A Forest of Stars - Kevin J. Anderson [211]
Even the nineteen green priests who had volunteered to assist the Earth Defense Forces with instantaneous communications would be making immediate reports to the Hansa military. His sisters Estarra and Sarein would hear the news from the court green priest in the WhisperPalace.
Confused by all the uproar, Idriss and Alexa finally hurried into the throne room together. “What is it? What’s happening?” Celli, his youngest sister, also bounded into the room, smiling—but her expression instantly fell.
“It’s Beneto,” said Reynald, but the words caught in his throat. “The hydrogues…” He couldn’t say anything else.
The young green priest clutched the treeling, forcing himself to remain connected through telink. “Ah, now they have begun to destroy the grove! The trees!” He hissed in pain.
“Beneto is still there. The worldtrees are withering. So cold…Nothing can withstand it. They can’t escape. The hydrogues keep coming and coming. Ten more worldtrees dead…thirty. It is a slaughter! Beneto is still holding on, but they’re almost upon him. He says—”
Then the young priest snatched his hands away from the treeling with a cry of agony. “A white blaze…filling my mind!” He pressed his palms to his temples and shuddered.
Idriss and Alexa gasped at each other in shock. “Beneto?”
Old Lia began to sob, and Uthair clutched her arm, drawing and offering comfort. Touching Celli’s shoulder, Reynald felt numb, unable to do anything. Corvus Landing was so far away.
The young green priest looked at his hands as if they had been burned, then inspected the treeling to see if it, too, might have suffered terrible blight.
“Beneto is dead. Every tree in the grove is dead. All of Corvus Landing is annihilated.” He shuddered. “Everything…gone.”
110
QUEEN ESTARRA
When she could no longer endure the doting attention, applause, and sparkling eyes of people dazzled with her celebrity, Estarra hurried back to the royal wing in the WhisperPalace to be alone with her sadness. She would never see poor Beneto again.
Since the wedding day, every person in the Terran Hanseatic League had admired Estarra for the way she walked or the way she dressed. Another woman might have basked in all the attention, but Estarra felt as if she were suffocating. She didn’t want this, especially not now—not after Corvus Landing.
She hadn’t even had time to grieve for her brother. They wouldn’t give her a moment’s peace.
During the hydrogue strike, the court green priest Nahton had relayed to a horrified Estarra and her husband every instant of the destruction. While Peter stood beside her, holding her, Nahton described all the awful things he saw through his treeling, the annihilation of ColonyTown, the destruction of the entire grove. He was barely able to control his own sickened terror. Estarra had wept to hear Beneto’s last words as recited across the worldforest network. And then his death…
The courtiers who expressed feigned sympathy to Estarra had never even met her brother; most of them had not heard of Corvus Landing. However, the immediacy of Beneto’s direct report had increased the public outrage. The hydrogues were like mad dogs, merciless, on the rampage.
Estarra pictured Beneto in his last moments, bravely clasping the nearest worldtree, sending his thoughts, his very soul, into the trees as the ancient enemies obliterated the entire defenseless grove. And then moved on to search for their next target…
Estarra did appreciate the obviously heartfelt sympathy from the general populace, however. They sent flowers and poems and notes; they built impromptu memorials, not just for their Queen’s green priest brother, but for all the innocent Hansa colonists on Corvus Landing. They had been bystanders in a war the humans had never wanted. Now they were victims.
This tragedy, and continued reminders of humanity’s desperate situation, helped to heal the still-painful wounds