She turned to the door saying with a backwards glance, “Are you coming?”
He rolled to his feet, his stride that of a lethal predator as he stalked behind her. “An army couldn’t keep me away.”
She snorted and shook her head. Such a way with words.
CHAPTER SEVEN
IT TOOK over an hour to reach Airabel, a treetop village made up of an interconnected maze of pathways built by rope bridges and ladders. These shortcuts from thick branch to thick branch allowed the inhabitants to travel throughout the village without having to backtrack to the trunk of the tree. The trunk was the center around which life revolved; the village sprouting around it like a wheel, the branches being the spokes on which life flowed.
The villagers had risen to meet the challenges of life suspended hundreds of feet in the air by carving their homes directly into the tree. Some were nestled into the great trunk at the village’s heart. As the village population had grown along with the tree, they’d carved the base of their dwellings into the wood of the thick branches that reached out from the tree’s heart. They’d coaxed smaller branches to grow from the thicker limbs until they interwove, weaving them together to create the walls and roofs. Surprisingly, this process didn’t kill the branch or harm the tree.
Shea had asked how they were able to create living houses that grew and changed even as its inhabitants did but was told that it was a secret only the architects of their people knew. Though her curiosity had nearly consumed her, she had left them their secrets. The wonder she felt when she viewed these living houses was enough. She didn’t need to know how they were created to know they were special.
Around the base of the trunk, larger dwellings had been carved out to create meeting places for the entire village to gather. These buildings were much older than the ones further down the branches. As a result, the roofs towered high above the floor, the wood smooth and patterned with age.
The first time Shea had stood in one of those great chambers, she’d been left with an almost spiritual feeling—the space seeming almost holy with the lifeblood of the tree flowing all around it.
Today, Shea didn’t intend to show Fallon the trunk, as he’d seen it when he and his people had first come to a halt under the branches of the soul tree. No, there was something else she wanted him to see. Something that she had only discovered recently during one of the many times she had slipped away from Daere and the Anateri guards.
But first, she needed to locate one of the storytellers. They were her best bet in finding out some of the history behind why Airabel’s first inhabitants had chosen to settle here in the branches of the soul tree.
She led Fallon across one rope bridge after another, using the rope ladders to ascend or descend in a circuitous path that took them to the opposite side of the tree. They stopped in front of a red wooden door that sheltered a small hut. Though they were a fair distance from the trunk of the tree, the little house looked old and well cared for. The small branches to the sides and front of the building had little flowers sprouting from them, resulting in the house looking colorful and cheerful.
Shea raised her hand and knocked. She waited until the door creaked open and one pale-colored eye peered out through the crack.
“Good afternoon, Teller Laura. I was hoping I could have a moment of your time.”
The eye’s gaze shifted from Shea to Fallon and then disappeared into the darkness. The door yawned open.
Shea turned to Fallon. “I’ll just be a moment.”
Shea didn’t wait for a response, stepping in after the old woman as she shuffled to her back door. The little house had a small deck that the teller had set a rocking chair and a small desk on. It was a nice space, one that would allow the older woman to sit and enjoy the quiet and peace of the tree and its splendor without every passerby being able to see her.
“You’ve come about the mist,” Laura said as she lowered herself into her chair and picked up the yarn and knitting needles she had stashed in a basket at her side. She rocked back and forth as she worked the needles, the small scrap of knitting growing with each movement.
“I have. Is there anything in your stories about it?”
Laura’s smile was crooked as she looked up at Shea before turning her attention to Fallon who had followed Shea inside. “And who’s this?”
Fallon stepped forward, impressing Shea as he kept his nod polite and his voice respectful. “Fallon Hawkvale, Warlord of the Trateri.”
“Conqueror of the Lowlands. Would-be ruler of the Broken Lands,” Laura finished for him. “I’ve heard about you. Whoever tells your story in the end will be remembered for a long time.”
Fallon’s lips tilted into a grin. “Perhaps, lady, you will do me the honor.”
Laura snorted. “I doubt I’ll be around long enough for that. The years come quick when you get to my age.”
“You’ll probably outlive us all, Laura,” Shea said. “You look much the same as the day I first came here.”
Laura’s knitting paused. “How long’s that been?”
Shea thought about it. “Ten, maybe twelve years?”
Laura went back to rocking. “The days just float on by when you get to my age. Time was, such an event as the mist appearing would have sent me into a tizzy of worrying.”
“So, your people do have record of it,” Shea said.
Laura nodded. “We do, as I expect most villages that kept up with their past do. As your own people do.”
“Do your stories mention anything about the soul trees?”
Laura’s knitting paused, and her faded blue eyes swung to fix Shea with a long stare. “They might. What’s it to you?”
“I’d like to hear them. When we were lost, I thought I noticed something about the trees.”
Laura looked into the distance, her gaze faraway. She was silent for a long time—long enough for Fallon to step closer to Shea and place his hand on her back as he leaned down to say in a low voice, “Are you sure this woman is the right person to ask about this?”
“She’s one of the oldest in the village. She’s also a respected teller, someone who keeps the Airabel’s oral history and speaks it to her people at gatherings and when asked. If anybody knows anything, it will be her.”
Fallon gave her a look that said he had serious doubts that Laura was in the right mind to share anything of note.
“She’s also in possession of perfectly good hearing,” Laura said acerbically, fixing Fallon with a gimlet stare.
Amusement tinged Fallon’s eyes as he gave her a courteous bow of contrition.
Laura harrumphed. “You asked about the trees. I may know something.”
Shea leaned forward in interest.
Laura’s eyes shifted to Shea. “Did you feel it when you were there? The connections?”
Shea nodded. She had.