“Um, what happened back there?” Danthan asked in shock, stepping forward on the path, barely looking at where he was going.
“We lost,” Ambrose forced out.
“No, we’re here to fight another day,” Akadian tried to reassure.
“Tell that to Marybeth and herson,” Ambrose spat.
“I know.” Akadian dipped his head. “But we stopped a lot of future pain.”
Podara gained a stern look as she scanned the trees. “I wouldn’t actually be so sure about that.”
The crunch of fallen leaves broke the silence as they stepped, but otherwise the forest was mute.
“What makes you say that?” he prodded.
Podara eyed the trees and darkness in between them. “Like Artie said, there’s plenty more of them. I imagine the deacon wasn’t the top which means he’ll likely be replaced within the week. Someone probably even more vicious than the last will get sent to that town. We may have saved them for tonight, but I’m not so sure how much more pain might come to them because of this. There’s no way of knowing what’ll happen to that village after tonight.”
Fear surged through her as Ambrose glanced down the path from where they’d come. “Wehaveto help them.”
“I’m not so sure there’s anything to be done.” Podara’s words weren’t meant to wound her as deeply as they did. She said them as though they were just a fact.
“I think you’re wrong,” Ambrose challenged.
Podara didn’t rise to her anger. “We’ll just make it worse. Do you want to start an all-out war with The Brotherhood? How many casualties do you think that village will have if we go in ready to pick a fight?”
“It’s better than doing nothing!” Ambrose threw her hands in the air.
“Wrong.” Podara straightened. “We could get that entire village and ourselves killed. We keep moving forward.”
Ambrose couldn’t stand the idea of doing nothing. She had all this power now but what was it amounting to? All she did was cause fear and get people killed. Her stomach twisted as they moved further into the forest but she forced her anger down and focused on moving her feet.
She hated it but she knew Podara was right.
They reached the fork Artie warned them about and swiftly took the path that led them away. Felius’ firelight the only thing lighting their way as they stumbled along.
The vegetation around them grew thicker with each step. Plants Ambrose was completely ignorant to stretched as far as the eye could see. The entire forest was unlike the one in the Capital. Trees with twisted trunks that roseso high, she couldn’t see the tops of them, with vines that curled around the branches and fell down towards them. Large plants that hung from the trees like bats with basin-like petals and a substance in it that emitted a horrible stench. Even round plants, larger than her head that had teeth going all the way around it as she was left to wonder what it could possibly eat. She shuddered as she thought about it and made sure not to touch anything.
But of everything she noticed, there was one thing she couldn’t shake from her mind.
“Does anyone else find it unsettlingly quiet?” Oryon asked nervously.
The trees around themwereoddly silent, even for the middle of the night. Ambrose expected to see some kind of creature, even something as small as an insect, but it was as if the entire forest was empty. As she looked from the ground to the trees in search of anything, she found nothing. Not the droppings of an animal. Not even the wind disturbed the trees or made a sound.
“Yes,” Ambrose replied.
“It’s eerie…” Danthan noted. “I know it’s night out, but shouldn’t we see or hearsomething?”
Ambrose closed her eyes. “I don’t feel any presence of Magick, as far as I can tell it isn’t a mage doing this.”
“Whatever is in these woods, we won’t find a mage responsible,” Akadian warned, his grip on Ambrose never faltering. He lowered his voice for only her to hear. “Do you remember what I told you about what lives in this forest?”
“You said there were things in these woods more terrifying than a dragon,” she whispered back, sweat beading on her forehead.
“Do you remember what they were?” His voice was dangerously sharp.
“I think so…” Her heart leapt in her chest as she hoped they hadn’t just walked into a trap, or worse—hunting grounds. She tried to soothe herself by reminding herself that Artie’s son used this trail all the time. Though… hewasmissing. “What do you think?”
Akadian pulled her closer as they walked, the sounds of their breathinglouder than anything the forest produced. “I think we need to be careful. Nighttime is the worst time to be caught in these woods, they don’t belong to us. There are ancient things lurking in the trees. Things you don’t want to meet.”
