance it would need to at the rate Jonas required Llew’s blood now.

Llew settled into her place beneath the Ajnai, looking like a marionette doll, strung up in the slings. Almost as soon as her hand touched the Ajnai her face screwed up in evident discomfort. She squinted up at Jonas and tried to smooth out her reaction, but she couldn’t hide it. Braph was back attacking their tree, and Llew could feel it all. She would bear it. Jonas had promised he would, too.

Lyneth began to sing, somehow finding a rhythm and rhyme in the hammering from the new build echoing around the farm buildings. She had a nice voice, and a gift for stringing words together, drawing them into her story of mind-numbing solitary boredom, the constrained liberty of the road, and full freedom of the farm. Even Llew found a smile as her blood flowed. But it grated at Jonas, discordant as it was with their situation. How could everyone else just ignore what Llew was going through and get on with their tasks? That was probably it: they had duties, while all Jonas was expected to do was preserve his energy. Do nothing but bear witness to Llew’s suffering. He wasn’t strong enough. And his mind turned to release; oblivion.

Had Ard ever kept a bottle of whisky? He’d never brought one out in Jonas’s presence, but that had been fleeting and certainly didn’t mean he didn’t have one. Or laudanum? This far from medical care, surely the farm held some form of pain relief.

“I’m gonna—” he spoke to everyone and no one and waved vaguely. After -transfer ablutions would be expected, even though not needing to pee immediately had been one of the first things Jonas had noticed about the purified magic. He hoped others paid less attention to such things.

Llew acknowledged him with a minute nod. Rowan swapped one vial for another.

Jonas searched the kitchen cabinets first. There were cooking oils and vinegars – malt, white, and cider – but nothing to dull the brain. Nothing in the wardrobe. The chest at the foot of the bed proved to be merely a repository for bed linen. He stood for a few moments, leaning into his crutch. Where else? Perhaps Ard had drunk in private, avoiding Merrid’s disapproval, and kept a stash in a shed.

Jonas opened the front door, coming face-to-face with the reality before him. Llew sat at the foot of a tree, blood seeping from her for him, bearing the violent messages coming from the Taither tree alone. The others were gathering around her as the day progressed toward evening, trying to lift the mood, engaging in chatter and adding wood to the bonfire, helping Elka and Lyneth with dinner preparation.

Llew sat alone with hands strung up, one pressed to the tree, the other held so the Gravinator could work, her eyes closed, her expressions rotating through bearing the pain with gritted teeth and suffering through sobs. And Jonas had been thinking of seeking oblivion, abandoning her entirely. What an ass … arse. Llew deserved better.

He allowed himself a moment of self-flagellation, then resolved to be the better man he’d promised he’d be. Maybe not quite what Llew deserved, but the best he could give her.

He maneuvered off the porch, hobbled over – though he was improving, the false foot still landed wrong sometimes – sat in the chair, and lay his crutch on the ground beside him. Leaning it against the Ajnai just didn’t seem right somehow.

In an ideal world, where touching her as she drained blood wouldn’t risk killing him and where she wasn’t strung up like a marionette, he would’ve held her hand, kissed it occasionally, petted it, and teased her fingers with his. But they didn’t live in that world; likely never would. He placed a hand on her thigh, low enough to assure her it was supportive, not suggestive.

Llew opened her eyes and met his gaze, gave him a grateful smile that nearly tore his heart with its wry twist. She said nothing, just closed her eyes and endured.

In silence, damn it. She was protecting him.

He squeezed her thigh. “Please, don’t do that. Let me bear it with you. I promise I won’t run again.”

She sucked a breath in through her teeth. “Damned Braph.”

“He will be when I see him next.”