I know this update has been a long time in coming. I'm afraid it couldn't have been avoided. I finished my last full summer I'll ever spend with my family. I haven't thought about it in those terms until now, but there it is. I spent as much time with them as I possibly could in my last week there, which was why I didn't update as planned during that time. Then I was off to Seattle to pack and ship my belongings for the move. After that I spent a week in California with my friend, so I had only a little time to work on this. Once I finally moved to Virginia, I had the time, but I was so wrecked by loneliness and homesickness, I honestly couldn't function. It really wasn't until yesterday that I stopped feeling like a dead person. So I'm sorry that this forced you all to wait, and I'm very grateful for your patience. However, I don't think I can guarantee regular updates anymore. School starts next week, and this is grad school so it's going to be A LOT of work. This story is close to being wrapped up, and I'm honestly having a great time writing it and also seeing your responses. It really really encourages me when you tell me about how excited you are to find out what happens next. If it weren't for that, I could have easily put this chapter off for much longer, because while I'm much better now, I'm still not great. I hope you'll bear with me and my struggles in this big life transition. I will do my best to keep writing as much as possible!
Cheers
Chapter 14. Caretakers
Bufo's beetle—which at full height would have towered over Eilley—hunched itself before her, nearly bowing. Nod's mother stood tall and proud as an oak, hands clasped behind her back. A crowd of children gathered around the doorway, despite Nod's efforts to shoo them away from the radius of his mother's ire.
"What business does the toad feel he needs to bring right to my doorstep?" she demanded.
The beetle fed her a cringing smile, wringing his forelegs. "We would never bother you or your refugees, surely you know. But Bufo asked me to find Nod, you see. Asked me to tell him to come to the base."
Eilley made no move, but the beetle took a flinching step away from her as though she had all but charged him. "He was there just last night. What could have come up so urgently in the middle of the night that requires Nod to be there now?"
"Eh, the Wrathwood king returned and brought the Stomper friend back," the beetle stuttered, tapping his feelers together.
Nod hurried forward to stand by his mother. "What did you say?"
"Yeah, the, eh, the girl you dropped off yesterday. She's back again." The beetle carefully eyed Eilley's reaction, trying to discern whether it was a welcome message or not.
Nod waved his hands in front of him. "Wait, wait, wait, hold up. Mandrake brought MK back?"
"Yeah, that's what I said, the girl you left—" The beetle didn't finish his sentence by the time Nod raced past him out the door.
Nod struggled to keep his cool. Joy and dread warred in his heart as he turned over every possibility for why this had happened. He stuffed down the hope that surged upward, threatening to burst out of him. Not yet, he told himself, not until she's safe. It could be a trick, a misunderstanding, a trap.
But there she was, waiting on the same ledge from the evening before, her smile as bright as the morning sky. Nod let the grin that he'd been holding back spread all over his face as he flew down to meet her. He leaped from Maia's back racing toward her, before slowing down in front of her, pausing awkwardly.
"H-hi." He stuttered closer, and she stood stock-still for him as he wrapped her in a staccato embrace.
"Uh, hi," MK said, with a raised eyebrow accompanying her smile at his jerky, confused movements.
Nod rubbed the back of his neck, feeling his face heat up. "So, um, you're back!" He'd left her the night before with a settling finality. He tossed and turned all night, trying to come to terms with not seeing her again for who-knew-how-long. Her reappearance took all of those emotions, tossed them into a jar, and shook them around.
"I'm back," MK agreed with a chuckle. "And you're being weird."
"Yeah, well. I thought you were leaving for a longer time. My goodbye was all dramatic and everything. Kinda takes away the effect."
She gave him a shrewd look. "I can go away for longer if you prefer the drama." MK walked up to Maia and the two greeted each other civilly.
Nod picked up the hint and let his face relax into an easier smirk. "No need to be hasty. I'm just saying you stole my thunder a little bit."
A look of grateful relief crossed her face this time when she turned back to acknowledge his quip. "Oh yes, I'm awfully sorry about that. You have so little as it is," she returned.
As Maia carried them back, they relaxed into their easy banter. Nod occasionally bit back the real question lingering on the tip of his tongue. MK didn't seem overeager to talk about the kiss from the night before, despite how it hung above them like a storm cloud before the sun. He let it hang, though. MK was smiling, but the dark circles under her eyes told him she'd gotten as little sleep as he had.
He took her straight to a guest room in the Bower—the one his mother had set up for her originally, for when she got out of the infirmary. They entered through the window, and MK immediately sank into the plush sheets of the bed, sighing as she wiggled deeper into the downy nest.
Nod sat down at the edge of the bed, watching her settle in. "You look tired."
"Mm. I was up all night," MK replied.
He leaned forward. "Why?"
"We couldn't sleep, so we went exploring." MK's eyes drew open, focusing on a thought. "We ended at the edge of my dad's forest. Turns out he's been setting up special webcams to be able to talk to me."
"Whoa, slow down. You have no idea how many questions I just had. First of all, who's 'we?'" Nod ticked the questions on his fingers. "Second, how did you end up that far out of Wrathwood? And what the rot is a webcam?"
MK clicked her tongue at him, closing her eyes again. "You slow down, geez. 'We' is Dagda and Amianth—you know, the Boggans from your terrific rescue. We took a night flight because the excitement surrounding my return to Wrathwood kept us from feeling sleepy. It was cloudy, we got lost, ended up going the wrong way, and then I see a camera light and find my dad."
"He was out there last night?"
"No, the webcams are…" she paused, deliberating. "The cameras are like my dad's eyes on the forest. What they see, he sees. He set up a machine that allows us to see and hear him in return, so that we can talk, even though he's still far away back at home."
Nod shook his head. "So, he wasn't there, but you still talked to him?"
"Imagine being able to hear and talk to the projections from the scrolls at the Rings," she added.
The dust cleared from Nod's mind. "Oh, got it." He frowned at her. "Really? That's amazing!"
"It's pretty standard Stomper…stuff," she said. "For lack of a better word, I'm describing it as magic, even though it's not. We make it ourselves, and we know exactly how it works."
"Sounds pretty cool to me," Nod said, imagining MK talking to a cloud of moth dust and having it answer her right back. "If only the Draíochta were that controllable."
MK snorted. "Yeah, if only." She had huddled so far down, only her face just above her chin remained visible.
Nod watched her breathe for a moment, debating whether he could be patient enough to let her sleep before they talked about what happened in the last two days. He opened his mouth multiple times, but his voice kept hitching in his throat and refused to come out.
"What?" MK drawled, shuffling so that she was lying on her side with her face nearly pressed into the wall. "I could hear your internal argument from a mile away, so just say it."
Relieved at having his decision made for him, Nod obeyed. "Can I ask you why Mandrake sent you back?"
There was a silence, and Nod wondered if she had fallen asleep in the middle of his question. When she answered, he nearly jumped, having started daydreaming himself.
"He said he made a mistake." MK's voice was muffled by the blankets. "He said my place in this fight is different, not in the Wrathwood."
"What? Yeah, but this is Mandrake we're talking about. He knows you've had association with the Brightwood too. It doesn't make sense that he would take such a risk, letting you potentially help them out instead."
MK pushed herself upright, brow furrowing. "Oh, he made it clear that if I sided with his enemies, I'd be treated like one. He's nothing if not fair in that regard," she muttered. "And he's been careful to never let me in on war secrets or strategies. Dagda's been known to be a bit of a blabbermouth sometimes, so I think he's actually been keeping them secret from him too, but I can't be too sure. So it's not like I could be much help, either way."
"Even so, that kind of generosity is not like him," Nod argued.
"Maybe not from your perspective," MK said.
"But from yours?" Nod's curiosity roused itself. MK denied having any leverage with Mandrake, but she had to have something to have survived unscathed and even well taken care of for that long. "Look, Mandrake's just not a nice guy, period. Even you know that. He wouldn't do what he did for just any old person, no matter what you say."
MK sighed. "Okay, okay, you want to know what I think?" She waited for his response, and he gestured for her to continue. "I think he wanted me to get out of this—all of this. The Boggans and Jinn are charging headlong against each other, and he realized I was stuck right in the middle."
Nod folded his arms. "Ah, I get it. He's trying to keep you safe by kicking you out and then threatening you not to become his enemy. What a gallant gesture. He really does care."
"Har har, the sarcasm is much appreciated. But come on, when you think about it, that was the best way I can imagine for him to push me out of harm's way while also keeping integrity to his own cause. Or did you forget what I told you the other day?"
Nod remembered. It still scraped on his conscience that the Boggan's reasons for fighting were not as simple as he would have liked. The progression to violence might have been flawed, but the anger at the heart of it was—he had to admit—justified. Plus, the idea that Boggan chief actually had some intention of protecting MK in an extremely convoluted way was just really, really weird. "Not that it helps," he retorted, though without conviction. "You would get in harm's way if it very well pleased you."
MK nestled back down. "I guess I can't argue with that."
Every inch of MK's body felt stiff and heavy when she woke from her nap. Nod had responded to her message so quickly that she had been back at the Bower before the morning even had a chance to wane. The heavy warmth of midafternoon pressed on her, so she kicked off the blankets and lay facing up on the bed, smelling the sweet earthiness in the air and listening to the far off voices that plucked on the stillness. A soft snore made her eyes twitch open. MK peered over the side of the bed to find Nod, sprawled out on the floor fast asleep with his mouth hanging open. If the flies here weren't the size of her face, he would have been catching them.
The sound of someone entering caught her attention, so she turned her head toward the door. A brown haired woman glided into the room, pausing to smile at Nod and prod him with her foot. Nod snorted and jolted upright.
"Huh? What?" His bangs tumbled into his face. "Mom," he slurred, looking up at the woman.
"There is another bed in here," his mother said. "You could have slept there. Don't complain when your back is all stiff later tonight."
"Wasn't planning on the sleeping-on-the-floor thing," he said, staggering to his feet with some assistance.
MK got up too, gazing at Nod's mother. She had the same ethereal grace as the average Jinn, but interposed with an edge of tempered metal. Where Queen Tara was all soft lines and flowing motion, Nod's mother traced out a form cut sharp at the corners. Even her smile could have pierced armor if driven in at the proper angle.
"Hello, MK. I'm Eilley, Nod's mother. I'm glad we can finally meet properly. I've heard a lot about you." She sat on the bed across the room, and Nod stood between them, still rubbing the drowsiness from his face.
"Good things I hope," MK replied.
Eilley laughed. "Of course! You've done some very impressive things, the way he tells it."
MK felt her face heat up, and she shot a glance at Nod who only gave her a lopsided smirk in response. "Such as?"
Eilley fixed her firm gaze on MK, and MK met her stare, overcome with the feeling that she expected that level of respect. "It seems you've saved my reckless dope of a son from Mandrake's wrath on multiple occasions. That's not something anyone can do."
"Ohh. Well, see, I uh, helped save his son's life, and I was able to use that as a bargaining chip. I would've been useless otherwise." She paused, realizing the sort of history Eilley had with Mandrake and hurried to add, "I didn't realize that was his son until after I helped him though."
"Would knowing that have changed your actions?"
The question caught MK off guard, forcing her to stop and think. Would she have ignored Dagda if she had known? When she thought about how tired and helpless he looked, not to mention, how young…She shook her head. MK opened her mouth to justify herself when Eilley gave her a knowing smile, as though she had passed some test. Thrown by the unexpected response, MK's words jumbled inside her, and she could only close her mouth again, saying nothing.
"I didn't think so. You don't strike me as the sort who is selective with their compassion," Eilley said. When she turned away, MK let out a silent sigh of relief as the weight of Eilley's gaze lifted from her.
A thought struck MK like an electric shock. "That doesn't bother you? That I accidentally helped the person who…who was responsible for your husband's death?" She laid out each word with the care of one arranging fragile china.
Eilley's sharp falcon stare softened at the mention of Nod's father. Both mother and son took on a distant expression, looking off into the space of the room. "Nod tells me you're a healer, MK."
"Of a sort," MK said.
"As am I. We're caretakers at heart. I could never fault you for helping someone, regardless of who they were. It's in our nature. We can't ignore the pleas of those who need us, can we?" She gave MK a small smile, though her expression remained distant and reminiscing. "It's at once our greatest boon and greatest curse.
"Not to say I never grieved or suffered. When Ronin told me what happened, I was so angry, I almost stole his sword from him and marched off to find Mandrake myself. But Nod was there and so young. I couldn't do something so reckless—not when he needed me to be there to raise him. As much as I wanted revenge, he needed me more. I had something more important than myself to look after."
MK felt a pang of remembrance for her own mother, seeing the strength of will that she and Eilley shared.
"In the end, Nod saved me from myself." Eilley held her eyes closed for a moment. "It was a dark, poisonous road that lay ahead of me if I chose to act on my hate. And for what? It wouldn't have brought Cian back to us. I can't pretend to understand why the Boggan did it. But what I did understand was that I was in a position to do better, to be better. Who knows what further sorrow revenge would have wrought?"
MK noticed Nod shift out of the corner of her eye. She could see him debating whether to tell his mother that he knew why. MK held her breath. If Eilley found out the real circumstances surrounding Nod's father's death, would she be more accepting, or less?
Eilley noticed Nod's motion as well, and turned to him. Mother and son exchanged a wordless conversation before he caved. His shoulders slumped, and he leaned back against the wall, folding his arms tight in front of him.
"It wasn't supposed to be Dad," he said in a low voice. "Mandrake was trying to kill Ronin. Dad decided to be a hero."
"Why Ronin specifically?" Eilley asked.
"Ronin was accidentally responsible for killing Mandrake's wife," Nod said. "Unlike you, Mandrake may have elected the dark, poisonous road in response."
Eilley's eyes widened as comprehension eclipsed her features. "But to start a whole war over something that personal?" she finally said.
"The Boggans were struggling and didn't have enough to provide for themselves. They were trying to expand, but the Jinn thought they were intruding and pushed them back, until the incident," MK said.
The picture came together. "It was the last straw," Eilley sighed, nodding.
It was strange seeing the drastically opposite picture that Eilley's response painted against Mandrake's—the same tragedy, but only Eilley had made herself stronger by it. What was the difference, MK wondered. What did Eilley have that Mandrake did not? Sadness crept into her bones, making them leaden. If Mandrake and Eilley had been switched in their roles, there might not have been a war at all, and so much of the sorrow that followed might have been averted.
MK's stomach grumbled, and everyone turned toward her as she slapped a hand on her abdomen. The bubble of tension burst, and Nod cackled at her.
"Lunch, good idea, MK's stomach! That conversation was getting way depressing anyway," he said, pushing himself from the wall and prancing toward the door.
"Most everyone has eaten already, so you can have the dining hall to yourselves," Eilley told them, waiting for MK to push herself to her feet and follow Nod out the door.
"That'll be nice," MK said. The spiraling interior of the Bower was perhaps even more impressive the second time, when MK no longer had a pounding headache to distract her, nor the stress of trying to play peacekeeper. She meandered down the pathway, really examining her surroundings. Above them, bands of sunlight filtered through the doorways that led to the canopies, and down by the roots, she could see the forms of wandering people speckling the floor far below.
MK breathed in deep, letting herself bask in the featherlight sensation of having awoken in a state of peace for the first time in weeks. Nod kept getting far ahead of her, turning around to see no one there, and then tapping his feet with exaggerated impatience as MK and his mother caught up.
As they walked, Eilley told MK about how she had fled to the Neutral Territories within days after Cian's death, and not long after that, the conflict exploded in earnest. She had found a group of terrified, displaced people who had managed to escape the brunt of the fighting, but no longer had a home, and despite her own sorrows that plagued her, Eilley had taken them all in, supporting all of them by her own sheer force of will.
"Eventually, the operation became so grand, that we had to become more organized, so I found some wood borers and together we created the structure we now call the Bower. Everyone pitched in, so now I have much less to manage alone. It lets me focus my energy on other things. And Nod, despite his protests, still needs a lot of looking after," Eilley explained.
"It's amazing," MK said. "I don't know where you found the strength." She stared at her feet as she walked, fixating on the knots and grooves in the wood that past beneath her every step. "When my mom died, I had a lot of responsibilities too, but I couldn't keep it together, and I just ran away." She met Eilley's gaze. "How did you do it?"
"It was a welcome distraction, to be honest. I was so busy taking care of all the others, my mind didn't have any time to fold in on itself. But we all grieve differently." Eilley laid a hand on MK's arm. "We fall apart so often in our lives, sometimes for reasons we think are foolish, but that isn't what makes us weak or strong. Your sadness isn't something you need to separate yourself from. It's a part of you and will always be, but you don't let it become everything. The fact that you're here and doing something good in spite of it tells me a lot about how strong you are."
MK took a shaky breath. "Doing something good?" She hadn't felt like she had been doing much of anything useful here, just being tossed about by immediate circumstance. That was what had exhausted her so much—the never knowing, only reacting to what came up in the moment.
"Of course." Eilley spoke as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "You saved Nod, for one. You stood up to the Boggans and ended up finding friendship among them to boot. You went back to the Wrathwood where you were being held, solely for the sake of preventing further harm to people you don't even know." Eilley raised an eyebrow and shook her head, the half-smile she wore powerfully reminiscent of her son. "MK, you've woven yourself deeply into both sides of the conflict. You mean to say you haven't been able to see the difference you've been making?"
MK floundered with the new perspective. Nod had said the same, but she only chalked it up to emotions getting the better of him. Eilley, though…Eilley was more objective. MK had barely met her, but already could tell she wasn't the sort to say such things without a good reason. "No, I guess I really didn't think about it like that. I was only making my decisions in the moment. There wasn't a lot of big picture planning happening."
"Trust me," Eilley said, "your actions might feel small and inconsequential as you go along, but in the grand scheme of things, you never know how much they can shake the foundations of the seemingly immovable."
"Hey! I'm starving too! Hurry up!" Nod called from down below. He'd already made it to root level and was waving up at them. MK laughed, glanced at Eilley and hurried down after him.
The instant they entered the dining room, they were swarmed by children. The quickest ones scrambled up to Nod, clambering up his legs. MK recognized the two young ones who had peeked in on her the previous morning amidst the bunch.
"Nod! Nod! What took you so long?" they pestered. Several hands tugged at him from various directions. "You missed lunch!"
"Hey! You're going to pull my arms off!" he said with a grin. Nod swooped down and snatched up the smallest child who squealed with delight. "I've got a prisoner! Everyone I catch will be tickled to death!" The children fled, screaming with laughter, and MK found herself laughing along as well as Nod swung the tiny Jinn around in his arms.
Some of the children paused in a circle around MK, staring up at her in curious silence. She waved at them, and they all giggled bashfully before scattering, making way for her as she sat down at a table.
"I thought you said the dining halls were empty," Nod told his mother as she entered with a tray of food and set it down before them.
"Your constant impatient shouting probably attracted the little ones," Eilley retorted. She pointed out the different bowls to MK. "That's grain pudding, and there's dandelion soup."
MK thanked her and spooned the pudding onto a bed of soft leaves with colorful petals scattered among them. Despite being wholly vegan, the food sustained her metabolism with ease, and she never went hungry so long as she remembered to eat.
Nod was still preoccupied with the kids. He'd captured the littlest one and was swinging the squealing child around in the air. Despite the fact that he could barely get a few bites into his food before being tagged "it" and having to chase another pack of Jinn around the dining room, Nod humored them graciously, and MK admired their easy joy.
"All right, children, let him eat," Eilley chided, ushering them out the door. The children groaned and sighed, but followed her instructions.
Nod sat down across from MK with a huff of relief. He grinned at her. "They really get attached to anyone who'll play with them for more than five minutes," he said, diving into the pudding that MK had scooped out for him while he had been busy entertaining.
"They love you," MK said. "You're a natural."
He brushed off the compliment. "Nah, it comes with experience. I grew up having to keep them busy."
"Psh, you love it too. I can tell."
"Yeah, I do, don't I?" He noticed the look she was giving him. "What's that face?"
"Nothing! Just that you seem so much more relaxed here than when I first met you," MK said. "Back then, you really seemed like a big slacker who didn't care about anything."
"Wow, critical much," Nod joked. "I cared about maybe one or even two whole things!"
"Oh, of course, my mistake."
His cheer faded into nostalgia. "When I started with the Leafmen, I felt like I was supposed to do it—for Dad, you know? But the more I got into it, the less I felt like my heart was in it. It was just fighting and fighting and more fighting. Like trying to clear a field by plucking one blade of grass at a time. Nothing was changing. I liked coming back here because whenever I was helping out, I could see what I was doing. I could see when I made someone happier, when I helped them feel better. That was when I knew I was doing the right thing."
"That!" MK jabbed her finger in the air, and Nod flinched back in surprise. "That's exactly it! That's exactly how I felt after Mom died—like I was doing nothing. I mean sure, I would help someone feel better, but right after that we would get flooded by another round of people who were hurt or sick or dying, and it never ended. I couldn't take it anymore."
"That's why you left," Nod said. MK blinked. She hadn't expected him to remember that conversation they had when they'd just met, and she opened up to him about her mom on a whim. He peeked up at her. "Did it help? To get away, I mean."
MK took a moment to ponder her brief week with her father. When they had reunited, it may have been awkward, but she could see the difference she was able to make in his life. He looked less starved, more settled. And it seemed to help him that he could talk out loud to her, instead of letting his myriad of ideas whirl around in the cage of his head and eat away at his mental state. "Yeah, it did," she said. "I felt like I could breathe again."
"I know what you mean. You feel like you've been wearing the wrong skin or something, and then once you get away from it, you become yourself again."
"How long were you feeling like that?" MK asked. "Why didn't you leave sooner if you didn't feel right?"
Nod shrugged. "I had gone on for so long, I thought I might as well continue. It felt like if I quit, it would be some kind of betrayal of Dad. And I thought of all the people I would disappoint." He snorted. "It shouldn't have mattered; I was a disappointment anyway. Could never meet Ronin's ridiculous standards."
MK remembered how stiff he looked in the Leafman uniform, hesitation lingering behind every motion. Every time he played hooky from his meetings or disobeyed orders, it always seemed like an excuse to escape a cage. "So what changed?"
"I met you." When she scoffed, Nod laughed. "No, I'm serious! You always knew exactly what you were supposed to do and who you were supposed to be. You stood up for what you believed in, no matter what."
"You're making me out to be way more sure of myself than I actually was," she muttered.
"Weren't you though? You can't fake that kind of conviction. Okay, so it was hard for you to figure out what was coming next, but you never seemed confused about what you wanted to do right in the moment," Nod insisted. "When you bargained for my life back in the Wrathwood, you gave everything you had to protect me. You could have easily been killed too, but you still fought for me, because that's the kind of person you are. It made me think that I wanted to live that way too—with integrity to who I really was, and a Leafman wasn't it. What was the point of doing it for Dad's sake when I couldn't give it my all, even if I tried?"
"I'm sure he would agree with you," MK said quietly.
"I mean, Mom told me that all the time, but I guess you have to really see it for your own self before you'll actually believe it," he continued. He pulled his feet up onto the seat and tucked his knees to his chest, staring up at the leaves that sheltered the dining room.
"I think it doesn't help that kids tend not to listen to what their parents have to say," MK said wryly. She reached across the table and touched him on the shoulder, and his lip twitched up in response. "You really do seem happier here. I'm glad."
"It just feels right, you know? After you saved me from Mandrake, I was so angry that Ronin didn't want to rescue you. I couldn't let you take the fall for me—for all of us. I couldn't stand the idea of giving to the circumstances, even if it seemed like we were trapped at the time. I thought, if only we tried harder, we could figure out a better way. But Ronin was having none of that, and so you were stuck there for who knows how long. When I couldn't figure out how to help you, I ran away here, so at least I wasn't going to be totally useless to anyone."
"Ah, so kicking me and knocking me out was your better way," MK teased.
He clicked his tongue and chuckled. "You and Mom are never, ever going to let me live that down, are you?"
"Nope!" She sobered, and her face tightened. "Do you think we'll ever break out of this? Or is it going to keep on being fighting and more fighting, like you said?" MK sighed, mimicking Nod's pose and tucking her knees in. "I'm tired of it."
Nod kicked out his feet and vaulted over the tabletop to drop himself on the stool beside her. "Something big would probably have to happen." His eyes widened, and he snapped his fingers, jumping to his feet.
"What's wrong?" MK watched him pacing in front of her.
"Something big is probably going to happen—soon."
MK set her feet on the floor and nudged forward. "What are you talking about?"
"The Solstice." He slapped himself on the forehead. "Rot me, how did I miss that?"
MK poked his arm. "Hey, wanna fill me in any time soon?"
Nod ran his hands over his face and through his hair. He let out a sharp huff, tapping his foot on the ground. "The Full Moon Solstice happens once every great while, and it's a night when the Draíochta is in its peak fluctuation. At midday, the current Brightwood queen will transfer her connection to the deep magic and the growth of the forest, and bestow it onto a specially chosen flower pod. At midnight, in the light of the full moon, and only in the light of the full moon, the pod blooms and the Draíochta forges its connection with the new queen who will reign until the next Full Moon Solstice."
"You mean, Queen Tara bequeaths her power to someone else?"
"Of the Draíochta's choosing, yeah. Before then, we have no way of knowing who it'll be, other than that she will always be female," said Nod.
"So what's that got to do with the war?" MK asked.
"It's when the Brightwood's connection to the Draíochta is at its most vulnerable. MK, the queen has no power until the pod blooms. From noon to midnight, there is no Brightwood queen. If you're Mandrake, what do you do with a situation like that?"
MK looked up at him with wide eyes. "I attack. I attack hard."
Nod lowered his head. "Yeah. That pretty much sums it up."
She got to her feet. "But the Leafmen can still fight right? They don't need the forest magic to defend the territory, and they seem to have been doing just fine for all this time."
"I wish." Nod scuffed his foot on the ground, scattering a spray of pebbles. "The Leafmen are better trained, but the Boggans outnumber them. That, coupled with the fact that Mandrake is a really good tactician, means that we were almost always spread too thin. Whenever we'd capture one section of the borderlands, the Boggans would push back hard in another section. Mandrake always made sure to equalize any advancement we made."
MK groaned under her breath. "That's so like him."
"Oh that's not all. Mandrake has the Blight, which is really good at evening out the balance of power. With it, he can destroy the forest almost as quickly as the queen grows it."
A thought jolted through MK. "While the queen can't use her power…"
Nod rubbed his palms together, inhaling through gritted teeth. "Ripe for invasion. Not to mention, if he ever gets his hands on the pod itself—which I guarantee he'll try—who even knows what will happen?"
"You mean no one knows?"
"We've always had a queen, as far as we can remember. But I think if the succession fails, it's going to be really bad."
"Mandrake will raze the forest," MK murmured. She remembered the bitter anger pouring from him in waves when he told her of his ultimate design.
They deserved to be burned, ground into wildfire ash to provide fertile soil for our struggling people to stand upon.
The memory of Mandrake's condemnation made her shudder. "This has to stop," she said in a low voice. "Somehow, it has to stop, or everything will burn." MK's breaths rattled as she took up pacing in Nod's place. "This can't be what she envisioned. This can't be what she would have wanted."
Nod peered at her. "'She?'"
"Danu," MK said.
"His dead wife?"
"He said she was a caretaker, that she was kind. His exact words, Nod. A caretaker!" MK gasped.
"No," Nod muttered, "you're right. I don't suppose she would have wanted this."
MK clenched her fingers into her hair, letting out a harsh sigh. "Damn it." Nod's hand rested on her shoulder, rubbing soothing circles as she struggled to compose herself. MK let him comfort her for a while, appreciating his silent concern. She straightened herself up, squeezing her eyes shut. "Queen Tara was right. I can't sit on the sidelines. Who knows how long I'm going to be here? Maybe it's forever. At this point, I can't keep living like I'm torn between two worlds."
"What are you saying?"
MK met Nod's gaze, staring hard into his eyes. To his credit, he did not look away—only waited. "I have to commit. I'm going to finish what I started the moment I saved Dagda. I'm going to answer the calls of those who need me." She clasped her hands on Nod's shoulders. "I'm going to try and stop this war."
Nod's lips parted, but he did not speak for a while. Off in the distant halls, they could hear the children playing. He gave her his crooked smile. "And I'm going to help you."