The Frey Saga Book V by Melissa Wright

Author:Melissa Wright [Wright, Melissa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Melissa Wright

16

Ruby

Ruby stood stock-still, waiting for the release of their arrows. But the girl put up a hand, not bothering to turn from her task. “Let her be,” she said, pressing her nimble into the soil of her garden again.

Ruby glanced at the sentries, letting her disapproval at being threatened as an envoy of the Lord of the North show, though she couldn’t be certain precisely how much longer that ruse might stand. She moved toward the girl, and Isa lit the lantern beside her. It cast light over her small hands, which were covered in dark, fertile soil. She frowned up at Ruby. “I can’t get these to grow.”

Ruby leaned down to examine the plants, their roots dark and wilting. “Not a species that would do well here, I’m afraid.”

Two more lanterns lit behind her, and Ruby realized they’d been lit not by the girl but by her guard—so she’d been in the dark before, apparently hiding what she’d been doing. Her petite face rose to show Ruby her expression, a frown that said she’d been raised by people who could make anything grow anywhere. Ruby looked for the sentries, but they were moving away at some unseen signal that the girl was safe or no longer wanted them to hover.

Ruby knelt beside the girl. “You understand that the magic is different.” Light elves had magic that excelled at making things grow, but that talent was not as well suited to the dark energy of the North. Isa was of Asher’s line, not Junnie’s. She would be good at other things.

Isa brushed the dirt off her palms. “I’m not a fool.” She gestured to the garden plots before them, a variety of vegetables that would more than sustain a settlement this size. “It’s not just me,” Isa said. “The others cannot grow here either, not as they did on our own lands. We are limited by the soil and limited by the sun and limited by whatever energy we can provide.”

“So why this, then? What’s so important about having more than what is clearly thriving?”

The girl placed the wilting plant onto Ruby’s palm. Her eyes were wide, their green unnaturally dark in the lantern light. “It’s not merely in this garden,” she explained. “We cannot grow here, not even in the potted soil inside my study. Not even from earth brought in from home.”

Ruby felt the strangeness of the plant she was holding, the hollowness of it, which was so faint that she might not have noticed without the girl’s explanation. So this earth, or whatever the humans brought to it, was turning the energy somehow, and it went beyond what lay beneath fey ground. “How far out have the scouts gone now?” She couldn’t help but wonder the distance to which the humans’ effect had spread.

The girl shook her head. “As far as any have gone, all is the same.”

“And the others, those who have stayed in the settlement long-term?” Ruby let the question hang, not wanting to voice

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