“In a way, that story is true. Long ago, there was a group of scientists and thinkers who could see that forests would soon become extinct. Land was valuable to build on. Nearly all the trees had been cut down to make way for cities of glass. And when the growth of saplings was outlawed to protect the value of the remaining timber, it was time to act. They were led by one woman. A woman with no message apart from the yearnings in her heart to stop the madness of the world.”

“That’s heresy!” Ark was shocked.

“Fact twists and turns like a growing branch over time. As the generations pass on their words, history is woven into far tales. This woman was strong and smart. In great secrecy and with the help of her colleagues, it was she who created the first seeds of the trees of Arborium. Others in her group found an uninhabited island in the middle of the ocean, one of the last few wild refuges. An island that somehow had been overlooked by the nation that would one day become the Mawish Empire.”

Ark knew exactly which island Corwenna was talking about, but all that he believed in was being turned upside down.

“As leader, she was the one who made the final sacrifice. She faked her own death — easy enough for a great scientist. As she left the city she had grown up in, her heart was heavy for the family she had to abandon. How she arrived on the island is another tale, and who can say what went through her mind as she dug the seeds into the hostile earth? It was an experiment, which is a sort of prayer, I suppose. A dream to create new life when the rest of the earth was turning into great forests of glass and steel.”

“She was real?” Ark dreaded the answer.

“As real as you and I sitting here tonight.” Corwenna paused to look deep into Ark’s eyes. “And I am a daughter of that real woman, that scientist whose faith made Arborium. That is the end of all fact. My precious birds whisper me tales about my mother, about how she sent herself to sleep, curled up in a shrouded ball for a thousand years as the seeds sprang up around her, but how true they are, I don’t know. They tell, too, of the ravens of old, no more than three feet from wing tip to wing tip, that pecked at some of my mother’s seeds. They were transformed, just like the trees. Science stretched their beaks, bulked out their bodies, made claws into scimitars and wings large enough to slice through clouds. But science only explains so much, for within those seeds, greater mysteries have unfolded than even I shall ever understand.”