The Tree of Souls by Katrina Archer

Author:Katrina Archer [Archer, Katrina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: 978-0-9880512-8-7
Publisher: Ganache Media via Indie Author Project

The next morning Jezarel insisted on visiting the Tree again. The hidden valley once more bathed Kairiya in a wash of calm such as she had rarely known. Stillness, yes, that she’d experienced—the stillness of a predator waiting for prey. But this peace differed, soothed. Bees hovered in the blossoms that burst through the Tree’s foliage despite the lateness of the season. A songbird trilled a melody from high in the branches. Kairiya closed her eyes and breathed in the rich perfume of the creamy white flowers.

“You feel it too?” Jezarel asked. “My father claims that it’s the peace of the Far Gates, that here, the veil between the realms thins.”

“Because of the Tree?”

“My father brought my brother and me here to teach us. Three realms, three trees, each planted by one of the Fates. This one was planted by She Who Sees. It’s why, when we became blood sisters, you could briefly see every living thing in the world. We became one with her.”

Kairiya shuddered, but she didn’t know how to express her fear to Jezarel. This business of wanting to be closer to the Fates was foreign. Gherza. She risked betraying her closeness to her barbarian roots if she told Jezarel of her objections. She’d been raised to do everything possible to avoid the notice of the Fates.

Jezarel pulled a silk-wrapped package from her belt pouch. She shook loose its folds, and Kairiya saw a gold chain nestled in the cloth Jezarel held in her palm. A teardrop-shaped blue stone glinted against the silk, steppe-sky blue just like Jezarel’s eyes. Jezarel looped the pendant over a branch of the Tree.

“What’s that?” Kairiya asked.

“A present for you. Patience—it’s not ready yet.”

“A present?” Kairiya was flummoxed. “What for?”

“Because you’re teaching me how to be a warrior. Because you brought me to Asrar. Because you’re my friend.”

Kairiya stared at Jezarel and suddenly knew one thing. In this place, with the Tree as witness, Jezarel spoke from the truest depths of her heart. Jezarel called Kairiya friend.

Kairiya didn’t know what to say. Guilt coated her tongue with a slick, sour film.

Such a seemingly simple thing, friendship. Yet no one ever named Kairiya friend before. Not of their own volition. The Clan children always shunned her, afraid of the Gherza witch’s daughter. Her own stepsiblings—more wont to beat her into doing their chores than invite her to a game of chase-me-round. Jezarel treated Kairiya better than Kairiya’s own people did. Then again, if Asrar told the truth, Jezarel was also one of Kairiya’s people.

Asrar taught her to hate her Gherza heritage, drummed it into her until the contempt beat in time with the beat of her own heart, but Kairiya hadn’t seen so much to hate for herself. Quite the opposite. Despite their nomadic lifestyle, everywhere the Gherza set their tents seemed like home to them, while Kairiya, who’d spent her whole life in a single rude hut, felt like an outsider even when surrounded by family. Kairiya envied Jezarel’s easy sense of place.

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