[Complete] Eroh has reached his seventeenth spring and has finally become a man. With manhood comes a gift: marriage to the woman he loves. But when a strange new woman from another world enters his life, he is stuck with the decision to honor his...
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The trial was approaching and my mind was numb from trying to figure out how to save the Landwalker ... How to save Eroh. If father does not accept the plan to kill the Sqek, I'm afraid they'll execute him.
I paced my room, back and forth, rubbing my chin to make sense of ... anything. Why did he help me when I attacked him? Why am I helping him? We were taught for so long to fear each other, yet now we are here helping one another. Our parents are too old in their ways. Uncle Malos was right ... if we align with LandWalkers we could defeat the Sqek. But if they do attack, we can take their power and use it against them.
"I need to read something," I thought. It was the only way to clear my head. Reading has always cleared my head.
I looked at that shelf that filled with books and dust. Too many books. Ones that I'd intended to read when I had time. Unfortunately, I never had the time anymore. I was too busy trying to assassinate young chiefs and then free them ... I shook my head.
My fingertip glided across the books, trying to find something that could shut my mind off. If only for an hour. Thirty minutes. Ten minutes. I would do anything to get it to shut off, and to stop thinking about that boy. I pulled book after book from the shelves. Read a page then tossing it aside. So many interesting books, yet none of them drew my interests. Why? I've always loved to read ... why no is it so hard to pick one up?
After I'd gone through a book on alchemy and charms, two books on herbal medicines of ArkiLa, a book on the lakes, rivers, and oceans of Oqabhar, three books on sword combat, and a book on Skin Armours. I was defeated. A pile of empty books at my back.
I was about to give up when something caught my eye towards that back of the shelf. There was another book hidden behind the rest. What was it doing there? Who hid it? Was is you, sister? Did you hide his book? I slid my hand around until my fingers grabbed the book. I yanked it from the shelf, gazing upon its beauty. The binding was made of worn leather. I opened it to find pages filled with neat handwriting.
"You were never a reader, sister ... you were a writer." I whispered, eyes wide with curiosity. "Maybe we weren't so different after all."
I turned to the first page that caught my eye:
Landwalkers,
I believe that landwalkers exist. Grouper and I were hunting in the woods (without father's consent) when I saw a strange track in the dirt. Grouper assured me it was one of them - one of the walkers - and for some reason I believed him.
Why can't there be Landwalkers? We are ocean dwellers. Is it so hard to believe that something intelligent could live on the soil? I've heard strange things in the woods. There has to be something out there ...
I flipped a few pages.
Grouper,
He and I were in the woods when we discovered their camp ... the LandWalker. There must've been at least twenty of them. I was scared, but I was drawn by the red, raging fire they sat around. I could not understand their words, but I understood the sound of laughter and song.
