Aya’s journey to… wherever they were going into the woods was not restful. Even though she’d found a measure of comfort in Sorore’s reassurance and Frare’s apparent resiliency, the insecurity still remained. With the pain nominally gone, she now could focus on the practical aspects of their journey.

Thinking about where she was, who she was, or where she was going was not particularly joyful, but she had little else to think about as the carriage rattled along under the trees. The only respite was when the carriage rolled to a stop, and they were told it was being left behind.

Sorore and Frare seemed more than happy to abandon it for riding, but to Aya it was almost like abandoning the last vestiges of deniability - inside the wooden frame she could still pretend that her home would be just outside. She was once more with the knight called ‘Damafelce’ who helped her into the saddle expressionlessly.

They rode along the winding paths of the wood, seemingly following Efrain guidance near the front. The mists rose and the trees grew older and thicker as they progressed deeper, the company behind and ahead blurring into dark silhouettes. Aya could feel something here, among the mists, or perhaps part of them.

“Don’t you feel nervous? Riding into this?” Aya said, as she looked around.

“Perhaps a little,” Damafelce said, eyes locked ahead, “but that just means I need to be vigilant.”

“You trust the mage?”

“I trust few people. Naia is one of them, and he seems to trust that the mage can be used,” she said, impassive.

“Aren’t you worried about them being… self-interested?”

That statement prompted a frown from the older woman.

“Self-interested? We’re all self-interested here, to one extent to another,” she said, “I don’t expect loyalty from the mage, but I doubt he’d invest all this effort to try and lure us into a trap.”

“You’re not afraid of him?” Aya said.

“Is that what your paladins said to be?” she said with a derisive snort, “I’ve lived here six years, and your lands are still strange.”

“I’m not of their ‘lands’,” Aya said sourly.

“Mm. I suppose so,” she said, “back home, mages are like any other duty and no more dangerous. An alchemist can brew poisons, a mason could rig a wall to topple, and a soldier can behead you. Mages are just another part of the chorus.”

Aya digested that for a little while, before mustering the courage to speak up.

“You come from someplace different? Somewhere across the sea?”

“I am Niethian, born and raised in Hebeen,” she said, as they navigated around the trunk of a knotted tree, “I didn’t come to this land until well after I was a grown woman.”

“What was it like?”

In that moment, some of the sharpness in the face of the woman softened and her eyes ever so slightly unfocused.

“It was beautiful. Hebeen is wreathed in sea mists, and if you happen to be up in time to watch the sun rise, they wrap around the buildings like streamers of gold. The forests there are warm and wet, nothing like these northern places.”

“And what about Ne- Nieth?”

“Emphasis on the second syllable, young lady,” she said, “don’t mention this to your paladins, but it puts Angorrah to shame. The city is split in half by a great river, its main bridge so large that it houses a market with a hundred stalls. Half a dozen wagons can cross abreast without issue.”

She reached out a hand, as if to waft the mist toward Aya.

“The air is so thin here. Niethian air is dense and hot, with spices, moisture… it hangs around your neck and fills your head. In the night, the streets fill with young and old, and they play music to guide the gods home from across the wide ocean.”

“It sounds lovely,” said Aya.

“Maybe you’ll see fit to visit one day,” she said with a smile, “there’s no place in the world like it.”

“I’d like that, but…” she looked ahead to the forms of the paladins through the mists, “I don’t know what’s going to happen to me.”

Damafelce fell silent as she followed her gaze.

“I see,” she said, “well, no matter. I get few chances to talk about my home. The people of the ‘continent’ seem hardly interested in things beyond their own borders. Unless they can invade it, that is.”

“How did you end up here?” she said, “it sounds like you want to go home.”

“Does it? I do miss it,” she said, “however, me ‘ending up here’ is a long story, and not the most interesting.”

“I’ve got nothing but time,” Aya said, “and I like stories.”

So, Damafelce related her stories of being in the warrior order, of rejecting her call to the guard of the Princes, instead joining a free company. As part of an exchange she was sent to Angorrah, to train and learn from their knights, and ended up staying for far longer than she expected.

“Why?” Aya said.

“I was younger. I fell in love,” she said, shrugging, “but it wasn’t to be. She moved on.”

“Oh. Wait, she?” Aya said, sure that she’d heard wrong.

“A young, lower noblewoman, skin as white as ivory, and eyes as dark as the sea. My mother would call that hopelessly bland, but then again, she was one of the most celebrated poets in Nieth. Her talent didn’t seem to rub off.”

“But you’re a woman?” said Aya.

“And?”

The silence after proved so momentously awkward that Aya felt compelled to offer some defence.

“I just thought that-”

“Nieth is a very different place,” she said, shrugging.

“So how did you meet the commander, then?” asked Aya, desperate to move past this halt and escape her own embarrassment.

“I pulled him out of the sea when he speared a yjar fish half his size, by Ifthas. That would’ve been three years ago now.”

“Ifthas?”

“A port to the south of Angorrah. The main one of entry,” she said, “he was odd. It almost seemed like he wanted to be dragged away, he held on so tight. His body and face was rigid like stone, until I pulled him out, then he just smiled and joked. We ran into each other a lot over the next few months. He was like you.”

“Really?” Aya said as she tried to make out the commander’s back through the mists.

“Wanting to hear my stories of home and life in Nieth and Hebeen,” she said, “he’s curious. To the point where it’s gotten him in trouble more than once. But I think that that’s the reason many of us flocked to him. He wanted to know about us, and when you’re in a new land starved of company, you’ll often attach yourself to those who offer an ear.”

“That’s why so many of you are… ‘foreign’? Niche used it like a bad word.”

Damafelce said nothing as they continued through the woods, and halted before a depression in the earth. A cold wind ruffled Aya’s hair as she glanced down into the darkness, hearing a call from the front.

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“Here’s the unpleasant part. Just keep going forward, and trust me, don’t light a torch,” said Efrain, muffled by the fog.

The pair faced the tunnel in grim silence, before padding slowing below the roots. It was pitch-black and damp, but quiet until the whispers began. Aya felt Damafelce stiffen as she peered around in the gloom.

“What is that?” she whispered as they continued onwards.

Aya didn’t know, but she felt something watching them in the walls around them.

“My mother, she told me,” she said, recalling, “that you should never go under a tree, if the roots were exposed, because, sometimes, things buried under the tree stayed alive. They’d come to life, and grab you and hold you because they wanted your life.”

Damafelce said nothing to that, but Aya wondered if there were indeed half-dead things - squirming in the walls, reaching out, just about to close their hands around her arms and yank her into the shadows, never to return.

Much to her relief however, light began to shine down the tunnel, showing that the walls and ceiling were just earth and root. The pair emerged into a moss-coated landscape of trees and twilit mist. Behind them more and more soldiers emerged, noticeably paler, but otherwise unharmed.

She was left in the clearing by Damafelce, stepping off the mount with a promise not to wander. Before she could take another step, a blossom of flame erupted from the head of the group, making her jump. Drifting up, it met a set of swirling earth and leaves. Aya sat against the wall of earth and stone that lined the clearing and stretched into the mists as she watched them flit and flow around the canopy.

Something about the light and mist was soporific, or perhaps she was exhausted from the ride, because she found herself beginning to doze. As her head lulled and her eyes closed, she swore she could hear a man shouting, was that Niche? Regardless, the next thing she knew, she was awake, finding Lillian gently shaking her.

“My lady?” she said, with concern bright in her eyes, “are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Aya said, rubbing her eyes, “just dozed off.”

“Not the best place to do so,” she said, as she pulled her up.

Aya found herself shadowed, underneath the great bulk of what looked like a tree.

“Lillian, did you move me?” she said, as she looked forward, where a series of hives buzzed with activity.

“No,” she said, looking grim, “now come with me, my lady. Let’s get out from under this… creature.”

As she was pulled out from under its girth, Aya saw that it was indeed not some kind of tree, but two rather bizarre, somewhat-human shaped giants, composed of wood, vines and moss intertwined with each other.

“You can stop now, Lillian,” she said as she emerged into the twilight, “I’m fine.”

Before she could follow the paladin toward the group of soldiers camped in a wary circle around the being, a bass sound resonated through her bones. Lillian grimaced as it passed through her as well. It came in waves, and beats, quiet, but definite, and Aya turned back to the creature that straddled the clearing.

“Lady Aya, stay away from it,” she said.

The sounds grew louder as Aya approached.

“There’s a pattern,” Aya said, “It’s repeating the same sequence. It’s… words. I think.”

Slowly, carefully, she laid her hands upon one of the thick limbs that supported its weight, feeling her fingers sink into the moss.

And then the sounds began to take shape.

“E… A…” it came.

“What is it?” whispered Aya as she leaned in closer to the trunk.

She felt the bass contract and flow as she pressed her head to the trunk, and for a single moment, the word came, crystal clear.

“Beloved.”

And with that, the sounds once more dissolved into meaningless thrums. That was possibly due to Lillian yanking her away. Aya, in turn, wrenched her arm away from the paladin’s grip.

“I’m fine,” she repeated emphatically, “I think it was trying to tell me something.”

“Come here, lady Aya,” she said, in a tone that would brook no argument.

“What’s going on with you?”

“Lady Sorore has gotten lost, Niche is searching for her, and I don’t need you wandering off,” said Lillian, before realising that her voice had been too sharp, “my apologies, my lady. I just want to keep you safe.”

“Right,” she said, noticing Frare on the periphery of the group, “I won’t go anywhere.”

Leaving the conversation there, she marched off toward him and sat down. The boy was reclining on his back, perfectly at ease in the moss.

“Oh, you’re here,” he said, yawning as he got up.

“Where else would I be?” said Aya.

“I thought you might’ve gotten lost, like we did,” he said.

“You got lost? How?”

“We ran away from the giant, when it appeared, then the dust balls showed me the way back,” he said, pointing to the floating being that circled near the edge of the encampment.

“And where’s… Sorore?” she said with growing concern.

He shrugged.

“You left her out there? Here?” she said, incredulous.

“She wanted to stay, not to follow them, so the paladins could find her. She’ll be fine. Nothing here wants to harm us. Yet, anyway,” he said.

“How can you be so sure?” she said.

“I feel it,” he said, as he waved to the creatures, “they led me back here safe enough.”

Aya was silent for a moment as she considered it, then looked around for Lillian. She was currently stalking around the circle’s edge, keeping a close eye on the pair of giants.

“I think that they were trying to tell me something,” she said, “those creatures. I heard a word when I touched them.”

“Really?” Frare said, sitting up, “what?”

“Beloved.”

“What does that mean?” he said, “that doesn’t make much sense.”

“Why are you asking me? Why would I know?”

“Maybe if I touch them, I’ll hear it too.”

“Lillian will not let you.”

“She’ll have to catch me first,” he said, rising with a grin.

“No, do-” Aya said, but he was already gone, creeping toward the paladin.

Lillian perked up as she perceived something behind her, Frare tensing as he lowered himself. In the exact moment she whirled around, he took off toward the creatures, leaving Lillian looking very confused. By the time she started after him, he already had his hand on the creature’s trunk.

Moments later, Lillian had her hands on him, and was dragging him away. A few words of admonishment from her later, a laughing Frare sat back down beside her.

“Did it… did it say anything?”

“Why didn’t you tell me these things were so loud?” he said, rubbing his ears, “it shrieked when I tried to talk to it.”

“It did?” she said, “it wasn’t like that at all when I talked to it.”

“Maybe it just likes you more,” he said, “I wonder how much longer we’ll be here.”

“You can’t wait to leave?” she said, understanding.

“No? I like it here. It reminds me of the forests of home.”

Aya was just about to ask him what his home was like, but she was interrupted by Sorore. The girl’s expression was enough to get Frare to leap to his feet, but that was not even close to fast enough. Tackling him to the ground, she unleashed a tirade of insults - idiot, coward, faithless sibling, and so on. They wrestled until, somehow, she got his neck in the crook of her arm.

“You will never, ever leave me like that again, you promise?” she said.

“I promise, I promise” he gagged as she tightened her grip.

Finally, she released him, and brushed off her clothes covered with dirt.

“I need a swim,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

“You really do,” said Frare, before being kicked in the ribs.

Aya couldn’t help but laugh as she reached down to help the boy up. She wondered if this was his way of apologising to his sister.

“So, where were you?” she said to Sorore.

“Well, after this one left me, I met this odd woman,” she said, “and then, all of a sudden, we were seized and pulled into the dark. I slid for a long time until I popped out into a weird place.”

“Weird place? Where?” said Frare, intrigued by the prospect.

“It was a chamber, deep under the earth, covered in roots,” she said, “I didn’t like it. It smelled like rot. The commander and that mage were there, they were speaking to something.”

“Really?” Frare said, turning to face the direction the girl had come from.

“No,” she said, as she grabbed his shoulder, “we’re leaving here, that’s what the commander said. Quick-like.”

“You’re no fun,” he said.

“Shut up and find the paladins,” she said, “I want to get out of here.”

The two set off to the prowling Lillian, who in turn set out to find Niche. Aya for her part found Damafelce, sitting and chuckling to a joke one of her men had told.

“Aya, was it? What’s the news?”

“Apparently we’re leaving soon,” she said, “and I was wondering if I could ride with you again.”

There were a bunch of chuckles and woots at that for reasons that Aya didn’t understand.

“Anyone tries to make a joke,” Damafelce said with a smile, “You’ll be on camp duty for the next month.”

“I suppose it’s better than childrearing,” one of the soldiers said.

“Markos, you raised four siblings,” snorted Damafelce as she stood up.

“I know,” he said, to another chorus of laughter.

She rolled her eyes and gestured to Aya.

“Come on, let’s go find the commander and see the truth of it.”

Naia was standing in the middle of the clearing, speaking to another group of soldiers, these ones seemingly younger recruits.

“Ah, Damafelce. Aaron, go and get the other captains. We need to have a brief meeting,” he said.

She joined him at his side, and they spoke in hushed tones, Aya remaining a respectful distance away from them. Other men and women, presumably the captains he mentioned, joined the discussion, which at one point grew quite animated. Naia calmed them with a hand, and gestured to the entrance, to which they looked, nodded and wandered back to their own groups.

“We’re waiting on the mage,” Damafelce said, “apparently he’s unlocked a path for us.”

“Some of you seemed upset,” Aya said.

“Yes, well,” the woman said, holding up her hand and inspecting a piece of what looked to be bone in the light, “we’ve had a hard couple of days. Nothing we won’t get over. Now, let’s get ready to go.”

All around her, soldiers were packing up, rousing their animals and strapping on armour as they lined up before the entrance to the wall. She watched as Efrain took the lead with Naia, on his bizarre beast, joined by some bizarre new person, bald and dressed in leathers.. A similar bass called out from the lead, the same sound as the giants spoke. With that, they fused to the rocks, their branches and roots circling the tunnel, now awash in a green glow.

“You’ll want to stay close on my tail. It’s a bit harder to get lost on the Road than the mists, but if you follow an errant path, you might get spat out fifty leagues from your target,” he called out as he rode forwards, vanishing into the dark.

The company followed him into that blackness, Aya feeling a strange pressure as she entered. It was different from the tunnel of before, it felt less watching and more like… more like they were being pushed on. As they descended down into the road, she felt nauseous, like she was being whirled around too fast.

The feeling only intensified as they rounded the curve and started climbing upwards. Aya's stomach was left somewhere below here in the gloom as a streak of green light shone ahead. Finally, the pair emerged into a massive cavern, cast in green light, immense bridges of vines criss-crossing its span into the distance.

“This is the Green Road,” she heard Efrain say, “It’d be best for us to dismount and walk slowly the rest of the way.”

“I thought this was meant to be a shortcut,” said Lillian sourly, even as she dismounted - perhaps she realised that questioning a mage’s advice about a magic place was ill-advised. Damafelce helped her down to the ground, which she found did not give an inch beyond the crunching of moss.

While the rest of the troop emerged and were instructed to dismount, Aya walked up to the edge. Frare was precariously leaning over, staring down at the waters far below, much to Sorore’s chagrin.

“Well, you did say you needed a swim,” he said with a grin.

“I am not going in there.”

“Nor should you,” said a voice from behind them.

Aya recognized it, and turned to find Efrain standing there, along with that strange woman, holding the reins of his riding beast.

“Why?” said Frare.

“Those are the Water Under the World,” Efrain said matter-a-factly, “songs and tales about them abound. What they are, no one really knows, but most agree they were here before, and the Green Road grew out of them.”

Efrain picked up a moss-covered stone, and tossed it down, a splash resounding up towards them.

“There are many things that live here, many of them much older than all of us put together,” he said with a wave to the walls, and Aya realised with a lurch that many of what she assumed were some kind of torch were in fact a carpet of massive luminous insects.

Sorore let out a frightened squeak, in response to the revelation.

“You don’t need to be afraid. If we don’t disturb them, they’ll keep to themselves. Now, the things that live down there,” Efrain said, emphasising his point with a second wave, “I can’t make any guarantees. The one thing I do know about it is that it’s far deeper than it looks.”

“That actually makes me wanna to go for a swim more!” said the woman, nearly bowling over Aya as she rushed past her to inspect the edge.

“I know!” Frare said.