Page 42 of Favored By the Stars

Before I could respond, the forest opened suddenly into a clearing bathed in strange light. Above us, the moon hung full and luminous, but it was not alone in the night sky. A second celestial body, not the sun, but something like it, hung opposite the moon, casting a golden light that somehow did not diminish the silver glow of its counterpart.

"What is that?" Wyn breathed, pointing to the sun like orb.

"The Everdawn," Van said. "It shines only in places where the boundaries between realms blur, and I don't mean realms they way you are used to thinking of them. I mean realms as in different worlds. The Twilight Gardens lie just beyond this clearing."

"I thought this was the Twilight Garden?" I queried.

"It is, and it isn't. You'll see." Van shot me a wink over his shoulder as he unslung his lute and started picking at the strings.

The dual light, silver and gold, bathed the clearing in a strange, shimmering radiance. Plants I had never seen before grew in abundance: flowers with petals that were silver on one side and gold on the other, trees with bark that spiraled between light and dark.

The path wove between trees so old they seemed to have personalities of their own. Their trunks were massive, gnarled with knots that resembled faces in repose, some peaceful, others contorted in silent screams. Roots broke through the soil like the backs of ancient serpents, forcing us to watch our footing.

The air grew thicker with each step, heavy with a perfume that made my head swim pleasantly. Tiny particles of light drifted around us, like pollen illuminated from within. They clung to my skin momentarily before dissolving into my flesh, leaving behind a brief tingle of warmth and cold intermingled.

"What are these?" I asked, extending my hand to catch another of the glowing motes.

"Twilight spores," Van answered without turning. "The breath of trees that exist in both day and night simultaneously. They're quite rare, and quite valuable to certain alchemists."

The spores seemed drawn to my mark, swirling around my arm, neck, and face in increasing numbers. Each one that touched me sent a pulse of clarity through my mind, like fog lifting from a hidden landscape.

"They're responding to you," Wyn observed, her scholar's curiosity evident. "I've read about such phenomena, but never witnessed it."

"The forest recognizes its own," Van said cryptically.

We rounded a massive trunk, so wide that twenty people linking hands might not encircle it, and the path suddenly opened into a clearing that stole my breath.

The Twilight Gardens.

The name hardly did justice to the wonder before us. Indeed, what we had been moving through before was not a garden proper, not like this. The area we were in now looked as though it had been designed, created by an artist of the highest caliber.

Trees with dual colored bark, silver on one side, gold on the other, formed a perfect circle around a central pool. The water within shimmered with an inner light that pulsed in time with my heartbeat. Around the pool's edge grew flowers unlike any I'd ever seen, blossoms that were half closed and half open simultaneously, petals that showed both budding youth and withering age on the same stem.

Most remarkable were the floating islands that hovered above the pool. Seven of them, each supporting a different type of miniature garden: one lush with tropical flowers, another sparse with desert succulents, a third covered in snow dusted pines. They rotated slowly around a central axis, drifting up and down in gentle undulation.

"By the goddess," Wyn whispered, her eyes wide with wonder.

Even Volker seemed momentarily speechless, his normally stern face softened by awe.

"The Gardens exist in multiple realms at once," Van explained, his voice taking on the cadence of a practiced storyteller. "What you see here is merely the intersection of those realms with our own. In the time before the Sundering, this was a place of meditation and communion, where the wisest of the worlds and beings would meet to share knowledge."

I stood transfixed, my eyes drinking in the impossible beauty of the Twilight Gardens. The floating islands drifted with deliberate grace, like dancers performing a slow, ancient waltz. Each rotation revealed new wonders, cascading waterfalls that flowed upward, flowers that bloomed and withered in seconds only to be reborn again.

"The Crescent Diadem," I whispered, suddenly remembering our purpose. "Where is it?"

Van gestured toward the central pool. "The artifacts of power are never simply sitting on pedestals, waiting to be claimed. One must earn them."

"Of course they must," Thorn muttered beside me. His hand hadn't left the hilt of his sword since we'd entered the clearing.

I approached the edge of the pool, my reflection rippling across its surface. But it wasn't just me looking back, sometimes my face shifted, showing versions of myself I didn't recognize. Older, younger, happier, haunted, all still me, yet not.

"What must I do?" I asked, turning to Van.

He strummed a gentle chord on his lute. "The waters will show you. But be warned, the trial is different for each seeker. What you face will be yours alone."

I glanced back at Thorn, whose expression had darkened. "I don't like this."

"You don't have to," I whispered. "But we need the Diadem if we're going to have any chance against the Empress."

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