I brought all of everyone back in again after Cream and I were done gawking. Well, except Esra, she’d have to find her own way in from the far end of the grove.

“Wow, what did you do to the place?” Adam asked as we all appeared in the center of the bowl, below the big tree. “Looks like you turned it into a wrinkly old sheet.”

“Follow me,” I grinned mischievously, turning for the tree. “We have a lot of stairs to climb.”

Leading them all up the stairs had me feeling like a mother duck, and the urge to quack proved almost too great to bear. Thankfully, we made it to the top before my resolve shattered. A quackless journey.

I hadn’t been to the very top of the tree often, since walking up all those steps was not the most enjoyable experience ever. The view had been stunning even before I’d asked the grove to change, but now it was magnificent.

Wordless sounds of surprise and awe rippled through the gathered members of the order as they saw the extent of the changes.

“Ryn…” Kit whispered reverently, stepping up to the railing. “How did you do this?”

“I treated my grove well and then asked nicely,” I told her truthfully. That was really the extent of what had happened. It had been the grove that did all the work, not me.

“Ryn… I’ve heard you referred to as a goddess a few times in the past, but this genuinely seals the deal,” Troy remarked, staring out across the view before us. “This isn’t a grove anymore, this is a small world.”

“My plan is to set up a little river to run through it, then a lake in the middle,” I explained, tracing the desired path with a finger. “We can have our compound near the lake, then have a forest around the outside. I’ll transplant some animals into it so we have a source of meat. Livestock pastures too, all that stuff.”

“You really need a better way of getting around this place,” Melody commented, eyes wide as she stared down at the valley.

“I was kind of hoping Claih would help with that, actually,” I said, giving the woman in question a hopeful look.

Her response was wry, knowing look. “Aye, I’ll figure something out for your tree and the land beyond, provided I can take a look through the books in that university of yours.”

I grinned. “They might get their feathers a little ruffled, but I’ll make sure of it.”

“Wait, what’s that?” Grace asked, taking my hand to get my attention. Her other one was pointing down at the ridgeline that separated my own personal area from the valley.

It took me a moment to realise what the flashing light was, and then I grinned. “That would be Esra, she’s teleporting over from the edge of the grove.”

“She’s going to be so mad at you,” Kit commented, just the hint of a smile on her lips.

Giggling gleefully, I nodded in agreement, “I know, I’m excited to see her reaction.”

“You’re such a god damn brat,” Grace laughed, squeezing my hand affectionately.

For just a moment, I allowed myself to fall sideways against her, leaning my head on her shoulder. I don’t know why that little exchange had sent a shot of love straight to my heart, but I relished it nevertheless.

My spike of happiness was dampened slightly when I caught Bray staring at us, causing him to quickly jerk his gaze away and back out into the distance. Ugh, guess it was too much to hope for that he’d be completely chill about Grace and I. The looming heart to heart with him had me feeling all kinds of anxiety.

In a way, it was reassuring to feel worried. It grounded me, and reminded me that despite what everyone kept saying, I was not a deity. I was just a girl with a whole shitload of power. Power that I had a responsibility to use wisely.

“How long will it take you to get that river working?” Troy asked, either oblivious to the moment or bulldozing through it to get us moving again.

“A few days,” I replied after a moment’s thought. “I’ll need time to myself to get things moving, my land increased in size but not my power, so I—“

“Just how many of these damned rabbits do you need Rynadria?” a disgruntled Esra called as she found her way up onto the platform. Turning to look, I was almost immediately skewered by angry white eyes. “More importantly, what in the name of the gods have you done here?”

I opened my mouth to reply, but apparently she wasn’t done. “Do you realise the disturbance you’ve caused outside this grove, young lady? There is a titanic… no, a gargantuan wave of garden energy headed straight for your precious little tree and there is nothing that will stand in its way. I hope you have another harebrained plan up your sleeve, because quite frankly I am not inclined to pull you out of yet another mess that you have created for yourself!”

“How much?” I asked excitedly, ignoring her whole ‘dire warning’ speech.

“H-how much?” she asked incredulously, eyes wide and nostrils flared. “How much? Why does it matter how much there is? You’re doomed if you don’t get everyone out of this place, and you can say goodbye to those damned rabbits of yours.”

“They’re buns, not rabbits. For someone so knowledgeable, you should know the scientific name for them,” I told her absently as a wild, delighted grin slowly dawned across my face like the rising of a blood moon.

“Oh no,” Adam remarked casually. “She has that grin on her face again.”

“How long until it hits?” I asked Esra, already walking to the center of the platform.

“You have but moments to act,” she told me with a deep, resigned sigh.

Rolling my shoulders in their sockets, I closed my eyes. “Awesome.”

My fix for the problem was almost disgustingly simple, and I could have done it from where I’d been standing earlier, but whatever… I couldn’t help but put on a little bit of a show.

Crouching down, I placed my hands on the smooth, warm wood of my beloved tree and altered it, just slightly. The addition was nothing when compared to the tree as a whole, and even to the shield spell I’d just modified it was barely complex at all. I just really, really hoped that I didn’t kill the thing with this little stunt.

Esra had managed to somewhat stabilise the growth magic plant earlier, and I now applied an altered version of it to the weaving that controlled the shield. The scariest part of the plan was if the tree would finish growing the new elements before the wave hit.

Thankfully it did, right as the wave became visible as a rapidly moving stormfront on the horizon.

There are moments in life where nature reminds you that it is boss, that it is powerful and enigmatic and it will fuck you up if you don’t watch out. This was one of those times.

The sheer violence of the storm was such that it seemed to tear the very air to ribbons with bright green lightning that rippled and flashed like a tesla coil on steroids. With the tree being at the center of the grove, it meant that we saw the storm roll over the valley first, bathing it in inky darkness.

I felt more than saw the newly born grass of the valley become shredded by the razor sharp wind as it passed. Oops… guess I’d be making grass for a bit. I wonder what cute little spells I could weave into it? Had anyone bothered making spells out of grass yet?

I didn’t have time to ponder grass spells though, because the storm surged along the ridgeline and then promptly slammed head first into the shield. The very mountain beneath us shuddered under the impact and leaves began to rain gently down around us, knocked loose from their moorings in the canopy above.

Everyone waited, breath bated while the storm hammered and raged against the intangible wall of energy that separated us from instant death at its hands. I felt ice creep up my spine as I watched, a feeling of dreadful hope suffusing me. Please don’t let my cockiness get us all killed.

Off to the side, Esra stared up at the maelstrom with rapt attention, magesight-lit eyes darting back and forth. There was no fear there on her face, and it prompted me to copy her.

Activating my magesight revealed a blinding series of magical tornados, growth energy quite literally being sucked down the sink. It appeared to be rushing into every spare branch, through the veins of the tree and into the mountain below us.

My fear of the storm began to dissipate, replaced by an even greater worry that the very mountain below us was about to detonate under the magical load. How in the hell was it meant to survive through the amount of energy that was being pummelled into it?

Then, all of a sudden, the storm eased, receding back towards the boundary between my grove and the nameless garden. The torrent of energy ebbed with it, sparing us from a catastrophic eruption of magical death from below.

“It will be back,” Esra commented, relief plain in her voice. “Not so violent as that, however.”

“Why will it be back?” Kit squeaked, clearly still a little terrified by what had just happened.

“As a pebble creates rebounding ripples when dropped in a pond, so too will this phenomena continue,” she told us, turning to peer back down at the mountain below. “Like waves in a tub, if I were to explain it in a more relatable manner.”

While she’d been speaking, I’d also turned my eyes downward again, and now my brows creased in confusion. “What on earth is going on down there?”

“To be quite honest my dear… I don’t have a fucking clue,” Esra replied, still staring down.

“I do,” came a voice, and glancing up revealed Claih, kneeling with a large monocle over one eye. “I’ve never seen it happen, it was nothing more than theory before this point.”

“Explain,” my mage mother demanded, and I had a sneaking suspicion that she might be irritated that she wasn’t the one who had the answer.

“It’s forming crystals, merging with the mountain,” the obrec woman explained in rapt awe. “It’s always been obvious to us magitechts that the crystal wasn’t here during the forming of this world. Now, I have definitive proof for the theory.”

Esra’s reply was a groan, hand rising to pinch at the bridge of her nose. “Rynadria Belrose, I swear…”

“You swear what?” I asked as innocently as possible. That shit eating grin though, it was persistent.

“I don’t even know,” she sighed, dropping her hand and gazing skyward. “I don’t even know.”

QuietValerie

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