Pyralis Crystarla's Arc

Chapter 5 of 4

The tree stood hidden now, green and plain by day. A hundred bloom-homes waited inside, and not one held a faerie. Pyralis walked the empty branches at dusk. The moss let its soft glow seep out. No stranger far off would see it. But no lost faerie would see it either. She had hidden the door so well that no one could find it. "I need faeries to come," she told Erosyne. "But I cannot shout across the land. That would lead the wrong eyes here too." Erosyne drifted beside her, their pink smoke thin. "Then you need someone who knows where the lost ones hide. I do not. I only know how many days I can last." A green shape glided over the tree line. A giant beluga whale with wings of flower petals. La'Gaia Bloom. She sank slow into the clearing, and the grass bent under her warmth. "You are hiding," she said. "Everyone still breathing is hiding somewhere. I can feel the living from far off. I pull one thread, and the sick thing heals." Her voice stayed flat, then softened. "I felt your tree. It is lonely. That is a sickness too." Behind her came a blade of grass with a face and clear wings. Dr Renzo. He hovered at eye height, studying the hidden orbs. "I fly over the whole land," he said. "I have seen them. Water faeries with no pond. Snow faeries in warm dirt. Orc faeries chased from every camp." He looked at Pyralis. "I can lead them. But they will not trust a word I bring. They have been burned before." A third figure stepped from the trees. A melanated orc in white robes, a staff of pale light in his fist. Thrakul the righteous. Faeries feared his kind. But his light was white and clean, and he carried it like a promise. "Orcs run from me," he said. "So do most who meet me. If the lost see me stand at your door unharmed, they will know the door is safe." Pyralis saw the plan form. The whale would feel out where the scattered ones waited. The grass would fly the word to them. The orc would stand at the tree and prove no harm lived here. "Go," she said. "Bring them slow. A few each night, so no crowd draws eyes." For three nights they came. La'Gaia carried the weak ones on her broad back. Dr Renzo flew ahead, calling the next hidden group. Thrakul waited at the trunk, his staff low and steady, until each faerie passed him without fear. Water faeries claimed the low branches near the moss-wet orbs. Snow faeries took the high, cool limbs. Orc faeries filled the thick middle boughs. By the fourth dawn the tree hummed with voices. A hundred bloom-homes held living faeries. Pyralis stood below and counted the warm windows. The sanctuary was no longer empty. Then Thrakul came to her, grim. "The crowd we moved left a trail," he said. "Someone followed it here."