Page 128 of A Baron of Bonds
“They want to start here. Obviously. They said this leads to Viridis and that your sun can destroy the Blight starting here. They will follow you and regrow your library as you go. If this works, they can return to this door and cover it with their growth, which will hold the Blight off from coming back in. At least for a short time. Until you can help them destroy it all.”
I pursed my lips and nodded, stepping up to the doorway, blocked completely by the obsidian mass of thick, spongy wood.
I held my hands out in front of me, an orb of cascading green held above my open palms.
I glanced over my shoulder, gathering strength to look at Revich one more time.
His gaze bore into my soul, begging me to stop, pulling on our bond so tightly, it strained on his end with thoughts of hesitation streaming down our tether, hitting my heart with full force.
I took a deep breath and turned to Moira, all twenty Growers watching me with spaces for eyes on their heads, eerie and fantastical all the same. “I can do this. We can do this together. It’s our one chance.” I swallowed firmly, lowering my voice slightly. “I just need enough time.”
“I understand. They understand, too.” She nodded toward the Growers, waiting for me to begin.
Without looking back and risking loosing what little confidence I held, I spoke clearly into the woven space protecting us from the Blight. “Simulair Solum.”
The sun burst into life, the orb of magic now warm and glowing, the Blight around us reacting immediately with that blood-curdling hiss.
I positioned the simulated sun close to the thickest vine, massive and strong, letting the sun loom next to its surface to watch as the light swept its way through. Crackles and pops resounded as it broke the vine down the center, cutting it off from where it led into Viridis.
Having a clear path forward, I closed my eyes and inhaled, taking Revich’s words with me.
I breathe, you breathe.
I breathe, you breathe.
The sun grew, swelling to the size of the doorframe, destroying the Blight ahead as it went.
I could hold this.
It was heavy. It was weighing on my strength, but the weight was manageable. I stepped forward, the Growers shuffling behind as I entered the Blighted corridor. The ever present sizzle of the Blight in its own demise echoed off the stone as it recoiled and fell to dark ash around me. I picked up my speed, following the beat of my heart. Once again, I was destroying the very life of what the Blightress had sent to destroy Felgren.
I broke through the second door, meeting Viridis in full. Its life was hanging by a thread. Its breath snuffed out from the horrifying pulse of the Blight that wound through its once-gilded halls, entombing what was life, and beauty, and knowledge.
I ran, not daring to look back, unable to turn my head for fear of the faltering step I could not risk to take.
The Blight was powerless against my onslaught of sunlight as it fell into a recess of decay and ash that it deserved. Grotesque vines fell from the grove of trees in the central courtyard and tumbled down the hallways that rose above me. The sound oftheir destruction echoed in the glass dome high above, but I could not afford to look.
Anger, wrath, rage—each state of being bloomed in the sun I held as it grew and I could no longer focus on controlling its size and weight. I could only focus on the heat I produced myself, my own rampage through these halls, furious at what had been taken from me.
This was for more than Pompeii or Viridis.
I hoped the Blightress lay writhing somewhere as I hurt her.
I hoped she was in utter agony, feeling all the Blight feels, seeing all the Blight sees as the one she claimed as hers destroyed the very essence of who she was.
“Karus!” I heard Revich’s call somewhere behind me.
I needed more time.
I widened my arms, filling the space with the sun I grew in the power I sourced from Felgren.
As the Blight hissed around me, it was replaced with life.
The Growers were proving their worth, continually replacing the abhorrent vines with blooms of red and yellow. With leaves unfurling in a brilliant green from the branches of the birch trees.
I laughed, a sound unheard in all the death and regrowth as I watched Viridis return to itself, imbued with life, and joy, and endless knowledge.
I took my final steps forward to face the thirteen monstrous trees I had grown. I filled my lungs again, the air a brew of decay and summer—Viridis newly returned warring with what now passed into nothing around us.
