“Of course.” She understood, perhaps better than most, how important information was and what effect it could have on people. After all, controlling the flow of information and knowledge was how the pathfinders began.
He reached out and tugged on a strand of hair that had fallen out of the small braid she’d attempted. “Would you spend the afternoon with me?”
There was a hint of vulnerability to his face that took Shea off guard. The word, “Yes,” was out of her mouth before she could stop it, even though she’d thought to follow up with the Airabel on the problem of the mist.
His half-smile widened, lighting up his entire face. An answering warmth filled Shea. She frowned, nonplussed that someone else’s emotions could have such an impact on her own. She wasn’t sure she liked it.
“I was planning to head to the treetop to get started on research, but I can take you around the village up there instead.” She gave him small smile of her own. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to show you.”
“Oh, and what’s stopped you before?”
She gave him a reproachful look. “Who is the one who decided to sneak out while I was asleep?”
He grinned repentantly. “You were sleeping so soundly; I couldn’t bring myself to bother you.”
Her glare said she was not amused. His statement reminded her of the argument they were going to have soon. The one she had put to the side in favor of the twin issues of the mist and the blight on his homelands distracting them.
“We will be talking about that,” Shea informed him. “And soon.”
He inclined his head. “I would expect no less.”
She huffed at him and stood. The moment wasn’t right, her issue seeming inconsequential in comparison to the other dangers they faced. She’d wait a little longer, maybe after she’d shown him some of the village.
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 tree-top 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.
