Citadel of Fire

Chapter Three

THE NODES

Light and shadows flickered across Ayva’s vision.

Those sharp gray-green eyes taking her in, seeing into her… She felt her hand reaching out, her heartquickening.  Her palms turned damp.  She leaned forward and—

Ayva’s eyes snapped open.  She put a hand to her brow, shielding her gaze from the morning sun.  She was still in her bedroll and, in the peripheries of her vision, she saw Darius packing up his things and brushing down his spirited cormac.  The majestic beast pranced with energy despite days of hard travel.

Her thoughts returned to her dream.  Gray.

Absently, she grazed her lips with her fingers.  Shaking her head, she put the confusing bundle of thoughts and questions to the back of her head and rose.  Yawning, she took in their camp.  The ground beneath her feet was soft sand.  From it, tubers and the occasional plant sprouted.  Nearby, a strange purple and green succulent bristled with finger-length spines, multihued like a rainbow bed of nails.  That was tame for Farhaven.  

She’d seen tall plants, short ones, plants that looked like rocks or even animals.  One plant, she remembered, had floated, with no base!  She had wanted to examine it closer, having not heard of it in any of the stories, but Gray and Darius had advised against it.  They didn’t know what they were dealing with, and she knew they were right.

She remembered Karil’s words.  You venture in a new land that is beautiful and dangerous.  Be careful.  Well, she didn’t remember the words exactly.  But it was something like that.  Of course, Karil would have said it with perfect eloquence and poise.  Light and flesh, she already missed Mura and the others.  How had that happened?

Ayva rose and began stuffing her bedroll into her pack, ruminating on her friends.

Taking back the Kingdom of Eldas—one of the Great Kingdoms—won’t be an easy task. That much was clear even to Ayva, but if anyone could do it, it would be Karil and the others.  Part of her was jealous.  What I wouldn’t give to see the City Within the Trees—another name for Eldas, a city with a thousand lights, their buildings suspended in the colossal great trees.  It was home to the elves.  It was also the kingdom of Leaf.  Each Great Kingdom held dominion over one of the nine elements: leaf, water, fire, stone, moon, sun, flesh, metal, and of course, wind.  The notorious element of wind made her think of Kail and Gray—one a mad, powerful legend, and the other her close friend.  And yet, somehow, they were the same person.  

She wondered if Kail still lived.  Gray said they were dead, that he had watched Maris, the Ronin of leaf, die before his eyes, but there was something in the way he had said it… As if he believed there was something missing, like a book without an ending.  Surely, the Ronin weren’t dead.  She couldn’t imagine such epic beings vanquished so easily.  Truthfully, she’d never felt particularly close to them, aside from Maris, but their loss made her feel oddly hollow even now, as if a great light had gone out in the world with their passing.  No, she thought with a smile, absently stuffing in a pair of breeches she’d rolled up and used as a pillow, the Ronin are not dead.

Her thoughts went back to Gray.  That moment…  Despite the storm of uncertainty that welled inside her, and all the confusion of what they faced ahead, she had felt so secure in that one moment.

She caught Darius looking at her curiously over his shoulder.  

Her cheeks flushed and she looked away, pretending to busy herself with shaking out her bedroll.  Dice! she thought, stealing the rogue’s curse, I’m a little girl again… Wasn’t it just yesterday I was hanging from a dragon’s talons?  She must have looked like a boy pining over his first sword, or a patron falling for the wiles of Willow’s enchanting voice and harp.