Page 81 of Shadows of Winter

Kaylina shifted on her knees, reminded of her visions, the visions in which rangers and their allies had been strangled.

“How can a plant have been alive for all this time? Even an altered plant?” She picked up one of the dead leaves. It was as star-shaped as the ones still attached to the branches. It was as if the plant had lived all this time, shedding leaves each autumn, and continuing to grow new ones in the spring. “How could you have gotten water?”

The eaves of the tower hung out over the arrow-slit window. Only a great storm with wind driving rain sideways might have brought water in. But how often could that happen? The boards were dry under the dead leaves.

Kaylina knew there were hundreds of species of altered plants in the world and that they all had unique properties, but she’d never heard of one that could grow without water. How much sunlight breached the tower? And where did the plant get nutrients? Whatever had been in the soil of the pot had to have long ago been used up.

“Probably no point in looking for logic when the plant is glowing,” Kaylina muttered, rising to her feet.

Under the red illumination, the leaves and branches did look dry, as if the plant could use a good watering. The vines remained supple, but maybe it prioritized sending moisture to them.

“The better to kill intruders with…”

Knife in one hand, Kaylina risked creeping closer to the pot. It was as high as her thighs and much wider than she. The central stem of the plant could have been considered a trunk. It would take a saw, not a knife, to cut through it. Assuming some magic hadn’t hardened it to withstand even steel. She had a feeling people had tried before to kill the plant.

Wanting to check for moisture, she touched her fingertips to the soil.

An electric shock coursed up her arm and through her body. Her heart fluttered in her chest, and she staggered back, dropping the knife.

Her knees hit the floor, and she pitched forward, barely managing to get her hands down and keep from striking her head. Red light flashed, and a vision filled her mind.

For the first time, she was featured in it. She saw herself and Vlerion standing by the carriage out front, the perspective from above. No, from the tower. The plant had been watching them.

An angry red glow outlined Vlerion. Was that the plant’s way of saying it had seen him as a threat? Or it had identified him as a ranger?

In the vision, as Kaylina walked away from Vlerion and toward the front door where Frayvar had been, a vine extended out the window and down to the courtyard.

Had that happened? And none of them had seen it? The vine wasn’t glowing, and in the dark, who would notice it?

It crept slowly toward the gate—toward where Vlerion had remained. Kaylina couldn’t affect the version of herself in the vision, couldn’t order herself to warn him.

But Vlerion, after she’d told him that Frayvar was fine and he could go, had left, walking to the carriage. When he’d departed, the vine had only been a few feet from his ankle. He’d never seen it, never sensed it.

The vision version of Kaylina sat down with Frayvar to share his blanket, exactly what had happened. The tip of the vine lifted, wavering in the air like the snake she’d likened it to, considering its target. The plant could have killed them both that night, but maybe it had decided they weren’t allies of the rangers? Or didn’t know if they were? The vine had withdrawn, disappearing back into the tower.

The vision released Kaylina, and the glowing room came back into focus. A few of the leaves had rotated toward her. Watching her?

“Not at all creepy,” she whispered, then raised her voice. “Look, we’re not friends of the rangers, okay? We’re working-class people who run eating houses and make mead. We’re not even from here. My ancestors never did anything to pester druids.”

She didn’t know that for a fact, but the druids hadn’t left a lot of statues and ruins in the southern end of the kingdom to suggest they’d lived in the area. It was plausible that her ancestors had never encountered them.

A tip of a vine flicked, and another vision gripped her. This one was brief, a younger version of herself out hunting quail and pheasants with Grandpa, the hounds constantly running back to her for pets and to show her whatever they’d found, everything from prey they’d captured to delightful sticks for chewing. Their tails wagged happily as they bounded around her.

The vision faded, but not before she got a sense of mocking in it. It was something that had happened, and it disturbed her that the plant could see into her memories, but it must have shared that instance for a reason. Why?

“I don’t understand.”

The plant showed her the hounds bounding around her again.

Dear moon gods, was she having a conversation with the plant? Not only was it alive when it shouldn’t have been, but it had a brain or at least some way of being intelligent, of watching over the castle and all who entered it. And of scraping through people’s memories.

Kaylina shuddered at the omniscience, but if she could communicate with the plant, she might be able to convince it to release her brother.

Again, it showed her a hunt, a different day, with clouds in the sky, but with the hounds frolicking alongside her, largely indifferent to her grandpa walking nearby.

“Is this about me maybe being an anrokk?”

Wait, Frayvar had said the word came from the druid language, that their version of the anrokks had possessed magic. Did the plant think she had magic? Did it need something magical done to it?

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