A burst of wind banged the window open. I rushed to it and closed it against the pounding thunderstorm.
Rain splattered my clothes, and I twisted the window lock shut. Lightning flashed in the dark sky, the moon fully hidden by the storm.
It would be a few more hours before dawn when Liora would come to tend to me. I wondered how much I could read by then.
After rushing back to bed, I climbed on top and curled the blanket around me, then I turned the lantern nozzle to make the room brighter.
Thunder cracked in the night, and I gripped the blanket tighter, the dampness creeping into the room. The fire in the hearth flickered, and I decided I’d better add another log before the temperature dropped.
After I padded across the stone floor, the blanket wrapped around me, I grabbed another log from the nearby pile and carefully tossed it in. The fire dimmed until I took the poker and positioned the log in a better place.
Heat blazed from the hearth, removing the sudden chill.
“That’s better.” Sighing, I scurried back to bed and to reading the next entry.
Idon't knowwhat to do. Mother hasn't returned. I'm alone here with only plants to talk to.
Washe in the realm of the dryads?
Out of all the places in Saol, the realm of the dryads was a sacred place, only accessible by those whom the dryads trusted. They were ancient keepers of the great Life Tree, the heart of our world.
Unless you had the markings and the right passphrase, nobody was allowed in. There were fables and tales about dryads. I had never seen one, though. I would have loved to have met the walking plant creatures who were a mix of fae, flowers, and tree.
Eager to know more, I flipped to the next entry.
He wrote about the different plants and the animals, and I squealed when I read the next line.
They can speakwith their minds.
My heart swelledat the thought.
Even with my ability, I couldn't commune with flowers and Kane could speak to them? How exciting!
I put the book down and lay on my stomach, flipping to another entry dated thirty days later.
No one has comefor me.
A familiar achebloomed in my chest, the pain of being abandoned by your family. Memories of my mother saying goodbye to me at the temple with a smile on her face had haunted me for years. That pain increased when my mother and father had more children and suddenly I was forgotten. Theirvisits became less and less until it was clear they no longer cared about me.
Even though I didn’t want to remember, that memory of the first day at the temple rushed in like an unwanted flood.
For hours, I’d cried, completely inconsolable. I begged the priestesses to let me go home and be with my family, and when my grandparents showed up to see me, the guards had to escort them out.
I belonged to the temple.
If it wasn’t for that gentle priestess, Madeline, who sang me to sleep, rocking me like a baby, I didn’t think I ever would’ve stopped crying.
A tear splashed across the diary, blurring the ink.
Why hasn'tshe come for me? Why hasn't Tallis? Are they dead? Am I the only one alive?
He was just a child.
Where I had at least known my parents were in the village and they could come visit every so often, I wasn’t truly alone, even though it felt like that sometimes. Kane was alone and he didn't know why.
I finished reading the next page.
They've abandoned me,or they're all dead. I don’t know how to get back home and no one here will show me. It’s been years now. Why? Why can’t I go home? I don’t want to be here anymore with stupid plants! I want my mother.
