Age of Myth (The Legends of the First Empire #1)

“You live out there, don’t you?” Persephone asked Suri while her wolf raced ahead of them. Minna paused to smell something before darting off again.

“Yes, ma’am.” Suri walked with long easy strides, swinging Tura’s wooden staff, which was slightly shorter and infinitely older than the girl.

“How do you do it? Live all by yourself, I mean. Aren’t you scared?”

“I’d be more frightened of living where you do.” Suri looked back over her shoulder at the dahl.

“I don’t live alone. There are over two hundred families on the dahl.”

Suri laughed.

“Did I say something funny?”

“Do you know how many families live in the forest, ma’am?”

“Families live in the forest?”

“Oh, yes. There are far too many to count: squirrels, foxes, badgers, spiders, rabbits, hedgehogs, snakes, deer, raccoons, bluebirds, woodpeckers, moose, grouse, owls, weasels, moles, skunks, doves, butterflies—can’t forget the butterflies.”

“But they aren’t people.”

“Exactly,” Suri said with a wink. “You’re starting to see my point, aren’t you, ma’am? I mean, who wouldn’t prefer a family of bunnies, robins, or raccoons as neighbors? And look at the place you live! So much wood decaying around you. Dead bodies aren’t a suitable home. The best neighbor you can have is a tree, a living tree. They listen more than they talk, provide shade on hot days, give you food and shelter, and don’t ask for anything in return.”

“What about the dangers? Bears, for example?”

“Oh,” Suri said with a knowing nod of her head. “Well, we’d have something to worry about if we were a couple of lilies.”

“How’s that?”

“Bears love to eat lilies, berries, ants, and mice. If you’re not one of those, bears can be quite nice. Playful, but also known to cheat.”

“Does that include The Brown?” Persephone asked with more bitterness than she had intended.

“Grin is…different.”

They were at the bottom of a hill, entering a pretty hardwood grove that was still open enough to be dappled by plenty of sunlight. This was where the bright birches of Persephone’s youth had grown. They were still there, chalk-white trunks of peeling bark and fresh, bright leaves.

Looking to their left, Suri did a little twirl and waved. Persephone didn’t see anyone.

“Who are you waving to?”

“Huh? Oh, there’s a holly bush over there I had a conversation with on the way in.” She lowered her voice. “Normally I don’t care much for bushes. Most are mean and standoffish, with their thorns and prickles. I suppose they have their reasons. I mean, absolutely everyone steals from them. But that holly was nice.”

With that, Suri strode onward.

They passed the birches, and the undergrowth changed to fiddlehead ferns. The elm tree had been near there, but after so many years, she couldn’t pick it out. Persephone’s steps slowed until, without realizing, she stopped. A few steps later Suri also halted, as did Minna. Both of them looked back at Persephone with a puzzled expression.

Persephone stood with her hands clenched as she stared at the dark trees ahead. From this point, the land sloped upward. The undergrowth and the forest canopy cast everything in shadow. “This is as far as I’ve ever been.”

Suri started to laugh but covered her mouth. “Sorry.”

“No, you’re right to laugh. It’s stupid. I’ve traveled north as far as Alon Rhist and south to the Blue Sea. I’ve visited all the dahls and have even seen Mount Mador, from a distance, of course. And although I’ve looked at the forest every morning from my bedroom window, I haven’t gone in, not beyond where the sunlight shines. Not that I needed to. I don’t hunt, or cut trees, and there’s nothing of interest inside.”

The tattoos above Suri’s eyes lifted in shock, but Persephone was too scared to be polite.

“They’re just trees, aren’t they?” Persephone said the words to reassure herself, but the fear was still there. The old terror clawed, tightening her stomach and making it hard to breathe. “Even a child…even a seven-year-old girl knows that.”

“Good.” Suri took three more strides, but Persephone still hadn’t moved. “Still coming?”

“Can I ask a favor?” Persephone reached out. “Would you…would you take my hand?”

Suri narrowed her eyes and glanced at Minna skeptically, then shrugged. “Ah…okay.”

Suri crossed back through the fiddleheads. The delicate plants quivered and bobbed at her passing, but she never stepped on any. Persephone felt the mystic’s tentative clasp.

“Lead on, Aria,” Persephone said.

“Who’s Aria?”

“A girl I used to know.”

Suri looked up. “You’re very odd, aren’t you, ma’am?”





CHAPTER EIGHT


Asking the Oak




Magda was an ancient oak tree that grew in a glade on a hill deep in the forest. It was said she could tell the future and would answer any question posed beneath her leaves. For most people, “asking the oak” was a simple thing, an afternoon’s walk. For Persephone, the trip took a day and a night and cost more than one life.

—THE BOOK OF BRIN





In her mind, Persephone always imagined that the forest beyond the black tree was a gaping maw of darkness filled with malevolent demons, ghosts, and cruel raow that ate people, starting with their faces. Stories told on winter nights spent in a circle around the lodge fire were to blame. Huddled with her feet toward the eternal flame, she had listened while the winds howled, rattling the doors as if something were trying to enter. Most often, stories were told as if they had happened to the speaker, or to a close friend if the hero died, a frequent occurrence. Few of the forest stories were pleasant. No one found fortune or their lost love. Each ended in misery or death. Little wonder, then, that Persephone was amazed by what she found beyond the forest eaves.

Trees with trunks larger than a roundhouse soared to astounding heights, supporting a vast green roof. Shafts of golden light pierced the canopy, painting complex and shifting patterns on a carpet of needles. Moss-covered rocks and beds of old leaves lent a softness similar to Sarah’s wool-filled home. At one point, Persephone spotted a pair of deer; delicate and beautiful they stood with heads raised and ears cocked. She glanced away for a moment, and when she looked back, the two had vanished as if they had been apparitions. Suri was right: This was a home—a home of gods—and the best was still to come.

The two had been climbing steadily since entering the trees, and Persephone wondered how they would be able to go much farther if the pitch grew any steeper. Then Suri led her to a crevice in the slope where water sprayed down a tumble of rocks where dirt had been washed away by a falling stream. The water splashed and gathered in pools that overflowed to create a tall, wet, and rocky staircase. A dreamy mist rose, watering lichen and turning the stone a glossy black.

“It’s beautiful,” Persephone shouted as she followed Suri up an irregular set of slick stone steps.

Climbing the steps was easier than navigating the dead leaves and thornbushes covering the hillside, but the ascent was steep and arduous. Persephone had to stop several times to rest, making Suri flop down on a rock above her where she’d sit, swinging her slender legs impatiently. When they were near the top, Persephone took a moment to look back down. They were quite high, and the cascade appeared smaller somehow, less majestic. Still, the play of water among the rocks was lovely. Movement near the bottom caught Persephone’s attention. Three men were in the process of climbing up.