Part 43 (2/2)

”I feel like a child,” Arian said when Dorrin sat back and called for more sib. ”Ignorant-”

”We know different things,” Dorrin said. ”I know nothing of your taig, or your elven relatives. When I was at the Hall, the part-elves would hardly speak to me. A foreigner, from a hated family...”

”Magelords.”

”Yes. The kind of magelords who caused the Girdish Revolt with their cruelty.” Dorrin gave her a lopsided grin. ”But you, Arian...you are more like Tamar than I first thought. You think like her when you have the facts. And there are no cruel shadows in your past.”

Arian thought about that. Her mother, strict though she had been, was not unkind, nor her elven father until-as she grew older-he went back into the elvenhome, emerging only rarely. ”Like what happened to Kieri-the king,” she said. ”His captivity.”

”That, and what happened to me, in this very house,” Dorrin said. ”You have none of that in you. Though I have no elven blood, and thus no taig-sense, I can sense old evil in humans well enough. Tammarion, like you, was all light, without shadows-Kieri had enough shadows for both. You will be good for him.”

”If-”

Dorrin made a sound close to a growl. ”Do not fall back into that, Arian. You want to be Kieri's queen-well, then, act like one.”

”I would like to do something for you, Dorrin,” Arian said. ”No need,” Dorrin began, but Arian held up her hand. ”You are a magelord; you are sensitive to good and evil in people. I believe you do have taig-sense or could develop it.” would like to do something for you, Dorrin,” Arian said. ”No need,” Dorrin began, but Arian held up her hand. ”You are a magelord; you are sensitive to good and evil in people. I believe you do have taig-sense or could develop it.”

Dorrin looked as if she wanted to ask why, but instead said, ”Do any pure humans have taig-sense?”

”Yes. And it is not just about trees; there is the water-”

”Water?” Now Dorrin looked a little frightened.

”All that live need water; to us springs are sacred. Taig-sense lets you find water and know if it is good.”

”Magelords had water magery,” Dorrin said. ”When I first came here-”

”What?”

”There was a cursed well. I...the G.o.ds helped me take the curse off, and water came.”

Arian waited, but Dorrin did not say more. ”Let me show you,” Arian said finally.

For a moment, Arian thought Dorrin would refuse, then she shrugged and pushed back her chair. ”If you can do it and Kieri can do it, I suppose I can at least try,” she said.

”We need to go outside,” Arian said.

”At night? In this cold?” But Dorrin kept moving. ”We'll go through the house to the garden,” she said. ”I want a wall to break this wind.” She picked up a candle lantern on the way, and led Arian down a long straight pa.s.sage that turned suddenly, went down three steps, then led to a door Arian thought might be under her own bedroom windows. ”Here we go,” Dorrin said. She pushed the door open and went out, waiting for Arian and then pulling the door closed.

Across the garden, in the lee of the wall, the wind bit less. Dorrin put the candle lantern on the ground.

”Now what?” she said.

Arian extended her own taig-sense, feeling for the tree with the strongest flavor of life. An apple tree, the oldest in the little orchard, gnarled but unafraid and still looking toward its next flowering. ”Here,” she said, laying her hand on one of the limbs. ”Put your hand here, next to mine.” Dorrin did so. ”Do you feel the life in the tree at all?”

”I can tell it's alive,” Dorrin said. ”It feels different than a dead limb. Is that all it is?”

”No,” Arian said. ”Only the beginning. Now feel down the trunk, to the roots...there in the ground, the roots spread away into the soil...they are as alive as the tree. Can you feel them?” As she spoke, the taig spoke clearly to her, tree to tree all the way back to Lyonya. She pushed that aside for the moment.

”Something,” Dorrin said. ”I'm not sure...it's like a thread of...of light or warmth or something...”

”Follow it,” Arian said. ”There will be a spreading again; that is another tree.”

”It feels-I can't say how it feels-oh!” Dorrin pulled her hand away.

”What?” Arian felt the tree's reaction, as sudden as Dorrin's.

”Something touched me!”

”Put your hand back,” Arian said. ”The taig wants to meet you.”

Dorrin put her hand down and for a long moment was silent, still. Arian felt the taig reach again, and this time Dorrin did not pull away.

”It's all alive,” Dorrin said. Her hand trembled. ”All of it-I can feel it-”

”Can you feel anything of its mood?”

”Mood?”

”The taig is tender,” Arian said, reciting her first lessons. ”Like the freshest petal on a plum blossom. That is why it cannot be healthy around those who dwell in anger or hatred.”

”How did it ever survive here?” Dorrin asked. ”I would think my family's habits would've destroyed it.”

”They needed this garden for food,” Arian said. ”They must have had a gardener who worked here at peace, as much as was allowed. They had to, for the trees to grow.”

”Is the taig only about trees?” Dorrin asked.

”No,” Arian said. ”The taig is the life of all things that do not depend on cultivation. Trees, because they live longest, form the connection, year to year. The little things, that die back, partake of the taig while alive, but the trees persist.” She wanted to say more, but Dorrin stood up just then, and pulled her hand back.

”I'm sorry,” she said. ”I felt it, I'm fairly sure, but I'm also tired and cold...it happens as we get older; I'm sure you could stay out here another turn of the gla.s.s.”

”Then let's go in,” Arian said. She gave the tree a gentle caress, and they went back inside. It felt almost too warm and stuffy to Arian, but Dorrin sighed with relief.

”I miss Aarenis,” she said. ”Others complained, but at least I was never cold down there.” Then she laughed. ”You'd think I'd just come from Old Aare's sand mountains. Tell me more about what I can do with this taig-sense.”

”There are places in your domain,” Arian said, ”where the taig was sore wounded. I pa.s.sed by some-deformed trees, barren ground. Using the taig-sense, you can find them.”

”What can I do then?” Dorrin asked.

”Love them,” Arian said. ”Though that may sound too simple.”

”No,” Dorrin said. ”I know better than that.” She asked nothing more about the taig, however, and Arian said nothing more about Kieri. Instead, they talked of the Pargunese, Dorrin asking the questions she thought her king would ask. Arian answered as best she could. Soon Dorrin, yawning, suggested bed, and Arian went up to her room already thinking how soon she could return to Lyonya...to Chaya. The thought of the Lady's anger daunted her briefly-and what if she were bespelled again?-but even indoors she could feel the taig...weaker here, where it had been wounded and not nurtured, but connecting, root to root, with the taig she knew, that knew her. It called her, wanted her. She fell asleep easily, only to wake in the dark of night.

Taig-danger-a call almost panicky, as strong as she had ever felt. She reached out to the apple tree in the garden below, felt it strain to carry a message so far to one it barely knew, and soothed it. I am here. I understand. Thank you. Rest now I am here. I understand. Thank you. Rest now. The tree relaxed into its winter doze, but she could not sleep, not without knowing what was wrong. Kieri? Something else?

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