The Awakening by Jenna Elizabeth Johnson Read Free Book Online Page A

shoulder. He motioned his head to the far side of the bank, hundreds of feet away. “On the other side is Felldreim.”
    Jahrra thought he still looked weary from their weeks of travel but a spark of excitement lit up his silver-green eyes.
    Tilting her head and cocking an eyebrow, Jahrra pursed her lips and waited for him to say more.
    Jaax smiled. “We’ll follow this river for another day and then we’ll be in Crie.”
    Jahrra twitched in the saddle, causing Phrym to glance back at her in inquiry.
    “Crie? You mean, the village where I was found?”
    The Tanaan dragon smiled more broadly this time and for a fleeting moment Jahrra thought it suited him but in the very next breath the apprehension she felt returned. The place where she was found, abandoned and parentless, beneath an oak tree. No, beneath Ethoes’ sacred Oak. The wood bead bracelet wrapped snuggly around her wrist seemed to tingle, but Jahrra was sure it was all in her head. She thought about the time she’d touched the sacred Apple Tree, almost a lifetime ago, in Ehnnit Canyon. What would brushing her fingers against the Oak do to her? She shivered and swallowed hard, urging Phrym to move up next to Jaax. When she bothered to look up at him she noticed he was no longer smiling.
    He sounded slightly troubled when he asked, “You don’t fear going back, do you?”
    “No,” was her automatic response, then she shook her head slightly. “Yes. What I mean is, I don’t know. I’m not afraid, but it, it–” Jahrra seemed to have lost the ability to think.
    “It’s daunting nonetheless,” Jaax finished, casting his glance out over the wide river once again. “Returning to a place of great significance after a long absence often causes that exact feeling.”
    Jahrra tightened her jaw and nodded. It was precisely as Jaax had said. Though she could not remember Crie, it had still played a major part in her life. It was the very place where her life had begun.
    On the second day after meeting the Saem, and nearly a month and a half after leaving the Castle Guard Ruin behind, Jahrra and Jaax found themselves looking down into a quaint little village from the small hill they had just climbed. Jahrra stared, not knowing what to think, as Jaax exhaled behind her, ruffling her hair.
    “Crie,” he said, his voice somewhat stoical.
    It was a little before noon and the spring sunlight was drifting through the new leaves of the oak, aspen and sycamore trees growing on the shelf of land that stood near the edge of the river, casting emerald shadows upon the forest floor. The tiny settlement of Crie was much smaller than Jahrra had imagined but the strange, beehive-shaped houses reminded her a little of the huts in the fields back at home. The people roaming around below, mingling and setting about their daily chores, were hard to see from this height and distance but the friendly chatter of neighbors greeting one another blended nicely with the rush of the river.
    Jahrra wondered if they were all elves but didn’t voice her questions. She turned and looked at Jaax who was studying her the way she had studied the buildings and people below. Sometimes his gaze was too much to bear as if he was trying very hard to see past her outer shell to determine what she consisted of just beneath her skin. Jahrra had grown used to Jaax in the past few months but she wasn’t sure if he was comfortable having her nearby on a constant basis yet. She had a feeling that, habitually, Jaax was a solitary creature.
    Jahrra straightened in the saddle once again, her lips drawn tight over her teeth, and tried to convince herself she was reading too much into her guardian’s scrutiny.
    “Shall we make ourselves known?” Jaax queried after a few moments.
    Jahrra merely nodded, kneeing Phrym forward towards the narrow trail that descended into the village.
    It didn’t take long for someone, a young boy playing with a wooden toy, to notice them picking their way down the hillside.