Dagan’s face went serious, and he detached from Hen to go to him. “You okay?”
“No.” Alonza sighed. “There’s something more you should know before you go in there. Something everyone should know. But I need you to swear to secrecy, once you’re home again.”
This was all very dramatic, but that seemed to be Alonza’s whole thing, so Hen just watched and waited.
Dagan nodded. “Okay. What’s the secret?”
“Swear it: You will tell no one outside this group. Ever. Jessica didn’t want me to, but I can’t in good conscience keep this from you.”
“I swear,” Dagan replied immediately.
Hen frowned, wondering what he was thinking, but let it go. Alonza was a pain in the ballsack, but Dagan knew and loved him; he’d have to trust him.
Alonza hesitated, glancing around nervously.
“‘Lonza…” Dagan took him by the shoulders and held him there at arms’ length. “It’s just me. You know you can trust me. And if you need the others to swear—”
He nodded. “They’ll have to. While Innan has been working on mapping what’s under the City, I’ve been spending my time exploring the ecosystem. Most of the City is empty of plant and animal life; there’s just one spot where they thrive within the walls. But outside, it’s even worse than the Blue Bird. Jessica expected that, of course she did…” He trailed off there, looking oddly lost.
That worried Hen. Alonza had been quiet on the hike to the mountain, but he seemed like the sort who thought he didn’t need company; now he began to see something else in the behavior he hadn’t thought to look for before.
Alonza was scared of something.
They all were, of course, but Alonza wasn’t going into the City. He was staying out here, with Innan, relatively safe. Scared for his brother? Scared for the Heart Wood? This felt more immediate, somehow.
“She sent me here to discover whether or not the vitality had been sapped from the earth via lifecasting,” Alonza finally said.
Dagan let his hands drop to his sides. “What?”
“There’s a way to—to sap the life you sense when using lifecasting. She showed me how, so I could recognize it, and it’s here. It’s not just death and decay, Dags, it’s an absence, like something sucked out every vestige of life. That’s why the cycles aren’t starting over. That’s why the riverbed is festering. Every blade of grass, every insect husk, every mycelial filament has been drained.”
Dagan’s mouth was open by then, his eyes wide and his face gone almost as pale as Alonza’s. “I felt that,” he said after a moment’s stuttering. “I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t figure it out.”
“Demetrius asked about it once, after his lifecasting knocked him out near the Blue Bird. Jessica went quiet. She only just admitted it’s possible before we left the Wildcrafter settlement. Even he doesn’t know, yet.”
“I don’t understand.” Hen stepped up, unable to stay on the fringes of this conversation any longer. “What’s that mean?”
Dagan shook his head. “You heard Innan describe how they can explore the earth and its layers and affect them?”
“Yes,” Hen confirmed.
“That’s a good parallel,” Alonza said. “It’s similar, except well-developed lifecasting can do more than just interfere with what’s there; it can take the energy from living things and…”
“Eat it,” Hen finished flatly.
Alonza nodded. “In a manner of speaking.”
“Fuck,” Dagan muttered. “And she’s known this the whole time?”
Another nod.
“She should’ve fucking told us. She should’ve told the Council.” Dagan crossed his arms over his chest and glared at the ground.
“You can feel people with your lifecasting too, right?” Hendrik wondered, a thought forming but slowly. “Like, you can tell where I am and if I’m sleeping or not, that kind of thing, when you meditate?”
“Yes,” Dagan and Alonza said in unison.
“Could you…go inside me?” Hen asked.
The brothers shared a look. Alonza admitted, “I don’t know. There are some healers who claim to be able to do such things, but they’re rare.”
“And could you steal my life or vitality or whatever, if you did that?” It was coming together now in Hen’s head. And he didn’t like it. At all.
“Assuming you could feel out another person with lifecasting, though I don’t think it’d be lifecasting anymore at that point…” Alonza hummed and considered, then finally decided, “In theory, yes.”
“So, what you’re saying,” Dagan ventured, looking positively green at the thought, “is that this murder-god might not be a god at all but a natural lifecaster like Demetrius?”
Alonza shook his head. “Or like you and me, for all I know, just with more practice. A millennium of practice, if Kajja’s notes are anything to go by.”
“Fuck,” Dagan announced once more.
“You said it once, Dagan,” Hendrik reminded him. “You said you wished you could feel another person like you feel the earth around you. You knew it instinctively.”
Dagan closed his eyes. “I feel so stupid.”
“No.” Alonza shook his head. “No, we’re taught from birth that it’s not possible, Dags. It’s old, secret knowledge that only the Head Verder keeps, and for good reason. Look at what it does, when people take it too far. Look around, at the river, at the City. No one is stupid for not recognizing it.”
“Who gave the Head Verder the right to keep that from us?” Dagan asked. “I sure didn’t. It’s who we are, Alonza. It’s our right and our responsibility. This is—this is utter bear-shit.”
