39
Crimes and Distrust
Valen and Drystan rode ahead, clearing enough distance between them and the girls that it seemed intentional. To Lisbet, the two men were in a world only they wished to be in, and the sense that she and Eavan were intruders only grew as they ventured farther into the strange woods of the Hinterlands.
And strange they were. The trees here were not the pine and fir that towered over her homeland. No trunks so large you needed four children to make a circle of arms around them. Here the soft, peeling bark bedecked long, graceful trunks that stretched into the skies, the tops of the tree line resembling blue-green clouds. Some bore fruit or flowers, which were also unfamiliar, in colors that were so unusual they startled Lisbet. Others simply shimmered in their odd, e
