Chapter 16: Root and Yara

Root was cautious about Yara. This was communicated to Mira in the way Root communicated things: not through hesitation exactly, but through the quality of what it showed Yara versus what it had shown Mira. Yara saw the standard forest — the moving paths, the responsive structures, the things that Root shared with anyone who navigated honestly. She did not see the center. 'It doesn't trust me the way it trusts you,' Yara said. 'It doesn't know you yet,' Mira said. 'And trust here is earned differently. Not through profession or intention — through the specific quality of how you're present.' 'What quality?' Mira thought about how to say this. 'When I first arrived, I was confused. The forest responded to the confusion as genuine. When the guild's first surveyor came, he was concealing his purpose. The forest responded to the concealment.' She looked at the trees around them. 'Yara, you're not confused. You're a very competent professional who has assessed the situation and decided on a course of action. That reads to the forest as certainty.' 'Being competent is a problem.' 'Being certain is the problem. Competence it has no issue with.' Mira paused. 'The pool — the thing at the center, the place that holds what the forest has accumulated — it's shown me the archive there. Twelve previous visitors over four centuries. The ones who left the most valuable contributions were the ones who were most genuinely uncertain when they arrived.' Yara looked at the forest. 'I'm not uncertain,' she said. 'Are you certain?' Mira asked. A long pause. 'No,' Yara admitted. 'I'm not certain. I'm acting as if I am because that's how I work.' 'Show it that,' Mira said. 'Show it the gap between the performance and what's underneath.'