As they approached the large river, the sight of four boats coming down through the middle of it struck her gaze. Long boats ablaze with soft orange and yellow flames. She could still see some of the flowers they’d laid around the bodies in the boats.
The Venari who had decided to adorn the edge of the river in salute to their Honest brothers all laid their fists across their chests to the left, where the mark of the Honest would have been were they of their kind. Aydra and Lex did the same.
Once the boats were out of sight, Draven and Balandria turned and led them back into the forest towards their giver’s tree. The forest swallowed them once more. Aydra’s raven flittered from tree to tree above them as they walked. Within minutes, she could see the Forest begin to open up again, and the sight of the largest tree she’d ever laid eyes upon sat in the middle of the only open clearing in the forest.
Lex grabbed Aydra’s arm as they approached, and both of them stopped to stare at the beast of a tree before them.
It was practically a monster. The trunk of it was greater than any tree in the forest, thirty feet in diameter and black as the dead of night. The sunlight that had just graced the canopy seemed to hide upon their reaching it, despite there being an enormous gap between this tree’s canopy and the trees around it, as though the trees around it were terrified of their branches curling with this one’s.
The limbs were thin and twisting upwards, ivory instead of brown. The trunk, as black as it was, she knew was not made of wood, and neither was the limbs hovering over them.
Because the trunk was made from the tongues of his dead children, overlapping one another and wriggling in the still air like snake tongues.
And the limbs were a twisted mix of vines and curled bones of all the beings Duarb had ever taken back into his roots.
This was the curse Duarb had been forced into a hundred years earlier.
She wondered if his tree had been as beautiful as her own giver’s tree before he was cursed.
The fire torch Draven held in his hand, he waved over some of the curling roots jutted out from the earth. The roots seized and shriveled upwards, as though in fear of the fire over them. His men brought forward the ones they’d lost, and each was placed beneath Duarb’s roots.
The fire touched to cloth the men were wrapped in, and the flames engulfed the air. The ground rumbled. Lex grabbed Aydra’s arm.
“You don’t think…”
Aydra watched the roots wrap around the bodies then, and the ground quaked again. “I do,” Aydra whispered.
Duarb took their bones back from where they were born, and the fire engulfed their flesh.
Draven shifted, and he lifted his arms up in front of him, his forearms touching, fists in front of his face. They watched every other Hunter do the same, and saw the phoenix markings converge together to make up the whole bird on the backs of their arms.
The Venari people did not stay the entire time to watch their friends burn. But each one went up to Draven and placed their hand on his shoulder or hugged Balandria before making their way back to their homes.
Aydra stayed until it was just she, Balandria, and Draven left in the clearing. Lex left her and walked back to the home with a few of the friends she’d made. Aydra wasn’t sure what to say. The flames were dying when she finally mustered the audacity to step closer to them.
Balandria saw her out of the corner of her eye, and she gave Aydra a nod. Balandria squeezed Draven’s arm and then kissed his cheek, before turning and disappearing into the darkened forest.
Aydra pressed a hesitant hand to Draven’s shoulder and came around his side a few moments later. He did a slight double-take, and he swallowed hard as he met her gaze. Her heart ached for the pain he was going through, and she reached up to his reddened cheek, feeling her own tears rising in her eyes at the sight of the strongest man she knew breaking in front of her.
But it was when he dropped the torch and sank his arms around her that her heart shattered for him. He buried his head in the crook of her neck, and she felt the wet of his tears on her skin as she held him there until the flames completely died. She settled into the comforting vulnerability of his warm body, feeling her own relax against him, her hands stroking the back of his neck.
They didn’t speak, even after they parted and she pressed her lips to his forehead, they said no words to each other. She held his hand as they walked the hour back through the forest together. Every few moments, she would look back at him, watching his darkened expression as he strode with one hand in his pocket. She would squeeze his fingers and rub the outside of his hand gently when she saw him in a daze, and he would look up at her with a solemness in his features that she wasn’t sure how to take. But it was when she heard laughter and the sound of drums ringing in her ears from his forest kingdom, the noise of it echoing off the trunks of the trees, did she turn to him with a confused frown.
He huffed amusedly under his breath, the smallest of smiles rising at the corner of his lips, upon hearing the noises of his brethren. “Celebration of their lives,” he told her. “We eat their favorite foods, dance their favorite dances, tell our favorite stories of them…” He swallowed hard as he looked through the trees towards his home. “It’s our way of showing appreciation for the life they were given.”
“I like that,” Aydra said, returning his smile.
She started to walk again, but he tugged gently on her hand, her heart startling at the squeeze of his fingers, and she stepped back towards him with a slight frown. “What?”
His hand ran through his hair, and he pushed it over to the left side. “Thank you,” he said simply.
“For what?”
He fumbled with her hand a moment, thumb caressing the top of her knuckles. The sincerity of simply his hand toying with hers made her breaths shorten. As to how he brought her to a surrender by such a delicate touch, she didn’t understand.
“Holding him while he died,” he started. “Fighting with my people when you didn’t have to. Not saying any smart comments while the tears ran down my face—”
“Draven, you’re the strongest person I know,” she interjected. “If you need to weep, by all means, weep. You don’t have to be strong all the time. Especially in front of me.”
