They wandered the lofty bridges, of which Hector found out were called branchworks. Shael was resentful of her role watching over him but he could not blame her. He had witnessed her argument with the chieftain in their melodic tongue, of no doubt over him. He was human, after all; the enemy that sought to conquer what had once been their home. What puzzled him was why they had chosen to save him.

Still, he would gather as much information as he could of the natives. They were far from the savages he once thought they were. It seemed their technology was still primitive compared to man, but their different distinct way of life was apparent from mankind.

Instead of forcing the world in their image the sylven strived to live in harmony with the land, seamless and connected. They had eaten greens of some sort so they were agricultural as well, compared to the grisly notion of being flesh eating cannibals. Hector asked Shael question after question, who grew more rash and irritated with each answer.

He learned that the arboreal was started by the hermit forest druids that shaped the first arbors and their hollows within over the span of centuries, generation after generation. When the Great Cull (as it was named, Hector dare not ask) happened, the sylven sought refuge in this forest among the isolated hermits. The druids taught their ways to the other sylven, the most gifted becoming seers capable of the Voice, or Sight as the sylven called it.

How they shaped the woods Shael only explained in riddles, and Hector soon dropped the subject. From what he could glean from her every sylvan was open to the Sight, the way of all things. A philosophy all sylven strived to follow. Perhaps an Elder seer or a druid would explain more fully.

The branchworks twisted and connected with each other at varying levels. Some arched over, others shaped in tiered stairways that descended or ascended to another branchwork or arbor. Hector stared upon the arboreal, entranced by its entirety and committing it to his memory. Works of wood grown, not cut in shape to form a village amongst the trees.

“We must return,” Shael eventually said, eyes closed to the Sight as she placed her hand onto a nearby arbor. “Night grows near.”

Hector noticed none of the villagers were outside, only the spear bearing sentinels as Shael, equipped with bows and quivers full of arrows shouldered at their backs. All was still and quiet, save for the calls of wildlife over the eternal rustle of the leafed canopy with the breeze. They walked back, Shael nodding to the few passerby in acknowledgment.

How she knew what path to take in the winding and twisting branchworks connecting to the near identical trees was a mystery to Hector. Yet they returned back to Shael’s arbor, recognizing the circled contoured legged table and chairs inside.

“Before you go, I must ask that you return the knife you took from me. I promise I will not harm any of you. That knife was given to me by a friend. It is one of the few reminders left of his memory.”

Shael nodded, “It is a good knife.”

She handed the weapon over to Hector before warning him, “I will end you with it myself should you think otherwise. I will wake you in the morn,” Shael said as a blunt farewell before disappearing past the moss curtains. Hector sighed and brought the dagger to its belted leather sheath, jeweled with a sapphire at its pommel. He inspected the room. It was a little less than eight paces wide, its ceiling the height of a tall man and a half over.

The sylven used no fire for light, the capped mushrooms softly glowing amber or otherworldly greenish yellow. Moss seemed the only choice for carpeting and curtaining, as well as bedding.

Hector took off his boots, now scuffed with dirt from its original pristine dark shine. He poked the bed of moss before kneeling down and resting on the floor, using his cloak to swaddle himself as a blanket; feeling as if he was being engulfed into a cushion of herb smelling mint.

I will honor your memory, father, Hector vowed in his mind. You, Baric, and the other Crown Guard who bravely faced their deaths. He wondered if he would face his fears and doubts, insignificant to the heroism of the fallen. But they were just that. Fallen. And Hector accepted that he was powerless. He bared his teeth and snarled silently, at his own cowardice and helplessness.

What will I do? He thought dismally, What can I do?

***

Hector rose and cried out, lashing out with an arm and hitting air. His dream was not one of pleasant contentment, but of unsettling nightmares. Having dreamt of being held helpless in the grip of the Spider Queen’s Gift, tortured bloody. His body felt strangely numb throughout the dreaming, and when the Queen smiled her teeth had glistened crimson.

“Are you finished?” Shael demanded. “They wait for us.”

Hector rose groggily up, grabbing his boots and sitting on a chair to don them. He exited to meet Shael outside, who started her brisk stride back to the chieftain’s arbor. No denizens of the arboreal were seen outside, leaving them to walk unimpeded up, down and over the each uniquely shaped branchworks. Shael jingled the string of shells outside the chieftain’s home once more.

“Shael has told you that you will journey to the Odigwe Tribe,” Naal said. “There you shall have the answers to questions you do not yet even know to ask.”

“What are these riddles you speak of in these answers?” Hector questioned in frustration. “The more I know, the more uncertain I become.”

Naal smiled gently. “All will be revealed. Time will wash away all uncertainty.”

The chieftain led them up the countless number of spiraled steps, all the way to the top of the tree. Hector squinted and covered his eyes to the sudden sunlight not dimmed by the forest canopy below them. There, two giant brown feathered birds perched proudly upon the mantle of branches circling the treetop.

“What are they?” Hector breathed.

“They are the Odigwe, one of the great beasts. My Tribe’s namesake,” a voice said in perfectly fluent Westlandic. “You may know them as hummingeagles, or harpies.”

Hector stared at a man’s form eclipsed in the sunlight. No, not a man. A half breed, his long pointed ears the telltale sign of sylvan lineage. As he walked closer Hector noticed his human eyes, black pupils ringed with golden irises. He had a wild mane of murky green near black hair akin to Naal’s, tressed into two braids above each ear. A patch of beard grew on his chin like a bristling weed. His skin was weather beaten tan, bare arms veined lean. He held out one hand in good will.

“Hello, Hector. My name is Daelith. I have heard much about you.”

“I wish I could say the same. You’re a hybrid,” Hector stated.

“You catch on quick,” he said, grinning in earnest. “Do not worry, you will know of my origin soon enough.”

Daelith strode past to sit atop one of the saddled hummingeagles, swinging his legs over in a fluid practiced motion. “Hop on!” He motioned Hector to the free eagle. Shael walked and smoothly mounted the great beast.

“You will have to ride behind me,” Shael beckoned him with an impatient wave. “Get on.”

Hector shuffled over, taken aback when the eagle reared itself up and cried out in a piercing screech, flaring its wings with the length of three tall men.

“Don’t worry, Orvill is just wary of you,” Daelith smiled apologetically. “Never seen a human before, have you Orvill?”

“Wary of me?” Hector said in exasperation. He eyed its wrinkled black feet, curved talons gripping the leafless branch that without a doubt could rend and tear flesh with ease. Its long thin darkened beak curved akin to a hummingbird’s, delicate and fragile looking compared to its mighty stature. With careful movements he placed his foot onto a stirrup and lifted one leg awkwardly over to sit upon the hardened leather saddle running along the length of the hummingeagle’s back, tapered at its front and rear should its rider(s) fall off.

Shael promptly turned and secured the leather strappings held with bone bucklings round his thighs and waist to the saddle before fastening her own leg harness and belt.

“Hold onto my waist,” she said tersely. Hector clasped his hands around her. He felt her body, segmented with hard muscle underneath her tan leather jerkin.

“Eimear!” Daelith cried out, and his eagle flapped its mighty wings so strongly Hector felt the gusts of air ruffling forth, followed by their own great mount. They soared over the forest canopy to view the Elder Tree off in the horizon, looming over all in its crowning glory. They moved slower than his ferried flight with Baric, but faster should they have been riding a horse at full speed.

The cool wind pleasantly brushed past his face while the suns in turn warmed his skin. The Odigwe glided with the drafts of the currents, having to flap their wings irregularly to the wind’s fickle nature. They drew closer to the Elder Tree, unavoidably obscured in legend were it not so close yet so far away from the study of mankind.

“What is your name for the Elder Tree?” Hector asked Shael.

“All trees of this forest are Elder Trees. The one you speak of was the first, Serendrial’s Arbor. Serendrial graced life into this world with her first creation.”

“Is Serendrial one of your gods?”

“She is the Mother of all things, the Creator. Just as Vath is her husband, the Father of all things, and the inevitable Destroyer. One cannot be without the other. Together, they are the cycle that brings balance to this world.”

“Do you suppose Serendrial did not make mankind? Is that why you refer to our gods as separate from your own?”

Hector could see Shael’s scowl from the back of her head.

“I am not a herald of her will. Question a seer if you are so curious.”

The morning passed into noon and soon Serendrial’s Arbor grew ever nearer, a radius of shadow over the smaller trees below. Hector gaped at its colossal scale. More Odigwe flew above nesting at the Arbor’s treetop, its massive limbs sprouting a multitude of smaller branches that tendriled outward; covered in countless green teardrop shaped leaves.

They landed on the outer branches of an Elder Tree that circled an open entrance leading down a spiral stairway. Smaller interwoven branchworks lined with moss and fallen feathers formed large nests around the center of the treetop. The great birds rested in their abodes to which their riders dismounted. Hector unbuckled his harnesses and fumbled down, disoriented from stepping onto solid unmoving ground once more.

They are a people of the land, yet live and take to the sky, Hector thought, They embrace this world and all its elements, free in more ways than one. Are we the poison, seeking to take all this away and sowing death in its place?

He followed Daelith, shadowed by Shael down the different yet same spiral steps. This time they descended several hundred feet and several thousand steps, winding all the way down to the forest floor. Hector grew dizzy from the constant turning round and round the stairwell. Yet the natives seemed unaffected, skipping down the near endless flight of stairs while he focused on not tripping over his cloak to follow in their haste.

Daelith swept past a mossed hanging, the telltale sign of an exit. A verdant blanket of flora and fauna covered the earth, filled by whatever space left with patchworks of moss and glowing mushrooms that brought solace from the dim shade. Brilliant turquoise flowers bloomed around sparsely scattered fanning ferns and shrubbery.

They continued past a grove of meager saplings that hid a small waterfall connecting to a shallow pool that led to a brook flowing onwards. A figure in white robes sat upon a moss covered rock beside the pond, his back facing them, long silvered hair only visible.

He waved his arms to the spheres of water that floated and spun in slow fragility, droplets escaping and falling back to its source. A group of sylven children watched with rapt attention, as entranced as Hector at the spectacle. They were the lightest of hues in grey, brown or green compared to their adult parents. The spheres of water coalesced before losing shape and dropping to the pool, splashing the children who laughed with glee.

One of the sylven, a girl of shale grey, pointed to Hector and piped up in their erratic tongue. The man turned, for he was a man, swarthy from the suns and stocky in build. He dismissed the children in their language, his tone firm as they reluctantly left them to join their keeper, a female sylvan waiting patiently whose hair was as white as the man’s. They passed them, Daelith nodding to the elderly sylvan who nodded in turn.

Hector’s eyes focused on the long scar from his creased forehead running along his left brow down to his cheekbone. He had a stout face with a long bridged nose and a squared beard. Hector could not place his uncertainty but he had seen his face before.

The man’s pale green eyes stared pensively at Hector, the line of his mouth lifted to the hint of a smile at his bewildered expression.

“Welcome. You must have many questions. Please, sit.” He gestured to another smooth faced rock beside. “No doubt wondering who I am.”

From the corner of his eye Hector saw Daelith bow his head to the old man and withdrew, leaving Shael to stand between them.

“You are?” The old man turned to the female sylvan.

“I am Shael, of the Elkin Tribe.”

“Ah yes, Naal’s most recent Spearhand. Would you prefer to stand?”

“Yes.”

“I see. And you are Hector, yes? What line are you from boy?”

“I am the last of the line Riordan,” Hector answered. “My father, the Crown King, was assassinated by his subjects.”

“Grave tidings. Yet again, history comes to a full circle. But you are not the last of the line Riordan.”

Could it be? Hector wondered. No… it can’t be. His thoughts drifted to the statues of the Kings of old.

“I am of the line Riordan. You may know me as Celdan, the First King of Kings.”

The rushing of water burbled overhead Hector’s silence. Celdan shifted on his stone seat, “I understand this must be difficult to comprehend-”

“Why are you here?” Hector blurted out. “Why did you not return to the Empire? Even if you are who you claim, why abandon your own people?” His voice cut through, harsh and demanding.

Deep lines cracked Celdan’s face as he lowered his head, now darkened in shadow.

“You have lived with the forest folk long enough to see the wonders that are their lives. I have seen what has been gleaned from you Hector. And I know of the prejudices and hatred that still lurk in man’s heart. You are not of those things. You seek to maintain the Laws, do you not?”

“I seek to reclaim our birthright as Crown King, and reunite the Empire.”

“A noble goal to be sure. But is the reason for this claim noble in its nature?”

Confusion crept over Hector’s righteous assurance. “I do not understand. I will honor the promise of my father in making peace with the natives of Orr.”

“And is that enough to atone for the atrocities led by our line? I see the Laws have changed much over the generations. Even in my defiance of the Laws I know there was less obscurity in how they should have been enacted. The mages twist the ancient Laws into something that fits their own ends, and the next mages that they pass the knowledge unto and so on. Eventually we will become what we once fought against.”

Hector frowned at having his very way of life called a lie. “You know of the ancient war between the Gaians and the Forma?”

“How much do you know?”

“Very little from my Oracle, Freia. She granted me a vision of my ancestor’s past. I only saw a great battle between mages, of numbers the likes of which I’ve never seen.”

Celdan leaned intently with his elbows resting on his knees, fingers knitted together and said, “Tell me more of this battle.”

“There were two armies, one wearing grey and the other wearing clothing red as blood. I witnessed it from the side of the grey. The grey, the Gaians won. And after; a flying city falling down from the sky.”

“Hmmm. There is much to say, but I would rather you witnessed it yourself.” Celdan shuffled over to sit beside Hector, offering an open hand. “Take my hand, and I will show you.”