The Story of the Trees - Sword, Ring, and Crown Book One

Chapter Twenty-Five

"What's Aisa doing up there?" Luis whispered beside me.

Like I knew?

The room was silent, every figure bowed low before the trio on the thrones, except for Ciaran and my friends from Earth. Even Luke, Erick, and my banmuinen had prostrated themselves. But the most confusing part wasn't just the fact that Aisa was sitting up there with two outrageously handsome men. 

It was that she had cared for me for years, and now she was Duir?

One of the men, the one wearing a crown of lavender berries, helped Aisa to her feet. She let out a grunt as she stood, wobbling slightly. The other man offered his arm as well, and then—ugh—kissed her. Both of them did, actually, one after the other. 

Like they were her devoted lovers.

Ugh, squared.

Aisa, the crotchety old woman who'd constantly told me off for tracking dirt into her house, was being treated like some queen by the gods of this realm.

Once steady, Aisa adjusted her glasses, still looking like the grumpy old woman I knew. She banged her staff on the floor with a metallic clank, and her sharp eyes scanned the room. The crowd seemed to hold its breath.

"Ah, Matt!" she called out.

Great. I felt every eye in the room turn toward me.

"Get over here, Matt! And bring your..." She squinted at my court, "bargain bin crew with you. Where's your seventh?" She banged her staff again. The other courts scrambled to make way, like terrified sheep parting for a wolf.

"Uh... Aisa?" I muttered as we approached. My court and I stood in front of her dais, and she looked me up and down with the same critical eye she'd used when I was a kid. "You're Duir?"

She smirked. "Duh."

A ripple of outrage spread through the crowd at my casual question. Someone from the crowd, emboldened by tradition, dared to speak up. "Eternal Goddess, the Elect Regina should go first, as befits her station—"

Before they could finish, Aisa flicked her staff in their direction, and the floor opened beneath them. A scream rang out before the hole sealed shut with an audible snap. Everyone recoiled, but no one else dared to interrupt.

Aisa turned back to me, smiling as if nothing had happened. "So, Matt. You're here. Took you long enough. Did you bring my present?"

I swallowed, already feeling the weight of Luke's glare at my back. The coins—I'd left them on the desk.  "No."

Aisa rolled her eyes. "Of course you didn't. Always rushing, never thinking."

I took a deep breath and asked, "Aisa... where's the real Goddess? Did you tie her up in one of your curse sweaters and stash her somewhere?"

The crowd gasped audibly, whispering in shock at my familiarity with her. But Aisa just laughed. "Oh, that's rich, Matt! Maybe you'll give me a little more respect if I put on my party dress."

With another clang of her staff, the air shimmered around her. The frail old woman melted away, revealing a regal figure: golden skin, oak-brown hair twisted with roots and branches, and a tall crown of leaves and acorns. Her velour tracksuit became a deep red gown embroidered with oak leaves. She was beautiful, powerful, and terrifying.

The crowd's murmurs of adoration filled the room as they gazed at their Goddess. But Aisa—Duir—kept her eyes on me. "When the first snow fell in Aleria, we were worried. It defied even the Trees. But something else happened. The doorway to Earth opened. A doorway that had been sealed for centuries."