paused over a small mound of earth, like an anthill, that had been heaped up, a depression made in its center. Something dark had been poured into the depression, an offering of water or blood.
There were no dead embers or charred brands anywhere. Fire was not something used to appeal to a forest.
The fact that the dwarren had rediscovered their connection to the forest gave him some small hope that perhaps he wasn’t fighting the Wraiths and the Shadows alone. Aside from the spiritual connection to the Lands that the hollow provided, there was only one reason to come here.
The same reason Colin had come.
He found the center of the hollow, where the ground had been tread upon so often it had been swept clear of all debris and packed solid. He stared up into the patch of night sky above, then let time resume. The branches of the cedars swayed in a gentle breeze that did not penetrate to the hollow. The cloying scent of cedar-heavy with time slowed-became almost overpowering with its intensity. He breathed it in deeply, allowing his lungs to adjust to it, and felt it affecting his body, similar to the smoke of the dwarren yetope. His gaze dropped to the surrounding trees, the trunks that lined the edge of the hollow suddenly sharp and distinct in the darkness, as if they’d been lit with a soft, hazy yellow light. He circled once, twice, and then settled to the ground, legs crossed before him. He let his arms drop into his lap and hung his head forward, back hunched.
And he breathed. Slow, deep breaths, drawing the scent of the forest inside him, letting it permeate him. His arms began to prickle after ten such breaths, the ground to grow warm beneath him as his body relaxed, his heart calming. He felt himself drawn deeper into that earth, centering downward, to where the roots of the forest twined among the stone and the flow of the Lifeblood. The essence of the forest he had only brushed when touching the boles of the trees grew thick and viscous, like sap. It smothered him as he submerged himself in it, surrounding him with its luminescence. And then he opened his mind, to allow it to see his need.
Unlike the Lifeblood, more like Aielan’s Light, the essence of the forest was animate and aware, but in a way that Colin could not comprehend. He’d learned long ago not to try, to simply allow the forest to feel him, to taste him. He sensed its presence, filtering through him like the growth of roots through soil, searching.
Distantly, he heard a sigh, as of wind through branches, and the creak and groan of wood shifting. Something brushed his shoulders, his hunched back, tickled the base of his neck. He shuddered at the touch. Then the sensation retreated, the essence of the forest withdrawing from his mind. The earth pushed him up out of its warmth.
He gasped and opened his eyes, straightening where he sat, his lower back screaming with tension. He rotated his aching neck, green needles falling from his shoulders to patter onto the ground around him. Something sticky on his neck caught at his shirt and he reached back to touch it, his fingers coming back tacky with sap. As he twisted the pain out of his shoulders, he noticed what had been left on the ground before him.
A new staff, its length riddled with twisting lines, like those found beneath the bark of a branch after it had been peeled away. He reached out to take it automatically-it was what he had come for, a staff to replace the one stolen by Vaeren in the northern wastes-then paused.
The forest had left another gift. A scattering of arrows, made of the same wood as his staff. He counted at least four dozen, along with two longbows like those the Alvritshai carried.
For Eraeth and Siobhaen.
He glanced out into the surrounding forest with a frown. He had not asked for the bows, nor the arrows. Yet the forest felt he needed them.
The sentience behind such a gift sent a shiver down his spine. He had thought he’d come here often enough to understand the forest, had thought that it was aware, but only enough to know what he asked for and why.
It had never anticipated a need he had not anticipated himself.
Leaning forward, still uneasy, he closed his hand around the staff and felt the recognition of the life-force within it pulse. He drew that life-force around him, the contact easing a tension he hadn’t realized he’d felt. The presence of the staff completed him in some way. He had held one nearly all of his life, since drinking from the Well and becoming part of Terra’nor, part of the forest. He took a moment to run his free hand up and down its length, smiling.
Then he gathered up the two bows-without string, he noticed-and the arrows, the shafts made of a single piece of wood, the points sharp, but with no fletching. He bound the arrows in groups of twelve using twine, six dozen in all, and shoved the bulky bundles awkwardly into his satchel. He worked quickly. It had taken longer to commune with the forest than he had expected. He needed to find his way back to the dwarren war party, before Eraeth and Siobhaen panicked at his absence.
Everything packed, he took the staff up in one hand, the two bows in the other, and turned to scan the circle of cedars one more time. He bowed his head and murmured, “Thank you, for all the gifts you have given me before, and for those you have given me tonight.”
Lotaern nodded to the White Phalanx guardsman who’d escorted him through the Tamaell’s personal chambers on the highest tier in Caercaern to the rooftop gardens. As Chosen of the Order, he had been to these gardens on several occasions, usually for small, casual gatherings of Lords of the Evant and other Alvritshai of power in the city, hosted by either Thaedoren himself or, more recently, Tamaea Reanne.
He had never been summoned here to meet with the Tamaell alone.
Thaedoren stood on the far side of the garden, his hands on the wide stone abutment. He gazed out over the city of Caercaern, the Hauttaeren rising off to one side, water cascading down the rocky mountain face in thin sprays that reflected the afternoon sunlight. Some of those falls were caught above the tier and funneled into a stream that wound through the garden, the water escaping in another waterfall down the side of the highest level before winding its way down to the city below.
Lotaern frowned at the Tamaell’s back, his stomach clenching. The summons had arrived that morning, while he’d been meeting with Peloroun and Orraen beneath the Winter Tree. The timing made him wonder if the Tamaell knew of his dealings with the two lords, of what they had planned. It would be the end of Thaedoren’s rule of the Evant and the Alvritshai as Tamaell, and the rise of Lotaern and the Order in its place. Did he suspect anything? He could not imagine how the Tamaell would have found out.
And yet, Thaedoren had asked to see him.…
Straightening his shoulders, Lotaern stepped forward, his features carefully neutral. He did not know what the Tamaell knew, so would assume nothing. The summons could concern anything, from the Evant to Aielan and the Scripts.
His hands clenched at his sides before he forced them to relax.
“Tamaell,” he said as he approached, smiling. “You wished to see me?”
Thaedoren turned from his perusal of the city, but did not smile. “Chosen.”
Neither of them nodded or bowed to the other.
Thaedoren considered him a long moment, then stepped away from the edge and motioned Lotaern to accompany him as he began strolling through the various pathways of the garden. “I called you here to address a few concerns that have come to my attention regarding the Order.”
Lotaern’s heart stuttered in his chest, but he managed to keep his voice mild. “I see. Who brought these concerns to your attention?”
“A few of the Lords of the Evant.”
Lotaern’s eyes narrowed. He thought he could name at least one of those lords. “What has the Order done that concerns the Evant?”
Thaedoren shot him a sideways glance, his voice taking on a hard edge. “Everything the Order does concerns the Evant, Chosen. Especially now that you have become a part of the Evant.”
“Of course, Tamaell. I meant, what is of concern to these particular lords?”
Thaedoren continued on for a few more slow steps. “They are concerned about the members of the Order of the Flame who are circulating among the temples in their House lands. Some feel that it is a show of force, a subtle threat. After careful consideration, I have to agree.”
Lotaern bridled, although his fear that Thaedoren knew of his alliance with Peloroun and Orraen relaxed. “Having the Flame move among the temples is certainly within my rights as Chosen of the Order and it has nothing to do with the Evant.”
“Having acolytes traveling on pilgrimages from temple to temple has nothing to do with the Evant. However,
