I said nothing. I kept walking.
“Guruk,” Sammy called from behind me.
“Mm.” I stopped for a beat.
She pointed at the infernal wood. “Is that the same log?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “There are many logs in the forest.”
Squatting to inspect it, she ran her fingers over the edges. She stared back at me. “That is the same log.”
My jaw clenched. “It has a similar quality?—”
“Those are the same mushrooms.”
I sighed.To the caves with it,I thought the old orc curse.
“We are,” I said, with what I considered admirable composure, “temporarily misaligned with the path."
Sammy opened her notebook and wrote something. I caught a glimpse:Guruk-speak for lost.
I stomped in place to punctuate my point. “We are not lost.”
She snapped her notebook shut. “We have circled the same log twice.”
“We have,” I paused and reconsidered. No sense arguing the inevitable. “The forest has old magic in it. Older than the village. Some parts of it were enchanted long before any settlement arrived, and they have their own...” I searched for the word.
“Opinions?” Sammy offered.
I nodded, pleased at this word. “Yes. Opinions.”
“So…” She glared at the log. Then, at the path ahead, which curved away into the trees in a direction that felt subtly, persistently wrong. “The forest is rerouting us.”
“It would appear so.” I ran a hand through my hair, tugging at the strands and willing the forest for an answer.
“To where we need to go rather than where we intend to go?”
“That is the old magic’s nature, yes.”
She thought about this for a moment, pen tapping against her notebook. Something shifted in her expression. Her gamer face crashed down over the mild exasperation like a visor. “We’re not lost,” she said, pen brandished at the ready like a sword. “We’re respawning.”
I did not know whatrespawningmeant, but I recognized the tone. It was the same one she used when she had decided that a problem was an opportunity in poor disguise.
“Yes,” I agreed, hoping the forest did not prove me a liar.
Berry, from their post on my shoulder, chittered in a stream, saying in their way,sure, let’s call it that.
We madecamp in the clearing the forest delivered us to.
I recognized it as optimal the moment we stepped into it. Three sides were sheltered by old growth, while the fourth opened to a strip of darkening sky. A natural fire ring of stones was already present, as if placed there by someone who had been through before and thought ahead. The ground was soft with purple moss and last season’s leaves. A stream ran at the clearing’s far edge, close enough to hear and use as needed.
The forest, whatever its opinions, had good taste.
“Oh,” Sammy said, stopping in the center of the clearing and turning slowly. “Okay. I'll allow it.”
As if we had a choice.I smirked. “Generous of you.”
Another flip of her pen in my direction warned me off. “Don’t push it.”
