Mira's Hope (7 page)

“What’s with you and violence?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she
replied calmly.

Elenio stood up once more, dusting the dirt
off his clothing and grumbling the entire time.

“I want to train against you and Tark once he
has woken up and everyone has eaten.”

“Are you trying to say that I’m not enough
for you?” Elenio asked with a look of fake indignation on his
face.

“That and...” she had to swat Elenio away
because he had come over and mussed her hair up in response to this
answer. “I have to concentrate harder when fighting against both of
you and I want to start practicing magic while I fight.”

Elenio nodded in agreement. “Sounds good to
me.” He grabbed a loaf of bread and chucked it at Tark, which
succeeded in waking him up when it bounced off his head.

Tark sat up quickly, looking dazed as he
tried to make sense of what was happening around him.

Galena giggled at the look on his face.

“Come on, lazy bones, the sun has been up for
over an hour and we need to start a new training program with
Galena that requires your talents as well.”

Tark mumbled something incoherent under his
breath, but got out from under his blankets and helped himself to
the loaf of bread Elenio had thrown at him.

* * * *

Over the next week, Galena worked hard trying
to defend herself both with her sword and magically, from the
onslaught of Tark and Elenio. They tested her far more effectively
than she thought possible, but at the same time, offered
encouragement and forgiveness when she sent them flying into a tree
several yards away. Most the time, she was able to stop them before
they went crashing into the nearest object surrounding their camp,
but when she got really going, she didn’t always remember in
time.

On one such occasion, she accidently sent
Elenio crashing into a large boulder that they had decided to stay
by, breaking several of his ribs and giving him a concussion.
Galena felt horrible and healed him immediately, but Elenio simply
shook it off and asked her if she was ready to continue. At least
he had once he was conscious and moving again. Galena was hesitant
after that, but after Elenio and Tark argued with her for a few
minutes that this training was necessary, she continued again. They
were taking more precautions though, like not practicing around
objects such as trees and rocks if it could be avoided.

She saw, as well as felt changes occurring in
her and through her. She had always been able to defend herself
fairly well with the sword, but when she first started this
regimen, she frequently had to stop and think of what she wanted
magically to happen. When this happened, she inevitably found
herself lying on the ground with a sword pointed at her.

However, as the weeks progressed, she found
herself developing different strategies for dealing with both of
them magically and with her sword, almost as if she were combining
the two skills. She imagined the wind sweeping one of them off
their feet with the swinging of her sword and as she swung, the
wind moved with her, as if it were an extension of her arm. She had
done the same thing using fire on a fallen branch a couple of
times. It was as if her sword had become what Morgo said was her
focal point and as such, she was able to become more efficient at
both.

They had training sessions first thing in the
morning and after their evening meals, which made their travelling
go slower, but Galena felt this was more necessary than finding the
cave at the moment. The terrified feeling she experienced every
time she thought of the cave, was reason enough to take their time
getting there. Learning to magically fight was just a bonus in her
mind. Once Tark saw how well Galena had progressed in such a short
time, he decided they should reduce the amount of training time
they spent with her every day. At least he claimed it was Galena’s
progression that brought him to this decision, but Galena suspected
the broken leg he suffered from being thrown into a tree, might
have helped him reach that decision a little more quickly. Either
way, she and Elenio agreed with him.

It was on that same day that Galena decided
it was time to grow another tree home for them to rest in for the
night. She was weary of sleeping on the ground and she knew the
others felt the same way. Plus, she desperate for a good hot bath
and a chance to clean her clothes. They were getting positively
stiff from the grit and grime that goes with traveling.

After waving off Elenio and Tark’s concerns,
she combed the area for any sign of a seed, realizing that it might
be too late in the season to find one. Finding none, she decided
she would try using a branch from a tree. She cut a small twig from
a nearby oak and finding a relatively empty space, used her knife,
and dug a small hole in the hard earth. She placed the part of the
twig that had been connected to the tree, in the hole and then sat
down beside it. She’d never heard of growing a tree this way, but
it was worth a try in her mind.

She closed her eyes and listened to the world
around her. She heard Twoit in her pack clawing around and possibly
throwing her things out once more. Tark and Elenio were a little
ways behind her from the sound of their breathing. The birds in the
woods around them chirped from time to time, too cold to really do
anything else. All of the other woodland animals were quiet, having
retired to their own homes because of the cold weather.

She concentrated on the small twig in front
of her. In her mind, she saw the development of roots, planting
themselves deep within the ground, giving the base a good support
system for the rest of its days. She watched it grow rapidly in her
mind, shooting to the sky as branches flowed out from the trunk. It
raced into the air, soon passing up all the neighboring trees,
making them seem dwarf size compared to this massive giant. She saw
the leaves sprout and then wither, dying when exposed to the frigid
temperatures surrounding them.

In her mind, the tree’s growth finally slowed
and she began to concentrate on the first room within the tree. She
imagined a few steps growing from the base, which led to an
elaborate door that suddenly split from the surrounding tree. She
was reminded of the way children played with blocks with the
exception that she was forming and rearranging slivers of wood like
living blocks. The slivers shifted and moved so quickly, it looked
like liquid moving to match the images in her mind.

She saw beautiful pictures take shape in the
door as she willed them to with her mind. The room inside of the
massive trunk was large and spacious, but dark as there were no
windows yet.
That is easily remedied,
she thought. She
willed the windows to take shape on either side of the door.
Deciding the home should have two floors; stairs began to grow from
the floor reaching a solid piece of tree directly above. When it
reached the ceiling of this room, she shaped a hole where the
stairs led to, causing the wood in the tree to shift and adjust,
moving out of the way, as it had done with the room below. The room
at the top of the stairs, she imagined to be a simple washroom,
complete with windows and a bath. It amazed her, even when she was
simply thinking of all of this, how quickly everything moved and
shifted with her thoughts. If she saw a picture of a rose in the
walls surrounding the room, it suddenly began to take shape and
then was there.

She returned her focus to the room below,
where she thought of large, comfortable beds. The beds, bigger than
she had ever seen, began to grow directly from the floor as the
stairs had done. They were simple structures, four legs and a mat
complete with thousands of leaves on the mat to make it
comfortable. These leaves, protected from the cold outside, stayed
green. Galena thought this would be a good comprise for straw
filled mattresses.

Satisfied with her imagined home, she opened
her eyes and beheld a mighty oak, standing well over three hundred
feet tall and wider than she had ever seen a tree, with a
beautifully decorated door and two windows on either side, directly
in front of her. It was just as she had imagined, and she hadn’t
even broken sweat making it.

Chapter
Nine

Rau stormed around the room, his anger
boiling over. The shadows around him writhed and squirmed every
time he approached. It had been nearly a week and still none of his
torlics had returned. Surely two puny elves and one dying one
couldn’t win against so many of the great brutes. Haulua was
expecting to see the body of the girl elf and so was he. He knew
she had to be dead because he still couldn’t feel her. There was no
way around his marks. Or was there?

Rau grew uneasy as he recalled what Haulua
said about Mira seeming too calm, too at peace with the whole
affair. Had she figured out a way around his marks? Had she freed
this bothersome elf from his chains? No, that couldn’t be possible.
He was Rau, ruler of the entire elf race. He was the one who caused
the elves to fall in the first place. He’d devised a plan that kept
them as slaves and would ultimately finish them altogether. Not
even the gods dared go against him, all except his lord.

His torlics were just having trouble finding
the pesky troublemakers that was all. They were probably hiding and
they had carried the elf girl’s body with them for some sentimental
reasons. He would send more of his forces out and search all of
Tomiro if he had too. No one would rest until the body of Galena
was brought to him.

Rau relaxed and walked over to his throne and
sat down. Yes, they were just hiding as they had been before, but
this time Rau wouldn’t give up so easily. He would even send some
of the narooks as well. It was just a matter of time before he
would be able to make this worthless elf a part of his decorations
at his castle.

Rau pulled the large rope that summoned his
generals. He would instruct them to search all of Tomiro. No place
would be safe until they recovered the bodies of the three elves
who started all of this.

Chapter
Ten

Galena stood up to take a closer look at her
creation. Walking up the stairs that looked exactly how she had
pictured them, she pushed open the door. There, on either side of
the large bottom room, were the huge beds with leaf mattresses
covering them. In the middle of the room, were the stairs she’d
imagined. She was sure if she climbed those stairs, she would find
a washroom at the top, complete with a bathing basin.

She noticed the home was still very cool, so
closing her eyes once more, she concentrated on trapping fire
within a ball of air to heat the tree as she had seen done in the
lodges they stayed at in the underground world. When she opened her
eyes, she was pleased to see several balls of fire were floating
around the room. She noted that they were already changing the
temperature within the tree home. Giggling over her
accomplishments, she turned to see what Tark and Elenio thought of
her creation and found them in a state of shock and amazement.

They hadn’t moved from where they sat behind
her, but instead of looking at her, they sat with their mouths open
and their eyes wide, looking at the massive tree.

“What do you think?” Galena called happily to
them.

Her question seemed to penetrate Tark’s
amazed stupor, because he shook his head slightly as if to wake
himself up, and then focused on Galena. “I think you have been
keeping something from us,” Tark said accusingly.

Elenio continued to stare at the magnificent
tree.

“Before, when you grew things, it seemed to
be hard work for you and the tree that you were working with.
Almost like the tree struggled with staying the same and doing what
you wanted. It took you hours to do simple structures. But this, it
seems like you sat down, simply thought of something, and instantly
the tree started moving the way that you imagined.” Tark returned
his gaze to the tree, a look of amazement creeping over his
features again.

Galena walked over to Elenio and snapped her
fingers in front of his face to wake him up from his trance. She
watched as his eyes refocused on her and then he was up on his
feet, holding her by her upper arms and shaking her slightly.

“Haven’t you learned your lesson yet? You
could have killed yourself growing that monstrosity.” He shook her
once more for emphasis.

She put her hands over his and looked up at
him, a look of patience on her face. She knew he’d been through a
terrible ordeal when he thought he’d lost her and she couldn’t get
angry with him, because it would only make matters worse.

“Elenio, look at me. Do I look like I’m about
to collapse?”

He dropped his hands from her arms as his
eyes searched her over for any indication she’d done too much. She
was pleased when he went from looking angry to mystified once he
realized there was nothing wrong with her.

“I didn’t even break a sweat. I don’t have
the marks to limit me anymore, so I need you to relax and trust
me.”

“Morgo said even bigger stuff required more
practice or more elves,” Elenio said a bit numbly.

“Mira told me I have more power than most
elves too.” Galena shyly looked up at Elenio with this statement.
It felt like she was bragging, which was something that she simply
detested doing. “I’m not your average elf.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“I didn’t want you to get your hopes up.”

“I don’t think that’s possible, because in
the end, you still have to go against Rau. I don’t want to go in
with a big head and have the whole thing thrown back in my face.
But I do think this edges our chances a little more.” He almost
smiled at her then. Kissing her on the nose, he brought her in for
a warm embrace. “Don’t keep secrets from me anymore. If we can’t
tell each other everything, we’ll never be able to trust each other
fully.”