Free Relic (The Books of Eva I) by Heather Terrell Page A

Jasper’s presence. And oddly enough, even though I can’t speak to him or rely on him in any way, he comforts me.
    The Sun continues Her progress across the sky, and well before She nears the horizon, we reach the Taiga. I cannot believe how quickly we’ve reached the borders of the famed boreal forest. The first horn of evening will not sound for at least two bells. It seems a surplus of time.
    What starts as an occasional dry shrub thickens into a line of trees flagged by the winds, and then into a tangle of birches and evergreens. Intuitively, Jasper and I part as we near the Taiga border, taking slightly different paths into the increasingly dense forest. I stare in amazement at all the plant life; I have never encountered such verdancy anywhere but the Ark. I have entered a green world utterly different from the one I know, the white world of ice and snow.
    When I dismount, I know I should ready my camp, as Lukas instructed. But the carpet of caribou moss glows such an enticing emerald that I simply must touch it. The apprentice Gardener in me—the one who spent years growing to love botany and agriculture in the hopes of serving in the Ark—cannot be denied.
    Tying my team to a sturdy birch tree, I signal for them to wait. I wander a bit, collecting specimens of evergreen needles and birch leaves for Ark botanists and gardeners back home, as well as some samples of caribou moss andedible greens for myself. From my study, I know that the caribou moss will help preserve the artifacts I find, and that the edible greens could stave off scurvy and other nutritionally based diseases. I marvel at nine-foot-tall shrubs, willow trees, and broad-leaved grasses. A hare leaps through the moss, startled by my tentative footsteps. The thick moss cover makes it hard to walk, especially in
kamiks
more accustomed to ice. But I feel oddly at home for the first time since leaving the Aerie.
    I wonder if this is what His Earthen lands looked like before they were submerged in the Healing. Or if they looked more like the Ark, where the humid air seems to breathe and every corner of Earth is alive with growth. But, unlike the Ark, this place is Gods-made.
    I hear a crack of sticks and immediately regret my little stroll. What am I doing in the Taiga acting as if I’m on some Ark-mission instead of the Testing?
    It’s Jasper. He’s walking some distance ahead of me, also without his sled and team. His stride is firm and surefooted; his wound has healed with astonishing quickness. Gently touching the pine-needles and birch leaves along the way, he appears as awestruck as I am.
    As if he senses me staring at him, he turns around. He smiles, a beautiful slow smile. It’s like those looks of delight one sees from the youngest children in the School. For a brief tick, my breath catches, and I forget why we are here in this magical place. I smile back.
    But then, when his mouth opens as if to call to me, I shake my head. The smile quickly disappears from my lips. Before he can actually speak aloud, I raise my hand to stop him. I mouth the words, “We can’t talk. The Scouts are watching me.”
    “I know,” he mouths back. His smile grows sad. He’d allowed himself a few ticks of forgetfulness, too. We permit ourselves a tiny farewell wave.
    And then we hear other voices.

“What should we do about her?”
    “I think we should—”
    Without waiting to hear the full response, and without even a final glance at Jasper, I hurry back to my sled. I pad across the growth, praying that I don’t crack a twig and betray my presence. I’m initially so worried about getting caught in the forest close to Jasper that I don’t think about the source of the voices. Only a few ticks later, once I’ve started the business of making camp, does it occur to me that no highly trained Scout would be so careless and unprofessional as to be overheard by a Testor.
    Which of the Testors would be talking in the Taiga? About me, the only “her” out