The Last of the Wilds

Today Auraya was not taking a walk for pleasure, however. She and Juran were bound for the Sacred Grove.

They passed one of the many priests and priestesses who stood guard over the grove. The man appeared to be simply relaxing on a stone bench, reading a scroll, but Auraya knew his main task was to prevent anyone but the select few who tended the grove - and the White - from entering.

The priest made the sign of the circle and Juran nodded in reply. The path took Auraya and Juran through a gap in a wall of close-grown trees, then curved to the left. There it wound through a grove of fruit trees tended by more priests and priestesses before it reached a stone wall.

A wooden door filled a narrow opening in the wall. As they reached it the door swung inward. Auraya shivered as she stepped through. Though she had visited the grove several times the previous year she still felt a thrill of awe whenever she entered.

Four trees grew within the circular wall. They were the only four survivors of the hundreds of saplings planted here a hundred years before. Two had sprung up close to one another, and where their branches met they had twined together sinuously. Another was small and stunted. The third appeared to be crouching close to the ground, its branches spread wide.

The leaves and bark of these trees were so dark they were almost black. On close inspection the white wood beneath could be seen between cracks in the bark. The dark color was highlighted by the white pebbles that covered the ground, apparently to help retain moisture in the soil. The trees were better suited to a colder climate than Hania’s.

The color of the trees was strange enough, but the growth of their branches was even stranger. They had grown in weird and unnatural ways. Most of the smaller branches had small disc-like swellings along their length, and several of these had developed holes within the swellings. Other branches higher up had formed many thin twigs that had woven themselves together to form a cup, or larger swellings containing small holes. As Auraya watched, a small bird landed in one of the cups. A fledgling head appeared and the parent began to feed it.

“Did you see that?” a priest said.

Auraya turned to see a high priest speaking to a young priestess. The woman, a trainee carer, nodded.

“It has grown into the shape of a nest,” she said.

“Yes. If you climbed up there and put your hand inside you would find that the wood was warm. The bird has trained the wood not just to grow into a nest, but imprinted it with the Gift to convert magic into heat.”

“Why does the tree do it?”

The old man shrugged. “Nobody knows. Maybe the gods made it that way.”

“I can see now why it’s called the welcome tree,” the woman said. “I thought it a strange name for such an ugly tree.”

Auraya smiled. It was an ugly tree, but only because of the use humans had put its magically malleable wood to. When Juran had first brought Auraya here she had been amazed to learn that these trees were the source of the priest rings. The swellings on the branches would eventually be harvested, each ring containing the Gift that allowed priests to communicate with each other.

The welcome trees contained great potential, both for good and evil, but when Juran had told her of their limitations she had wondered how the Circlians found a use for them at all. The trees were hard to keep alive. Groves of them were maintained in most Circlian Temples, though only the well-guarded one in Jarime was used for growing the rings of priests and priestesses. Those that tended the trees guarded the secrets to keeping them alive and healthy.

The branches must be “trained” every day. When she had helped create her first link ring, she had needed to visit the grove early each morning and sit with the tree growing her ring for at least an hour. Despite all the effort required to make a ring, the wood lost its qualities within a few years. Priest rings were constantly being grown to replace those that were no longer effective. They were also only ever imbued with the one simple Gift of communication. More powerful Gifts could be taught, but the more magic those Gifts required, the quicker the wood lost the imprint.

The only rings that did not have these limitations were the White’s rings. They had grown spontaneously from the smaller tree, which otherwise stubbornly refused to be shaped by any will but the gods.

Another elderly priest appeared at Juran’s shoulder.

“Juran of the White,” he said, making the sign of the circle. “Auraya of the White. Are you here to begin your task?”

“We are, Priest Sinar,” Juran replied. “Where should we begin?”

The priest led them to the larger of the lone trees and indicated a twig that had sprouted from one of the main branches. Auraya smiled wryly as she remembered a similar twig she had watched slowly swell and form a ring the year before.

“This may be suitable,” the old man said.

“It is, thank you,” Juran replied. He looked at Auraya. “We may need a few minutes free of distraction as we begin.”

The priest nodded. “I will clear the grove.”

He hurried away and herded the other priests and priestesses through the door in the stone wall. When the grove was empty Juran turned to regard her, an odd, pained look on his face.

“What is it?” she asked.

He grimaced. “We must discuss something first.” He paused. “How... Have you forgiven me?”

She blinked in surprise. “Forgiven? For wh—? Ah.” Her stomach sank as she realized he was referring to Leiard. “That.”

“Yes. That.” He chuckled. “I would have given you more time than this before bringing the subject up, but Mairae insisted we must talk before you make this ring.” He sighed. “Years ago a priestess harvesting rings here suffered a terrible personal tragedy. Anyone who wore the rings she made began to feel sad, but nobody realized what was happening until a few priests and priestesses had killed themselves and people began to wonder why.”

“You’re afraid the same will happen,” Auraya said. She could not help smiling. “I’m not bouncing about with happiness, Juran, but I’m not suicidal either.”

“How are you feeling, then?”

“I’ve forgiven you.” As she said it she felt a wave of emotion and realized it was true. “It has worked out for the best.”

“Mairae thinks I handled it badly.” He frowned. “She believes there would have been no harm in... letting you two see each other so long as it was not publicly known.”

“But you don’t agree.”

His shoulders rose. “She has... made me reconsider.”

Auraya’s stomach constricted. So I would still be with Leiard if Mairae and Juran had taken some time to think about it. She tried to imagine what it would have been like to secretly meet with Leiard, with all the White knowing about it. It would have been embarrassing. I would not have discovered how easily Leiard’s eye was caught by another woman the moment he thought he couldn’t be with me.

She sighed. “No, I’m glad it worked out this way, Juran. It makes a lot of matters less complicated. Like the hospice.”

He smiled and nodded. They both looked up at the tree in silence for a moment, then Juran let out a sigh.

“So how shall we approach this shielded link-ring idea of yours?”

The river was like a ribbon of fire below, reflecting the bright colors of the dusk sky. Veece sighed at the ache in his arms. He could feel his joints creak as he tilted his wings to follow the water. He had to rest. The younger ones would not like it. They would stamp about impatiently and worry about reaching their home by the following night.

While his old body was not as limber or robust as theirs, he was still their Speaker. They would not complain if he chose to land, though they might tease him. Such was the prerogative of the young. After all, they would be old one day. They might as well get in a little teasing now, before they became the subject of it themselves.