“We’re pretty sure that even though you aren’t the Red, the tree will let you pass as it does us,” Sera told me as she reached up with her free hand and tugged the door all the way shut.
“Pretty sure?” I asked. That wasn’t reassuring.
Sera didn’t answer. Great, she was talking in riddles and not sure. It was beginning to sound a bit dangerous.
It was dark in the tree. I had no idea what we were doing, but I trusted Sera. I heard a click before it felt like the floor was falling out from beneath me. I grabbed ahold of Sera’s waist as we fell quickly but then stopped. She made a thumping noise, and the door pushed back open. I followed Sera out into the bright light and stopped to gape. I knew where we were, and her words made a bit more sense. We were in Red’s office on the southern edge of Elder.
I stepped out onto the dirt floor and looked around. My eyes weren’t playing tricks on me. We really had traveled several days’ worth of running in moments.
“Red said to meet her at the archive,” Sera explained, not letting me have time to absorb what had just happened.
Pushing open the office door, Sera marched out of Red’s office and into the morning sunlight of the fields of Azren. I knew there were caves nearby, but we never spent too much time here when I was growing up. The farmers needed little from Red and were happy with their simple way of life never being interrupted. Red was needed up in the forest more than anything to help with the wolves, so I didn’t see much of the farm fields of Elder.
Sera waved to me as she took off running. While it seemed a race was in order, as it was every time we ran someplace, I had to keep pace with Sera, and I wasn’t sure where I was going. Sera took the pace as fast as normal, but it wasn’t a problem for me. She easily cut through fields and went off the pathway more than once. It seemed she was better versed in this area of the kingdom than I was.
Not too much later, we entered a small cluster of trees. Sera slowed down finally, though I could see nothing that would make her do that. As she rounded a hill, I caught the slight sense that there was more to this cluster of trees than the plants. Sure enough, Sera made an exact turn onto what looked like it could be stone steps, very miss-matched steps, but steps none-the-less. We climbed down, and I followed behind her. The pathway narrowed, and we slid between some huge stones. Anyone passing by wouldn’t have seen the opening, but I did now that we were going through it.
The path led us deeper into the hill, and the air chilled as the walls were no longer interspersed with trees but more and more solid rock. We hadn’t gone down more than a few saplings, but it was enough that we were underground a bit, at least, under the forest that was above us.
Sera didn’t say anything as we walked, and I didn’t either. I wasn’t too worried, though. It was strange to see her after my impromptu kiss at the wolf village, but it wasn’t now. Some things with Sera were just natural, and this was one of those times. Besides, I wasn’t sure what exactly to say to her. Deep down, I did have feelings for her, but I wasn’t sure how deep her feelings were. But for the moment, it didn’t matter.
“We have the archives here to keep them dry,” Sera finally spoke as we reached far enough into the cave that I figured we’d need light soon, but as she walked around the corner, I noticed that we wouldn’t.
Above us, the cave was open to the sky. I could see the blue, but all around, under the ledges, I could see containers. Red wasn’t too far away as she sat on a boulder with a container at her feet. She held some paper in her hands.
“This is the papers from The Vale for the winter you came here,” Red indicated the papers at her feet. “So far, I’ve been through The Echo and found nothing. I also made it through The Floris Observer and found nothing either. Sera, can you look through the Arcadia Chronicle and, Castiel, The Arboria Weekly, while I finish The Forge Hart?”
I sat down and took the box she had stacked at her feet that she had motioned for me to take. She had boxes upon boxes of the newspapers from different kingdoms. From the look of the very filled cave, it was likely she had papers from all the kingdoms. I never thought much of Elder not having a paper, but I didn’t realize that they kept the ones from everywhere else.
“It helps us to keep track of what is going on in other places, but we only keep notes and the papers from what might affect us back in Azren. The rest of the papers are stored here,” Red
explained to me as I gawked at the room.
“And before you ask,” Sera continued for Red. “We purposely don’t have a paper because we prefer to have no other places keeping up with us.”
That made perfect strategic sense. I nodded to Red and Sera before I opened up the first paper and began to scan through it, not exactly sure what I was looking for.
“You had to come from somewhere,” Sera explained as she took her box and began to do the same. “Red came early to sort through and find all the editions from around the time you were born.”
I glanced around the cave. There were boxes stacked all over. I had no idea how they knew where to find what, but I trusted that both Red and Sera knew.
“What exactly am I looking for?” I asked as I finished the last of the paper in my hand without a clue.
Red smiled at me. “These papers might give us an idea. We need to see if there is any mention of male babies in other kingdoms whether they are adopted like you or any children that went missing.”
I nodded. If I did come from somewhere and made the newspaper, that wasn’t going to be a good finding. How would it go over diplomatically if Red was accused of kidnapping and raising a child from another kingdom? That easily could lead to war. I know she’d never do that. I was certain she told us the truth of how I came to her, but that didn’t mean anyone else would believe her.
The paper in my hand was labeled, and I had to think hard. We didn’t use the same system to name our days, and I tried to remember what day I was looking at. As I looked at the pictures in the newspaper, I could see everything was summer. I didn’t need to look that far ahead. I needed something in the wintertime. Quickly I paged through the front pages until I found winter papers and began to skim through them.
We all three sat in silence as we read. Page after page were things I didn’t care about, nor did they matter. I really didn’t care at all about people who would work to line walls with gold. How silly did you have to be to use your energy for that? Gold didn’t keep the cold out. You needed solid, sturdy walls, not gold-lined. While I could relate to their mountain-dwellings that seemed quite like the tree villages, I couldn’t relate to the extravagance. I kept reading but was sure I wasn’t going to find any clues. The world outside of Elder just never seemed practical to me. And this place wasn’t an exception.
“Sera told me about your magic,” Red finally commented as she closed her box without finding anything to mention to us. She picked up another box and opened it. “I always knew that you were destined for great things.” Red gave me a smile, but it wasn’t a happy smile.
“I wouldn’t say that,” I replied with a shrug. “This magic in me doesn’t help my friends. It doesn’t help the wolves. I’d rather have the ability to cure people than shift into animals.” Though now that I knew how it felt, if given a choice, I would miss my ability, but I’d still choose to help my friends.
Red shrugged and gave me her all-knowing look. While I didn’t stop the curse or save my friends with being able to change into any animal, I did kind of help them the past couple of nights. I had kept Grace safe and got the children to safety.
“There are kids behind the wall,” I blurted out. Red had to know the truth. She was sentencing the wolf children to die.
“I know. Micco was setting up a safe place for them.” Red was back to glancing over her paper. She already knew. How did she not tell anyone?
“But he didn’t,” I added. “I helped Nikkan and Grace round up all we could find, and we put them in the trees.”
Red looked up at me, alarmed.
“What do you mean, Micco didn’t help?” Her voice wavered. I knew Micco was a close friend of hers, but I wasn’t sure if she was more alarmed that he didn’t help and something could be wrong or that there were children in danger.
“I didn’t see him. The kids said they waited for him, but he never came back.”
Red bit her lip as she glanced back to the entrance of the cave.
“Let’s work until lunchtime and then head back,” Sera suggested, as she could also see that Red was upset by my words. I was glad to see that we weren’t going to just leave this as another unanswered question.
I looked back down at my paper as both Sera and Red went back to theirs. I glanced through each column and found nothing as I had in the last edition. I had a feeling there was nothing to find, but I needed to be sure. If there was a lead to where I came from, that would be helpful, maybe give us a clue as to why the curse stopped when I came to Elder as a baby.
I continued to scan everything. It was boring to read over what didn’t make a single difference to me. It was interesting though to see actual pictures of the birds they used to fly around on. I had never traveled to Arboria before, but now with my new ability, I would be able to travel anywhere. I stared harder at the birds and wondered if I could transform into one myself. So far, I had only tried animals I had seen with my own eyes, but this was something that might be a bit of a fun challenge. I studied the picture more.
“A baby boy,” Sera read from over my shoulder. “It isn’t about a boy being kidnapped, but isn’t it strange that the king and queen of Arboria had a baby boy around the time Red took you in?”
I wasn’t sure what she was talking about until I looked at the column next to the picture I was studying. There was a much larger picture of a king and queen with an infant in their arms. I quickly scanned the writing next to it. Sure enough, in the winter I came to Elder, the King and Queen had a baby boy. I scanned the article. It mentioned nothing about an adoption, but it did say it was quite a surprise. No one knew the queen was pregnant. He was currently the crown Prince. Prince Fallon. I had heard of the name but knew nothing of the guy.
Red was now standing and looking over my shoulder too.
“I’ve met him before.” Red finished the article and nodded. “He’s been to Elder once. I’m pretty sure he hated it here.”
Sera laughed with Red. But I could completely understand. Arboria and Elder were two different worlds. I was more than sure I’d hate it in Arboria too.
“We need to head back and deal with the wolves,” Red said as she placed her paper back in the box.
She then carried the box over next to the cave wall and added it to a pile. I grabbed my own box, taking one last look at the Prince’s birth announcement before taking the box over to Red. She took it from me and put it in a different pile. There must have been some sort of order I didn’t understand.
We left the sort of cave and trekked back across the fields. Red didn’t cut through the freshly growing corn like Sera did before, so it took a bit longer to get back to her office. She walked in silence the whole way, and I felt like she didn’t want to be interrupted in her thoughts.
As we went into her office, she finally spoke.
“Then, we were right about his magic being accepted by the trees?” Red asked Sera. Not where I thought she was going to go with questions.
Sera looked me up and down.
“He seemed to come through whole. I guess that’s a yes.”
Whole? Was there any question of going through the magical tree not whole? And they both let me do it? Heck, they didn’t warn me? Typical Red and future Red.
“Good,” Red replied as she walked over and opened the tree door. She stepped inside and shut the door. I didn’t know anything happened. How could I have missed her doing that as a kid? Maybe she never did it in front of me because I would have asked.
Sera didn’t wait as she opened it again. Without a sound, Red was completely gone. Because of our lack of magic in Elder, it always surprised me when I saw something like that. I tried to keep my face neutral, but it was strange to see magic. Maybe I hadn’t’ seen enough of the world because Sera and Red didn’t bat an eye. Sera turned to me and tapped her foot.
“Waiting for an invitation?” she asked. “Would you like it on paper or just sung?”
I smirked at her teasing. “I’d prefer it in a dance.”
Without a second thought, I grabbed Sera and twirled her around in a circle, making us end up in the small secret tree space. My back hit the tree wall with a thud, and Sera bounced into me. I kept my arms around her, making sure she didn’t hit the tree walls at all. I grinned as she looked up with flushed cheeks.
“That was the perfect invitation,” I teased.
Sera huffed and turned back around, pressing her back into me. She yanked the door shut, and we were left in complete darkness again. Before she could touch the wall and send us back to Red, I bravely dipped my head and kissed her jaw just under her ear. My feet dropped as Sera made contact with the tree and sent us back to Red.
We stood in the dark tree with Red right on the other side. Sera twisted in my arms without opening the door. I could barely make out her face in the pitch black, and that was probably only thanks to my animal abilities. I wanted to be able to see her eyes and judge what she was thinking, but as she pushed up on her toes to kiss me, I didn’t have to wonder. All that thinking about if she liked me too was very much confirmed.
I don’t know how long we would have stayed there in the dark tree, but the knocking on a door made us both pull apart. Sera turned and pushed open the tree door to find Red answering her office door.
“They are all gathered,” a man’s voice said from the other side of her door.
“Who is gathered?” I asked from behind Sera as we approached Red.
Red didn’t answer as she left, and we followed as expected. Sera didn’t seem to know what was going on either, but that didn’t matter. Red’s always had been like that. Some things in life never changed, and I was actually grateful for that.
The tree people had built an amazing system of homes all several saplings off the ground, but one problem you encountered when you build a bunch of connecting buildings was that there is very little space to have a meeting of all the inhabitants. I could tell what Red had planned as we walked further towards the middle of the village. There were several stories of bridges that went around the trees, and there was one favorite spot that Red always liked to talk to her people from. Red walked far enough that anyone who wanted to hear her could.
“Thank you all for coming here on short notice,” Red started as she looked around at the faces gathered. It wasn’t all of Azren, but it was a lot of them.
“We need to talk about the wolves.”
A few people groaned, and a couple more glared, but most of the faces waited for her to continue. I wasn’t the only one used to waiting for Red to say what she needed to say.
“Right now, they are trapped behind a wall. They chose to build a wall to keep the rest of us safe. They chose to isolate themselves. While I understand your fear of the wolves, I need everyone here to think hard about what is going on. The wolves are citizens of Elder, just like every one of you. They are humans, even if they can turn into wolves. They are our friends, family, and neighbors. They are a part of this, all of this.” Red gestured around the city.
Faces stared back at her, but surprisingly, no one was complaining. Days without any attacks seemed to have quelled the majority of the people’s fear.
“We need to think of what we can do to help them,” Red continued. “Every night, more and more wolves succumb to the curse. Yes, you are all safe here, but they aren’t safe there. The wolves are attacking each other, and many are dying. Even worse, are the children. Micco told me he had plans to keep the children safe, but Castiel was brave enough to enter the wolves’ territory and help all the ones he could find. There are still children left unprotected beyond that wal
l.”
Women gathered, all looking shocked. I was sure many of them were picturing their own children in the same place as those lost children.
“As many of you know, children can’t get sick. It isn’t until they come of age that they can get the curse. So those children are sitting there with their parents, waiting for them to turn on them and attack them, if they have parents left. These children are innocent. The wolves are innocent. All they’ve ever wanted to do was be part of Elder. And you have all turned your backs on them.”
Red now looked from face to face, and many turned from her stare.
“I’m ashamed to call myself a tree person.”
There were a few gasps from the crowd, but most of them nodded along with her.
“If this was happening to your mother, your brother, your children, how would you feel?”
I could see that she still affected the people of Elder. Even if her Red powers were draining and going to Sera, Red still had the power of her voice and reasoning. Red was still the leader that had been running Elder for many seasons. Red was Elder.
“I expect more from you,” she concluded before turning back to Sera and me.
That was our only cue to move out of the way, and Red left the tree people citizens of Elder sitting in the safe tree bridges stunned. I wish I had more time to see what was coming next, but I needed to head back to Nikkan and Grace and check on the children. I had been scolded more times than I could count by Red, and I knew what it felt like to get her look of disappointment. Even the people scowling seem to be ashamed as they should be. Red couldn’t make them be better people, but that didn’t mean she has to sit silently and let them continue to act like they were. I couldn’t be prouder of Red as she walked away without a single look back. She would forever be the Red in my mind.
God of Shifters Page 4