The Heartwood Chronicles

It’s been a while, Heartwood readers! I’m back with the next Zoya vignette, which is still about her mother. Or more accurately, it’s about a younger brother and an older sister. I’ve also begun the next proper arc, but I’m going to write the whole thing before deciding how to get it to you. Most likely, I’ll include it along with the Cloud Village arc in Volume 2 of the Heartwood Chronicles.

Iron Lily

Spring was lengthening into summer the next time Jouhara saw Tobio. He stood in a courtyard, his hands behind his back, staring at a pool, his mind miles away. Jouhara, gliding down a long gallery surrounded by court ladies, paused. She made a brief gesture, a flick of her index finger, and one of the ladies detached herself from the group and went down the stairs to the courtyard and Tobio.

Jouhara leaned against the railing as Tobio walked up and bowed. Her ladies retreated in a rustle of silks and whispers, leaving them alone in a green-scented hush.

“Sister,” he greeted her. “I hear congratulations are in order.”

Jouhara inclined her head. “Indeed.” The match she had made for herself was not as brilliant as her first marriage, but she was satisfied. Her younger husband-to-be was heir to extensive domains. Moreover, he was besotted with her—she had seen to that—and pliable, without falling into dithering stupidity.

She was running out of time. The Dragon Lord favored her counsel and company above all his other children, but he was obsessed with his legacy. She had to have an acceptable child, a grandson, before he named his successor.

Pity the most unlikeable of her brothers were the ones who had bred the most children. And of course, she couldn’t count out Aika, that smooth-haired, smooth-tongued younger sister, who had maneuvered herself into a position of power in the family of their father’s most powerful vassal.

Jouhara’s marriage to Daiichi was to have been the counter-balance.

Little sister, if I discover that you had any hand in Daiichi’s assassination, I will ensure you pay dearly for it.

Tobio’s proper speeches trailed off. Jouhara gave him a gracious smile and straightened, preparing to depart. She had much to plan.

“Ah, sister…” Tobio wore the look of someone with something big to impart. Jouhara nodded, giving him permission to speak.

He blurted out, “The child. She is well.”

Lost in thoughts of treaties and ceremonies, it took Jouhara two eyeblinks to understand what he meant. She arched her eyebrows. “She still lives?”

Tobio nodded. “She survived the winter.” He paused, but Jouhara chose not to respond. “The High Priest—we—named her Alizoya.”

“An old-fashioned name,” Jouhara commented. “And not in the family line.”

“We thought it for the best.” He moistened his lower lip. “The Dragon Lord approved.”

“It has always been his favorite poem.” Jouhara cocked her head. “Well done, brother.”

His gaze was steady. “The heroine Alizoya always reminded me of you.”

“Me?” Jouhara allowed herself a light, incredulous laugh, though the comparison made her feel absurdly pleased.

“Yes.” He hesitated. “I saw you fight, that one time.”

“Only the one,” said Jouhara coolly.

“Will you visit her?” he asked in a rush. “The child Zoya.”

Jouhara was silent, measuring him unhurriedly with a look. It was the sort of expression that made sterner men than Tobio sweat. “If she lives till the age of seven,” she said, “then I will come see her.”

She swept on, turning over dowries and intrigue in her head. The little girl who was her daughter, the promise she had made, were soon banished, submerged under the weight of pressing matters.

***

How quickly five years pass, thought Tobio as he trudged up the steps, up into the musty dark, his way lit by sullen flames in widely-spaced lamps. We hold time like a fistful of sand; it slips through our fingers and before we know it, only a few grains remain.

His feet scraped against stone as he hauled his tired body up the stairs. His legs felt as heavy as his heart.

This was not the Dragon Court, nor one of the few abbeys still held by the priesthood, but an almost-forgotten northern holding of the Dragon Lord’s, a place so insignificant, it had been nothing but an item in a ledger for decades.

The Princess Jouhara had finally heeded Tobio’s plea to leave the Dragon Court, but he took no pleasure in her acquiescence.

Not now. Not like this.

A carpet of indeterminate murkiness stretched down the corridor at the top of the stairs. It felt cheap and threadbare under his feet. The few lights made little headway against the accumulated gloom of a century.

A woman waited for him outside Jouhara’s room. Emi, greyer and older now, but still faithful, still silent. She bowed low and opened the door. Its hinges were well-oiled, at least.

He stepped inside the room and waited for his eyes to adjust. Only one lamp burned on a small table beside the canopied bed, its curtains tied to the posts. The door swung shut behind him.

A rustle came from the bed. “Tobio?” Her voice was a ghost of its former self, a dry flutter, but it was still calm, still contained. It was still Jouhara.

“I’m here, sister.” Tobio hastened forward and took the hand held out to him. A large hand for a woman, with long fingers, but now her skin felt hot and papery, her bones fragile as a bird’s. The signet she wore on her ring finger felt too large, too loose. Darkness glinted in the heart of its great black stone.

Jouhara withdrew her hand, laid it back upon her chest. “Sit,” she said, and Tobio did so, dropping down on the stool placed beside the bed. The habit of deference to Jouhara was still strong, even after all these years, even after she had proved herself over and over to be only a mortal, as flawed as anyone else.

His adoration of her had been forged in one single instant, a strong and fierce thing that, though tempered over the years, had lost none of its intensity. A single instant in which a young woman in a kimono the color of a thunderstorm had become the savior of a bewildered ten-year-old, plucked out of his own home and deposited into the maw of the Dragon Court. Tobio had not known why imperial soldiers had fetched him from the farmhouse where he had lived all his life with his mother’s parents; why he had had to be a page in the Dragon Court; why he was singled out and sneered at and shoved from behind and tripped by malicious feet.

Back then, no one had told him who his father was. Back then, the Dragon Lord had not owned him, so the thing remained a rumor, a secret undercurrent, something that many guessed but none dared say out loud. Tobio had not proved himself worthy of being owned, a pudgy unprepossessing boy who often ended up with his face in the muck of one courtyard or another.

That was how Jouhara found him one autumn day, snuffling under a leaden sky.

The first he knew of her was the sound of her voice, cool and deep as a well, saying, “Little boy. Little boy, look at me.”

And look he did, raising a face streaked with tears and mud. He beheld her clothes—white swallows against bluish grey—and her proud, moon-pale face, with dark eyes that bored into his very soul.

And though he had never seen her before, he knew right then who spoke to him, and the breath caught in his throat.

The Iron Lily.

“Little boy,” she said again, “why do you lie in the mud?”

Shame spread across his skin and he shriveled away from it, as if he could crawl away from his own body, his own self. But her look pinned him to the spot, forced him to acknowledge who he was.

“I was hit and I fell,” he said, “and I did not get up again.”

She waited.

“Because I am weak.” He flung the words at his own self, but his self-loathing was a useless thing that scraped lemon-sour against his soul, then slid off to lie in the mud, stuck, useless.

“You are weak,” said Princess Jouhara of the Dragon Court. “But you could be strong.”

Something flickered, flame-like, inside of him. A small stirring of hope. He scrambled up to his feet, his hands balled into fists, tautness straining his muscles. “How?” he demanded. “How?”

The Iron Lily reached out her hand. Her long white index finger touched his forehead, the base of his throat where his heartbeat pulsed, his chest right above his thumping heart. “Find your strength,” she said, “inside yourself. You know the first five ishara forms?” At his nod, she went on, “Practice them. Beat them into your muscles, brand them into your soul, until you can reach your centers of power as easily as you pick up a spoon.”

“And then what?” he demanded.

Her eyebrows arched. “And then you practice the next five. And the five after. Discipline your mind, your body, and your magic.”

A frisson ran through his soul, an electric hope.

“You can be strong,” she repeated, turning away. “The blood of dragons runs in your veins. Use it well.” The sun cracked open the clouds above, and light spilled into the courtyard with a glad, dazzling rush. Tobio squinted and shaded his eyes; when he had blinked away the blurring tears, the Iron Lily was gliding from the courtyard, back up to the high white galleries where only the nobles promenaded.

Tobio blinked again, and the burning memory faded from his mind. Now the Iron Lily lay in the shadows, propped up against the pillows, a sickly pallor on her face, her skin stretched tight against her bones, her dark, dark eyes sunken deep. Her bloodless lips stretched into a tight smile.

“You are shocked, Tobio. Am I no longer beautiful?”

“You could never lose your beauty,” he said, and he meant it. For despite everything, that spark of intelligence, resolve, ambition, still remained in her eyes. She was still Jouhara, and Jouhara was beautiful.

“Beauty fades.” She closed her eyes and drew in a breath, long, shuddering. Tobio could hear the ominous burbling in her fluid-filled lungs. His stomach clenched. “And so do health and power and everything else.”

Jouhara opened her eyes again. Something burned inside them. “The Dragon Lord has named an heir. Keishin has won.”

Tobio said nothing,

“While Takahito and Masaru and I spent our strength striving against each other, Keishin smiled his oily smiles and spoke butter-soft words and outlasted us all. That sniveling weasel.” Jouhara gave a small, bitter laugh that turned into a choking breath, then a coughing fit so violent that Tobio almost ran for Emi. Jouhara stayed him with a hand, and the coughing died away into a series of ragged breaths.

“Don’t talk,” said Tobio.

She lay back, exhausted, her eyes burning and hungry in her wasted face. “I must,” she whispered. “I must. Someone must know, someone must remember…” Her voice trailed away, her eyes stared beyond him.

Long moments passed. He prompted, gently, “Remember what?”

Her hand grasped his wrist, claw-like. “Keishin has lived in the shadows of his betters for too long. He is eaten up with envy, rotten inside. Now that he has the power he always wanted, it will go ill with Serepentina. Can you imagine the Dragon Court with him at its head?”

Tobio could, and shivered.

“I’ll be forgotten,” Jouhara went on in a harsh whisper. “I will make no mark upon history. I lost two husbands, one to assassination, the other to his own sword. What a foolish man, to be lured into a treasonous plot. He left himself no other honorable choice, save taking his own life.” Her grip loosened; Tobio took her hand in both of his. “I have no heirs, save…”

She turned her head on the pillow and Tobio followed her gaze to a long, narrow box on the end table.

“Lands and coin and jewels are all gone,” Jouhara said. “That is all that I saved from the jackals. Open it.”

Tobio took the box, one-handed and awkward, and slid open the lid. Inside lay a pair of lacquered hairsticks, enamelled lilies at the ends, and a pair of black diamond earrings.

“Daiichi gave me the hairsticks when I was with child. You gave me the earrings when she was born. Now they must go to her. They are all I can give her.” Her voice was soft, her eyelids fluttered shut. Her hand in his felt light, insubstantial. “It is I, not she, who will not live… to see… her seventh birthday.”

His eyes were wet. “I will tell her all about you. About her mother, Prince Jouhara of the Dragon Court, the Iron Lily. She will know who you were.”

Her lips twitched. Tobio leaned forward, straining to make out words.

He heard none. Her lips did not move again, her breathing grew shallow and irregular. And finally in the dim reaches of the night, she took a breath and then did not take one again. Her hand lay limp and lifeless.

Tobio held it for a while longer, a cold heaviness falling upon him. He had hoped—prayed—that she would be queen, stern but fair. Without her, the rot at the heart of the Dragon Court would spread unchecked. Now they he must find another way to save the Serepentine Isles.

He placed her hand gently on her chest, stood up, and kissed Jouhara’s cheek.

“You’ll be remembered, sister. You’ll make your mark upon history,” he said, “as the mother of Alizoya, the greatest mage our Isles have ever seen.”

Here’s the first of the vignettes from the life of Master Zoya, whose story was a precursor to the Heartwood Chronicles. This takes place in Serepentina and is more of a character study of her mother, Princess Jouhara. I liked writing her, but she’s not someone I would want to be acquainted with in real life!

Birth

Princess Jouhara of Serepentina sat in front of her mirror and examined the proud, pale face reflected in it.

Skillfully applied powder hid signs of fatigue—the shadows under her eyes, the lines around her mouth. A touch of red brightened her thin, nearly bloodless lips. Her shining dark hair was coiled in a complicated knot, the enameled white lily of her lacquered black hairstick starling against it. Her thin eyebrows arched skeptically. Long lashes framed her dark, dangerous eyes.

She was the most beautiful and most powerful woman in the Dragon Court.

She would make that known tonight.

Curse Daiichi, she thought. Curse him for allowing himself to be killed. No emotion, however, was allowed to disturb the tranquility of the madeup face in the mirror. Jouhara turned a long metal pin over and over in her strong white fingers.

A hunting accident, they had told her, false sympathy on their faces.

She knew better. Someone at the court had arranged for her husband to be killed, timing the strike for when Jouhara was at her most vulnerable, unable to extract swift revenge.

And now her schemes had fallen apart. The marriage that had meant to cement her position had abruptly ended, had come to nothing after all.

The pin snapped in her fingers. Jouhara brushed the pieces off her kimono, and they tinkled to the floor.

She would have to start all over again. She could not afford to waste a single opportunity. It was the time of the Maple Leaf, the season of the Lantern Festival. Nobles and dignitaries from all over the empire came bearing tribute and taxes.

She had to salvage what she could from the collapse of her plans.

Jouhara rose to her feet in a whisper of expensive fabric. The stiff silk of her kimono was a pale silver, embossed with white flowers. She was ebony and ice, night and moon. She would stand out amongst the bright colors and fussy decorations of the other women, draw all eyes to her.

They would see that Princess Jouhara, oldest daughter of the Dragon Lord, was still a force to be reckoned with.

Artifice and skill had restored to her face what the past two weeks had taken away. But they could not take away the discomfort of her swollen breasts, the ache between her legs, the soft flabbiness of her belly. Those were to be endured, and disguised by cunningly tailored clothing.

There was a soft knock at the door. Jouhara turned her head. “Enter.”

The door opened. Emi slipped in and sank to her knees, her head bowed, her right hand upon her heart, the lily brand that marked her as Jouhara’s on the back of it.

“Speak,” said Jouhara.

“Your brother, Lord Tobio, wishes to pay his respects. He waits your pleasure in the antechamber.”

“You may bring him into the inner drawing room. I will see him there.”

“Yes, my lady,” murmured Emi.

There was something else. Jouhara could tell from the slight rise of the woman’s shoulder. Plain, colorless, and discreet, Emi made the perfect servant, but her mistress had known her for a long time. “What other news?”

“Lord Tobio came to the capital in the train of the High Priest of the Warrior Aspect, my lady. The High Priest has been granted an audience with the Dragon Lord; they meet this evening.”

“Indeed.” Behind her mask, behind the bored coolness of her tone, Jouhara’s thoughts spun. The monks and nuns of the Warrior Aspect had kept aloof from the court as long as she could remember. Their holdings, their monasteries and abbeys, farms and fisheries and timberlands, were exempt from taxation—much to the chagrin of the princelings and lords of the court.

Why would the High Priest come to court at a time like this? Could it be…?

“You may leave now, Emi. Serve Lord Tobio the ruby Kaidan wine. We might as well use it for something.”

#

Jouhara lingered in her chamber for some time after Emi left, thinking. Tobio was her favorite brother, but it wouldn’t do to let him presume on their relationship. He was only a bastard son.

Emi waited beside the door to the drawing room when Jouhara appeared and silently slid aside the panel. Jouhara sailed inside, armored in reserve and strength, ignoring the sudden stab of pain in her belly. It still hurt to walk, sometimes.

No one must be allowed to notice it.

Tobio turned away from a brush painting in blue and smoky grey, a new acquisition since his last visit. “Sister.” He came forward, hands outstretched.

“Tobio.” She allowed him to take her hand gingerly in his. It amused her to see him handle it so carefully, as if it were made of the thinnest glass.

“You are well?” Tobio looked into her face, his own scrunched into a worried frown. He was shorter than she was, homely and plumpish. He must’ve inherited his physique from his mother, a woman, Jouhara had been told, who’d been more comfortable than beautiful. The dalliance was considered a mistake on the Dragon Lord’s part, though no one had ever dared say that out loud in front of his daughter.

“Of course.” Jouhara withdrew her hand. “Better than you, in fact.” Tiredness ringed his eyes, stubble covered his cheeks and chin. He had known better than to present himself in travel-stained clothes though; Jouhara approved of the sober-hued material of his tunic and trousers, well-made, good quality, unassuming.

Tobio knew his place. She liked that about him. Liked having someone whom she could relax around.

Not completely, though.

Never completely.

She sank down upon an upholstered couch, its curved legs and back stained black and polished to a high shine. Even the upholstery was a rich ebony, embossed black lilies on a black background, shot through with traces of silver. Tobio remained standing until she waved him to a spindly straight-backed chair. The couch was the only remotely comfortable piece of furniture in the room.

Jouhara did not permit others to get too comfortable in her presence. She liked her visitors a little off balance, a little on edge.

“It has been a while since you were last at court, little brother.”

Tobio tugged at his collar, clearly embarrassed. Well, given the circumstances of his last visit, he would be. Jouhara watched him fidget with faint amusement and fondness. Poor Tobio had never learned to hide his truest feelings.

That was the price he paid for having a sheltered upbringing. Jouhara and her other brothers and sisters had never had one. They were stronger for it.

“I should’ve come earlier,” Tobio said abruptly. “I had hoped I would come at a happier time, but instead I find you in autumn—sorrow and joy intermingled. My condolences on the loss of your husband, sister.” His expression was sincere and earnest.

Jouhara waved a languid hand. “Daiichi let his guard down. Don’t repine too long, little brother. The Dragon Court does not allow anyone much time to grieve.”

“But still—” Tobio caught himself and chewed his lower lip. It was a bad habit he’d been allowed to have too long as a child. Jouhara would have trained him out of it had she had the raising of him. With nine years separating them, it might’ve been possible if he had lived at court and shared a mother with her.

Tobio shook his head. “I came expecting only to partake in your joy. It might be in bad taste now, but…” Again, he hesitated.

Jouhara took pity on him. “Whatever you bring, it will be welcome to me.” She allowed herself a smile, a dip of her head, the lowering of her darkened lashes.

“Then…” Tobio rose, bowed, and proffered her a box in the same lacquered black wood as her furniture. There was something endearingly clumsy about the gesture, and Jouhara knew her expression was softer than necessary as she smiled her thanks and opened the gift.

Her eyebrows lifted as she took in a pair of long earrings set with black diamonds. A tasteful, expensive gift, befitting a princess. So Tobio had learned this much, though jewelry was more the present of a husband or lover than a brother. But Daiichi had gotten himself killed, and it would be good for the court to see her accepting gifts again. The black diamonds would do very well at certain upcoming events.

“My thanks, brother,” she said. “Your gift pleases me greatly.”

“I have something for the little one also.” Tobio produced a light wooden box this time, longer than it was wide, made of a light wood. Its top was painted with flowers, splashes of primary blue, red, and yellow, gaudy and garish. It looked ridiculously out of place in this chamber of night and steel, on her snow-white lap.

Jouhara watched her own hands, the fingernails painted scarlet, slide open the inner drawer. Nestled inside it was a wooden rattle. It clattered faintly as she picked it up, a small thing with a wooden handle that fit completely on her hand. She realized she was frowning; she smoothed her brow.

No one should see anything she didn’t want to convey.

Tobio watched her anxiously. “Does this also please you, sister?”

Jouhara exhaled softly. “It is charming. A good funeral gift for an infant. It will add the right note.”

Tobio’s eyes were shadowed. “So, it is true, what they say? I had hoped that the rumors were exaggerated.”

Jouhara dropped the rattle into her lap. “They are true. The child was born with a weak body, unable to bear her own magic. It is devouring her now, soon it will devour her completely.” No tremble broke her well-modulated tone; Daiichi’s daughter, like himself, was a disappointment.

“Can anything be done?” Tobio asked.

Jouhara lifted a shoulder in a slight shrug. “Perhaps. But she would likely remain of weak body, perhaps of weak mind. It is no kindness to let such a child live.”

“You are harsh, sister,” Tobio murmured.

“I live in a harsh world,” Jouhara reminded him. “As do all of us who are sons and daughters of the Dragon Court. Instead of worrying about a dying infant, you would do well to watch your own back, brother.”

Her warning went unheeded. Tobio perched at the edge of his chair, clasping and unclasping his hands. Jouhara watched him, unmoving. He would unburden himself to her soon enough. Silence was a potent weapon.

“Then let the Warrior have her,” Tobio burst out. “Let the priests and nuns of the Warrior have the child. Let them—”

A metallic shing and the room darkened. Hundreds, no thousands, of steel needles leapt from behind frames, under furniture, from the ceiling. A swarm of them, long, narrow, blind and pitiless, bound to their mistress, pointed at Tobio’s heart, his eyes, his ears.

Jouhara sat unmoving at the heart of her flock. With one twitch of her finger, she could end Tobio’s life—either swiftly or lingeringly, as she desired. She knew it, and he did, too.

“Are you, Tobio,” she said softly, “playing at politics? Using my daughter as a bargaining tool?” At the back of her mind, something darkly bitter-amused stirred. She’d harangued Tobio for years about his careless attitude. Why shouldn’t he finally heed her lessons and turn on her? Shifting loyalties were nothing new in the Dragon Court.

Tobio held himself rigid, trying not to look at the needles poised mere inches from his eyeballs. “No,” he said. “I have no desire to involve myself any further with the Dragon Court. If not for you, I would retire from it forever.” The vehemence in his voice sounded real enough, but…

“The High Priest. You brought him here. What did you promise him, Tobio?”

“I promised nothing that was not mine to give.” Perspiration beaded his forehead, but he held himself straight and looked at her directly. Fearlessly. “I promised only a possibility and my support.”

“Support for what?”

“The revival of the compact between the court and the priesthood. The giving of a royal child to be raised up in the Warrior’s service.”

Jouhara’s eyebrows arched. “That archaic custom? Why does the High Priest want a child now?” The rift between the royal family and the priesthood had occurred a century ago when the balance of power tilted towards the Dragon Court. That had been inevitable, as her ancestors had had the patience and foresight to gather great magical ability into the royal line. Jouhara approved. Power was everything, and nothing was more powerful than magic.

Giving away a child of magical heritage—no matter how sickly—was unheard of.

“Perhaps to bridge the gap between court and monastery.” Tobio hesitated and said, with awkward gentleness, “There are other ways of life out there, sister. Other ways to live than the machinations of the Dragon Court.”

“Those other ways are at the mercy of the strong,” said Jouhara dismissively. “They exist only as long as the powerful suffer them to.” But her mind was racing. If she could turn this sudden sentimentality of the High Priest’s into an advantage…

“What does the High Priest offer in exchange for the privilege of raising a royal child?”

“The taxes on the Yoiji holdings, to be given to you, as the mother losing her child.”

Jouhara tapped the arm of the sofa with one long finger, thinking. The Yoiji holdings were some of the richest territories of the Isles. She would have to gift part of the tribute to the royal treasury, but even with what was left over, she’d have the means to finance her next scheme. It would give her greater freedom, greater flexibility, and dispose her father to look upon her more favorably.

Tobio gazed at her steadily. “There is a place for you at the monastery, too, if you choose it.”

Jouhara flicked her fingers, and her swarm of needles withdrew to their hiding places. “Bury myself in stone and prayer? Is that how you see me, Tobio?” She permitted herself a smile, a mocking twist of her lips.

A long pause. Then Tobio shook his head and dropped his gaze. “No.”

“I want the taxes on Yoiji for sixteen years, even if the child dies.” Jouhara raised her index finger. “A guaranteed annual income based on the average revenue of the past five years. I will not agree to anything less than that. Is the High Priest prepared to meet such terms?”

“I told him you would drive a hard bargain.”

“Our father’s approval is necessary,” said Jouhara bluntly. “The Dragon Lord is loath to give away even a wastling. I have precious little favor with him, and if you wish me to burn it on your behalf, you must pay for the privilege.”

“We understand.” Tobio inclined his head. “Thank you, sister.”

Jouhara made a shooing motion. “Now go. I must think and prepare our approach.”

#

She met with Tobio again the next day, tired but triumphant. “It is done. The Dragon Lord has given his permission.”

Tobio stood just within the doorway, clad in traveling clothes. The scent of cha-smoke clung to him. “Yes.  We leave within the hour.”

Jouhara glanced at the window, at a sky the color of living steel, blue-grey with flashes of sunlight gold. “A storm comes. Travel safe.”

Tobio hesitated. “Will you not come up to the nursery? To say farewell.”

Jouhara leaned her head against her hand. It felt heavy, and the pins that held her hair in place seemed to have found every tender spot on her scalp. “I am not sentimental. You know this.”

“So I do.” He turned to go.

“Tobio.”

He looked back.

“Don’t get attached,” she warned. “The child will not live long. She has not even the strength to cry.”

He bowed, but said nothing. It was no use him saying anything. They both knew that Jouhara’s words would change nothing.

Tobio’s heart was too tender. He couldn’t help getting attached.

Jouhara sat in silence for a long time after he left, staring at the wall. Plans and schemes swirled in her mind, but she could grasp none of them.

After a while, she realized that she was gripping the wooden rattle that was to have been a funerary gift for that frail, waxen infant who was her daughter. Jouhara lifted it absently and gave it a shake.

A faint clatter stirred the air, was quickly swallowed up by steel and silence, ghost white walls and polished black furnishings. Like the child who had come and gone from her life, it disturbed Jouhara’s life only briefly.

She placed the rattle carefully upon the table. The quiet, efficient Emi would deal with it.

The next time she entered the room, it would be gone.

Heartwood readers, I need your feedback.

The Heartwood Chronicles are a passion project, born during a time I was suffering from extreme burnout. The first file I have for the project dates from 2013 and is descriptively (if not creatively) titled “Serialized Episode Thing.” In it, Amber was originally called Amanthea. I’m not surprised I changed her name!

I began serializing the story in the summer of 2018. At first, I released shorter, weekly episodes, but after feedback switched to the current biweekly format. The serialization was not without its hiccups. Thanks to life, other projects, and my own creative process which often requires backburner time, I’ve had to take several breaks. Even so, I’ve released four complete story arcs and two bonus stories, all totaling up to over 100,000 words. I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished with this story, especially considering this is my hobby side project.

Now it’s time for me to evaluate the future of the Heartwood Chronicles. As I consider how far I can go with it, I’d love to have your feedback in the way the story is delivered to you. I’d appreciate it if you could fill out a brief survey, which you can find here.

In other news, I’ve been working on a series of scenes and stories from the life of Master Zoya. I’ll be sharing them here over the summer in between working on the fourth book of my Reflected City series, so keep an eye out for them.

Thanks for coming along with me on this journey!

Lisette sat on the parapet atop Heartwood Academy, her knees drawn up to her chest, her eyes fixed on the dark shapes of the distant mountains. Their jagged peaks, bare and barren, thrust into the sky. The wind that blew her hair about her face held a sharper, colder bite. The westering sun filled the fields of Carradia with gold.

It was a perfect spring evening, perfect for soaring in the sky, perfect for soaking up the glorious sunshine, but Lisette could no longer partake of it.

The darkened sun in her chest was an ever-present ache, a blow from which she might never recover. She longed to take in more light into herself, to banish away the darkness that had gathered inside her, but it was no use.

She could not dislodge that dark sphere nor drain it of its black energy.

And with it, she could no longer fly.

And so Lisette sat on the parapet, without the wings that were now useless to her, as if daring the drop below to intimidate her.

If she fell, she thought dully, she would probably survive. Sun mages didn’t die easily.

It was not a comforting thought.

The door to the rooftop opened. Lisette didn’t turn her head, didn’t turn to look at the newcomer until Kael leaned beside her, resting his arms on top of a higher segment.

Lisette looked at him out of eyes narrowed by the wind. “I suppose you’ve come to yell at me for letting Amber get hurt, even after I told you I’d look after her. You can’t coddle her forever, you know. She’s a Heartwood mage now.” Her words came out too sharpish, too shrewish. Hurling them at him didn’t make her feel any better. All she felt was small and cold and aching.

“I don’t like my friends getting hurt,” said Kael, “but I’m not blaming you for it.”

Lisette hunched a shoulder. “Then why are you here?”

“I got back today,” Kael went on, “and heard that Ainsley left the Headmaster’s office in tears after you accused her of stealing your brother and selling him to slavers.”

Lisette huffed. “That’s stupid.”

“I know it’s an exaggerated rumor,” Kael agreed, “but she was upset.”

“All I wanted to know was where she was two months ago. If her story about being away on a job checks out, then she has nothing to worry about, except that someone is using her face and Heartwood’s reputation to steal magical children from unsuspecting families.” Lisette’s voice cracked; she stopped and swallowed.  “And if not…” Her lips pressed into a tight line.

Kael fixed his odd golden gaze on her. “You didn’t used to be so mistrustful of Heartwood students.”

“Well, yeah, maybe I should’ve been.” Lisette paused, then said, “I saw Ashe.”

Kael’s stare didn’t waver.

“He was working with the crew we fought up there, hired on to remove the traces of their operation. He’s caught up in shady stuff.” She hesitated, but Kael had always had good instincts. He’d been the first one of their generation of Heartwood students at the academy. For a while, it had just been him and Lisette and the older ones. In a way, Kael was almost a brother. “What did you think of Ashe, when he was here?”

“When he was here?” Kael shifted his gaze to look above her head, remembering. “I thought he wanted to be more part of things than he was.”

“Really?” said Lisette, skeptically. “He didn’t respond to friendly gestures.”

Kael shrugged. “It was just an impression. But I never thought he was bad when he was with us. Now? Who knows?”

“You didn’t like Tamsin much,” Lisette said. That had always puzzled and annoyed her.

“I didn’t dislike her. She was selfish and a bit of a show-off, but I didn’t think there was much harm in her. I just didn’t idolize her.”

Lisette gave a short laugh. “Unlike me, you mean.”

“There weren’t any other girls around. It made sense you’d latch on to her. And she is fond of you, you know.”

Lisette exhaled. The older girl had brought her charges back to Heartwood Academy, handling train tickets and meals with competence, but her air had been subdued. She hadn’t pressed excuses or explanations on Lisette, and their goodbyes cordial rather than warm. Lisette had been grateful for that.

Kael said quietly, “Master Zoya sent for Master Plumeira.”

Lisette grimaced.

“She’s the best one to help you cleanse your magic.”

“I know.”

Another pause. Then Lisette said, slowly, dragging the words out from the depths of her soul. “What if it doesn’t work? What if she can’t help me?”

There. The words were out, brought out from the darkness and into the light.

Kael looked at her. “You’ll adjust.”

“You mean shift my magic from light to…whatever this darkness is?” Lisette touched her chest and gave a shaky laugh. “I’ve had enough of sitting in dark cellars and caves to last me a lifetime.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know what’ll happen with your magic. But you will be fine. You’re strong, and when you’re not, you have us. It’ll be okay, Lisette.”

A band around Lisette’s heart loosened. She managed, “I don’t know where you get your baseless confidence from, but it’s reassuring right now.”

He grinned. “As long as it makes you feel better.”

“Naia changed her magic,” Lisette mused. “It seems to be working for her.” Doubt edged her voice. The bubbly Kaidan girl had, at times, an almost-manic quality to her voice, her laughter, since their return. And Amber would sometimes fall silent mid-sentence and stare off into space, her focus clearly turned inward.

We all went to the Spines, and we all came back changed. Lisette’s shoulders twitched. She thought about the people she’d gone with, the ones she’d encountered, and the ones who were absent. Amber and Naia, Tamsin and Ashe, her mother and Olina and Micah and Shade…

“I asked Ashe,” she said out loud, “about Shade.”

Kael didn’t visibly tense, but Lisette felt something sharpen in him. “Did you.”

“He said everything he had to say was in the report.” Lisette grimaced. “It was not a satisfying conversation.” She didn’t know why she was continuing to probe that old wound—with Kael of all people—but she plowed on, asking the question she hadn’t been able to face back then, “What did you find when you went to where it happened?”

“Nothing to disprove Ashe’s account.” Kael’s face was set, even a little bleak.

It was on the tip of Lisette’s tongue to ask, Was there something between you and Shade? The question had nagged at her from time to time in the six months before Shade’s death. She hadn’t broached the subject with Shade, because she wasn’t sure how ready she was to deal with a change in her friend group.

Despite how much of an almost-brother Kael was, she couldn’t ask him now. What would be the point?

Shade was dead, but Micah and others like him, kidnapped magical children, were still alive.

No matter how it much it had shaken her to revisit Cloud Village, to encounter Ashe in the forest, she couldn’t let herself be mired in the past. Micah was out there still. She had to find him, save him from the Red Dawn.

And to do so, Lisette had to get her magic back.

No matter what form it took.

Author’s Note: This epilogue wraps up the Cloud Village Arc. I enjoyed writing Kael and Lisette’s conversation and bringing out the fact they go a long way back. I think I need to see more of their sibling-like interactions!

Now that this arc is over, I’m shifting my attention back to my novel projects and back-burnering the next part of the Heartwood Chronicles. I’ll return to Amber’s storyline and bring back some things from the very first arc in Hopeswell. Don’t forget that the mysterious employer who tested her is still out there…

In the meantime, I’m hoping to write and post sporadic vignettes about Heartwood characters. Amber and Kael interactions are always fun, for example, and we haven’t seen Troi at all this arc. Now I have this mental image of him suffering through a meeting of the Kaidan Cultural Appreciation Club that Naia coaxed him into attending, ha ha. Also, Master Zoya existed as a character in my head long before Amber and co. showed up, and I’ve got stories about her life in her home country that I want to get on paper.

If you have any requests, let me know! And since this is the last episode of the arc, I would love to know what you enjoyed and what you’re hoping to see in future installments. If you’d like to support the serialization with a donation, you can do so using the form below. Thanks!