“Cease speaking, Aren,” Kjell bellowed, and pressed his hands to the king’s side, searching for the source of the blood.
“Tiras!” Kjell shouted. “Sasha, help me!”
“You cannot heal me again, Captain,” the king said, his voice strained but his face serene.
Kjell groaned, helpless, and bore down, pressing his hands to the king’s sodden tunic, demanding submission from his gift. He would heal Aren’s wounds, just like he’d healed the Volgar slashes on Sasha’s back. He just needed time. He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, refusing to meet the king’s gaze, denying his inability to save him.
“There isn’t time,” the king said, reading Kjell’s desperation. “I don’t want to die here. Help me stand.”
“I can heal you!”
“Help me stand, Captain!” the king bellowed, adamant. He pushed up to his knees and found his feet, swaying as he took a step. Kjell was there to brace him, and they began to stagger toward the trees, Kjell bearing much of Aren’s weight, the king focused on the tallest of the wooded sentries bordering the rise behind the castle.
“Take me to the glade,” the king urged. “There’s a spot there for me.”
Then they weren’t alone. Villagers were streaming behind them, responding to Kjell’s call. Gaspar and Sasha weren’t far behind, Padrig on her heels. Tiras, bare-chested and shoeless but with his sword in hand, was just beyond them. King Aren ignored them all, pushing forward, his teeth gritted, his face set, determined to reach the grove.
“Here, Healer,” he groaned as the woods opened up into a small clearing. “This is the place.” Kjell tried to ease the king to the forest floor, but Aren insisted on standing, bracing himself on Kjell’s shoulders.
“It is your birthright, Kjell of Caarn. Don’t squander it,” King Aren said, his face grey. With bloodied hands, he lifted the crown from his head and placed it on Kjell’s.
Aren swayed, and Kjell braced his legs, keeping the king upright, ignoring the crown on his head as he continued to plead with his gift, magnifying the song that emanated from the king’s spirit. But the melody did not mend, the blood did not abate, and the king was dying in his arms.
“Sasha,” Kjell called out to her. “Help me heal him. Help me.”
Sasha rushed to his side, but it was not Kjell’s hand she took. With streaming eyes and trembling lips, she clasped Aren’s large palm between both of hers and gave him the strength he needed to spin one last time. Forever.
“I’ll be close to Grandfather Tree. Just as I planned,” the king said, his eyes on hers. “Be happy, Saoirse,” he whispered. Clinging to her hand, he closed his eyes.
The king’s beard changed first. Then the hair on his head became writhing leaves, green and glossy, carrying the scent of earth and rain. The ground began to tremble, and the boots Aren wore became burrowing roots, snaking through the dirt and sinking deep beneath their feet. Sasha stepped back as the king let go, lifting his arms to the heavens, branches sprouting from his fingertips, thickening even as they extended and spread. Aren’s body, supported by Kjell’s arms, became the trunk of a towering oak, shooting upward beneath burgeoning branches and multiplying leaves. Then it was done, the change complete, and Kjell stepped back, his arms empty, his heart heavy. Around him, the grove was sacred and silent, as if the spirit of the passing king whispered through the wood.
Kjell knew if he pressed his hands to the bark, he would not feel the breathless fear of the hidden or the repellant push of a false veneer. This tree did not camouflage a Spinner with a beating heart, waiting to be reawakened. It was not a man, but a memorial. A monument of resurrection and remembrance.
“Farewell King Aren, son of Gideon,” Padrig called, his voice shaking, his eyes wet, and he knelt at the base of the tree, bowing his head, folding his old bones to pay homage.
The villagers began to kneel too, their glowing triumph at the Volgar defeat becoming tearful lamentations. Where their tears fell, a flower grew, springing up on the forest floor, tiny petals and green shoots, dedicated to the man they mourned. Kjell withdrew his sword, a sign of his own fealty, and with a roar, stabbed it into the soft ground. He could not make flowers grow, but he could honor a good man.
Tiras did not kneel and he did not bow. He gripped the hilt of his sword, gaping at the scaled bark and the pointed leaves, at the lofty heights and sturdy roots, his shoulders squared and his legs braced, absorbing the wonder of what he’d seen. Astonishment lined his features and hardened his jaw, and when his eyes met Kjell’s he bowed his head slowly, never lowering his gaze.
“Hail King Kjell, son of Jeru,” he roared, and jabbed his sword into the air.
Padrig was the first to raise his head and join his voice with Tiras’s.
“Long live King Kjell, son of Koorah,” Padrig cried, still kneeling, still weeping.
The people had seen their king place his crown on Kjell’s head. They’d watched Aren leave one life for another, becoming reborn, taking his place beside his grandfather’s tree in the grove of his ancestors. But Padrig’s words stunned them, and Koorah’s name fell from their lips in wonder and awe as they realized what it all meant. One by one, they lifted their voices with Padrig’s, recognizing the loss of one king and heralding the ascension of another.
“Long live King Kjell, son of Koorah,” they cried, and the leaves shimmered and shook above their heads, raining softly upon the kneeling assembly.
Kjell wanted to reject them.
He wanted to hurl the crown into the trees and leave the glade.
But he could not.
The crown resting on his brow belonged to him, and he could not renounce it any more than he could deny the gift that flowed from his hands, his allegiance to his brother, or his love for the queen. The assurance rested on him like light, the knowledge pulsed in his blood, and in that moment he accepted the call, for that is what it was, and he could not forsake it.
Slowly, as if her legs became numb in stages, Sasha sank to her knees, her back bowing, her hands curling into the dirt, her hair caressing the new roots that forked the earth and anchored Aren’s tree. One at a time, the villagers approached and bowed with her, pressing themselves to her side in sympathy and commiseration before rising and letting another take their place. After each one rose, they approached Kjell and kissed his palms before leaving the clearing and the prostrate queen. Kjell didn’t recognize the ritual or his role in it, but he remained beside her, beside the tree, a new crown on his head, a new burden on his shoulders.
When the last villager left the clearing, Padrig rose as well, staggering as though his legs had lost all feeling. Tiras stepped forward and took his arm, steadying him. Together they moved toward Kjell.
“We must leave her now, Healer,” Padrig instructed.
“I can’t,” Kjell refused.
“She will mourn here in silence for three days.”
“Then I will mourn with her,” Kjell said.
“There is much to do, Majesty.”
The title caused his heart to turn and his stomach to knot, but he accepted that too, his fists balled and his eyes on the Star Maker’s grief-stricken face.
“Then see that it is done, Spinner. I won’t leave the queen.”
“The people will expect you to sit on the throne, to tell them what to do now that the battle is done,” Padrig said.
“I am not that kind of king.” He was not Aren. He was not Tiras. But he would do the best he could.
“No, you are not,” Padrig whispered, still stricken.
“Send Jerick to me. Take instruction from him, take advice from Tiras, and let the King’s Council continue as Aren would have wished. Let the villagers put the castle and the countryside to rights. When the three days have passed, I will sit on the bloody throne if I must. But I will stay with the queen.” His jaw was so tight his teeth radiated with pain, and he waited for an argument from the old man.