Page 17 of Crown of Ashes and Awe

Reluctantly, I accepted her offer and to ease my conscience, I shared my water horn full of fresh water from the spring at the junction. In my periphery, I saw Tearloch remove his gloves and dribble water over his hands before shaking them dry and replacing the black leather. And again, I bit my tongue, not wanting to ask so no one would ask anything of me.

At the westernmost end of the canyon, I was almost surprised when the endless supply of red rocks began to give way to other terrain. The ground began to level, and I was speechless when I realized how far I could see in most directions.

Our path joined with a road that had more green things growing alongside it than grew in the entire canyon put together, though the red dirt was still plentiful. Also plentiful were the people traveling on that road.

Though he seemed to keep a constant stride, Tearloch adjusted his pace—and thereby ours—to keep us well behind the group ahead of us and just ahead of the group behind. I noticed many folk felt comfortable speaking to their fellow travelers, but we deliberately remained apart. And Sweetie’s horns just made that preference easier.

If a group wished to pass us, they did so quickly, some with a polite nod, some with wide eyes, some with their heads turned away. But all of them mute. As the day wore on, travelers grew further and further apart until there were times when we had the road to ourselves.

The evening brought cooler air and the entertainment of a sun setting ahead of us. The sky turned orange, then red and eventually bled into the clouds and made the land nearly the same shade as the world I'd lived in all my life. But there were great dark mounds in the distance that grew in density. Trees like I'd never seen before. Trees with so many leaves on their branches you couldn't see what lay on the far side of them.

A breeze passed through the boughs, made them sway, and when it reached us, it blew only clean, cool air beneath the layers of my clothing. I automatically reached for my scarf and pulled it across my face, to peer through the spaces between threads. When I realized none of my companions followed suit, I pulled it down again, squinted against the flow of air, then relaxed when no sand flew into my face.

But then...

The air hadflavorsto it. It smelled...sweet and somehowgreen, like it carried some fruit I might have tasted in my dreams.

Tearloch caught me sniffing and looked concerned, as if he worried my mind might be turning. I didn't care.

"What is this?" I sniffed again and again and was relieved when he did the same.

Then he shook his head. "What?"

"It’s incredible?—"

"Memory trees," Sweetie grumbled. "She's smelling the memory trees down in the glen. Fates be damned, she's never smelled them before."

“I have,” I protested. “I just can’t…remember when. This smell couldn’t have blown all the way up the canyon, could it? Not this strong.”

Tearloch smelled the air again, turned in all directions. "Surely not. It must be something else."

Sweetie stopped to scowl into my eyes for a breath or two, as if trying to detect a lie in me, then he resumed his march. "We'll know soon enough, won't we?"

As if trying to hide the new horizon, the sun hurried away, leaving us in the near dark. I reached for the glow stone in my pocket when the hard dirt path suddenly softened beneath my feet. I would have fallen onto my knees had Tearloch not reached out a gloved hand to catch me around the waist and put me upright. His hand lingered while I sought my balance, and a little shiver ran up my spine from our unexpected proximity.

That sweet fragrance filled my head, sneaked into my mouth, and made me almost giddy.

Sweetie stopped and stomped on something I couldn’t see, then he picked up a small branch with crushed leaves and waved it in front of me. "Is this what you smelled?"

A fresh wave hit me, made my mouth water. "Yes!" Then I lowered my voice for fear of predators. "Yes." I stared at the darkness below my feet. Clusters of leaves lay strewn about on a bed of grass. “Do they grow so close to the ground, then?”

“New leaves,” Sweetie said. “Must have been a great wind to have blown them so far from the trees.”

“Days ago,” I said with a nod. “A storm roared through the gorge. My master said it brought portends, though he didn’t tell me what they were.” I picked up another cluster of leaves and crushed one of them between my fingers. “I could stay here forever, smelling these. And to think they are so common!”

Tearloch scowled and took a casual step away from me. "How is it you know the smell, yet have never been out of your canyon? You’ve never seen them, yet you know they are common?"

I laughed again, this time at him. "I can read, you know."

"Read?"

"Yes. You know, books?"

"Books are discouraged. Reading is discouraged."

“Demius says that happens from time to time, when civilization declines into ignorance, that ignorance is a cycle. Can you read?”

“Of course. But I’m not foolish enough to speak of it.”

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