The tree wraith spat chips of bark. Dawn ducked under a stone wing and sheltered by Jasper’s side. “Why, Ava? Why did you send Julian to his death?”
Ava screeched and ripples ran along the roots on the other side of the moat. Flaming segments of vine waved and illuminated more of the area like mobile lamps. “I need more. You don’t know what it’s like. The hunger. It claws at me and rips me apart if it’s not fed. Julian’s essence nourished me for years, and when I feed on the rest of you, immortality is in my grasp. But now you have come along and ruined everything.”
“You would use Jasper as well?” Dawn asked.
Ava laughed. “He is simply my larder. I will raid him when the need arises.”
“Did you care nothing for Julian?” Jasper’s wings flapped and the claws on the tips extended as he reached for another piece of Ava to grab.
“Once I had consumed his essence, he was an empty container and useless to me. He was weak and had to go. I needed the next strong Warder to replace him.”
“And what of Elijah?” Jasper’s voice was quiet. “What does he mean to you?”
“One more to keep the hunger at bay,” she said, without even glancing at the child she bore and abandoned.
Dawn’s stomach roiled as she tried to digest the woman’s revolting admission. She had drained a man and then disposed of him. How many times had she done it, and was Julian her first? She was the embodiment of avarice. She could drain every Warder in England and still look around for another.
“I will destroy you all!” Ava screeched and twisted her hands.
Dawn screamed as hot barbs tore through her body and she dropped to her knees. She was dimly aware of Lettie’s cries as the undine shimmered and broke apart, her hands pounding on her skull. Ava’s minions tortured them from inside.
“Water,” Dawn managed to rasp to Jasper as the black tendrils writhed under her skin and tore her flesh. She hugged herself, trying to keep the monstrous plant contained inside her and to stop her body breaking apart. Black spots danced before her eyes as the pain threatened to overwhelm.
Jasper charged at Ava in a rugby tackle. He ploughed into the tree wraith, grabbed her around the middle, and threw himself into the moat. Ava’s screech mingled with Lettie’s screams as Meidh and gargoyle disappeared beneath the surface.
The water dimmed Ava’s power and cut her connection to the vines. Dawn rose on shaking legs as relief washed through her. Now she knew what she had to do.
27
Dawn whispered a prayer for forgiveness. It was no small thing to take the life of another creature. No matter how heinous their crimes. Ava was the rotten canker that ate at the heart of the estate. She needed to be eradicated, just like the greenfly that had consumed the tender rose buds. Dawn was the ladybird, the praying mantis, and the spider. She would maintain balance and restore harmony to nature.
Elijah monitored the controlled burn to sever the umbilical cord roots that connected Ava to the hedges. Lettie’s moat diminished Ava’s power, and the undine summoned waves to act as walls whenever the tree wraith struggled above the surface until Jasper pulled her back under.
Dawn knew her time had come. She closed her eyes and reached deep inside to touch her elemental essence. In her mind’s eye, it was a plant that had been long overlooked and neglected. As Dawn stroked its wilted leaves, it bloomed with power.
Opening her eyes, she was ready. She took the small pruning knife from her apron and cast one last glance at Jasper. His massive hands and claw-tipped wings kept Ava submersed even as branches rose up like tentacles, trying to stab him.
Dawn loved Jasper. She loved all of them. This was her family now, and she would give everything she was to protect them. Holding the knife in one hand, she pulled up the sleeve on her left arm. She took a deep breath to steel herself and then ran the blade along the inside of her wrist, opening up the festering scratch given to her by Ava’s vine.
The knife slipped from her hand as pain washed over her. With her arm outstretched, she stumbled to the enormous trunk and pressed her skin against it. Her fingers dug into the bark to anchor herself to the old sentinel. Her blood would nourish the Ravensblood tree. Her life would replenish the estate and ensure Jasper and his clan continued to have their sanctuary to enable them to protect the village.
She would die, but be reborn through the roots of the tree.
Dawn walked around the tree, drawing a design in her blood on its rough surface as she paced. The splinter in her hand wriggled and she cried out as fresh pain travelled downward, tearing flesh and tendons to reach the open wound in her wrist.
The tree’s dry bark drank her blood and demanded more. It fastened upon her skin like a hungry mouth, and as the tree inhaled it drew more blood from her arm into its veins. It sucked and pulled, drawing more and more of her essence into itself. At the same time, the tree exhaled the tiny fragments of black vine that poisoned Dawn from within. With each gulp from the tree, Dawn became more light-headed even as her feet grew heavier.
Her pulse pounded faster as she stepped over the jutting roots and sank into the nook. She curled up and wrapped her arms around a woody limb. She laid the inside of her arm flat to the rough surface as her blood continued to flow and soak into the deep wrinkles of the Ravensblood.
“This is my gift to you. You will be restored,” she murmured. Then her heavy eyelids closed and her heart gave one last thud.
Then a slower, stronger thrum coursed through her body and took up the burden that her body could no longer sustain.
No, she flowed through it.
The Ravensblood gathered Dawn to it in a gentle embrace, and they became one. The tree shared its lifespan and knowledge with her. An ancient being resided within its form, and its every breath and pulse fed the life force of the family and estate.
With each inhale, visions washed over Dawn as the tree showed her its history. She saw hands take a cutting from a tree of immense age and size. A Warder nurtured and fed the cutting until it grew roots, and it was passed to an older couple. Next she saw the couple in an empty paddock as they laid out string to mark a pattern on the ground. Twigs that would one day become the yew hedges were pressed into the damp earth surrounding the tiny sapling.
Time advanced and three children ran and shrieked through the growing maze. Hedges were now waist height. Young bodies climbed the tree and dangled from the branches. As the tree grew bigger and stronger, so did the children, the maze, and the wider estate.
A man appeared, achingly similar to Jasper. He walked to the centre of the maze and took his lover into his embrace. As their bodies entwined, she dug woody tendrils deep into his body, the vines pulsed as she sucked his essence into her greedy maw. Ava was more like the greenfly than Dawn ever imagined. Both were parasites that sucked their hosts dry of their life force.
The man staggered backward, weakened and shocked. As he lurched back through the maze, realisation and horror at what he had done rolled off him as the wraith laughed.
Time rolled forward and a babe crawled through the maze. Thorns from the spreading vine caught on tender new skin and blood dripped from his hands and knees. Jasper was on his knees in the centre, pleading with a familiar wooden shape. He swore that he would do anything if only she would release the child from her thrall.
Tears blurred Dawn’s vision as the history of the estate and its deterioration at Ava’s hands played out in her mind.