Dark Tarot (Dark Carpathians)

“Adalasia. Sandu. You called for me.”

There was no censure in his voice. No emotion whatsoever. Adalasia felt Sandu merge tighter with her. The guardians did as well, although they were mere shadows in the small crevices of her mind. They were ancients, and yet they didn’t seem to realize that if Luiz inspected her mind, he would know they were there.

“I’m sorry to once again ask for your help,” Adalasia said. “We are searching for memories that have been lost to us. It is vital we recover them, and it has been suggested that it’s possible you would be able, if you were willing, to look to those warriors in your past for answers for us. I have no idea what that would entail, so I don’t honestly know what I’m asking of you. If it is too much, Luiz, please say so.”

Luiz had startling green eyes that darkened to a forest green or lightened to a jade, depending on his mood. Right at that moment as he studied them, he had jade eyes that seemed to glow like those of a cat.

“If we are to speak of such things, we must go somewhere safe, not out in the open.”

He turned his back on them, something Adalasia could tell not only Sandu found shocking, but also her guardians. Ancients didn’t casually turn their backs on one another. Luiz took several steps and then shifted again, settling into the form of a jaguar with ease, taking to the trees.

Are you comfortable in this form? Sandu asked.

Adalasia hadn’t tried the form of a cat often, but she had worked hard on shape-shifting. She quickly shifted, became a female jaguar and leapt for the lower branches of a tree to pull herself up. I will be once I have moved in it a bit.

Sandu shifted and stayed close behind her. He didn’t hold the form for her, but he did stay in her mind. He needn’t have worried. She thought it was a little silly. Her mind was a bit crowded with the four guardians and Sandu there.

Luiz is helping us. Don’t get him upset by your mistrust. He saved your life many times over, she reminded him.

I am aware, Sandu replied, but he didn’t back off.

She noticed that right away. None of the guardians did, either. Clearly, they regarded Luiz as very dangerous. She knew he was. It wasn’t that she underestimated him in any way. She was careful, but she also felt that every ancient needed encouragement. The more they bonded with others, the more of a chance they had to share emotions and hold back that moment when they would have to make a choice to seek the dawn or give up their soul. She didn’t want that for any of these men.

The powerful male jaguar leading the way had a very broad head and a massive, dense, muscular body. His fur was thick, a golden color with black rosettes. The green eyes were ringed with amber, and there were flecks of gold in the green, but when the male swung his head to check on her, Adalasia could clearly still see mostly green in the jaguar’s eyes.

She found it odd that the forest creatures didn’t run from him as they might normally from a jaguar. The big cats were predators and hunted for food, yet with Luiz, the birds and even monkeys and baboons didn’t react negatively with him around. He was a total predator, with that darkness strong in him, yet the animals seemed to accept him.

The jaguar took them into a particularly dark grove of kapok trees with very wide, thick trunks and heavy branches high off the forest floor. Fungi appeared to grow up the trunks, becoming larger and much more circular, a dull whitish gray that changed color as they traveled deeper into the grove of trees, blending so it was difficult to notice at first.

Thick, sturdy branches reached outward, some curving upward gently, while others simply stretched straight out, and others went skyward and flowed out, providing the canopy from above. Vines and heavy foliage covered the trees, hiding the trunks and strange fungi crawling up the trunks.

Adalasia followed Luiz up a tree, going from branch to branch until the large jaguar switched to one of the rounded fungi pads. She hesitated before she delicately put her paw on the semicircle. Expecting it to be spongy, she found it was solid, giving her confidence to follow, but both she and the cat were curious.

Sandu, this is hard, like wood, not mushroom or fungus. What is it?

I suspect we are about to reach one of Luiz’s houses hidden in the trees. This is something I have not seen in many long centuries, although I had heard they could be constructed. We tend to prefer caves so we can safeguard and still have soil to rest in. He is Jaguar and most likely prefers to be high in the trees.