Chapter 17
DARAG’S PROMISE
Morning light flickered and moved through Lavinia’s borrowed bedroom like a living thing. A faint breeze fluttered the leaves in the interwoven branch walls of Beite’s home, sending light shimmering. Crystals hanging amidst the vines and branches flashed dancing colors in the swinging light. Watching the random patterns, Lavinia lay abed a few moments while she recovered from her dream.
In it, Ty had left her again. She still saw her brother’s face from the night before. He had spoken to her only once after Laith Lus’s invitation to stay, and that had been to ask if she was coming back to Drufforth.
“No, I want to stay here,” Lavinia had answered, wishing her brother would understand.
He'd looked at her as if she was a stranger. “We may leave while you are here with your new friends.” He turned and stalked into the night.
Niri touched her shoulder, distracting Lavinia from the chokehold her throat had on her lungs. “Do not let him change your mind. We don’t have much time here. You should enjoy it.” Lavinia huddled in Niri’s arms.
“Why can’t he be happy?”
“I don’t know,” Niri answered. “But it isn’t your job to make him happy. You are responsible for yourself.” Niri touched her cheek and let her go. “I will see you tomorrow,” she said before walking off.
“Don’t worry, I don’t want to leave, not without you and Niri. Ty will stay, too, you’ll see.”
Lavinia nodded at Ria’s words, her chest loosening again. For one moment as she watched her brother and friends walk away, Lavinia had been alone among strangers. Then Darag had found her.
That memory gave her heart a quick beat. At the same instant Beite, Darag’s younger sister, stuck her head around the door frame. She smiled shyly, finding Lavinia’s focus instantly on her as she bounced into the room. Beite hopped onto the foot of the fragile-looking wooden bed with more force than Lavinia thought reasonable.
“I didn’t want to wake you.”
“I’ve been awake, just watching the sunshine. I like the crystals in the branches.”
Beite smiled, ducking her head to hide the blush that rose across her nearly white cheeks. Unlike Darag, Beite was white with faint gray mottling on her skin. Occasionally, slashes of black broke the pale pattern, including one across her cheek, which gave her a fierce look. Her hair was reddish-blond, even lighter than Ria’s golden locks. With all her pale coloring, Beite’s eyes were the most surprising. They were a deep brown, almost the color of black earth.
“The house, it is still growing. That’s why it's so small. You should see my brother’s,” Beite said with a mixture of awe and sisterly disgust. She glanced down, embarrassed again. “I’ve never had guests before. I’m glad you like it. I’m also not much of a cook, so my mother invited us up for breakfast.”
Lavinia guessed that Beite meant up literally. She swung her legs out of bed and hurried to dress.
Beite led them along the clearing and up the branch paths where Darag had played tour guide for Lavinia the day before. She had seen little of Darag since he’d introduced her to his sister, who had offered to host Lavinia. This morning, mist hung amidst the trees around the clearing. Houses vanished in the grayness while brightly colored creatures chittered from branches overhead.
“Is it common to give your guests so much attention?” Lavinia asked, her attention more on memories than on the aerial city. The council and dinner the night before were still on Lavinia’s mind, slowing her pace despite the crisp morning.
Beite’s pace matched Lavinia’s as she walked on the balls of her feet, appearing to need a reminder with each step not to run ahead. She looked over at Lavinia and grinned. A strange flush spread through Lavinia’s chest.
“No, not really. But we get few guests, at least right in Lus na Sithchaine.”
Beite's merriment caused Lavinia to wonder if Beite was teasing her. “Well, we seemed to have been the exception, then!”
“Not ‘we’ - you.”
Lavinia’s cheeks flamed hotter. “I ... I don’t know what you mean. There were people bringing us food ... and that berry drink, oh, and that bread, all night. I don’t think I ever ate so much. There wasn’t any meat, though. You don’t eat any, do you?”
Conversation was easy with this Kith girl, who moved like a sapling in a playful wind. She was the opposite of Darag’s intense green eyes and slow movements. He had always seemed to pause before he spoke, a faint smile on his lips.
“No, sometimes fish, and who was it who brought you the food?”
“Um,” Lavinia thought back, pushing aside the memory of Ty’s sullen face and Ria’s pale nervousness. Of the four, only she and Niri had seemed to be excited. “There was this boy with reddish hair who brought me the drink, and another, with brown hair like soil, who brought the bread.”
Beite giggled. “You still don’t see.”
“See what?”
Worry crossed Beite’s face. “Where you are from, you are old enough to kahta ... um, to choose a man?”
“Yes, why? Oh.” Lavinia stopped in her tracks. “But everyone always prefers Ria,” Lavinia blurted out.
“Ria, she was the sallow one, yes? What an odd place you come from if they prefer her.” Beite watched Lavinia for a moment as they started to walk again, her head tilted to the side. “You really didn’t know they were trying to get your attention? You have someone back home?”
Lavinia shook her head, looking down and blushing madly. “No,” she forced out through a tight throat. “I’m just not used to such attention.”
Beite stopped in front of a house that grew where tree branches parted over three hundred feet above the ground. Nestled into the nook of limbs, the beams of the house made with living branches of the tree were straight and stout. It was completely unlike the delicate structure of Beite’s lace-like home.
Beite entered without knocking and led Lavinia into the rear of the house. A tall woman with hair a deep auburn fed small dark rocks into a tall stone stove box. When the woman straightened, Lavinia realized she was taller than Darag. Her skin was a deep mahogany mottled with russets but her eyes were the same green as Darag’s.
“Mom, this is Lavinia. Lavinia, this is my mother, Suileag.”
Suileag opened her arms and embraced Lavinia, kissing her on the top of the head. Lavinia felt the same comfort as her own mother’s hug and found herself holding Suileag tightly. Stepping back, she blinked away a few tears.
“I’m so pleased to meet you,” Lavinia said hoarsely.
Suileag smiled. “I am so pleased you have come to us. Darag has spoken quite a bit about you.” Her words made Lavinia smile.
“He says your brother has quite a temper.” Suileag said, expression worried.
Lavinia flushed. “He just wants to protect me, keep me from making the choices he thinks are wrong.” A little of the anger held over from the day before fell out of Lavinia as she realized what she had said.
Suileag nodded. “You are young, then, to be so far from home?”
Lavinia shook her head. “No, I would have left home in a few months anyway. But he has been away for a while. He forgets I’m not a child any longer.”
The concern left Suileag’s face. Lavinia took a breath without feeling the tight bands around her heart.
“I don’t think Darag sees it that way. He was quite upset at your brother and he is not usually distraught. Now go, go and sit in the front room. I will have breakfast for you in a few minutes, go.” Suileag waved both of them away.
Beite wove her way back to the main room and sat on a curving chair made of interconnected branches that hung from the ceiling. Lavinia cautiously tried the one next to it.
“I’m confused,” Lavinia said after a moment of testing the strength of her legless chair.
Beite glanced at her from where she gently swung. “About what?”
“Where is your father? You don’t mind I ask?”
Beite blinked and shook h
er head. She looked toward the kitchen before speaking. “I forget that you aren’t from here. I suppose we are different to you. My father died while I was quite young.”
“I’m sorry,” Lavinia said softly. “How?”
Beite spun her chair. “His tree got a disease. There are some things that not even Laith Lus can cure.” She peaked toward the kitchen again. “It has been hard on my mother. It is a long time to be alone.”
“Alone? She won’t remarry?”
Beite sat forward, startled, and then laughed. “No, the Kith only kahta once for life. Is that how it is where you are from? You can choose more than once? It does not seem so special that way.” Lavinia blushed under Beite’s amused gaze.
“It isn’t unheard of, if you are young and have lost your spouse.”
Beite shook her head. “How strange. We take a long time to decide, some longer than others.” Her lips twisted with annoyance, but before Lavinia could ask, Suileag came into the room bearing two bowls. The smell of roasted nuts, honey, and apples filled the air. As her belly rumbled, Lavinia forgot Beite’s comment.
Before she finished eating, the door pushed open. Darag walked in, giving Lavinia a warm smile before hugging his mother.
“My sister has taken care of you, then? Not left you to sleep on the floor?”
Beite stuck her tongue out at her brother.
Lavinia laughed. “Yes, she has done a very good job. I should think you would congratulate her rather than tease.”
“Hah! You aren’t going to steal her all day, are you?” Beite asked.
Lavinia’s heart flipped at Beite’s petulant question.
Darag’s green eyes danced. “Perhaps. I have a promise to keep with your guest. I will have her back before your curfew.” Beite blushed and crossed her arms with a huff. “If you would like to join me?”
Lavinia blinked under Darag’s gaze. “Of course. Thank you, Suileag. I will see you later, Beite.”
Lavinia walked out the door, stopping as she saw the edge of the branch pathway with only moving green leaves below.
“I forgot we were in the trees,” she stammered.
Darag laughed under his breath. “You seemed so content inside, I would have thought you had been here a month.” He gestured toward the path leading down. “Your friend, Whef’aylpah, the naiad is here.”
“Niri? Why do you call her Whef’aylpah?”
“It is our word for ... water purifier. It is how I remember her after what you told me yesterday.”
Darag led Lavinia down to the clearing. Across the grassy expanse, Niri sat talking to Laith Lus. Ria and Ty were not to be seen.
“Did my brother or Ria come as well?”
“I have not heard that they did,” Darag answered.
Lavinia was quiet, her heart skipping a beat while it ached at the same time. She could not sort out the thoughts tumbling through her head. One thing caught and she grasped hold.
“You told Beite you had a promise to keep with me?” No such obligation came to Lavinia’s mind.
Darag glanced at her, his eyes bright. “I promised to teach you to sword fight while you are here.”
Lavinia’s thoughts fell out of order again. She couldn’t find a reply before Niri’s voice reached them.
“How can you be sure you haven’t the other skills of a dryad?”
“I am not sure. It could be possible.”
Laith Lus’s answer brought Darag up short. It also reminded Lavinia that Darag could not touch metal. Which made his promise of learning to use a sword seem dangerous. Nothing was making sense today, not in the way it should.
Lavinia greeted Niri, asking the first question that popped into her head. “How is my brother?”
“Eating, drinking, you don’t need to worry about anything else. I brought some of your things. I thought if you were here for the two weeks, you’d need more than the clothes you were wearing.”
While Niri spoke, Darag remained frozen, eyes locked in Laith Lus’s steady gaze. “Nohle tonwhah erh,” Laith Lus said to Darag. With the gentleness of a breeze, he took Lavinia's hand. “I’ve sent your things to Beite’s house. Now go, both of you. Enjoy this opportunity that has come.”
Darag nodded slowly, his eyes remaining unfocused. But his expression became animated again as he turned to Lavinia. “I know just the place.”
Darag led Lavinia along the clearing and then into the forest. The trees opened by a narrow and fast-moving stream. Moss covered the boulders along it, but a wide portion of the ground nearby was flat and soft in its covering of leaves.
“How will we practice if you can’t touch metal?”
“I’ll make two practice swords from wood - see?” Darag searched the ground, picking up several sticks and discarding them. Finally choosing one, he ran his hand along its length. It straightened and tapered under his touch, two branches sprouting outward to form a hilt and guard. The casual use of such skill rocked Lavinia back on her heels.
“This should be about the same weight as your sword.”
Lavinia took the wooden sword gingerly as Darag continued to search for another stick to craft into his own practice blade. “What did Laith Lus say to you?” she asked.
Darag glanced up, his green eyes flickering bright in the dim light of the small clearing. “That we would talk later.”
“Do you think you really could have more powers than you realized?” she asked as Darag walked back to her, a newly formed practice stick in his hand.
Humor raced across his face with a roguish smile. “Nothing is for certain. Now come, I will show you how to hold the sword and how to stand.”