Page 109 of Suffer No Fools
The shark's tail fin fluttered, and then she righted herself in the water, swimming for the leg left by the other sharks in their haste to answer Efren's call.
"Don't choke on that!" Vadim called after her. "I'd hate to have to revive you again."
Efren crashed into Vadim, throwing his arms around him. The captain was laughing and crying at the same time. Vadim turned in his arms and gently patted his back. He and Niall exchanged grins, and then Vadim extricated himself from Efren's grasp. He led the way down the dock to shore, and Stan followed in the air, pulling Hugo and Tovey along with him.
More sailors approached. After a burst of fire and ice to break their enchantments, they fell unconscious with a single tug from Vadim.
"It's our turn." Stan dragged Hugo toward the magnet in the center of the island.
"Should you get so close?" Tovey asked, his eyes round. "What if it pulls you in?"
It had already pulled him in, but he wasn't afraid. They were here to destroy it, and it wanted to be destroyed. "It doesn't want to be here," Stan said. "It's afraid of what Coryn can do."
"Aren't we all," Tovey muttered.
"Let's put it to rest." Hugo glanced over his shoulder, and Stan could feel them, all the people who had sworn their allegiance to the empire. They were behind them in the shipsJermain had built. There were even a few loyal to Embertide and Hugo on the island ahead.
With Niall's guidance, Hugo started with water, letting it sink into the ground and fill all the gaps between the stone and the surrounding rock the academy weavers of old had used to bury it. Then, he froze the water, expanding it with ice and causing the stone to shatter, along with the rock. Next, he filled the cracks with earth, expanding them even more. Finally, he surrounded the stone with death.
Stan hadn't expected anything to happen with the last weave, but a gentle voice filled their minds."Thank you. You have set me free."
"We're not finished," Hugo said. "As long as any bit of this stone remains, Coryn will try to put it back together."
"She's coming!" Vadim frowned. "She's gone? Klaus can't get a good read on her." Klaus was still behind them onStarlight Specter,where he could monitor the coast for any pockets of undead.
"We have to work fast." Hugo fueled his fire with air, letting it burn hotter than anything Stan had ever felt. Even from several hundred feet above the island, it was far too hot.
"Heat rises," Tovey said. "We've got to move back toward the ship."
"No," Hugo said. "I need to see it done."
Stan and Tovey both pulled him backward a few hundred feet, until the heat was more manageable, and their feet weren't boiling inside their boots.
Hugo inhaled and let out a shaky breath. "Wow. I don't know what came over me. I thought we'd killed the stone."
"You can only transform it with life." Stan repeated the message he sensed in his mind, a reminder from the tree on Aquarion. "Our tree was once a monolith like this."
Hugo leaned over and kissed Stan's cheek. "That's genius. I know what to do now."
He spun the air in a tornado, twirling the ashes in what had become a deep pit after Hugo had burned the stone to ash. Hugo sent a trickle of life into the tree, but it wasn't enough. He sank to his knees, extinguishing the last of the healing weaves. Hugo still wasn't a spectral weaver, but he'd channeled healing power given to him through his bond with the empire and its people.
Vadim, Yvette, and Niall rushed toward the pit, their weaves following Hugo's lead. Stan had never seen a tree grow from the sky before, but this one did. The ashes formed into a living tree the size of the sentinel oak on Aquarion, only it wasn't an oak. Its silvery five-pointed leaves fanned out over the island, and the land grew with it, supporting its gigantic root system.
Stan couldn't explain it, but the roots themselves seemed to stretch beneath the ocean, into a network of roots that supported all coral reefs and marine plant life, before weaving together with Aquarion's tree roots.
"There's another," Hugo said, pointing to the south, and Hearthstone. "The tree in the palace courtyard. My mother always called it a sentinel. It's a willow."
Stan felt another to the north in Glamiere, and one south where no trees should grow beyond the icecap. None of it made sense, but then, what would make sense after watching a tree form from the very air around them?
"What have you done?"
Hugo stiffened beside him and used an air weave to amplify his voice for the island to hear. "General Coryn, I remove you from your duties to Embertide."
They turned to face the beach and Coryn. She sported her usual black attire beneath a gray hooded cloak. She also carried a black leather bag across her body. Its contents wereheavy enough she had to grip it with both hands to keep it from swinging while she walked. She paced before a mass of undead soldiers awaiting her commands.
"It's Empress Coryn." She stopped pacing and stood with her chin raised high. "I took over when you died." She scoffed. "Quite the feat, Vadim, bringing him back from the dead. I'm surprised he doesn't stink yet. I'll need to learn the spell to preserve him. I think I'll rip it from your brain and shove it into an enchantment."
"I'm not dead," Hugo said. "That's your first mistake."
