“Same to you.” The man and his party headed off.

Nomi ate a berry. She closed her eyes, luxuriating in the taste. It was sweet, juicy and rich, and she could hardly think of anything more perfect.

Beko ate a couple of berries then turned his horse, passing the rest to Rhiana behind them. “Pass them along,” he said.

“Should have taken a few more; they make a great filling for plain doves.” Rhiana grinned at Nomi as she chewed, a dribble of juice speckling her chin.

“Hey, Ramus!” Nomi called. Ramus was at the back of the group, looking around calmly as they ate and chatted amongst themselves. “Come up and join us?”

He shook his head, smiled but said nothing.

“Please yourself. But I'll get there first!”

They moved deeper into the forest.

_____

NOMI HAD NOT traveled this way in over a year, and when they came to the standing stones, she gasped in surprise.

The stones had always been there. There were nineteen of them; fifteen were arranged around the clearing in a rough circle, while four others stood beyond the circle at the four points of the compass. The glade was almost a hundred steps across, and at its center lay a wide, flat rock with weathered carvings in its surface. Time had made most of the images impossible to discern, and the remaining indents were home to lichen. The stones were huge—the largest twice as high as a man and just as wide—and no one knew where they had come from, who had placed them or how they had been maneuvered through the forest. Their purpose was similarly vague. Temple, sacrificial altar, burial place of a Sleeping God—all had been suggested. There had been digs over the years, but few people were really interested enough to spend much time here. Noreela, both known and unknown, was scattered with thousands of similarly intriguing sites.

This place had always appeared wild, primal and untouched; even the stone circle had seemed a part of the land, not the result of people upon it. But now all that had changed. The trees around the edge of the clearing were adorned with countless scraps of colored cloth, some of them tied to lower branches or fixed to trunks, others hanging so high above the ground that whoever placed them there must have risked life and limb to do so. Blue, red and purple were the main colors, but amongst hundreds of these Nomi could also make out a few yellows, some greens and one or two black strips.

“What's this?” she asked, perplexed and a little awed.

“Remembrance trees,” Beko said.

The colors felt right here, not intrusive, and as a breeze rustled leaves and strips of cloth alike, they felt like a true part of the forest.

“I've seen remembrance trees before,” she said. “But why here, so suddenly?”

Beko shrugged.

“The sightings,” Konrad said. “There are rumors of wraiths being seen here, starting last winter.”