Jareen was left alone with the bodies again, and she was glad for it. What had she become, that she was more comfortable with the dead of her people than the living? It was progress, she supposed. When she’d left Talanael, she hadn’t felt comfortable with the dead, either. It was an hour later when a group of Vien, dressed in solid indigo robes, entered the pavilion carrying smooth planks of elven redwood each carved with reliefs of open gates. The bodies were laid upon the planks and lifted by vien in silence as vienu flanked them.

  Jareen stood and followed at the rear of the group, knowing nothing else to do except remain with Gyon and the other fallen. Lielu Andalai stood upon the wharf with one of her servants. As the bodies were carried past, the lielu inclined her head and spread her hands in gesture of welcome, greeting the fallen back to their own shore.

  As Jareen went to pass by at the back of the procession, the vien standing with Lielu Andalai stepped forward and blocked her with an extended arm. He was dressed in the sea-green livery of Talanael, and up close, Jareen recognized him a servant-rider of her mother’s. Tucked in his sash were a sword and paired knife in wooden scabbards. He was golden-haired and tall, his skin like honey and his eyes a deep brown.

  The vien held her in place until the body-bearers had proceeded further down the wharf.

  “Tell me,” Jareen’s mother asked. “Why did a daughter of the Embrace abandon her own people to go among the humans? They are but a passing shadow.”

  “So am I,” Jareen answered, braced by a sudden surge of anger.

  The High Lielu of Talanael did not look at Jareen, staring after the retreating body-bearers as she weighed the answer. At last, she nodded.

  “So it is.” With that, she followed after the procession, her long strides carrying her away.

  The rider of Talanel spoke:

  “I am taking you to Shéna.”

  “What about the feast?” Jareen asked.

  “Lielu Andalai has commanded that no delay be made. We go at once.”

  “I wish to honor Gyon and the others.”

  “It is not your choice.”

  “I was there. I should attend them,” she snapped.

  “Do not question the High Lielu.”

  Jareen tried to push through his arm, but the vien grasped her by the wrist, his grip strong. She knew she had no hope of escape, but the thought of meekly submitting irked her.

  “You can force me to leave, but it is against my will.”

  “What care I for your will?” he asked. “I serve the Synod.”

  “Permit me to retrieve my satchel, at least” she said. The vien acquiesced, but he went with her aboard the ship. When they returned to the wharf, he took her wrist again in a firm grip and led her away and up the path that led into the heart of Talanael.

  Was this her mother’s way of ridding herself of Jareen? Enough people in Talanael would remember her if she revealed her face, and how then would a Daughter of the High Tree be treated? If Lielu Andalai knew who she was, did she hope Jareen would not willingly reveal her identity, and so go along with her commands?

  If so, her mother had judged aright.

  “What is your name?” Jareen asked the vien. Though she recognized him, she did not remember it. His poise reminded her of Gyon and his comrades in some way, and she wondered if he too was a survivor of the Mingling.

  “My name is unnecessary,” he answered, striding alongside her between arbors of vines that flowered with delicate orange blossoms. They were a kind of fruiting vine she had not seen since she left home, and she wished they were in fruit rather than in bloom, for she had sometimes dreamed of tasting them again. As upset as she was, it was hard not to feel the intoxication of the sea air mixed with the fragrant blossoms and leaves surrounding her. No wonder the humans told such fanciful tales of Elfland. Jareen’s memories had dimmed over the years, and so she had come to scorn the tales of awe spread by the Noshian sailors who had not even set foot upon shore. Yet here she was, hardly believing the vibrancy of it, herself.

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  The vien led her down a side path, away from the grove at the heart of Talanael where her Tree had its home among the gardens and greenswards that lay in twilight beneath the deep green branches. No doubt, the feast was beginning there. The rest of the city felt unusually empty and quiet.

  Turning, they entered into a small hedged meadow where a few vaela grazed. These the humans called unicorns. The Noshians had old tales of them, and in their art the beasts had but a single horn, and looked more like horses. When their trade ambassadors had seen the vaela, they believed them to be the same. Yet the vaela were born without horns and grew their first as yearlings, growing up to two more as years went on. They were finer-boned than the human draft horses. Rather than a solid hoof, the vaela’s hooves were cloven, and their tails were long and solid except for a tuft of fine hair on the end. These details, the humans almost never got right in their paintings. The Noshian merchants had sought for decades to get the Vien to trade them vaela, but the Synod had forbidden it. It was good, for Jareen knew the Noshians believed that the ground horns and bones of the unicorn held magical properties.

  The vien released Jareen’s wrist and walked up to one of the vaela. The creature raised its head from the grass and eyed him sidelong, but it did not flee as he approached. Reaching out, he stroked its neck. The vaela’s hair was fine, as smooth as a vienu’s. He leaned in and hummed notes. The vaela’s ears pricked to the side. As he continued to rub the creature’s neck, it blew out through its nostrils and lowered its head.

  There were a handful of other vaela grazing around the greensward, but none paid them any heed. Words rang in Jareen’s memory, the voice of a little human girl:

  “Are there really unicorns there?”

  That little girl was almost certainly dead, now. Why hadn’t Jareen said yes? Maybe they weren’t creatures of magic, and didn’t look quite how the humans thought, but if the girl could have stood there beside Jareen, would that have mattered? Maybe Silesh was not so wrong.

  “Come,” the vien said, motioning to Jareen from beside the vaela. She approached. The animal’s back was nearly at the level of her head. “Up,” the vien said.

  “Up?”

  The vien arced a long eyebrow at her. She looked down at her robe, then undid her waist-cord. The elf turned his head, averting his gaze as she gathered her skirts about her hips, folding the silk through her legs and retying the cord at her waist, draping the excess overtop. Elven women wore their dresses in such fashion for work or any strenuous activity, but she had not done so since she was a youth. That done, she placed her hands up on the vaela’s back and sprang upward. She had barely settled, grasping the creature’s long mane, when the vien sprang up behind her.

  With a single note of song from the rider, the vaela stepped forward. The movement made Jareen flinch, and she grasped at the animal with her legs to steady herself. The vaela tossed its head back and snorted, taking a few prancing steps sideways.

  “No,” the vien said sternly. “Relax your legs.”

  She tried to do so, grasping the mane in both hands.

  “Why would you need to ride a vaela?” her mother’s voice sang in her memory. “They are needed for war. You have no duties. No one will expect you to serve. Enjoy your life beneath the trees.”

  Always there was the unspoken implication: what little life you have.

  Once again, the vien sang, and despite the urge to grasp with her legs, she allowed them to hang at the vaela’s sides. With a smooth surge, the vaela started at a brisk walk, passing through a gap in a hedge, and then between the low hills to the north. Little of the westering sunlight reached the forest floor, where twilight could be found in many places even at noonday. They passed from shadow to shadow, the vaela’s sleek grey hair catching the light and disappearing in the darkness.

  They left the city of Talanael behind, and taking to the open paths of the orchards and groves beyond, the rider sang another note. The valea slid into a faster gait, rocking side to side as its legs paced back and forth, its cloven hooves making dull thuds on the moss and loam. Tirs of earth and rock rose throughout the landscape, dominated by diverse groves of trees. Talanael was known for its towering Redwoods, but truly the Vien loved all sorts of trees, especially those that flowered or fruited. They flowed through the scents of many blossoms as twilight deepened and night fell. Jareen breathed deep. Even in the distress of her situation, she took joy in the clean air that did not burn her eyes and nose. She had grown so use to the discomfort in Nosh, and it had taken days at sea before it began to fade. Yet now and then as they rode, she smelled the eucalyptus trees, reminding her of the Wards and gangrene.

  Shéna was their destination, but that heartwood’s tir lay over seventy miles northeast. She wondered how long they would go before stopping to rest. Now and then, they heard the songs of vien and vienu in the trees as they passed enclaves of dwellings, gardens, and groves where the elves worked by the cool of the night. As lovely as her surroundings were, after a few hours, her legs grew sore, as did her stomach and back. She tried to relax her muscles, and she realized her hands were stiff from clutching the vaela’s mane.

  Still, the vaela carried them on. The vien occasionally sang a note, and always the vaela responded. After five or six hours, Jareen knew they must have passed the halfway point to the tir of Shéna, and her captor-guide did not intend to rest at all that night. They would ride through, and she must hope to stay strong. She did not wish to complain or show weakness, yet she soon longed for morning and their arrival—or any opportunity to let her body rest.

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