Chapter 6

6

The beauty of the flower, so oft protected by thorns.

~ Dainbridge III, the playwright

Kaylina kept smiling under her hood as she stroked the fur on Levitke's back, delighted to ride the spunky female taybarri again. She refused to think it was a result of Targon's bribe. When she and Vlerion had walked out of the barracks, Levitke and Crenoch had been waiting at the door, certain they would be needed tonight.

"Thank you for taking me to Stillguard Castle first, Vlerion."

Kaylina had requested that they stop by on the way out of the city. She'd almost gone earlier, but she hadn't wanted to delay getting the information about the newspapers and the Kar'ruk to the rangers. The desire to see the tower and the glowing plant hadn't been far from her mind, though, not since its strange magical light had shifted from red to purple.

Vlerion also had his hood up as they rode side by side over the bridge not far downriver from the castle, so she couldn't tell if he nodded. When he said, "There's something there you should see," he sounded grim.

That concerned her. Did it mean he would have taken her to the castle on the way whether she'd requested it or not?

"There hasn't been another fire, has there?"

"No." Vlerion glanced back.

Another taybarri with a rider was trotting to catch up with them. As they moved from the bridge to the river trail, the new arrival urged his mount to come alongside theirs.

"When Targon knocked on my door and told me to get ready and join you on a quest," Jankarr said, his hood back, "he didn't suggest you wouldn't wait for me."

"Odd," Vlerion replied.

"All these adventures you're going on without me, Vlerion. If I weren't self-assured and secure in my worth, I'd think you didn't want me around."

"You are always welcome to come along and watch my back."

"And an honor that is." Jankarr might have winked. The streetlamps only burned alongside the main roads, not the trail, so Kaylina couldn't tell. He looked toward her and bowed. "It's good to see you, person riding anonymously with Vlerion. I trust he's offered to let you watch some of his body parts, as well?"

"Body parts haven't come up," Kaylina said.

"No? I'd expect there's at least one that's up regularly around you."

Heat flushed Kaylina's cheeks as she remembered Vlerion answering the door naked.

"Did you come along to be crude, Jankarr?" Vlerion asked.

"Every chance I get." That time he definitely winked; Kaylina didn't need light to see it. "As a future ranger, Ms. Korbian needs to get used to the ribaldry of men. I'm helping her assimilate."

"Your kindness may make her swoon."

"Are you swooning now, Ms. Korbian?" Jankarr asked.

"Yes, I can barely contain it."

"I suspected."

They reached the back of the castle, the gate closed and the thick wall keeping the courtyard in shadows. Vlerion gave Kaylina a long look that she couldn't interpret and nudged Crenoch to lead them around to the front.

When they reached the corner tower, Kaylina peered up, wanting to see?—

"What?" she blurted with disappointment. "No."

The red glow seeping through the narrow tower window had returned. After she'd poured a liquid honey-based fertilizer into the great plant's pot, its eerie red had turned to a still-mysterious but less ominous purple. She'd thought… Well, she'd hoped she'd found an answer to the curse.

"I rode by yesterday morning," Vlerion said. "That's when I noticed the glow had changed back."

"Was it still purple when you went inside to get my jars of honey?"

"It was."

"Maybe the change only lasts as long as the fertilizer is moist on its dirt and the plant is drawing nutrients from it."

Kaylina touched a new pack that Vlerion had given her, one carrying fresh supplies and a jar of honey. She'd left the other three in his cabinet, since they would have been heavy to tote on a journey. Vlerion had promised nobody would disturb them. Since his rooms were on the second floor, she trusted taybarri snouts couldn't reach through the window on a honey-acquisition quest.

He'd found another copy of The Ranger's Guide to Honor, Duty, and Tenets and inserted it into the pack along with the supplies. The book was also heavy, but he hadn't appeared amused when she'd suggested she might leave it undisturbed in his cabinet.

"If we have a few minutes, we can fertilize the plant again. I want to see if we can make it happy. It has to be linked to the curse on the castle." Her evidence for that was scant, but Kaylina believed it in her heart.

"Hm," Vlerion said noncommittally.

"It'll only take a moment." She dug in the pack and held the jar aloft.

"What is that?" Jankarr asked.

"Honey imported all the way from the Vamorka Islands."

"Are you hoping the Kar'ruk have tongues for sweets?" Jankarr asked.

"I don't usually share with people trying to shoot me full of holes, but it could come in useful on the journey."

As soon as Kaylina slid off Levitke's back, three large taybarri snouts swung toward her—toward the jar. Copious sniffing ensued.

"Useful to taybarri," Vlerion murmured.

Kaylina unscrewed the lid, but she didn't have a spoon. Since the sniffing snouts moved straight toward the jar, she put her finger in it and stuck it out for their large tongues to lick. Not long ago, she would have been terrified of having those fang-filled maws so close, but she trusted the taybarri wouldn't accidentally bite off her finger.

"That is supposed to make the plant happy?" Vlerion asked.

"Well, I didn't get a chance to make honey drops." Kaylina stood patiently as the taybarri slurped her finger, washing the back of her hand and halfway to her elbow in the process, but she couldn't help shifting her weight, longing to make another batch of fertilizer to try on the plant.

"Did that answer your question?" Jankarr asked Vlerion.

"I don't know."

"I'll be right back." Kaylina withdrew her hand, wiped it on her trousers, and headed for the courtyard.

"Hold." Vlerion lit a lantern and handed it to her. "Call if you need help."

"We're letting her go in there alone?" Jankarr rested his hand on the hilt of his sword.

"She's been in there alone often. The castle hasn't hurt her."

"Has it hurt you ?"

"Ask Targon how it feels about rangers," Vlerion said.

The taybarri tried to follow Kaylina into the keep, but they couldn't fit through the doorway. She paused in the vestibule to look back at Vlerion, noting that he hadn't answered the question. Had the cursed castle tried to hurt him before?

Even if it hadn't, it might not be pleased that he'd helped Targon escape by cutting vines from the plant. Of course, she'd also helped the ranger captain escape. Would the castle remember that? And hold a grudge?

By now, whatever intelligence possessed it might have figured out that she was working with the rangers. And it didn't like people who worked with the rangers.

All she could hope was that the fertilizer had appeased it.

"The taybarri want to follow her," Jankarr noted as his mount, tongue washing blue lips, thrust his head through the doorway. Crenoch and Levitke stood right beside it.

"They like her honey," Vlerion said.

"Yes, I remember. The mead too, as I recall."

" That makes them pass out. They won't be dumb enough to try it again." Vlerion looked at the back of Crenoch's head.

He whuffed and sniffed indignantly.

"I'll be right back," Kaylina repeated and headed toward the kitchen.

The smell of soot from the fire lingered, and she had to step over burned debris. Once she cleared her name and could return to trying to open a meadery, she and Frayvar would have a lot of work to make the place serviceable. Again.

Bleakness crept into her at the thought of starting from scratch, especially when they'd been so close to their launch before, but it was her dream. They had to make it work. She tried not to think about how she was now helping the rangers and doing nothing toward proving her innocence.

An ominous moan came from the rooftop, something she'd once dismissed as wind blowing over the crenellations but now knew had to do with the curse. A rattling of glass followed, one of the chandeliers shaking as if in an earthquake. Kaylina hurried out from under it, reminded that one of the huge fixtures had fallen during their first night there.

She couldn't help but feel the castle was as agitated as it had ever been. Because the fertilizer had worn off? Or because she'd returned with rangers?

In the kitchen, she grabbed the same pot she'd used before. Aware of the rangers waiting, she didn't start a fire, instead doing her best to mix the honey into cold water from the well. It didn't work effectively, but she headed upstairs with the pot, a ladle, and the lantern, hoping it wouldn't matter, that the plant could take sustenance even from gloppy honey water.

"When there's more time, I'll make a proper batch," Kaylina promised the dark walls.

Another moan wafted down from above. Again, the feeling that the castle was irked with her came to mind. Hoping it was her imagination, she pressed on.

When she neared the tower, she paused to eye the section of wall that vines had erupted from to attack Targon. Nothing stuck out of the stone and mortar now, but a few shriveled husks lay on the floorboards, the pieces that Targon and Vlerion had cut.

The hole remained in the floor of the tower room, the boards Kaylina had torn free leaning against the wall. The red glow that seeped down was stronger than ever.

Belatedly, she realized she didn't have anyone to hand the pot up to her after she climbed through the opening.

As she debated calling up the rangers and putting them at risk, a thick vine slithered out of the hole to dangle not two feet from her face. She jumped back, water sloshing in the pot. The tip curled as if offering itself as a hook.

"You want the pot?" Kaylina hadn't determined if the plant fully understood her, but it had shown her not only visions of its past but some of her own memories. She had no doubt it had intelligence. "It's heavy," she warned but crept forward, lifting the handle.

The vine didn't move. She hung the pot from the end, releasing it slowly to let the plant gauge its weight. The vine proved strong enough to hold it.

She didn't know why she was surprised. The rangers had struck these vines multiple times with their swords, and only their greatest of blows had been enough to cut the dense plant matter. The magical plant matter, she corrected herself.

After she let go, the vine drew the pot up through the hole.

"Very magical," she murmured.

A soft clunk sounded as the plant set the pot on the floor. The vine lowered down again, its tip twitching a couple of times. In invitation?

"Guess you can't fertilize yourself, huh?" Kaylina wouldn't have minded skipping the climb up the wall, the only handholds the bent and rusty bits of iron left behind after the removal of the stairs.

The vine flicked its tip again, beckoning for her.

"Right." She set the lantern down, climbed the wall, and lunged to grip the edge of the hole. As she'd done before, she swung herself like a pendulum until she could throw her leg up and lever herself into the room.

A few dead star-shaped leaves that littered the floor fell through the hole. Nobody had been up there to disturb the plant since Kaylina's last visit, but it had grown more vines and branches. And did the leaves on those branches appear larger and more robust than before?

It hadn't been her imagination that the red glow was stronger. She could see the details of the room clearly. Already, a number of vines draped over the pot, absorbing the liquid inside.

Careful not to touch anything—the soil had zapped her before—she took the ladle and spooned the mixture over the dirt in the large pot. A soft sigh came from the plant. One of the branches shifted, a leaf brushing her cheek, its surface velvety.

"I'm glad you approve," she murmured, determined not to find it creepy that a plant was caressing her. "I don't suppose you'd like to give me a hint about how to permanently remove the..." She paused, not certain the plant wanted the curse removed, not if it had been left long ago by the druids to punish the rangers. "How to permanently make you happy?"

The plant didn't answer, so she ladled more liquid onto the soil, thoroughly moistening it.

"I can leave the pot here in case you want more, but the honey will settle on the bottom since I didn't get it mixed in very well. After I'm no longer a wanted criminal and can live here again, I'll make a proper fertilizer, okay?"

Kaylina returned the ladle to the pot. No sooner had she released it than a vine wrapped around her wrist, trapping her.

Alarm coursed through her veins. "Uhm, do you want more fertilizer?"

A leaf pressed against the top of her hand.

"I can give you more. There's plenty for?—"

Searing pain erupted in her hand, as if someone had jammed a hot iron against her skin. Kaylina couldn't keep from screaming as she stumbled back, trying to fling herself through the hole and away from the plant.

The vine tightened around her wrist, keeping her in place. The pain intensified.

She screamed again and cried, "Vlerion!"

The vine released her so abruptly that she fell through the hole.

Cursing, she tried to twist so that she could land on her feet, but there wasn't time. She smashed to the floorboards on her side, shoulder ramming into the unyielding wood, and cried out again.

Confusion, betrayal, and anger gave her the strength to push herself to her knees. She almost knocked over the lantern. Frustrated, she was tempted to throw it through the hole at the plant, but her hand hurt too much to contemplate grabbing anything.

Footsteps thundered toward her, Vlerion with Jankarr right behind him, their swords out.

With her hand cradled to her chest, she opened her mouth to explain what had happened, but they didn't stop to ask. Vlerion swept her into his arms.

Two thick vines lowered through the hole like vipers. One of them even seemed to hiss.

Jankarr sprang at them, sword slashing as Vlerion backed away.

"Don't stay to fight," he ordered.

A vine whipped toward Jankarr's face. He ducked as he struck it, barely gouging its green flesh. "Tell that to… What is this thing?"

"A plant."

"There's no way it's just a plant . Plants don't attack people, Vlerion."

"Just back away."

The rangers retreated down the hallway, Vlerion carrying Kaylina and Jankarr swinging defensively at vines that lashed out, trying to impede them.

Kaylina lowered her hand to look at the spot where the leaf had plastered her. It still burned, and she gaped at her darkened skin, smoke wafting from it.

Envisioning a hot iron had been appropriate. The plant had marked her with a smaller version of one of its star-shaped leaves, the tiny stem pointing between her middle knuckles.

"What happened?" Vlerion asked as he jogged down the stairs, Jankarr right behind.

"It branded me," Kaylina said numbly.