For the fourth time, Bennen turned around to head back toward the stream, and the crater that Jac was napping in. Fourth time must be the charm, because finally he made it all the way there without tucking tail and running back to camp. Still, he couldn’t seem to get himself past the treeline.

He passed his staff from one hand to the next while he wiped his sweaty palms on his soil-stained pants, then adjusted the straw hat on his head. He tried to take a step toward her, but he and his staff were as rooted to the spot as the tree next to them.

Finally, it was the thought that she might wake up and see him standing there staring at her that finally motivated Ben to actually approach. He hoped that his footsteps, or the shadow his large hat cast over her perfect, serene face would wake her, but her eyes stayed closed, her chest rising and falling with each breath.

Ben quickly looked away, cheeks burning. He cleared his throat loudly, but still no reaction. He tried again.

Nothing.

Finally, he started to say, “Pardon—,” but his voice came out too soft, so this time he really did have to clear his throat.

Once more, “Pardon me.”

He waited. Dared to glance down at her. But she remained dead to the world, even as her skin glowed in the sunlight.

Ben used his staff to support him as he knelt at the side of the crater, then swept his dreadlocks and the tree charm that was woven into them behind his shoulder. Once again, a little louder, he said, “Pardon me. Jac?”

Now that he was closer, he could hear a faint snoring coming from her.

Briefly, he considered nudging her gently. But it was very briefly, because immediately the image of her snarl as she swung her hammer full-force at Tobei arose in his head.

Ben looked around wildly, beginning to panic. He was embarrassed at the thought of returning to camp knowing he’d failed, but equally as embarrassed at the thought of her actually waking up and seeing him.

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He didn’t want to disturb her sleep—she certainly needed it after the night she’d had. He just didn’t want her to get sunburned.

Ben tipped his hat back a bit to give the cloudless blue sky a quick glance. He had been growing herbs for Kadie to make burn salves for years. He knew how dangerous sunburns could be, how painful, even on darker skin. He couldn’t just leave her to bake out here. So he’d made sure there was an open bed in the infirmary for her to use, rehearsed his explanation for waking her several times, and now finally come to actually do it.

“Jac?”

Nothing.

Ben used his staff to pull himself back to a standing position and looked around like he might find the answer to his problem around the clearing. If only she’d fallen asleep a little closer to the tree-line where she was safely in the shade…

An idea struck him.

You’re a practitioner of nature magic, Bennen, he chided himself. Just bring the shade to her.

Ben pressed the base of his staff into the earth and went completely still.

Lushale was a land of movement magic. Even those who didn’t practice put weight on movement. Warriors, athletes, dancers—anyone who defined their life by movement—were lauded as the most powerful, the most desirable, the most valuable. Nearly every school of magic in the land taught mainly, if not only, movement magic. But even so, most everyone overlooked the fact that Stillness was a form of movement magic as well.

Nature magic, at least how Ben practiced it, was still. It was quiet. It was unshakable.

A sapling burst from the ground at the edge of Jac’s crater, and climbed its way up the air, toward the sun. Leaves sprung from wiggling branches and bark hardened over the stem. His young tree twisted out to arc over Jac’s sleeping form, and the branches wove themselves in and out of each other so only tiny slivers of sunlight shone through the leaves.

Ben paused momentarily to smile at his new tree, and reached out to touch one of its limbs. Immediately, a tiny green offshoot wound itself around the finger of its maker. He ran a thumb over it affectionately and, inspired, drew up a vine that climbed up and around his tree and directed it to drape tendrils heavy with bright yellow flowers around the edges of the canopy, to ensure Jac would remain shaded even when the sun shifted.

Ben nodded, satisfied. He unstuck himself from the ground—as often happened when he practiced, weeds and wildflowers had wrapped themselves around his feet—and brushed a few stray blooms from his hat and clothes, and headed back to camp to begin preparing the hangover meal Tobei often asked for. Ben thought Jac might appreciate it when she woke up.