A Dragon Born Read Online Free PDF Page A

this when she touched the tree, as though she was somehow a part of it, connected to its every fiber, and she even felt the cool places where the shadows cast by the leaves touched the other leaves, the branches and even the rough bark of the trunk of the great tree.
    *****
     
    Ariana was already awake when Keira appeared at the edge of the hollow, early the next morning. The elven woman gave her a leather satchel and told her to gather her belongings, for it was unlikely that Ariana would return to the tree. The clothes she had worn and the jeweled dagger that had belonged to her mother lay untouched upon the small table where Keira had left them. Ariana folded the dagger into the blouse that was clean but still torn from where Dakar had stabbed her then she rolled it and the other articles into the green cloak that Aaron had given her and she stuffed the bundle inside the satchel, which she slung over her shoulders. Keira waited as Ariana placed her hand upon the tree and sent it a warm thought of farewell. The tree swayed pleasantly to her and told her it would await her return then the two women leapt from the hollow, beginning their journey across the many branches that reached deeper and deeper into the vast forest.
    They traveled the better part of the day, stopping only briefly to rest or refresh themselves, and the sun had already crossed the sky before they neared their destination. The tall trees in the part of the forest where Ariana had stayed with Keira were much smaller than those that grew deeper in the forest. Some of the branches seemed almost as big as trees themselves and Ariana could barely guess how old they might be to have grown so large. After a while, they encountered a kind of city that had been made among the branches, but it was unlike anything Ariana had ever seen before.
    The dwellings looked as though they had been grown instead of built, like they were part of the trees themselves, except they were made of a combination of wood and stone, each intertwined with the other, which Ariana found to be both strange and beautiful. She asked Keira about it and the elven woman shrugged and said that stone was earth as much as earth was stone, and she did not see why such a thing would be strange at all. Ariana decided that whether it made sense or not, it was the way of things in the elven forest, where many things were different than the world she had known before.
    As they traveled further into the city, the simple dwellings gave way to more elaborate structures, all sharing the same curved and flowing look, though none of them were exactly the same. They also began to encounter more people, elves going about their business, most of whom looked with interest at the two women as they passed. A few stopped and stared at Ariana, which she noticed a few times and the obvious scrutiny made her somewhat uncomfortable. Thankfully they did not stop, continuing at a brisk pace toward the center of the city in the trees.
    The light of day that flickered through the thick canopy of leaves was starting to fade when the two women finally arrived at their destination. It was a strange place, where the trees seemed to come together and stretch upward, towering high above. The way the trunks and branches were arranged seemed both natural and unnatural and Ariana asked Keira how they had come to grow in such a manner. Keira told her the trees had grown as they had been asked, not offering any further explanation. Ariana marveled at how the giant trunks had created a kind of wall, with the gaps between them filled with a latticework of smaller branches that looked impenetrable, even to the smallest creatures of the forest. Ahead of them, along a branch that was as thick as a road, there was an opening that was large enough fit a sailing ship through. At the foot of the opening stood a group of elven guards, who wore a kind of light armor made of a greyish-green metal and matching leather colored in similar tones and