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Lavinia stood from the chair. “It’s better if you see it with your own eyes,”
15
SHANE
I didn’t knowwhat to expect.
It all felt mysterious while Lavinia and Killian guided us to the back of the town hall, where an off-road Jeep was parked. We hopped in and Killian drove us onto the road exiting the town and the pack lands, toward the north, where there was nothing beyond our lands but more forest and lakes. Right before crossing the border, he veered into the forest.
He drove for another few minutes, then stopped. “Come,” he said, getting off the car.
That expression about suspense being a killer was a real thing.
I glanced around as I climbed out of the Jeep, but saw nothing unusual. The hard ground, bushes, trees, vines, rocks … “What is it?”
Killian walked past a tight line of trees. I followed and then halted.
“Almae?” I asked, confused. “What are you doing here?”
The old witch stood from where she was crouched down and that was when I saw it. Beyond her, the land was black. Not just the land. Everything—the trees, the bushes. It was like a wildfire had cut through here and left ashes behind.
“What is this?” I walked closer. “What is happening?”
Right by my side, Raika gasped. “By the moon.”
“I spotted this last night on one of my patrols,” Killian said.
Lavinia walked to Almae. “He called me and I came to check it, but it’s like nothing I have ever seen. So I called Almae, and to my surprise, she was actually on the way here.”
Almae offered us a soft smile. “Surprised to see me?”
“You could say that,” I mumbled, my eyes still on the black land.
“She arrived an hour later and I brought her here,” Lavinia continued.
“They spent most of the night here,” Killian said. “But they came back early this morning.”
“And it was worse,” Almae said, her voice rough. “The poison has advanced a foot more, taking more of the forest.”
“Wait.” I shook my head. “Poison?”
Almae nodded. “Lavinia and I were able to join our powers and find the source.”
“And?” Raika asked, her tone as shocked as I felt.
“The crystals you’ve brought back,” Lavinia said. “They aren’t the same. We think they were depleted of their magic and filled with some kind of magical poison. It’s affecting the land. Killing it.”
I froze.
Raika’s face paled. “Wait. That means … Dixon wanted us to find the crystals?”
“That explains how it was so easy to find him, to kill him and the demons who were with him, to bring the crystals back.” By the moon, I had been such a fool. I should have questioned this instead of celebrating. “But why? He let me kill him so I could bring poisoned crystals back here? To what end?”
Almae shrugged. “That I cannot say. The only thing I can know is that this poison is moving fast. If we don’t find a way of neutralizing it, it’ll consume the pack lands within two weeks, maybe less.”
My jaw hurting from clenching my teeth too tight, I marched back to the Jeep. “Then we take the crystals out.”
“We already tried that,” Lavinia said.
