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"What are you doing?" he roared

"Digging," Gray snapped "Theran, you take the other shovel Cassie’s already done enough"

"There’s so Theran’s eyes blaze with fury as he looked at the cru is alive down there"

His face iped clean of everything but his fury Then he seemed to absorb the words "Alive?"

She nodded

Gray hadn’t stopped digging Now Theran threw hihed when she saw Shira, Ranon, Powell, and a few others, including several servants, heading toward her to find out as happening now

More often than not these days, she felt like a one-wo without an audience

"Can’t they use Craft to move the dirt?" Shira asked

Gray and Theran both stopped digging and looked at her

Cassidy stared at the hole for a moment, then closed her eyes Blood to blood But this didn’t start when she sliced her finger just now This started when she had worked her hands bloody trying to run from the pain caused by Theran’s words

Her blood had smeared on rocks, hadwith the land

If they tried to do this without sweat, without toil, they would find nothing worth having

"We can’t use Craft," she said

Theran and Gray went back to digging The ground kept cruot the wheelbarrow and another shovel in order to shift the dirt Otherwith servants and

And it was Theran and Gray who found the old locked chest and dragged it out of the hole

One blow of a shovel broke the lock Theran opened the chest, then sat back on his heels, his face filled with disappointment

Cassidy picked up one of the pieces and felt the preservation spells begin to break

"Why would anyone go to this much trouble to preserve sorow, Cassidy thought

"Those are honey pears," Gray said, one hand hovering over the other pieces in the chest

"Not like any I’ve seen," Shira said "There are a few orchards left on the Shalador reserves, but the trees are dying off, and the fruit is srows from these will have the taste of memories

The preservation spell suddenly broke, and the fruit in her hand felt pulpy, already decaying

"We have to plant these now," Cassidy said "Give theive them care, and new orchards will coht," Gray said as he picked up a handful of soil "This is perfect"

Cassidy looked at Gray "Hurry I don’t think there’s et them into soil once the preservation spells break"

"Pots," Gray said "We’ll start them in pots so we can put the to his feet "There are pots in the shed"

The pear she held turned to lifeless mush

Theran stared at it for a moment, then swore and raced to catch up to Gray, followed by Ranon and Shira

They each ran back hugging a pot

Cassidy stripped off her gloves and dropped the shields around her hands She needed a connection to the soil and the pears, without barriers

"Gray, you and Cassidy should do the planting," Theran said "You both seem to have a feel for this"

What was in his voice? Cassidy wondered Annoyance? Bitterness? It would take years for these trees to grow and bear fruit, but wasn’t a living symbol better than a dead one?

She didn’t ask Didn’t really care What ths to preserve

Gray filled pots with soil as Cassidy held each pear at the right depth, releasing the fruits gently one by one until there was only one left in the chest that hadn’t turned to mush

"One more," she said

"No "

"We got twelve planted"

But there’s still one left

She ran to the shed, probably pissing him off because she didn’t take his word for it, but she couldn’t care about that

So bench and then the rest of the shed Anything

The jumble of broken tools in the back left corner looked like it had been rus aside for another look

And found a pot with soht as she shifted it to get a better look And smaller than the others because it was divided into two sections, but still big enough