The Finding Read Free

world in her tiny hands.
    Jaax felt a rippling shiver pass under his tough skin as he considered what all of this meant. A baby girl , he thought in wonderment mixed with skepticism, found inside a hollow, yet very much alive shell of an ancient oak tree in northern Oescienne. The familiarity of it all made his great heart quicken with anticipation and even fear. The words of the Oracles . . . Jaax tried to bite back that enticing thought, but it was no use. This had been his purpose all along, to find her and protect her the day she was born. He realized that if this child truly was what the message claimed her to be, then there was good reason for the sudden flare of his once dormant emotions. Yet he still doubted, for he had been disappointed too many times before.
    After one last lingering glance at his campsite, Jaax set his jaw in determination and spread his enormous wings. He beat them once and leaped into the gray sky, forcing the thick mist to dance in small eddies and the tree branches to whip around in protest. Once he’d climbed high enough, he noted the fog sagging like a heavy blanket between the two ranges forming the Saem Valley. He glided soundlessly over the gray-white ocean of clouds below him, counting the miles as they passed and narrowing his pale eyes against the brilliant sun.
    The dragon’s final destination was a place called Crie, a place as unassuming as a newborn infant. It was a small, secluded village on the river bank just a few miles east of where he’d slept. The location was ideal, set against the southern Saem Hills on the flat land that rested just above the calm tributary. He knew this village well and the elves who lived there: they were descendants of the Woedehn elves, a race that still resided in the great forests of Hrunah to the east. Some of them had traveled to this part of the world after the rise of the Crimson King, hoping to relocate beyond his grasp. A great number of them, Jaax recalled, were actually Nesnan or Resai, the mixed-blood descendents of elf and human unions from long before the Tyrant transformed them. Though not immortal, they had inherited from their elfin ancestors at least some of their longevity. Many of these people were hundreds of years old but appeared rather youthful.
    While he soared over the treetops, Jaax passed the time by picturing the townspeople he knew from his past meetings with them. He saw in his mind’s eye a gentle folk, secretive and simple in their ways, yet lively and sociable when the mood called for celebration. Like their Woedehn kin, the elves of Crie were short in stature but not petite and delicate like so many of the other races of their kind. They never quailed from hard work and were always eager to take on a good challenge. Whether that task be something as risky as driving a rabid dremmen wolf from their village or something as simple as removing a stubborn turnip from their garden, it didn’t matter.
    As he drew nearer to his destination, Jaax drifted below the fog line once more, flying low over the outskirts of the sleepy village. Many communities like this small colony were thought to be hiding in sheltered valleys and on mountaintops all throughout Ethoes, but Jaax was only aware of a handful of them. He scanned the settlement quickly, counting the stubby, stone-and-adobe houses as they darted by. They looked remarkably like rounded cones with a thatching of reeds or small twigs for roofing. Some of them were several rooms large and gave the impression of a group of gumdrops being pressed firmly together. A single road twined through the village and the randomly placed dwellings like a brown snake searching out mice in a harvested field. Most of the stone huts had small gardens and fenced-in yards to grow kitchen herbs and to hold small livestock.
    Smoke from early morning fires curled sluggishly above the earthen houses, their roofs dusted white with the crystalline frost of this uncommonly temperate winter. From