Lioran couldn’t stop the Grove—he couldn’t save us from this.
We had to find a way to survive it.
Low lying branches grazed at Gaia’sleg. She quaked beneath me. Her fear pulsed through me, in time with my own. I gasped, unable to breathe through it.
A tree cracked as if an axe had been taken to it. Heavy limbs crashed between the horses—parting our group until only a handful of us remained together. Cora’s cries echoed behind me, I let the sound drown out my own.
Branches beat the land—deep and insistent.
With an echoing crash, a branch swung toward Lord Mavik, severing him from the saddle. He was gone. The Grove had taken him.
“Fyn!” I cried, reaching for him. He held my hand as we steadied our horses. There was nowhere to go. I held my free hand steady and reached for the Grove. I called my magic, willed the Grove to listen to my pleas, but nothing answered. As if that part of me was already gone.
I pleaded with it, tugged at it deep within me. It fizzled before it even left my fingertips.
“I can’t stop it.” Each breath caught, more rapid than the next.
“We’re going to make it out of here,” Fyn said as he squeezed my hand in his. I closed my eyes—I couldn’t handle the sight of it any longer.
One by one the branches beat the land like a war cry. The ground quaked in time with each crash. Suddenly, it fell silent. Fyn tugged my hand.
I opened my eyes and watched the branches snap back into position—as if it never happened at all. When I looked for Mavik—he was gone.
His horse stood without a rider in the middle of the Grove. Debris surrounded us.
“We need to look for him!” Lioran cried, dismounting from his horse in time with Lord Orion. He glanced back at me. Hischest swelled as his hand covered his mouth, before he took off running.
There wasn’t time to demand he stopped. He wouldn’t have listened even if I had.
Before they even entered deep into the brush, Lord Mavik walked out of the woods. His hands desperately gripped his sword still at his waist.
“I’m alright.” Lord Mavik shook his head. “I’m not even sure what happened.”
None of us were.
Memories of his blond braid whipping through the wind would never leave me, but there he was—unharmed.
He climbed back on his horse as if it never happened.
“How?” My voice quaked.
Lioran’s gaze caught mine as he raced back to Veylar. I had never seen terror run so deep beneath it. “I don’t know,” he said as he mounted his stallion. “We need to keep going.”
“Some of the lords wish to leave.” Lord Orion called to us. His eyes avoided Lioran’s.
“Then let them.” Lioran looked back at me. I swallowed hard. “If you wish to head back, then go!” He yelled to the party ahead. No one moved. “I can’t guarantee you’ll make it through here. Go, if you must.”
They turned back. Three of them left.
Their names had been uttered, but I wouldn’t remember them.
Maybe I’d never even see them again.
“They’re leaving?” I didn’t know why I questioned it. I would have left if I could.
“Let them,” Lioran seethed. He wouldn’t hold it against them. He knew their fear as well as he knew his.
There weren’t enough of us to weather whatever came next.
