The dryad started to stir. The flowers across her body started to bloom after fading for so long.
"Holy shit..." Paelias gasped.
The dryad woke up. She sat upward as much as she could and her green eyes blinked.
"Who... Are you?" She whispered. "I... I didn't sleep here."
She voice was raspy, but a whisper.
"What year do you think it is?" Asked Paelias.
"We didn't... We never kept track over years... We don't have a calendar."
Paelias paused. "Holy shit."
"You've been out for over a thousand years." Azura murmured carefully.
The dryad was silent. "... Do you know what happened... To me? Where are my people? Where is Althaea?"
"I... I don't know."
Paelias wandered off to a small box he kept in the corner of the room and fluttered back over to the woman. "I was hoping you'd know how to read the dryadic alphabet." He held the book up to the dryad, who was clutching her thin blanket now.
She couldn't quite hold the book upright when she tried to take it, but she lay it on her lap.
"We called out language Til'rani." Whispered the dryad as she courses the pages with her wooden fingers.
Azura looked at the decorative letters that had so much more detail than the common alphabet. "It's beautiful..."
The dryad's eyes grew wider and her body started shaking. "What... How?!"
"What does the text say?!" Paelias was leaning over the bed and getting into her space.
"It says here that in order to strengthen the Sheyhida to protect the Hilgeranna, Althaea sacrificed herself... Putting all my people into the... The... Well, there's no exact translation into the common tongue. The term is Lashatu. It's a state some of us Dryads need when we are weakened from prolonged use of difficult magics and healing periods. We turn into trees or other plants. We sleep for an extended period of time."
"What does Lashatu mean for Althaea and the rest of the dryads?" Asked Tomas.
"I mean, we slumber for a long time, but not enough to be asleep for thousands of years... If we cannot wake after a long enough time, the trees will weaken and maybe even..." She shook her head. "I don't know."
Paelias's eyes brightened like stars as he poured over the book. "I have a translator! You don't know- no one can read this- no one but you!"
"What's your name?" Tomas asked.
"Sen'ra." She replied. "I was a priestess of Althaea. I was a leader for our people."
"Do you remember what happened before this?" Asked Azura.
She rubbed her eyes and tried to shift a bit. She tried to take in her surroundings, but found it was more overwhelming. She flowers began to wilt and change.
"I was in the forest, there was a grove sacred for us. A place so magical... It was beautiful. Our civilization was already on decline. We turned to Vistra's people for help."
YOU ARE READING
The Night Jewel
Fantasy"It was said in ancient times there is a world beyond our own. A world of eternal youth, a land of peace and freedom." Women and girls have run away and never came back throughout history. But where did they go? Secret and ancient legends tells of...
