Page 13 of I Married A Syllen

He cocked his head to the side in a very bird-like fashion.

“Why do you think?”

My frown deepened as I pondered before a ridiculous suspicion sparked in my head.

“You’re not matchmaking right now, are you?” I asked, my voice dripping with disbelief at what had to be a dumb question.

Instead of snorting and giving me an unimpressed look, he held my gaze unwaveringly with the same sliver of mischievousness in his eyes.

“When am I not?” he asked in a self-evident manner. “Have a good evening, Mirella. I will see you in the morning.”

He turned around and walked away, his long fluffy white tail waving behind him. I gaped in shock at his receding back until he exited the room.

He’s joking, right?

Chapter 4

Taelen

Tension bubbled within me as I anxiously awaited the arrival of Kayog and Mares. As much as I had not wanted to accept their communication device, the circumstances made me glad I caved in when they insisted.

Things were not going well at all. In my heart, I wanted to believe that they had not betrayed us. However, something had clearly gone awry. Almost every single Kalrin was still dormant. We’d only managed to awaken a handful of them by force. They were groggy and disoriented. They should have awakened by themselves. But they couldn’t do it without a queen. And there was not a single queen to be found throughout the territory. Even our neighboring villages recorded the same distressing news.

My initial anger at finding so many trees missing had quickly abated once I realized most of them had been simply relocated. I didn’t understand why they would have done such a thing. Maybe they had realized their mistake and tried to fix it. Whatever the reason, they performed those changes many years ago. But the queens were still missing. And without them, the land was dying. We desperately needed to quickly get the Kalrins awakened so that they could resume filling the ground with melia.

That part disturbed me the most. The surface ground had not been disturbed in any significant fashion. And yet, the melia deep beneath had been depleted. Could the off-worlders have found a workaround to siphon this precious resource?

Nym went to meet the Galnir Tribe last night, while Drannor had been with the Ungaro Tribe for two days. All of them were facing the same issues. That erased any doubt I might have had that something unfortunate happened here. They were both traveling back to our village. Hopefully, they would make it before the end of my meeting with the off-worlders.

As I watched the silhouettes of Mares on his mount and Kayog flying alongside him coming my way, I tried to keep a neutral expression on my face. With the birdman being an empath, it might be harder to hide my true sentiments. I still had to try. The last thing we needed was another war. But we would fight mercilessly if it came to that.

They landed, both of them looking at me with guarded expressions. That did nothing to alleviate the tension stiffening my spine. This couldn’t have been farther from the warmth of our first meeting.

“Greetings, Brother Mares,” I said as he dismounted. “I’m glad you messaged me about meeting as I was going to do the same. Greetings, Kayog.”

Both males reciprocated.

“You were about to message me?” Mares asked. “Is there a problem?”

Obviously, he knew there was one, even though he might not be aware of the nature of my grievances. Or at least so I hoped. That he would play innocent to see what information he could gather from me first instantly irritated me.

“Yes, I replied in a cool tone. But you first. Why did you want to meet?”

He shifted uneasily on his feet while his companion maintained an unreadable expression. However, the intensity of his gaze confirmed my suspicions about him currently assessing my emotions.

“We want to inform you that a series of attacks were launched against innocent humans yesterday by plants in various locations,” Mares said carefully.

I narrowed my eyes at him, my mind racing as to what they might have done to prompt that response. More importantly, it disturbed me that the land had not warned us that it was fighting a threat. Were those plants so far removed that the message hadn’t reached us yet or could they be unaware of our awakening?

“Plants do not attack for no reason. Those humans must have provoked them in some way, which means they’re not innocent,” I said matter-of-factly.

“I assure you that they were,” Mares insisted with conviction. “They were merely walking through gardens or parks when they were sprayed with lethal fungi. Quite a few people died.”

“What was in those gardens?” I challenged, suspicion and a desperate hope surging in my heart. “If those humans were truly merely walking and doing nothing else, then their presence threatened something in the garden, and the plants acted as protectors.”

“We’re not certain what could have prompted this,” he said with what appeared to be genuine sincerity. “Most of the plants in those gardens have been there for decades. A few have been replaced over the past four or five years, but nothing has changed recently. In all our time here, it’s the very first attack of this type to have ever occurred. And it took place yesterday.”

My stare hardened.