Airlean Tales

Azalea overslept.

She knew it as she fuzzily came to, the sun hot on her cheek, the air alight with a racket of birdsong. She sat up and squinted against the blaring sunlight and the broad, open sky.

It was a beautiful, clear day, and far past dawn. It was almost noon.

Infuriated, Azalea threw aside her cot and stormed to Echo, who was hunched over the fire, smothering the final embers with soil.

“Why didn’t you wake me?” she demanded.

Echo glanced up at the bright blue sky. “Oh, fancy that. The sun’s risen.”

Insufferable. Her jaw tightened. “You act as if we have all the time in the world. Has it dawned on you that we have very little at all?”

“Apparently it just dawned on you,” Echo chuckled.

How badly she wanted to kick him in the shin.

“Have a drink.” He tossed her a flask. Her flask. “You’re dehydrated from sleeping.”

She glowered at him as she popped it open and took a generous sip. “Don’t touch my things.”

He shrugged. “Tall order for a thief and a murderer. I make no promises.” But he clasped his hands behind his back as they finished putting out the fire and headed out.

Echo led them off the road and into the Talebloom Woods, the massive stretch of forest that covered Airlea’s entire western border. The outskirts were mostly safe, speckled with a ring of rural villages that subsisted off its fertile land and plentiful wildlife. Azalea’s birthplace, Lumber’s Hollow, had been one of them. But the further one traveled to the Talebloom’s heart, the greater the risk. Ancient magic weighed the air and seeped into the gnarled roots of the oaks, bringing the forest to life in an ever-shifting maze of trees. Countless secrets were hidden within the boughs; a particularly intrepid cartographer had glimpsed the ruined remains of an old castle, only to be driven mad by a beast that lay within.

So many ways to die, Azalea mused. So many natural dangers surrounding Airlea, most of them yet unknown. Yet here she was, voluntarily walking into one of them.

“Your friend lives in the Talebloom?” she asked Echo, who was picking his way deeper into the forest.

He glanced back at her. “Surprised?”

“I didn’t think people lived this far in,” she said. She frowned. “How much time will this trip lose us?”

“Don’t worry your little red head.” He turned back to pathfinding. “She’s far north. Rather close to the Noadic Range herself.”

Azalea wondered what this friend was like. Was she an ex-mercenary? Forged by the underground, like Echo? Then she would be cold and hard as steel, rough on the edges. A person had to be to survive the perils of both the Talebloom and the Noadic Range. Azalea would have to prepare herself for the worst.

There wasn’t much else to do other than talk, so she fished for information as they walked. “How do you know where to go?” she asked. The Talebloom seemed to expand endlessly in every direction, an ocean of trees and brambles.

Echo tilted his head. “I can smell her, of course.”

Azalea frowned. “That sounds like a lie.”

Echo hummed. “Why’s that?”

“The woods are full of fragrant things,” she said. “Flowers. Grass. Skunks. Manure. Something would block the scent.”

“Somebody likes horticulture.”

“I grew up in the woods.”

Echo ducked beneath a low branch. “Well, I do make a habit of lying, but this is one of those boring times when I tell the truth,” he said. “I’m smelling her…metaphorically. Or rather, magically.”

“Magically?” Sensory manacraft was very rare. Most people could not change their bodies to have better sight or smell or hearing. But Azalea supposed that he had to be telling the truth; he was known for tracking people, after all. “How does that work?” she asked curiously.

Echo smiled amusedly. “Nope, that’s all I can say. Can’t be giving away my trade secrets, now.”

His steps slowed and he raised his head. His crimson eye burned, the pupil constricting into a slit, and his nostrils flared. Then it was gone in the blink of an eye and he seemed normal.

Azalea squinted. Wait. Hadn’t she seen him do that before?

“Hmm,” Echo muttered, rubbing his chin. “It moved her a mile inland. Cutting it rather close, but an eastern detour should avoid the Hedge—”

“You did that,” Azalea said suddenly. “When we first met.”

Echo’s eyes snapped to her and he tilted his head. “Did what?”

“The—the eye thing. The nose thing. Does that happen when you’re picking out a scent? A magical one, I mean.”

“Haven’t the slightest what you’re talking about.” He stepped over the thorny bush and continued trotting, his direction apparently determined.

“That’s a lie,” Azalea accused.

“Yes, aptly spotted.”

“That’s what you look like when you use your manacraft. That’s how you’re tracking her.”

Echo shrugged. “Very possible.”

Azalea glared at his back. She jogged at his heels to keep up with his quickening pace. “How does anybody hire you when you never give a straight answer?”

Echo chuckled dryly. “Most wealthy people don’t want straight answers. They’d rather twist them up.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Oh, it makes plenty. It just means you haven’t been wealthy.”

Azalea lifted her chin. “Well, I think you lie because you’re scared.”

“Terrified, in fact,” Echo said without hesitation.

He was unflappable. Impossible. He had an answer to everything.

Azalea glared harder at his back, not that it would do anything. “Terrified of what?”

“Can’t say. I’m too scared to not lie about it.”

This awful man. “I think that you’re scared of being genuine,” Azalea said staunchly. “Maybe it’s because it would make you vulnerable. Or maybe you’re scared to see who you truly are.”

He smiled enigmatically. “And who am I, Little Red?”

She eyed him for a moment, then sighed. “I wouldn’t know. You don’t share anything about yourself.”

Echo opened his mouth to respond, but whatever glib words were forming on his silver tongue quickly died. His eyes darted to the boughs above them and he frowned, tilting his head again.

“No more comebacks?” Azalea challenged.

He was quiet for another moment. Curious, Azalea listened with him. The forest was peaceful at this hour, devoid of the usual birdsong and chittering of insects, still and silent. It was almost eerie.

“It’s shifting,” Echo said suddenly.

Azalea’s head jerked up. “What?”

“Follow.” Without any further explanation, his windsoles fired and he shot off into the woods.

Bewildered, Azalea sped after him, darting between tree boughs as fast as she could. Echo was not as quick as Karis, but he was just as maneuverable, winding over brambles and around trunks and through branches like a slinking fox. His white hair rippled softly behind him like a silken scarf.

“Is this another one of your tricks?” Azalea called, barely avoiding a nasty face-plant into a thorny shrub.

Echo did not respond and only vaulted over a fallen log. Azalea reached out to follow him, but right as her hand touched the dry wood—

—it splintered under her weight, cracking in two.

Azalea stumbled. She just managed to right herself with a quick burst of her windsoles, but she couldn’t regain her balance. The trees were spinning before her, the ground shaking beneath her feet. The entire world seemed off-kilter, out of sync. Did she have a fever? This would be a terrible time to fall ill.

Then, just to her left, a broad tree groaned heavily, toppling right toward her.

“Arya!” cried Echo’s voice sharply.

Who’s that? Azalea thought. But she had no time to entertain the question. She fired her windsoles and arced easily out of harm’s way, but her landing was shaky. All around her, the earth rattled in a low grumble, churning like a pot of boiling porridge.

It hadn’t been her imagination. The ground was actually moving.

Oh, Azalea thought. Oh. Oh dear.

She felt something seize her arm in a painful grip, and her head shot up. Echo’s burning, mismatched gaze wobbled in her vision.

“Pick up the pace if you don’t want to be lost forever, Red,” he said curtly. “The entire forest is shifting.”

Questions bubbled in Azalea’s mind, one after the other in a never-ending stream, but she shut her mouth and nodded. She had never seen Echo look quite so serious, and it gave her the sinking feeling that they were genuinely in danger.

They sped through the forest with new urgency in their steps, windsoles flaring in rhythm. Over and under, left and right, around. The trees smeared by them in streaks of earthy colors, moaning and shaking as the world turned sideways. Echo only pushed them faster, rushing forward like a charging bull.

When they broke into an idyllic, sunlit clearing of wildflowers, he finally slowed his pace to a leisurely stroll, catching his breath. Azalea did the same. In the distance, the forest shook once more, then calmed.

“What was that?” Azalea demanded.

Echo glanced over his shoulder. “The shift? You’ve lived by the Talebloom. You know about the Hedge.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.” She did know about the Hedge. She’d known of it ever since she was a child, with Lumber’s Hollow being a stone’s throw from the forest. It was the name of the invisible boundary that demarcated the dangerous, ever-changing heart of the woods.

Echo tilted his head in his typical, aggravating fashion. “Then what were you talking about?” he said.

Azalea crossed her arms. “Why did you lead us through the Hedge? You might have gotten us out, but if one thing went wrong—”

“Well, good thing nothing did.”

“We could have died.”

“You’re on your way to an early grave anyway.”

“Echo.” His mercenary experience be damned. Azalea grabbed his shoulder and forcibly turned him.

He whirled around like the wind. One moment, he had been strolling easily with his hands in his pockets; the next, his knife was pointed right at her throat. Azalea felt the brush of bone at her jugular, but she stood there, meeting his gaze without faltering.

“We would have died for nothing,” she said evenly. “You took an unnecessary risk.”

Echo’s crimson eye burned. “If I wanted you dead, Little Red, your body would already be rotting. Many times over.”

The child inside her wanted to quail and step away, to cry in fear, but she didn’t. She raised her chin. “I know that,” she said. “I know you’ve been trying to make good on your deal. But I still want answers.”

Echo stared at her for a long moment—a moment that lingered until the first chirp of a tentative birdsong fluttered in the air. Then he sighed and slid his knife back into its sheath. The knot between Azalea’s shoulders slowly unfurled as the forest filled again with the soft noise of animals and insects. She hadn’t thought he would kill her, but it was always difficult to tell.

“The Hedge is expanding,” Echo said placidly. “Probably because of all the Storms.” He gestured to the trees around them. “We shouldn’t have hit the border for another two miles…if my old information had been correct. I won’t make the same mistake again.”

Azalea nodded. “Alright,” she said. Then, quietly: “Thank you.”

“It’s hardly an occasion for gratitude.” He sighed and picked a thistle out of his shirt. “Just another thing the rural folk have to worry about. Come, our destination is right through this cave.”

The cave in question was more of a dingy, narrow tunnel that forced them to drop into a crawl. Thankfully, it was a short way—only a few yards before the tunnel opened back into fresh air.

“Who’s Arya?” Azalea asked as they inched through the crawlspace.

“Hm?” said Echo. “Who’s who, now?”

“You just called me that,” she said. “When the tree fell on me.”

He paused for just a moment before the reply came, smooth and unaffected. “It just seemed to fit you. It’s not like I know your real name.”

She bristled. “Yes, you do! I told you when we first met!”

“Oh, did you now?”

“There’s no way you didn’t look up everything about me. My name, my battle records, my academics, my birthplace—wait, you knew the full names of my parents!”

“Only because they grow rather stunning tomatoes. Very important distinction.”

Oh, she hated him. She hated him. She thought she’d come close to trusting him today, just a tiny bit, but she’d been so very wrong.

“Silly me, forgetting your name like that,” Echo said. His voice was so smug and she wanted to wring it dry. “What was it again?”

“Eat dirt, Wolf.”

“Odd name, but whatever suits you.”

He pulled out of the tunnel and reached out a hand towards Azalea. She slapped it away and pushed herself to her feet, taking in a lungful of fresh, sweet air, letting her eyes adjust to the sudden influx of light.

When her vision cleared, she audibly gasped.

The scene before her was like a painting. A crystalline brook wove through a vibrant, open glade, fine blades of verdant grass nodding at its banks. Plots of flowers and garden vegetables sprawled in a canvas of bright, splashing color. At the very center towered an enormous oak tree, boughs spreading to the sky like flowering arms. Nested high on its branches was a remarkable cottage, lovely and quaint with pointy corners and smooth edges, looking just like a fairy house from Azalea’s childhood picturebooks.

It was a vision, a paradise, a dream.

“And here we are,” Echo said, a hint of mirth coloring his voice. “Welcome to the cottage of the Cabbage Witch.”