“Why is that?” I asked, still craning my neck this way and that, trying to absorb the sheer enormity of the trees that surround our group. Some of the trunks were easily five people wide, their branches and leaves so dense that the sun barely trickled to the forest floor.
“It’s full of magic,” Leal explained. “Old magic. Not the kind that we can use or channel. Blood Magic.”
“Like runes?” My eyes snagged on movement just beyond the tree line where the forest turned dark and dense, but I blinked and it was still again.
Leal snorted. “It’s not called the Runewood for nothing.”
I chewed my lip as my neck prickled with the feeling of being watched.
“Is it . . . inhabited? Are we safe?”
“As long as we stick to this path”—Leal gestured to the ground beneath our horses’ hooves—“and don’t follow the sound of whistling, we’ll be fine.” The path was well worn, a deep groove in an otherwise smooth and untouched forest floor. If I squinted hard enough, I was certain I could see small, almost undetectable runes engraved on the outside of the path.
Faylinn would love this place.
“Myrefall is just on the other side of this part of the Runewood. It’s not that deep here and is really the quickest way between Vespera and Myrefall; it’s the only reason we took this path, I would imagine,” Leal said thoughtfully.
“Samyr and Lishahl are on the other side of the Runewood, right?” I asked, suddenly recalling with almost stunning clarity the maps I’d been shown and taught in Katiska. My memory was a funny thing—I’d suppressed what I’d done to Finian and Peytor so well that I had inadvertently forgotten other important details.
Like the geography of Elyria.
Some queen I’ll make, I thought derisively.
“Lishahl is surrounded by the Runewood on its entire eastern line. Samyr is technically accessible by its most southeastern border, but it’s so heavily guarded that it’s easier and safer to traverse through the Runewood to reach it.”
“That’s why relations are so important with those two territories then,” I mused quietly, and Leal grunted.
“It’s also why the rebel presence in the north is . . . unnerving. If they take both Lishahl and Samyr, it stands to reason that their hold in Elyria would be much stronger than Vespera’s.”
I hummed softly, lost in thought.
“Look!” Tine exclaimed from behind. I ripped my gaze away from the forest to see a break in the tree line. The trees at the end of the path had grown together in a tilted way that resembled the shape of an arch. Whispers and gasps ignited through the ranks of cadets as, one by one, we passed beneath the marvel of nature.
“Old magic,” Leal whispered, her fingers clenching around the hilt of a dagger, as we slowly walked beneath the bent limbs of trees as old as Elyria itself. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of runes carved and burned into the trunks of the trees—the bark growing in those areas to take on the shape of the rune.
It was terrifyingly beautiful, and I could feel the sharp pulse of magic as we passed through. My breath expelled in a rush, the hairs raising on my arms as my heart pounded beneath my breast. There was something sentient about that gate—something that called to the blood within my veins.
I shivered slightly, my gaze constantly pulled back to the arch of trees even as we crested a final hill, pulling the natural wonder from sight.
Turning back forward in my saddle, I caught an odd look from both Leal and Alois. I averted both of their gazes, afraid of what I would see in their eyes.
Am I crazy? Did no one else feel that magic?
Judging by the carefree laughs and easy conversations flowing around us, I’d say the answer to my questions were “yes” and “no.”
Great. Just another thing that makes me different.
We crested a final hill, and I gasped for what felt like the hundredth time today.
I really need to get out more.
Spread before us, sprawling and tall, was Myrefall, unlike any city I’d seen. Where Vespera was all stone and surrounded by a thick wall, and Katiska was almost a quaint village, Myrefall looked like it was literally built into the Runewood itself. The closer we got, the more details emerged.
Tall trees—taller than even the ones we passed through—dominated the landscape; built between the forest giants were hanging wooden bridges that connected tree-to-tree. Small round structures were built around each of the trunks at various intervals. Some rested on the ground while others were built so high in the air, I had to crane my neck to glimpse their faint outlines. There was a small village erected on the forest floor, mainly corrals for horses and animals.
Lex held up his fist, indicating for our group to halt.
A few cadets either didn’t see his signal or didn’t know its meaning because there was a moment where a few horses collided with the riders in front of them, causing a bit of a ruckus.
