Annon drew a quavering breath. “Even though you have the power to take away memories, Phae, I do not wish it. I’ve heard Dryads are immortal. Perhaps the blast did not kill them.”
Phae nodded hopefully. “I would like to meet her someday. My mother, that is. I did meet the Dryad of your tree. She was very helpful. She gave me what I needed most—the knowledge of how to become like her. If I can cross into Mirrowen, Annon, I will see if they are there. After hearing about Mirrowen, I would like to see it for myself. It gives me something…to look forward to. Crossing the Scourgelands will be difficult. As long as there is something to hope for, I think I can bear it.”
“You are the key to solving the riddle,” Annon said, reaching out and putting his hand on hers. “The fate of us all is in your hands.”
Phae felt a thrill at his words, but also a sense of great responsibility and helplessness. “I am the weakest among you. I have the fireblood too, but I don’t want to use it. You are a Druidecht with great power. Everyone is going to be so much more useful along the way. But I will do what little part I can.” She swiped a strand of hair behind her ear. “If the worst sacrifice I must make is being trapped in a tree in the Scourgelands that no one can visit…I suppose that will be my sacrifice.”
He shook his head. “Every forest must be reborn eventually.” He sighed deeply. “It hurts, doesn’t it?”
Phae sighed and then cocked her head as Shion approached them. He sat down next to her. She noticed the look Annon gave him.
“What is it?” Phae asked the Druidecht.
“I’m sorry, but you look so different now.” Annon leaned forward, gazing at Shion. “When we first met, in a grove of trees outside the Alkire, he tried to kill us all. I see the face, see the same scars, but it is a different countenance now. You were in chains before. I see that now you are free. How did it happen?”
“I can tell you that story,” Phae said, looking over at Shion and smiling at him. “It is a scary story, Annon. I must warn you.”
“I should like to hear it,” Annon said.
“Before I tell it, there is something else you should hear first. Shion?” She held out her hand.
Her protector reached into his pocket and withdrew the golden locket. The firelight glimmered off its polished edge as he dangled it in front of him. A harmless piece of Paracelsus magic. Harmless, perhaps, but it was the magic that had begun to unravel the coils binding him to the Arch-Rike’s service. He handed it to her.
Annon stared at it with great curiosity. Phae held the locket between her fingers, feeling the warmth of the metal. The shock of the dead Druidecht in Canton Vaud flashed inside her mind. The air was full of misery and suffering. Slowly, she opened the locket.
The haunting melody began to drift in the air. Almost in unison, all eyes turned to Phae, drawn in by the spell of the mourning anthem that somehow, in that moment, captured how each of them was feeling.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
One of the causes (or consequences) of being a history major in college is an innate curiosity of how traditions come to be. As I studied ancient and medieval history, the more I learned about an era, the more I came to realize how insufficient the historical records are at divulging all the nuances of the past. Historical witnesses often contradict each other, obscuring the trail of what really happened. Truths we cling to as historical facts start to squeal like rusty hinges as you open the doors of the past. There is so much we do not know about the world we live in. Even looking back five hundred years is seeing through a glass darkly.
The loss of memory (history) is one of the themes of Dryad-Born. I’m sure by now you realize that while Possidius Adeodat is an interesting historian, he is clueless about the depths of the Arch-Rike’s machinations and often attributes the wrong motives to the people he is writing about. You have to take his biases into account as you read his words. So it is with history. We often take at face value a truth we have learned from someone else, but when we dig a little deeper, our understanding changes.