Breath of Angel (13 page)

After crossing the deserted caravan road, they approached the dark mass of swaying trees. At the edge of the woods, Livia whistled a birdlike warble. An echoing trill sounded ahead, and Livia took the lead, guiding them into the forest, which was as deep and dark as Hanni had said. But at least the tree trunks served as a windbreak, a shelter of sorts.

Shhhelter, shhhelter
, swished the upper reaches of the trees. Waves of wind gusted through the boughs, and dry leaves pelted down. Melaia kept her eyes on Livia and the trail before her, but her ears pricked to the sighs and shivers and soughs of the trees. Surely this was a forest with dark secrets. The thought drew her and repelled her at the same time.

As they plodded on, Livia now and then whistled a short trill. An answer always rang from somewhere above. At last Livia slowed, apparently searching for something along a laurel hedge. After a few moments she pointed to an arbor that arched over a door hidden among the leaves. Placing the flat of her hand against the door, she bowed her head. The door unlatched with a click, and Melaia jumped. Her heart beat as if it were in her throat. Should she enter?

Shhhould shhhee? Shhhould shhhee?
Melaia frowned at the echoing branches.

“What’s your worry?” Pym asked her.

“Are you hearing your own thoughts?” asked Melaia.

“I’m hearing my own stomach,” said Pym. “I hope there’s food inside.”

As Livia eased the door open, a warm, woodsy fragrance wafted out. Melaia wondered if choosing to enter this place would be her last act of freedom. She took a deep breath and let Livia usher her inside with Pym. The door clicked shut behind them.

“Welcome to Wodehall,” said Livia.

Melaia strained to see in the darkness.

“Who’s there?” A nasal voice drifted toward them, and a lamp flame flared in the hands of a sylvan, who padded down a curved staircase carved into the back wall. Thin green legs poked out from under his long bedshirt. A gray green beard vined from his chin to his waist.

Melaia couldn’t help staring at this strange angel. Then he held the lamp higher, spilling light into the room, and her gaze turned to her surroundings. The room was circular and as wide as two of the king’s great halls put together. The ceiling soared high overhead.

“Livia!” The sylvan’s face wrinkled in a grin.

Livia smoothed back her dusky hair. “I’m sorry we’ve come unannounced, Noll.”

“Twiddlesticks! You were announced by the lookout. He just had no knowledge of who you were. You’d never have gotten past him, you know, if you’d not given the whistle.” He nodded at Pym and Melaia. “Who might these honorable guests be?”

“Armsman Pymbric.” Pym saluted.

“Ah!” Noll nodded approval. “In service of which comain, may I ask?”

“Main Undrian. Until he disappeared, that is.” Pym ran a hand across his hair, which promptly sprang back to its weedy state. “I’m in search of him. If you have any news, I’d be grateful to hear it.”

“No tidings here,” said Noll. “But if I learn anything in that vein, you’ll be the first to know.” He turned his pale green eyes to Melaia and squinted a smile.

“This is Melaia,” said Livia. “Hanamel’s ward.”

Noll eyed Melaia. “Can it be?”

Melaia tried to picture a sylvan bringing her as a baby to the temple in
Navia. She knew she should greet Noll, but she couldn’t find her voice, for the thought of Navia had reminded her of raiders at its gates.

“By the Ancient!” said Noll. He grabbed Melaia’s hand. “Great glades! Esper!” he called. “Esper! Hurry down!”

“Did you get my message?” Livia asked.

“I did,” said Noll, his twiggy fingers still around Melaia’s hand. “I called for a meeting of the Angelaeon. The first of them has already arrived.”

“Who is it, Noll?” Another sylvan bobbed down the stairs, green as the first, but this one an apple-plump woman with long white hair.

Noll leaned close to Melaia. “My wife, Esper.” He called to the plump woman, “Livia and her friend Pym are here with Hanamel’s ward, Melaia.”

Esper rushed over. “Melaia? Bless us!” Her hands went to her flushed cheeks. “I last saw you when you were newborn!”

Melaia’s heartbeat quickened. “You know who my parents are, then.”

“We’re a safe haven here. Your mother came to us knowing she was with child.” Esper fanned her face with both hands. “Mercy me! Here we are, gabbing in the mid of the night. There’ll be plenty of time for talk on the morrow. Come now. To bed with all of you. Ladies in bower rooms.” She turned to Pym. “Do you think you could content yourself with a nook near the larder?”

“
Content
would indeed be the word for it.” Pym patted his belly.

“I myself have always wished to sleep near the larder.” Noll winked.

“Milkweed!” said Esper. “You’d not do much sleeping, and there’d be nothing left for meals on the morrow.” She shuffled Melaia and Livia to the spiral staircase and led them up. In a chamber off the second-floor landing, Esper laid out a sleep shift for Melaia. Then she accompanied Livia upstairs.

Melaia changed into the shift, tired but frustrated that Esper had not revealed her parents’ identities. Tomorrow, she thought. Tomorrow would bring answers.

As she sank into the mat and closed her eyes, she saw again the view from the top of the king’s tower in Redcliff, felt Trevin’s hands at her waist.

“I trusted him,” she murmured. And he had taken her straight to Lord Rejius. I’m a fool, she thought. A shameful, empty-headed fool.

Outdoors the wind roared through the trees.
Shhhameful. Shhhameful
.

She drew the covers over her head.

Melaia awoke to muted voices drifting up from downstairs. After dressing, she padded onto the landing and gazed up the spiral staircase in awe. Boxy lanterns filled with glowing lichen lit the stairwell, which circled walls of red brown wood as high as she could see. What’s more, she sensed the chatter of tree-thought, warm and vibrant, flowing just beyond her range of hearing. Stroking the polished ruddy wall, she realized Wodehall was a giant tree, and she was within its amazing, expansive, wondrous trunk.

Shhh, shhh
, came the tree-thought, calming her spirit. Melaia inhaled the spicewood fragrance, which reminded her of incense. Surely this was a holy place, the temple of the woods.

“Why didn’t Hanni like it here?” she wondered aloud.

“She did, pipit. For a time.” Esper bobbed up the stairs behind Melaia, carrying a cloth-draped tray that smelled of fresh-baked bread. A grin brightened her pale green face. “You like our inn? Few kyparis trees have survived to this day. I’m proud to say that since the Wisdom Tree fell, Wodehall is the tallest.”

“The Wisdom Tree looked like this?”

“Same type of wood. But Wodehall doesn’t bear fruit. And the stairway of the Wisdom Tree was pure light leading to the heavens. Ours leads only to the lookout. Noll is up there now, keeping an eye on draks circling the woods this morn.”

“Draks, here?”

“Spy-birds do appear from time to time. With the Angelaeon gathering, draks are to be expected.”

“How many angels will be here?” asked Melaia, uneasy.

“Depends on how many answer the call,” said Esper. “A dozen? A score? I hope they fill the whole of the common room.”

Melaia thought of Hanni’s warning, and her resolve cracked like an eggshell. “I have to go back to Navia,” she said. “Today.”

“But we’ve so much to talk about.” Esper handed the fragrant tray to Melaia. “Be a dear and take Noll’s lunch to him in the tower for me.”

“Lunch? Have I slept that late?”

“Aye, pipit. Most likely you needed the rest. There’s enough on the tray for you too, if you’ve a mind to eat. Just take it to the tiptop of the stairs.”

Melaia headed up with the tray, wondering if this was Esper’s way of keeping her here. What else would she find for Hanamel’s ward to do? A day could easily turn into a week, weeks into months, months into years. Hanni had liked it.
For a time
.

At the top of the stairway, Melaia stepped out onto a landing that widened into a room half the size of the common room. Its walls extended upward the height of two more floors. But there was no roof. Instead, from the center of the room a second tree grew, thin trunked, straight and tall like a column. High overhead it sprouted into a broad-leafed canopy. Its leaves tossed wildly in a howling wind.

Noll clung to the top of the swaying trunk. As Melaia stared up, he glanced down. “Melaia! Find the bench and sit tight.”

He scrambled through the leaves and disappeared. Other sylvans scampered around in the crown of the tree. Arrows zinged.

A drak broke through the canopy and hurtled down. Melaia scooted to the bench, trying not to spill Noll’s lunch. The drak’s spirit spiraled free as it fell, and its body thudded to the landing, an arrow in its heart, its eyes wide and staring.

Then it began to transform. A stem. Branches. Leaves. Within moments the drak had become a dark-stemmed bush with dull black green leaves and two gray eye-blossoms.

“Aha!” cheered Noll. “Another soul freed.”

“To go where?” asked Melaia.

“That’s the thorn of it. In the olden days it would have crossed the stairway to the heavens.” Noll scampered down and studied the drak-bush. “That’s a pretty one, if I do say so myself.”

Melaia stared at the eye-blossoms and shuddered. “Do all draks become bushes when they die?”

“Any creature shot with sylvan arrows takes root and branches out.” Noll eyed the tray and sniffed. “Might this be lunch?” He lifted the cloth. A loaf of bread lay on a bed of broad leaves. Beside it sat a pot of honey. He broke off a hunk of the bread, drizzled honey on it, placed it on a large leaf, and handed it to Melaia. Then he nodded at the drak-bush. “No need to worry. I’m steward of the Durenwoods, and I see to it that draks find a prickly welcome when they venture into the sylvan realm.” He licked a drip of honey from one of his fingers.

“How far can you see from the lookout?” asked Melaia. “Can you see Navia? Do you have news from there?”

“Can’t see that far,” said Noll. “I heard raiders attacked, but I know nothing of how the city fared.”

“I have news of Navia.” Livia strode into the room, regal in her cloak. Over her shoulder she carried a large deerskin bag. She eyed the fallen drak as she circled it.

“And?” Melaia set aside her bread.

“Raiders broke down the gates,” said Livia. “Some buildings were ransacked; others went untouched. I hear the temple looks as though someone turned it inside out. The high priestess has a great deal of work to do if she’s to clean it up.”

“She’s not harmed, then?”

“She and the girls hid in the underground storehouse.”

“I’ll return to Navia right away,” said Melaia. “They’ll need my help.”

“First, I have something to show you.” Livia drew a thin, square board from the bag and set it on the bench beside Melaia. The design etched on top matched the carving on the cover of Dreia’s book. The sign of the Tree. But a
central path crossed from the crown of the Tree to the opposite edge of the board.

Noll leaned in to look. “I’ve not seen that in many a year.”

“What is it?” Melaia stroked the etching.

“A game.” Livia pulled a pouch from the bag and gently poured out a die and a set of miniature wooden figures, intricately carved. As she set them in marked squares at the foot of the tree, she called out their races. “Sylvan, Erielyon, dwarf, Windwing, human, Archae.”

Melaia eyed them. Each figure was different from the others, but their races were obvious. Thin-limbed, long-nosed sylvans. Humans of various sizes. Winged, human-looking Erielyon. Potbellied, round-faced dwarfs and slick-haired, thin dwarfs. Winged horses, the Windwings. And five tall, fragile-looking Archae—two men, three women, each rising from a different base: water, earth, fire, an airy cloud, and a bush.

“They’re exquisite,” said Melaia. “Surely you don’t let people actually play with this.”

“Only special guests.” Livia pointed to the figures nearest Melaia. “These will be your figures; the others mine.” She handed Melaia a die. “We take turns rolling the die. You may move one of your figures the number of spaces equal to the number of dots on the die. Or you may split the move between any of your figures. The goal is to be the first to get all your figures up the tree, across the stairway to heaven, and into Avellan.”

Melaia scowled. “Navia is in shambles after a raid, draks circle the woods, and you want to play a game?”

Livia shrugged her broad shoulders. “We’ll make it a short game.”

Melaia shook her head and rolled the die. It landed with two spots up.

“Move two spaces up the trunk,” said Noll.

Melaia selected an Erielyon, a woman with wings. As she picked it up, a tiny green leaf sprouted from its base. She almost dropped the piece in her hurry to set it down. “Great shades!” she said. “This is like Benasin’s harp. Enchanted somehow.”

Livia threw the die and moved a sylvan five spaces ahead. The sylvan didn’t sprout. She pointed to a dwarf. “Try this one.”

Melaia rolled the die. As she moved the dwarf three spaces, a leaf appeared on it. “Which ones sprout?” she asked.