The Clockwork Crown (21 page)

Octavia stroked the large ear. “War's been declared again. The Lady's Tree is now exposed somewhere to the east of us. Caskentia saw it by air, and of course, nothing like that can ever be left in Waster hands.”

“The Tree, visible,” he murmured. “Why such a change?”

Why such a change indeed.
Octavia looked at her gloved hands as despair welled within her chest.
Because, Alonzo, I'm changing into a Tree. The King thinks I'm supposed to be the Lady's replacement.

She needed to tell him. Alonzo had always been forthright with her, even when it imperiled his job as a Clockwork Dagger. But telling him meant saying the words aloud, meant they were true. The stories always said that the Lady pleaded with God to save everyone and that she welcomed the change and everything it meant.
I want to help everyone. I do. But not like this. Not to lose my own humanity. Not to lose Alonzo and whatever may come in our future.

“We must burn Chi, lest she fall into the hands of Caskentia or the Waste.” His voice was thick.

“Yes.”

“Octavia. About the airship. I am sorry . . .”

Hearing her name caused her skin to prickle in an odd way. “It's the same as that buzzer pilot before. I know, Alonzo. I hate it, but I know. They would have killed us by gunfire or lured the wyrm into attacking us. You did what you needed to do.”

His brow furrowed. He looked as if he didn't be­lieve her.

“I thought you wanted me to be more accepting about this kind of thing?” she asked. “Isn't it more reasonable? Better than trying to save everyone?”

“Yes. But 'tis not
you.
”

“What am I anymore?” Hysteria edged her voice. She almost screamed out the truth, but took in a deep breath instead. “I'm sorry, Alonzo. I've seen so much death this past week, more than usual. Worse than usual.” A pause. “I had to kill again. Mrs. Stout's son.”

His blue eyes widened as he stepped toward her. “Octavia, for you to do such a thing, there had to be a good reason, just as when you defended yourself against Mr. Drury.”

She leaned into his shoulder and he wrapped his arm around her. Oh Lady, he stank of a week of compounded masculine musk and hundreds of miles of dirt, but he was Alonzo and he felt so good. As always, he knew better than to shush or offer ridiculous consolations. He was simply there, solid as an old oak, respecting her in weakness just as he respected her in strength. His fingers found the exposed nape of her neck and brushed away the whirls of hair that had escaped her tightly coiled braid. The touch of his callused thumb caused her to shiver, and not simply for the joy of physical touch.

I could be pulled inside his body again, so easily.

“Octavia.” When he said her name, she felt it like a flicker of heat, like when he was in the Arena and he spoke to her.
My eavesdropping began each time as he said my name. He evoked me, just as how I call out to the Lady and direct her attention within a circle.

The realization stole her breath.
I really am becoming the Tree. A new Lady.

Her legs buckled.

Alonzo made a small sound of surprise as he caught her full weight. She knew the scream of his exhausted muscles as he lowered her to the grass in the shadow of Chi's body. Alonzo stood again and reached for something on the chimera's saddle.

With a soft chirp, Leaf bounded to within inches of Octavia's face. Something akin to concern created wrinkles in his forehead.

She leaned closer to Leaf. “You talk to the Lady,” she whispered low enough that Alonzo couldn't hear. “I know you talk to her. Tell her I don't want this.”

Leaf squawked in dismay, flapping his wings.

Alonzo crouched over her. “There is water in my canteen, and food—­”

“No. Not now. We need to go.”

“Are you able to walk? I can . . . I can take care of Chi, if granted a few minutes.”

Octavia gritted her teeth and made herself stand. Alonzo waited within arm's reach in case she fell again.
Just as I looked out for him when he lost his mechanical leg.
Leaf landed on her shoulder with a whisper of wings. Octavia faced Chi and placed her fist to her chest.

“Chi, your creation was a cruel thing, but your souls were noble and cohesive. Thank you for caring for Alonzo. I'm sorry you were sacrificed in such a way. You deserved better. You deserved a whole shop's worth of cheese.”

Emotion clogged her throat. She turned and walked away, leaving Alonzo to say his farewells in private.

She could hear King Kethan's approach. He had been shot three times when the airship had strafed them but the wounds already had sealed. Beyond the worsening wear on his clothes, he was as well as he could be.

“I began to worry for you,” he said, matching her stride as she walked back toward the ruined sod structures. Pink and orange light gleamed over the Pinnacles.

“Alonzo rode a hybrid of gremlin and mechanical war machine here from Tamarania. The first of its kind. She—­Chi—­was forced to go and go and go, as my horse was.”

“To suffer the same fate, though with no branch?” he asked quietly.

“Yes,” she whispered. At that, Leaf trilled. He was being unusually quiet.
He's mourning in his own way, like when so many of his kind were slain on the
Argus
. “
Alonzo is going to take care of her.”

“As a warrior should tend to his fallen steed.”

“Grandfather, this change in me. I . . .”
Oh Lady, I can't even hint at it.

“You do not wish him to know.”

Octavia looked at King Kethan with relief. “Yes.”

“He is not an idiot. He already worries for you.”

“And I worry for him, with my every breath. We're going to the Lady. I'm going to talk to her. This . . . it doesn't have to be this way.”
It doesn't have to be me. Please, Lady. I have given so much of myself to you, to Caskentia. Allow me this selfishness.

“Octavia, have you given thought as to what this world would be without the Tree?” He motioned with his head. “Look around. Nearly a millennium has passed and the Dallows is still known as the Waste in spite of the Lady's efforts to heal this land. Look at Caskentia. Mercia.” His voice broke. “I know the good that Percivals rendered in my day. You have tended our boys at the front, you and your sister and brother medicians. What will this world be if there is no Lady to answer your prayers?”

No Lady. No medicians. No healing magic. Only doctoring, as crude and slow as it is.

Her chest felt so tight she could scarcely breathe. Sensing her distress, Leaf made a sound akin to a purr and paced from shoulder to shoulder in a way that usually made her giggle. Not even Leaf's antics could brighten her spirits now. “You can't—­you can't place that burden on me, Your Majesty. I'm sorry. I know how that sounds. You just spent decades locked in a tomb, all because of the Lady's leaf and seed.”

“Evandia believed she was doing the right thing when she revived me. She was scared, desperate. I will not deny that I have known frustration and anger during my captivity. If not for the books in my mind, I would have succumbed to madness.”

“The books you memorized?”

“From the age of fourteen, when I began to keep count, I read fourteen thousand three hundred and fifty-­one books.” His voice softened. “I remember much of them. When the books in the vault crumbled to dust, I read from the library here.” He tapped his temple. “I read the years away.”

“The Lady has stood for some seven hundred years,” she whispered. “I don't have your memory. I don't . . . I don't want that fate. I want to save ­people, that's true, but I never wanted to lose myself in the process. I want . . . I want to be
me
. I want to live, as a person. I want to grow old.”
I'm only twenty-­two.
Her words sounded so petty and whiny, even in her mind.

The Lady was so powerful, so full of potential to help thousands of ­people and beasts in need. And yet . . .

Octavia wanted to breathe in an icy morning wind, taste the brittle nuttiness of hard cheese, wiggle her toes against a carpet of moss, feel a horse's sloppy lips against her palm. She wanted to smile at her patients to let them know all would be well. For the vicious claws of young, purring kittens to prick her lap. To hear the feisty, satisfying snap of snow peas in her grasp as the pods parted from the vine.

King Kethan sighed. “You are no fool, to wish for such things. You do not crave suicide or full self-­sacrifice, not with a full future before you.”

This is why he was prized as one of the wisest men to have ever lived in Caskentia. I always knew we lost a great deal at the start of the wars, but I never knew how much.

“What should I do?” she whispered.

“The Lady is known for compassion. At the Tree, surely there is a way to speak to her directly. I do not see a confrontation with her as wrong.”

“You just aren't sure if it will do much good either.”

He held his hands palms up. “I am in search of my own answers, my own peace.”

Tears stung her eyes.
Peace. An end to this war. A home. A garden. An atelier. Alonzo's smiling face. Animals, ­people who need me. A place to belong.

She couldn't linger on such thoughts. “Let's hope we get the answers we want. For now, we need to figure out how to get the three of us to the Lady, and how to get this family to safety.”

Charred patches marked where debris had fallen in the crash. The airship's wreckage continued to smolder, a few flashes of orange bright in the new darkness. Like a strange shadow, one of the wyrm's tunnels gaped before them. Octavia kicked through the turned dirt to stand on the edge. The tunnel dropped straight into the abyss. Leaf sprang from her shoulder and glided in a circle before landing again at her feet.

“What do you know about wyrms?” Octavia spoke loudly to be heard by both the King and Bruna. The other woman was still some thirty feet distant.

“They have always been a hazard of the Dallows,” said King Kethan.

Bruna stopped on the far side of the ten-­foot pit. “They're attracted by noise, but sometimes they act as if randomly. They are especially bad in this area. Some ­people settle again and again only to have their homestead destroyed, as if they are being run off. We chose this acreage because there weren't any holes.”

“But what
are
they? Has anyone killed one?”

Bruna shrugged. Dried blood showed as black, broad streaks across her shirt and trousers. “You always hear claims, mostly from men in their cups. I've never seen proof of one dead. Shooting them doesn't seem to do much. They move fast enough that dynamite can't get them in time.”

“You noticed something, Granddaughter?” asked Kethan.

Alonzo approached, a new weariness in his stride. She waited for him to join them.

“I noticed the wyrm wasn't alive. It didn't have a heart, or a song, or its own distinctive soul. It was like a plant.”

Like a plant. Wyrms known to plague the area. Run ­people off.

“Are there any fragments of the wyrm on the ground, something caught by a bullet? I need a light.” Octavia fumbled inside her satchel for a glowstone.

“Here,” said Alonzo, pulling a stone from his pocket. He extended the weak light and began to pan across the ground. A minute later and Octavia did the same. They walked side by side, their steps slow. Leaf hopped in front of them at the edge of illumination.

After several minutes, King Kethan knelt down. “I believe this is its flesh.”

He pointed to something that resembled a brown scrap of leather about the size of her palm. At first glance, Octavia might have dismissed it as part of a uniform or tack from the airship, but this wasn't burned.

“It would be easier to identify this if it spoke like the branch,” she muttered under her breath. But then, the leaves hadn't had a voice either. However, there was one thing to which even the processed Royal-­Tea had responded. She turned away from the men as she pulled her faithful scissors from her pocket.

“Octavia, what are you—­”

Before Alonzo could stop her, she levered the blade enough to penetrate the fabric of her glove and the skin beneath, then stooped to press her blood to the thing on the ground.

Leaves and vines lashed outward with the brilliant chaos of a sneeze and just as quickly withdrew into the scrap of bark. Bruna screamed.

“Well. That was unexpected,” said King Kethan. Leaf mewed agreement.

“Wait until you see what she can do with a keg of tea,” said Alonzo.

“Shush, you.” Octavia was surprised to find herself smiling. “Well, that settles it, then.”

“Settles what?” asked Bruna. “What was that?”

“Wyrms aren't animals or monsters at all. They are the roots of the Lady's Tree,” said Octavia. “If they're attacking a settlement, take it under advisement that the settlement is too close to her, and move elsewhere.”

“Too close?” Bruna's eyes were wide and white in the dark. “We can't see the Tree from here even now! Taney has a settlement near the Tree. How come it's still there?”

That name made Octavia grimace. Grand potentate Reginald Taney ruled over the Dallows, and his plot to kidnap her and Mrs. Stout had started this whole mess.

“A tree's roots stretch far, far beyond the canopy,” murmured Alonzo. “Maybe their camp is on caliche, or 'tis so close to the Tree that exploratory roots would destabilize the massive trunk.”

“I'm sure someone has tried to follow these tunnels before,” Octavia said to Bruna.

“Well, yes, but tunnels collapse or folks never return.”

King Kethan nodded with a thoughtful hum. “Wyrms do not usually come out this far, but this one had a purpose, I think. It created a direct path to the Tree.”