Tree Singer by Jacci Turner (best novels for beginners TXT) 📕

“Are you okay?” he said, his voice full of concern.

She took his hand, looking about in confusion. “Why is it so dark?”

“You’ve been gone for hours. Adven got worried.” He led the way back to camp, keeping hold of her hand. She didn’t pull away, still shaken from experiencing the memories of thousands of years of pain and joy. Her feet felt like lead, stumbling and tripping over the smallest bump.

When they got to the edge of camp, he dropped her hand.

“Adven’s worried?” she asked, startled by the sudden feeling of loss. She missed the warmth of his hand, the connection with another human.

“I think so. He’s grumbling a lot, and he sent me to look for you. We ate dinner hours ago. We’re about ready to turn in for the night.”

“Really?” Mayten didn’t know what was more startling, that she’d lost so much time, or that Adven had worried about her.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The sun was just lighting the canyon of the redwoods where the team had camped. The air had a crisp feel and smelled of pine. Most everyone was still rolled in their blankets when Mayten stretched and scrambled to her feet. Adven already had a fire going and water boiling.

“What do you need to do today?” Adven looked impatient, as usual. He wasn’t used to waiting on others to make decisions.

“Do?” she said, holding her hands toward the fire.

“This is your show, Singer.” Adven poked at the coals violently enough to send sparks crackling into the air. “Do we stay here? Do we go on? What?”

Mayten wasn’t sure. She didn’t want to talk with the grandfather tree again, she knew that. She had thousands of years of memories to sift through. She needed to find a younger tree to talk to, one with a shorter memory. “Let’s move on. Don’t have to go too far, another couple of hours in?”

Adven nodded and pulled out the cook pot. He refused to look at her as he pulled a package—wrapped in cloth and tied with string—from his pack. Her mouth watered as she watched him slice several pieces of bacon into the pot. The bacon sizzled as soon as it hit the hot metal, surrounding them in the enticing smell that could only belong to frying pork.

In no time, the rest of the team was gathered around the fire. No one said much, more focused on downing coffee and scarfing bacon than conversation.

The others packed while Adven cleaned up. Mayten had eaten twice as much as usual and still felt as though she needed more sleep. She took the rear position when they moved out. She had to come up with some sort of plan.

The trail wound back out of the canyon on the far side and the redwood trees were replaced with oaks and thinner lodgepole pine. The air cooled as they climbed and a herd of deer fled as they hiked, recalling the nightmarish memories of Hunter’s encounter with the mountain lion.

Mayten stopped to pull on a sweater, grateful to whoever had thought to include it in her supplies. To her astonishment, the prince dropped back to walk with her. He seemed happier since they’d left the castle, his face smooth instead of lined with worry.

“Are you okay?” he asked as he approached. “You looked pretty shook-up last night. Did the tree . . . tell you . . . say something? Sorry, I’m not sure how it works. Did you hear something—unsettling?”

She laughed at his hesitation. He seemed almost . . . human. Perhaps now was a good time to find out what he might know about singers and the trees. She tightened the straps on her pack as they continued up the trail.

“What’s so funny?” he asked, his eyes narrowing as if he was trying to decide whether or not he should be mad.

“You seem . . . happy, is all. I think questing agrees with you.”

Anatolian dashed by after a squirrel.

He smiled shyly at first, as if embarrassed, then broadly, with a smile that lit up his face. “I’ve wanted to go on a quest since I was nine, but Father wouldn’t let me. ‘The king gets what the king wants,’” he said in a singsong voice.

She laughed again. “I actually heard him say something like that.”

“What was he trying to get out of you?” He looked at her with sudden interest.

“He wants me to come back in two years, after my training, and bring an initiate. Then take one or two of your siblings and train them as singers.”

He laughed. It was the first time she’d heard him laugh, and the sound echoed off the walls of the hillside next to them. Adven glanced back from the front of the line, then turned to continue on. The prince’s laugh was surprisingly melodious, like water running over rocks in a brook. “I can promise you—changing his mind when he’s set on something is like trying to move a granite slab the size of a horse. It took me ten years to wear him down about the quest. Would you like to come back?”

He looked strangely hopeful and Mayten’s stomach gave a little quiver, like she’d swallowed butterflies.

Probably just lonely, she told herself. He had no brothers close to his age at the castle and his older sisters seemed focused on their own interests.

“I don’t know,” she answered truthfully. “Before this quest, I never wanted anything but my own clan and eventually my own homestead. Now that I’ve seen more of the world, I realize . . . there is just so much to see.”

She glanced at the beautiful clouds in the azure sky visible above them. This view was majestic and she would never had seen it if she hadn’t come.

The quest had opened her eyes to a whole new world. Not only had she lost a friend, the first time she’d experienced the death of someone close to her age, she’d met a king and visited his castle and gardens.