The Princess and the Blood of Eternity

Chapter 17: Mont Qerath

Cleo listened to the mash of arguments as they rattled off. A tree growing on the deck? The implications and his guilt convinced him to stay silent. The crew handled it better than he thought possible, though recent events included it wasn't all that surprising.

Not counting the method, nor the location, the appearance of a tree was, in fact, remarkable. They were rare, so rare people often fought and killed over the resource, and given salt water was a desert only multiplied the effect. So far, it didn't seem dangerous. A tree was a tree, but there could be something more sinister lurking beneath the surface. He couldn't blame them for trying to distance themselves from the oddity. Keeping one's sanity amongst these recent events was slowly becoming a difficult but necessary task.

Of course, Cassandra was busy trying to convince them otherwise. Her voice had danced near the upper octaves, bordering on panic. "There's a tree growing on the deck. I don't know how any of you can stand there and pretend it isn't a big deal. I'd like to ask how this is possible, but judging everyone's faces, the answer is going to remain a mystery." And yet she repeated the question, "How is this possible?" She took to looking away from the tree. As if her refusing to acknowledge it might cause it to disappear.

Ural and Quinn maintained a level of apprehension and awe. They stepped lightly as they moved around the plant growth, around the green leaves fluttering in the wind, taking care to not step on any of the roots that had formed inside the wooden deck. They'd done a customary inspection, determining that the roots were in fact inside the planks on the deck and not beneath, growing somewhere inside the hull. The tree had, somehow, fused with the boat.

"You said it yourself. We don't know," Ural said, casually massaging the back of his neck. "Why screech the obvious?"

"Because! This doesn't make sense!" Cassandra said.

Ural exhaled, blowing out his cheeks. "Has anything made sense?" His question silenced her almost immediately.

"I... I like trees," Quinn offered. If her words were meant to declare her feelings, the broken statement sounded more like a declaration of intention meant to placate the shrubbery should it decide to attack. She stayed at arm's length and circled the growth like it might reach out to get her. As if she were staying wide of a wild animal in its cage.

"Maybe it's a blessing. A sign that the world isn't dying." She leaned over the railing and scanned the outside of the hull. "It looks like the roots extend down the side of the boat. I doubt we could remove the affected wood without ripping apart half the ship. So not a chore that's possible in the middle of the ocean. When we reach port, people are going to freak when they see we have a tree growing on our deck."

For Cleo, he was more concerned with what'd led to the appearance of the tree. A fountain of green blood shooting from his wrist? He couldn't imagine how people were going to respond if such a secret was revealed. Groups were dumb, and dumb people liked to respond negatively and often violently to things they did not understand. Questions would inevitably lead to them learning about the green blood in his wrist and the subsequent connection to the princess.

Yes, the bloodstain was now hidden beneath a tree and a patch of grass, but the memory would never fade. The event, everything—it had seared the painful ejection of blood into his memory. To think he might've gained a bit of green blood. Had it come from Lilith? Was she contagious? It had to be related to his injuries. Somehow, those creatures had done this to him, and yet he could still feel Lilith lurking in the back of his mind. Almost like a rose thorn implanted in the base of his neck.

He made eye contact with Marius and received an indifferent shrug. The old fool still had no answers for him. Old fool? Those words no longer described him. Marius had stopped him from strangling Ural. There was a fool on the boat, but it was not his uncle.