“Mood?”

“The taig is tender,” Arian said, reciting her first lessons. “Like the freshest petal on a plum blossom. That is why it cannot be healthy around those who dwell in anger or hatred.”

“How did it ever survive here?” Dorrin asked. “I would think my family’s habits would’ve destroyed it.”

“They needed this garden for food,” Arian said. “They must have had a gardener who worked here at peace, as much as was allowed. They had to, for the trees to grow.”

“Is the taig only about trees?” Dorrin asked.

“No,” Arian said. “The taig is the life of all things that do not depend on cultivation. Trees, because they live longest, form the connection, year to year. The little things, that die back, partake of the taig while alive, but the trees persist.” She wanted to say more, but Dorrin stood up just then, and pulled her hand back.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I felt it, I’m fairly sure, but I’m also tired and cold … it happens as we get older; I’m sure you could stay out here another turn of the glass.”

“Then let’s go in,” Arian said. She gave the tree a gentle caress, and they went back inside. It felt almost too warm and stuffy to Arian, but Dorrin sighed with relief.

“I miss Aarenis,” she said. “Others complained, but at least I was never cold down there.” Then she laughed. “You’d think I’d just come from Old Aare’s sand mountains. Tell me more about what I can do with this taig-sense.”

“There are places in your domain,” Arian said, “where the taig was sore wounded. I passed by some—deformed trees, barren ground. Using the taig-sense, you can find them.”

“What can I do then?” Dorrin asked.

“Love them,” Arian said. “Though that may sound too simple.”

“No,” Dorrin said. “I know better than that.” She asked nothing more about the taig, however, and Arian said nothing more about Kieri. Instead, they talked of the Pargunese, Dorrin asking the questions she thought her king would ask. Arian answered as best she could. Soon Dorrin, yawning, suggested bed, and Arian went up to her room already thinking how soon she could return to Lyonya … to Chaya. The thought of the Lady’s anger daunted her briefly—and what if she were bespelled again?—but even indoors she could feel the taig … weaker here, where it had been wounded and not nurtured, but connecting, root to root, with the taig she knew, that knew her. It called her, wanted her. She fell asleep easily, only to wake in the dark of night.

Taig—danger—a call almost panicky, as strong as she had ever felt. She reached out to the apple tree in the garden below, felt it strain to carry a message so far to one it barely knew, and soothed it. I am here. I understand. Thank you. Rest now. The tree relaxed into its winter doze, but she could not sleep, not without knowing what was wrong. Kieri? Something else?