Book 3 Chapter 12: Where the **** am I?
Dantes sipped water rather than wine as he sat in his living throne monitoring what was happening across the city since the Academy had been sealed. The chaos had largely ended, and now that the news had spread every faction represented in the city was doing its best to consolidate what they had, or take advantage of the situation. The city was dark that night. Mage students who had only just started heading out to light the streets had become a hot commodity and were whisked away to Uptown, where they couldn't do their usual job. Dantes had sent his men to make sure that those that paid up to him were protected even in the dark. He’d ignored the requests for protection from those that hadn’t paid up in the past. Maybe after a night in the blackness, they’d see that there was only one choice to make.
Clay and his sister Hema had finished ministering to Wane and Felix. They’d recover, though they’d likely need to see a temple priest to avoid some bad scarring. Dantes was grateful for that. They would be very valuable now that the Academy was sealed, and they were also likely the only two people who actually knew what had happened.
Dantes looked through the glass ceiling at the full moon above him, letting the light of it suffuse him. The Moon was the Mother’s first daughter, so it made a certain sense that druids would receive a boon when she shone so brightly. He could feel a kind of pull in his arm that still held the leaf tattoos. It had been there the last full moon, and he’d been able to ignore it. This time it was much stronger.
He’d need to attend the druid conclave this time. There was no avoiding it. There wasn’t much he could do at this point anyway. He’d given his orders, his men were moving, Jayk was managing things well. Booze was flowing in the club, whores finding marks with ease, deals were happening in dust filled rooms. Everything was as it should be. Besides which, he had questions that he needed answered. Could he do anything about the disease that was starting to spread? Is there some other way to heal people that he hadn't discovered yet? They may not have direct answers for him, that wasn't their way, but hints or ideas could guide him on the right path.
One positive was that the leaf representing Murk had been irritated and burning for more than a week, so there was a good chance he’d be able to avoid seeing him, or at least see him at his worst. They had a common enemy in Serpica, but aside from that there weren’t any good feelings between them.
Dantes stood with a sigh, Jacopo leapt onto his back and they made their way to the roof. Once there they shifted into bats and made their way toward the mangled tree in the abandoned square. In spite of its withered appearance, Dantes could still feel a powerful lifeforce pulsing at the center of it. He placed his wooden hand against it. A hand forged from the branch that the tree had gifted him. He could feel a kind of connection from his hand to it, but when he tried to solidify it or draw the tree into the network of life in the rest of the city, his connection grew hazy and unfocused as his sense of self began to blur. It was the same feeling as when he tree-walked to the conclaves. He’d been trying to connect all of the different life in the city to the gardens and small hideaways of life that he’d already created and connected himself, but this sensation kept him from being able to do it each time. He’d only been able to connect to and draw from the plant life that he’d had a hand in creating. If he could just connect to those patches of life that already existed, then his connection to the city would grow exponentially.
He took a deep breath. It was another problem that he’d need to ask his fellow druids about. Their own interpretations of their abilities were very different from his own, but sometimes they provided insight that he was able to put toward his own abilities.
He and Jacopo braced themselves, and then they pushed themselves into the tree. Dantes could feel his consciousness fade as it was spread across the wide network of life that spanned the continent. His sense of self became more and more diffuse until he located a tree in the Viridian Expanse and began moving what was left of his self toward it. At the last moment, he felt a powerful pull, and found himself diverted away from the tree he’d targeted and instead he found his sense of self rapidly pulled back together and launched towards a much closer tree.
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