“Of course, this way please,” the woman said deferentially and led them along the path provided by the tree. One level up, she paused and showed Nym and Ilann to their room. Lana couldn’t see inside because cloth had been draped around in such a way as to provide a ceiling and walls. Then, a little further along, she stopped so that Lana could enter her own room.
The bed was a plush mattress on the floor, stuffed with down. There was a clay chamber pot nearby and a basin and pitcher for washing up. The cloth walls were light enough to allow good airflow and the room wasn’t stuffy or hot.
“Thank you for your hospitality,” she told the innkeeper.
“Of course,” Talia said, bowing again. She straightened and almost looked Lana in the eyes, but not quite. “Please feel free to come down whenever you feel hungry or I can have food sent up to your room.”
When Lana was alone, she set her belongings down and tried the bed. The villages on the way to Kindermer were not as well provisioned and few had a mattress as soft as this. It was nearly as comfortable as her bed in the castle.
Lana spent a moment reflecting on all she had left behind. The creature comforts of being a princess, having a bed to sleep in every night, food served to her, feet that weren’t all callouses from walking every day, dresses instead of trousers and coats. She laughed softly, realizing that she didn’t miss any of that for a second. She had come a long way from being the captive princess. She had no idea what she was now. And there was a nagging worry about what she was becoming.
What had happened to change her? Was it her encounter with the high priestess? The word that the woman had engraved into her heart which she couldn’t recall? Was it the gift from the tree, her staff, such an odd occurrence that both Clay and Nym had been shocked and alarmed?
Lana reached out and ran a hand along the staff, thinking back to the day she had found it. It had seemed like the most natural thing in the world at the time. Why hadn’t she questioned it more? As usual, the staff was slightly warm as if it had been sitting out in the sun. No one but her could feel that warmth, she had asked both Nym and Clay to touch it and they claimed it felt normal. Perhaps it was her imagination.
Sighing, Lana stood up and stretched her back. She decided she would eat with the others and try to pretend as if nothing had changed. Although Nym had initially treated her as if she’d grown another head, she now acted normally. Well, perhaps not quite normally because she no longer touched Lana if she could help it. Nym knew that Lana was now able to feel the thoughts and emotions of elves in the same way that elves could feel trees, so perhaps she didn’t want Lana to know her heart. Lana respected the other woman’s need for privacy so she never asked her about it and simply accepted that she must give Nym the space that she wanted.
Lana made her way down the trunk of the tree and back into the main floor of the inn. Nym and Ilann were already seated and feasting on a dinner of bread, cheese and vegetables. Lana sat with them and filled up her own plate from the spread before them.
“This looks delicious,” she told Talia when she came by to check on them.
“Thank you, ma’am,” the innkeeper said, bowing deeply and obviously pleased.
Talia straightened then left them and Lana turned back to her companions, sighing heavily. Nym looked over at her with compassion in her eyes.
“We have never seen anyone like you, Lana,” she said. “You are an enigma to us. We see you as a savior because you are. I know it must be difficult but try to bear it if you can.”
“I feel responsible for these people,” she told Nym and Ilann. “But I don’t know them and they don’t know me. I feel I have a duty to perform for them, to save the children, but…” She didn’t know how to express her frustration. She had no space to try to understand what was happening to her, no privacy, no solitude.
“I understand,” Nym told her quietly. “But it cannot be helped. Perhaps we can find some answers in Thelsamel. The elders know much about elven lore.”
“I know quite a bit as well,” Ilann told her. “I’m a storyteller, after all. It has been my life’s work to gather the stories of our people.”
“Have you heard of the elves falling ill like this before?” she asked him. “Do you know of any malady that would strike the children so?”
Ilann frowned in thought. “Not exactly, no. But I do know a lot of theories about the elves that may shed some light on this.” He took a bite of bread as he pondered, mentally thumbing through the knowledge he had collected over the years.
“The elves were made from the land itself. Some of us call it the mother, since it birthed us, but we are still referring to nature. A human child is born and it will be similar to its parents and all other humans. They share the same natures, the same types of bones and organs. They are intrinsically linked together. The same can be said for elves and yet it goes further because elves are also linked to the land.”
Lana nodded, following his train of thought.
“I’m concerned that the elves are losing that link,” he continued, frowning. “These children claim that they could no longer hear the song of the earth. It was as if that cord that tied them to the land was cut. For elves, that connection is spiritual, it’s nourishment for our souls.
