Dragons and Trees
DAPHNE
The winds begin to chafe me and my eyes feel as if they may crack with just the simplest of winks.
It has been hours since we started along this stretch along the trench and I feel it when Trielle begins to tire, she and Delago pulling up shorter and shorter as daylight nears.
We have ridden in silence the entire way and for the first few hours I was able to entertain myself with the view of the terrain high upon the land on either side of the soaring Alley walls.
It’s like roving through a great crack in the earth as we pass petrified roots and falls of timber, scattered rocks and wilted moss. Like a dead river, the trench appears drained of life.
Drained of magic.
Yet I have started to feel mine pulsing in my chest. At least, that is what I believe it to be.
Stronger and stronger the sensation becomes with every hoofbeat north.
It burns almost tragically… remorsefully. As if in memory of my mother. It’s the oddest thing, but I know it to be true. My magic longs for her and consequently I am beginning to as well. Although I never met her. Although I never will.
A whisper sounds between my ears, ”They follow you, darling. Within the trees. And they are afraid.”
I gasp as the book burns against my side, heating within the pocket of my cloak and causing me to jerk upright. So much that Klyesque notices.
“What is it, Daphne?” she shouts to me.
At first I don’t answer her, my eyes floating up toward the towers of earth that encase us on our right and left. At some point on the left, the rocks on higher ground began to change. Morphing from the shattered mountains of Rekyr into great big rounded boulders in a color it is still too dark to name.
On the right, the trees of the woodland realm that branched out in twined branches so thick with teal green leaves that they nearly blotted out the sky have transgressed into mingles of bright emerald and evergreen with gold tipped pine needles that nearly sparkle in the moonlight and large oaks with handlike fronds edged in a glitter of of sparkles.
They are so beautiful.
“Is that still the Woodland Realm?” I shout at Klyesque, jerking my chin toward the right side.
A shadow passes within the bark, almost too dark to see, And in truth, I’d never have noticed the bare movement if the book hadn’t warned me of their tracking.
A muscle in her cheek clenches, her eyes straying east. “It is.”
“We are being followed,” I yell boldly, hoping that whatever creatures that tail us do not possess exceptional hearing beyond our own. “What manner of creature would be swift enough to track shadow steed?”
Klyesque’s eyes narrow on the high land above and she says, “Only dragons… and trees.”
“Trees?” I repeat, my mind going blank for a second. “Do they walk here?”
Klyesque chuckles, “No. But I have heard that they speak from one to the next. In a language of old. But only to one another and to…” she looks at me, “...you.” Her eyes dart toward Trielle’s hooves and she frowns. “Shit!”
“What? What is it?”
“How do you know we are being followed?” she asks loudly.
Without even the slightest hesitation, I say, “The book told me.”
Klyesque’s nods, granting me another of her admiring smiles. “Well of course it did.” She hikes and eyebrow at me, but I igbnore it.
“Enough with changing the subject,” I scold her. “Tell me what has you upset!”
She meets my eyes, her face grim. “We are no longer traveling in shadow. The steed are too tired. Which of course-” she pauses to scan the treeline once again “-means what follows can be anything from Dracuum to Nymph.”
But the sudden fear in her eyes tells me there is more. Something she is leaving out. That neither of the Fae she mentioned would trouble our travels. That neither of them would need much more than a swipe of her blade to be vanquished.
“What are you not saying, Klyesque?” as the sound of water crashing over rock reaches us and we both gaze ahead to fix our attentions to what appears to be the spray of a small waterfall and a creek beneath. And into the wall beyond it.
All are still a good distance away, but their existence is unmistakable.
“Is that what I think it is?” I ask her. “Is that the brook you spoke of? Could we be at that halfway point already?”
She shakes her head, leaning forward to whisper soundless words in Delago’s ear before he begins to up his pace to a purposeful gallop with Trielle swiftly following suit. “No. There are no cascades on the map. Whatever stream flows up ahead of us must be new. Younger than this map, I’d bet.”
It is not until we are right at the shoreline that glitters with emerald pebbles that we note how absolutely tiny both the waterfall and creek are. Scarcely wider than a full grown man and barely deep enough for Trielle and Delago to drink from, the water feeding the cascade coming from what appears to be a fresh crack in the earth on our right.
Klyesque whispers, “This place is brand new and if I were to venture a guess. I’d say it was made the very same day you crossed into the realm.”