Gardener

Chapter 23

Leaf

I chuckled softly resting my cheek against hers, "We should go before Lamai sends out a search party, we've been gone for some time.

Rosen stood pulling me easily to my feet, "Aren't you going to heal yourself?" She questioned as I grimaced stretching my neck.

"Of such a simple wound?" I shook my head. "It'll heal on its own no point in wasting the magic for something only skin deep."

"You're truly one of a kind." Rosen breathed following me along the vine bridge, shifting from side to side noticing how it didn't sway. "How..."

"Is this possible..." I finished for her chuckling softly as we moved upward. She rolled her eyes which caused me to smile. "Why magic of course." She groaned and resisted all urges to ask again knowing exactly the answer that she would receive.

We were about half way along the bridge when I heard my name, I paused in my tracks, head cocked listening carefully only to realize the voice was in my head, echoing through the green. I gripped Rosen by the shoulder, "We have to head to the palace. Kalini is calling for me."

"I haven't heard anything...the palace..." She gazed at me brow furrowed. "This place has a palace?"

I nudged Rosen forward jogging slowly making sure to keep hold as the world began to slide by in waves of shimmering green and brown, the green moving beneath us pushing us more quickly towards where we needed to go. "She spoke through the green," Rosen jogged steadily beside me brow beading with sweat. "And this place is the equivalent of Anear. A city hidden in the trees."

"I couldn't tell you which way of travel is faster, but I can easily tell you which I prefer..." Rosen gasped quickly transforming from one breath to the next, I twinned my fingers in her mane and leapt onto her back as the world slowed and we thundered across tree limbs large enough for carriages to ride along.

My heart raced with trepidation, "Hurry Rosen... we have to hurry." I murmured as Kalini's voice continuously echoed through my mind growing more urgent with each passing second. I did not know what we would find when we got there, but the twisting of my stomach assured it wouldn't be good.

*****

"The palace is inside of a tree?" Rosen shook her head in disbelief.


I gazed at her curiously, "You've seen this place, why would you expect anything else and it's inside several connecting trees actually and it would be more accurate to call them ancients as large and as old as they are. This is the oldest part of the forest, the very heart of the Last Garden. It makes sense for it to be here."


"I didn't even notice until we were practically standing right on top of it." Rosen murmured taking in the canopy of mixed leaves overhead shading us from the sun.


"That's the point, completely hidden in plain sight." I replied entering a wall formed of smoothed bark. Rosen traced her fingers along it as we passed.  As we walked through the corridors that smelled of apple, pine, cherries, oak... a mixtures of scents that blended together to form something heavenly and calming. The walls held carvings, intricate designs from every nation a Gardener called home. Tapestries filled with fantastical creatures from legends you might have heard when you were a child. Giants raced down the corridors with pixies playing along the hills and valleys that made up their bodies, centaurs cavorted with the Marr and horses alike. There were shadow figures at every juncture we took with vines and leaves sprouting behind them and names carved skillfully into the wood beneath.


"There were trees... ancients..." Rosen corrected herself as she leaned closed to read the name of one of my predecessors, "Outside the palace, at varying heights, without canopies. Are they pools as well?"