A Pain So Great

“The four Trees correspond to four Gods: Iona, Goddess of the Moon; Chekagi, God of the Suns; Ydros, Goddess of Birth; and Forre, God of Change. It is said that each Tree is the spiritual attachment each God has to this realm. They erected the Trees to reward the piety of their believers, thus giving them a home.”

—Robin Benz

Bruising pain erupts from my back. Blood surges into my mouth, forcing me to cough it up. I do, but they’re feeble coughs, like the pat of a baby’s fist. Even weaker are my inhales.

“Haruki!”

Roo’s voice cuts through the haze of pain that consumes me. I will my eyes to open despite the sand and rock and blood caking over my face. I can’t really make him out past the tears and dirt.

“Brother! W-What were you thinking?!” Mirei snivels, voice broken. Her form shakes violently next to Roo’s.

I try to open my mouth, but I can’t. Am I frozen in time? I wonder idly. As soon as I think this, I know it’s not true. I’m able to cough and breathe, albeit weakly. In the corner of my eye, I see one of Roo’s vines slither close. It nudges the sand once before withering immediately. It curls in on itself pathetically before crumbling to dust.

“How… are you alive?” Roo croaks.

Those are the last words I hear before sweet unconsciousness takes me.

* * *

When my eyes flutter open, rather than being greeted with a face full of blood-soaked sand, I see endless webs of green leaves entangled with crimson sun rays.

“It’s sunset, now. You’ve been out for a couple hours.” Roo says in a rasping tone.

His face dips over mine, causing a lock of his hair to brush against my eyebrow. I try to bring up a hand to brush it away—it’s tickling me—but pain shoots up from my back to my fingertips. I grimace and let it fall back, resigning to my fate. After a moment’s contemplation, Roo touches two fingers to my sternum. Green light spills over Roo’s dark expression.

“I’m observing the flow of your Life Magic. It’s almost entirely incapacitated. I’ve been sifting through your magic ever since I moved you to the higher branches of Chekagi Tree, but I’m only getting more and more confused.

“Anyone’s magic would be messed up after taking a hit like you did. But this is completely unprecedented. It’s like everything is scrambled, disconnected in places that don’t make sense,” Roo finishes, sounding slightly brittle.

I test my voice. It’s raspy, but it carries over my words. “Where’s Mirei?”

Roo lifts his fingers away. “Sleeping next to you.”

My awareness slowly widens from Roo to the thin arms clutching my right arm. My little sister is curled against my side, breathing softly against my shoulder. Relief floods me so quickly that the pain in my limbs is overshadowed for a few blessed seconds. That moment of clarity, however, ushers in the full extent of everything I did.

I jumped to save Roo. I nearly killed myself for a guy I’ve known for barely a day! I also grabbed him with both my clothed hand and my unwrapped hand.

If I could find one wisp of regret, I’d clutch onto it like a madman and spit poison at the boy leaned over me right now. I would snarl at him, yell at him for getting so close to the sand’s edge. If only he hadn’t been so close, the sand snake wouldn’t have noticed him as quickly and Roo could have reacted sooner. I wouldn’t have run without thinking, pulled by something other than the magic that binds us together.

I wouldn’t have to lay here, soaked in a puddle of my own blood with bottomless gratitude toward God for the random spurt of strength that allowed me to throw Roo out of the way.

The worst part is, for once, I hadn’t been thinking about the hell my death would wreak on Mirei. Everything I do, from the shirt wrapped around my right hand to the time I forced her and I to stay in one spot the first night, is to avoid causing pain to someone I care about. If she were to suffer for an avoidable reason because of me, it would be worse than death.

Yet here I am.

Roo leans back on his haunches, running filthy fingers through his matted hair. Bruises have bloomed all along his right side in a myriad of red and purple. He looks miserable, but also conflicted with something. I can see it in the way he chews on his lip, brow furrowed, eyes shifting from me to my wrapped hand to the destruction below us.

“What’s wrong?” I whisper.

Roo’s eyes find mine.

He sighs softly. “There’s a lot we need to talk about. But for now, I don’t want to stress you out with stuff that isn’t immediately important. What matters is your health: I scrounged the remains of Chonti Village for first aid, but all I could find was some bandages and healing ointment for you. The good news is that, after thoroughly looking through your magic flow, you only have a few hairline fractures. This is an easy fix with some magic therapy and deep healing treatments. The bad news is that your magic is what took the brunt of the damage. You won’t be able to use it without difficulty for a month or so.”

I haven’t used it at all, I think.

“And Mirei?”

“Only some scratches from debris flying. Rest easy.”

I sigh, once again, in relief. From all my time in the hospital, I’ve known lots of kids who had their bones broken. My back will probably be fine in two months, but if I consider the healing remedies and magic therapy Roo keeps going on and on about, perhaps it will only take half the time.

“What exactly is magic therapy?” I ask.

“I’ll tell you later. Let me show you something.”

Roo gets up to his feet, but with much struggle. He winces and clutches his left side. With his free hand, he faces his palm to the ground beneath me and slowly raises it. Cracks and splintering sound around Mirei and I, causing her to stir. She rubs her eyes right when the platform made of branch wood levitates into the air.

“We’re… flying?” She mutters.

“Sure,” Roo acquiesces. We slowly move closer to the edge of the branch until I can see the land below. My eyes widen.

What used to be tilled farmlands and a busy village is now three quarters desert. Tumbleweeds and mountains of that volatile sand stretch for miles, leaving no trace of green. The desert cuts off where Roo erected that huge wall, effectively stopping its encroachment. Everything behind that wall is reminiscent of the destruction following a ferocious tornado. The sandstorm didn’t even touch that part of the village. Most of the fires have died out, leaving lashes of black scorch marks and ash in their wake. There are hardly any signs of life.

“The wall I made is only temporary. After that, the sand will crawl forward slowly until it devours the entirety of Chekagi Tree.” Roo says this with grief blackening his words. He sounds as if his heart is the one afflicted with the desert, not the Tree.

My gaze falls onto his face. He is crying, pain etched on his face.

My heart aches for him. It’s a pain so consuming that my bruises feel reduced to mere scratches. Arenah’s words whisper in my mind:

“Roo loves his freedom. When he is out here, he can be himself.”

I remember how Roo was born with nothing, how he cultivated his magic endlessly to the point where he surpasses many magic users. To have worked so hard to have freedom, while also being who his country needs— that takes endless effort. But today, the desert proved to him that he can have neither.

Roo falls to his knees and bangs his head against the railing, over and over and over. The bit of branch Roo carved for us to lay on sinks down next to him. He doesn’t have the strength to hold us up anymore.

“My childhood… my home… my God, Chekagi… my…” He chokes and wails, mindlessly spilling words from quivering lips.

That wall looks less like a miracle and more like a fatal gash in Chekagi Tree.