“The Tree of All Souls,” I say in awe. “We’ve found it.”
The snow pelts my face, but I don’t care. The magic hums sweetly inside me as if called. The sound wraps itself around my every sinew; it pulses in my blood with a new refrain I cannot yet sing but long to.
“You have come at last,” it murmurs, as softly as a mother’s lullaby. “Come to me. You need only to touch and you will see….”
Shards of lightning cut the sky around us. The power of this place is strong, and I want to be part of it. My friends feel it too. I can see it in their faces. We put our hands to the ancient bark. It is rough against my palms. My heartbeat quickens. I shake with this new power. Overcome, I fall.
She is before me, bathed in a gentle light, and I know her at a glance. The white hair. Blue eyes. The colorful dress. The world falls away until there is nothing but the two of us burning brightly in the wilderness.
Just Eugenia Spence and me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
“I’VE WAITED SUCH A LONG TIME FOR YOU,” SHE SAYS. “I nearly gave up hope.”
“Mrs. Spence?” I say when I find my voice at last.
“Yes. And you are Gemma, Mary’s daughter.” She smiles. “You are the one I’d hoped for—the only one who can save us and the realms.”
“Me? How—”
“I will tell you everything, but our time together is brief. There is only so long I can appear to you in this form. Will you walk with me?”
When I look confused, she reaches out a pale hand. “Take my hand. Walk with me. I will show you.”
My hand inches toward hers and grazes the cold tips of her fingers. She takes hold with a firm grip. We’re bathed in a brilliant white light. It burns away, and she and I stand together on the windswept plain. The snow, the lightning, my friends—that all exists outside of where I am now. Eugenia is more substantial here. Her cheeks are flushed; the color warms the blue of her eyes.
“I thought you were”—I swallow hard—“dead.”
“Not entirely,” she says sadly.
“The night of the fire,” I say. “What happened after you sealed the door?”
She steeples her hands as if praying. “I was taken by that foul beast here, to the Winterlands. All the creatures had come to see the exalted Eugenia Spence, high priestess of the Order, now a lowly captive of the Winterlands. They meant to break me, to corrupt me and use me to their wicked ends,” she says, her eyes flashing. “But my power was greater than they knew. I resisted, and as punishment, they imprisoned me inside the Tree of All Souls.”
“What is the Tree?” I ask.
She smiles. “The only spot within this forsaken land that also belongs to the realms, to the Order.”
“But how?”
“If you would understand the present, you must come to know the past.” She waves her hand in a wide arc, and the scenery changes. Before us, like the image in a pantomime, is a land newly born.
“Long before we slithered, pink and mewling, into this world, the realms existed. The magic was; it came from the land itself and it returned to the land, a never-ending cycle. All was in balance. There was only one inviolable rule: The dead who passed through this world could not remain here. They had to cross or become corrupted.
“But some of the dead could not relinquish their hold on the past. Afraid, angry, they ran, taking refuge in the most desolate part of the realms—the Winterlands. But it did not kill their longing for what they could not have. They wanted to return, and for that they would need the realms’ magic. Soon, the wanting turned to coveting. They would have it at all costs. You know of the rebellion and what happened here in the Winterlands, I trust?”
“The Winterlands creatures captured several initiates of the Order and sacrificed them here. The first blood sacrifice,” I answer.
“Yes, but that is not all of the story. You must see.” Eugenia moves her hands over my eyes. When I open them, I see the young priestesses, no older than I, cowering before a band of ghastly creatures. One priestess has escaped; she hides behind a rock, watching.
“This dagger is rich in magic,” one of the frightened priestesses says, offering the jeweled piece. “It can be shaped to any purpose you would give it. Take it in exchange for our freedom.”
The Winterlands wraith snarls at her. “You mean to placate us with this?” He grabs the dagger away. “If it is powerful, then let us put its gifts to work for us now!”
The creatures surround the cowering priestesses. The hideous wraith raises the dagger and it descends again and again, until all that can be seen of the girls is one blood-smeared hand reaching toward the sky, and then, even that falls.