I struggled, clawing against the weight with everything I had, but I wasn’t completely certain which way was up anymore. Was I digging toward air and life, or away from it? Was I helping to free myself, or digging my own grave? I couldn’t tell.
Then something rough and hard twined around my ankle and tugged. The ground didn’t want to release me, but the hard ropelike touch wouldn’t be denied. It gave a massive heave, and I shot out of the mound of earth like a bullet from a gun.
There was too much dust in my eyes for me to see, but I felt it when I crashed into the vines like a trapeze artist falling into a safety net. They broke my fall, but not by much. What little air was in my lungs was forced out when I hit the ground, hard enough to rattle my bones. I just lay there for a moment, shocked and unmoving. Then I started to heave and cough up great streams of brown goop, in between trying to suck in whatever air I could.
I heard the sounds of battle going on around me, but it took several minutes for my brain to make any sense of it. Finally, I wiped my mouth on the back of my hand and fought my way free of the vines—including the one still securely wrapped around my foot—just in time to see Claire take on one of the Svarestri. I lurched to my feet, sure I’d be too late, certain she was dead. But instead, I saw the Fey stagger and fall to his knees, screaming. I couldn’t figure out what Claire was doing to him—she wasn’t even touching him—but he acted like he was being slowly tortured to death.
I staggered out of the vines, caked with dirt that kept falling into my eyes, and she saw me. She gave the Fey a vicious kick in the ribs and ran toward me, screaming something my dirt-clogged ears couldn’t make out. Behind her, Heidar was battling two of the Fey, and looked like he was holding his own. What I couldn’t figure out was who was dealing with the others—especially the leader. Then Claire crashed into me, sobbing and shaking. The impact was enough to loosen the land fall in my left ear, so that I would have been able to hear myself being royally told off if she had been at all coherent.
I looked around frantically for the leader, but didn’t see him. What I did see was Caedmon, kneeling with his hands against the ground—no, in the ground. His fingers were buried deep in the wet, black dirt. Vines had wrapped themselves around his arms and across his back, flowing out like a living mantle behind him. He didn’t see me—his features were twisted in an intense concentration that seemed to border on pain. Nearby, two Fey warriors lay unmoving, impaled on the infant grapevines that, even as I watched, grew up through their bodies to unfurl green, waving arms at the dark sky.
“—ever do that again, I’ll kill you myself. My God, I thought you were dead—” Claire suddenly hugged me, tight enough to bruise my tender ribs. I grunted in pain and she let me go, looked at me for a second and burst into tears.
I spat more dirt and stared at her, not sure what to do. I’d never seen Claire this upset; she was usually the calm one. I looked up in time to see Heidar behead one of his opponents before turning all his fury on the other. “Wh-where’s the leader?” I managed to croak.
It seemed to be the right thing to stop Claire’s tears. They turned at once to rage. “?subrand,” she spat, her cheeks flushed and damp. “When I find the bloody evil cowardly bastard, I’m going to… going to… oh, God, I can’t think of anything hideous enough right now, but it will be bad, really, really bad!”
Heidar had almost finished off his other opponent and I decided it was safe to collapse. So I did. And immediately regretted it when Claire burst into tears again and began shaking me. “I’m not dead,” I told her as distinctly as possible with the inside of my throat coated in dirt.
“Water,” she gasped. “You need water.”
I needed a two-month vacation on a beach, but water would do. I nodded and she ran off in the direction of the house. I thought about what Louis-Cesare would say if he saw me now, after my declaration of competence, and decided to sit up. Caedmon had finished growing his crops—the two Fey were now vine-covered hillocks that had already started to form tiny green grapes. He collapsed beside me, looking smug for some reason.
“You’re early,” I croaked.
“It seems I was almost late,” he replied, lifting my grimy, scratched and bloody hand. “My apologies.” Then he drew me close and kissed me.