Free Bladesinger by Keith Francis Strohm Page A

surrendering the last vestiges of herself. Beneath her fingers, she could sense the slow pulse of the earth-blood flowing in the tree’s great veins. Her heartbeat slowed, became that pulse, and beat in rhythm to the ancient song. Her breath deepened, took root in her belly then rooted itself deeper—into soil and rock.
    She was changing.
    Had changed.
    She was ancient as the land and as vast as the world’s forests. Hands reached to sky, caught the wind in thin fingers, and drank dew like sweet wine from the evening air. Toes curled and twisted, like a riddle whose answer wound down into the dark heart of the world—until there was only earth and shadow and the silent language of stone.
     

     
    Taen watched Marissa approach the Red Tree. When she knelt before its trunk, he half expected the thing to come alive and begin speaking. Treants, those great living trees, were not unknown to him, so he waited for the thrumming sound of the deep tree-voice and the shaking of its twisted limbs.
    Nothing happened.
    Still, Marissa knelt in silence, and he watched her in silence. The night sounds of the vale enveloped him like a blanket. The ghostly flapping of owl wings, the high bark of the hunting fox, and a chorus of nocturnal insects filled the darkness. Amidst it all, he could hear Roberc’s light snoring and the soft, tuneless humming of Borovazk as he sang his way through three skins of firewine.
    Still he watched.
    The moon rose and danced across the night sky, scattering pools of silver radiance across the landscape. Once he heard the heavy rustle of some game in a nearby bush, but a single growl from Cavan stilled the beast. Taen’s eyes grew heavy as the night wore on. He yawned once and rubbed his face, trying to shake the lethargy that gripped him. The scent of adelpha blossoms perfumed the air. Taen breathed the heady incense deeply. His last thought was of Marissa as sleep threw its thick mantle over his head.
     

     
    “You have come, sister of our heart,” said a soft, soothing voice.
    “We had hoped you would,” said another voice, warm and rich as honey.
    Marissa turned—or rather the world turned and she remained. The druid sat in a place of darkness, with only a small light glowing a few feet from her. Everywhere she looked, by the illumination of that feeble glow, Marissa could see only more darkness.
    Then two other women sat beside her. They were as different as summer and winter. One was young and beautiful, the way a flower is beautiful—soft and delicate, with pale, smooth skin and lustrous black hair. She looked at Marissa, and the druid could see green eyes flashing like jewels in the dim light regarding her with open curiosity.
    The other woman was old and weathered, her skin like the bark of a tree. She had thick, iron-gray hair severely pulled back in a single braid. Her eyes were brown, the color of earth, and her fingers were thin bony sticks that drummed an absent beat while they rested upon her legs.
    “Who … who are you?” Marissa asked hesitantly. Her mind was awhirl with confusion, yet she felt her heart free and untroubled. There was no danger here, could be no danger beneath the Red Tree—or wherever here was.
    “You should ask yourself the same question,” said the old woman, her warm voice taking on an edge.
    “Hush, Imsha. There is no need to harangue the poor girl,” the young woman broke in. Her voice remained soft and smooth, but watching her in the soft light, Marissa caught a hint of fire in her green eyes, an open challenge.
    All of a sudden, she didn’t feel quite so secure anymore. She recalled a favorite saying of her teachers: “The Lion never lies when it kills.” Truth was as necessary as the sun in the world, she thought, and maybe even more necessary here.
    “I am Marissa Goldenthorn, daughter of Rillifane Rallathil, and a servant of nature,” she proclaimed proudly.
    Imsha snorted and slapped her leg with a bony hand.
    “Listen to her, Tamlith,” Imsha