“Your Majesty.” He bowed deeply and lifted his eyes to smile in that slow, seductive way of his that made her heart leap into her throat. “Your beauty, my queen, still shines as brilliant as the sun, and I am but a poor, withered bloom too long absent from your radiance.”
From any other courtier, such effusive, overblown compliments would sound ridiculous. But Vale spoke with such a ring of sincerity, the words fell like beautiful poetry from his lips. It was all she could do to maintain her composure and say, “We are glad you are returned to us, Ser,” in a modulated voice when what she wanted to do was leap and shout for joy, as giddy as a schoolgirl deep in the throes of her first crush.
Vale was back.
CHAPTERSIXTEEN
Elvia ~ Deep Woods
Six days after leaving the Dreamer River, the Fey approached the heart of Deep Woods. Close-knit stands of trees vying for sunlight and rich soil gave way to fewer, much older trees, massive arboreal giants that soared so high Ellysetta thought their treetops might just pierce the clouds.
She glanced back at Rain as he rode through a shaft of sunlight, and for a moment, she saw him differently, as if a second image were superimposed atop him. Rain, but not Rain. His hair a deep bronze rather than black, his muscular body encased in gleaming silver armor, not golden war steel. The image reminded her of the man she’d seen in that strange vision she’d had in the Dreamer. The vision she and Rain had both shared.
Ellysetta was convinced they’d seen a glimpse of the life of Fellana the Bright—the tairen who had transformed herself into a Fey woman to be with the Fey king she loved. But when she’d asked Fanor about it, all he’d said was that the Dreamer showed what it liked. The vision could have been the past or the future or possibly a vision born of their own dilemma that had never truly existed, nor ever would. The point was to find meaning in the vision that they could apply to their current situation.
She blinked, and the image of the bronze-haired Fey king disappeared. What meaning was she supposed to have gained? Was she supposed to accept that her tairen would never find its wings? That she and Rain had lived before—or would again? That love was a choice and she just needed to accept it to complete their bond?
Fanor had said the Dreamer River would enlighten them, but all it had done was confuse her more.
Ellysetta ducked her head to miss a low-hanging branch that was as big around as the trunk of a hundred-year-old fireoak. “These trees are incredible,” she said to Rain as they rode past the massive trunk of the colossus. “They remind me of the Sentinels outside of Dharsa, only much, much larger.” The Fey and the Elves were riding single file down a narrow trail that wound through the ferns carpeting the forest floor. Beams of sunlight filtered down from the canopy overhead, illuminating the rich, vivid green hues of the undergrowth and the golden tones of the smooth tree trunks so that the forest seemed to glow with radiant light.
“TheseareSentinels,” Rain said. “The ones in Dharsa came from the Elves, a gift long ago, when our two races lived as one. But these are much older even than those.” His body swayed to the leisurely walking pace of hisba’houdamount.
“They are the watchers of the wood,” Fanor said. “Nothing escapes their notice—or their memory—and they live for a very long time.”
“How long?” Ellysetta asked.
“Longer than any Elf or Fey.” The Elf leaned left in his saddle and patted a nearby tree whose trunk was at least a full tairen length wide. He murmured a stream of lyrical Elvish to it, and the tree’s branches fluttered in response. “This Sentinel, for instance, has lived since the dawn of the Third Age. He is a fine young tree.”
Ellysetta laughed. “Young? The Third Age began at least a hundred thousand years ago.”
Fanor smiled. “It’s young for a Sentinel. In Navahele, the oldest of the ancients there put down his roots in the Time Before Memory, before the First Age.”
Her jaw dropped. “But that was over a million years ago.”
“Bayas, so it was. He and the other ancients of Navahele hold in their life rings many memories long since forgotten by the rest of the world.”
“Do they share those memories?” Rain asked.
“Not with me.” Fanor ducked his head to miss a low-hanging branch. “The ancients speak only to the king and queen of Elvia, Lord Galad and his sister Ilona Brighthand, the Lady of Silvermist.”
As they rode up the crest of a hill, Fanor’s face brightened. “We are here.” He spurred his mount faster, and theba’houdatook off. When they reached the top of the crest, Fanor reined his mount to a halt and waited for the others to catch up.
“Behold,” he said when they drew near, “Navahele. City of the ancients.” A smile of joy and pride spread across his face and made his skin glow with a soft golden aura.
Ellysetta drew back on her mount’s reins, pulling the mare to a halt at the top of the hill. She stared down into the valley below with dawning wonder. whatever she’d been expecting, it wasn’t this.
There were no buildings.
Navahele wasn’t just a city in the trees; it was a cityofthe trees. Rings of Sentinels nearly twice the size of any they’d seen so far were twined together in overlapping harmony. Their glossy golden trunks and branches had grown into living cathedrals in which the Elves dwelled. Stairs circled massive trunks, and bridges crisscrossed the air above, all formed from branches, vines, and other symbiotic vegetation that grew along the great Sentinels’ trunks and branches. Columns and elegant latticework of supporting roots grew in graceful splendor beneath the heaviest branches in a manner similar to bania trees. Leaf- and flower-covered vines hung from the canopy like ribbons around which birds and a dazzling array of butterflies fluttered like flying jewels.
“Come,” Fanor said. He touched his heels to his mount’s side, spurring the horse down the trail towards the stunning city of trees. “My people are expecting us.”
Leaving their mounts at the bottom of the hill, the Fey followed Fanor as he led the way through the central grove of colossal, ancient trees. Thick, spongy moss, soft as eiderdown, carpeted the ground below the great branches. Each step was like walking on clouds.
Ellysetta couldn’t stop herself from craning her neck and gawking like an awestruck child as, behind every tree, she found a scene of utter pastoral tranquillity. Clear streams burbled over rounded stones, and lacy waterfalls tumbled in musical white waves down moss-covered boulders. Everywhere, creatures of myth and legend abounded—animals and birds that had long since disappeared from the mortal world.
“Is that a…Shadar?” she whispered to Fanor when she caught sight of a trio of Elf maids weaving flower garlands into the long, lustrous mane and tail of an enormous white stallion with a single, spiraling horn sprouting from its forehead. The stallion turned its proud head in Ellysetta’s direction, then whickered and pawed the mossy ground with gleaming silver hooves. The soft laughter of the Elf maidens fell silent as they watched Ellysetta and the Fey pass.
