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I’d seen the emotion in his eyes when he’d looked at me, something that hadn’t been there when he’d first lost control and taken me in the forest.
He cared aboutme.
Even in the way he’d clutched at me after he’d driven me mad with pleasure and pain and everything in between had revealed how he felt for me. He hadn’t wanted to let me go, so much so that I could still feel the places where his fingers had dug into my flesh.
They might have even left a mark.
With a sigh, I looked around my cabin, but he was nowhere to be seen. To be honest, waking up without him felt sort of empty. I wanted him to be sitting over in the corner in his chair, where I could get out of bed only to settle safe and sound in his lap. I curled my knees into my chest and smiled when I saw my things gathered on the table.
I wondered where he was. Maybe he was out preparing something special for breakfast or gathering something sweet for me from the area of the village I hadn’t yet explored.
With a start, I jumped up and rushed over to my bag, looking for the scroll. I shuffled through my pack and breathed a sigh of relief the moment my eyes grazed upon the aged paper. I hadn’t lost it.
Unfurling it, I read it again, trying to figure out the mystery of what the prophecy could mean. Flashes of the vision the seer had cast over me raced before my eyes. I hadn’t seen anything like the enchanted grove it mentioned, nor the wizard’s keep, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that a part of it felt a bit unfinished.
Maybe once I found the grove and the wizard’s keep, I would figure out how to break Roken’s curse and finally free his heart.
I waited for Roken to return, but he didn’t make an appearance that day, nor the day after. I stayed in the cabin, passing the time by reading books, and when he didn’t come back on the third day, I went out. I looked around the treetops, trying to see if I could catch sight of him, but I saw nothing.
What if I was wrong? What if he didn’t care after all?
My own insecurities plagued me, and I did my best to ignore them, yet it proved especially difficult. The longer he was away, the more I worried that something had happened to him. It was possible that he’d held onto his sanity for as long as it took to bring me to bed. What if he’d lost his mind and it was already too late?
I shuddered, remembering the dark vision of the realm’s future. I had only just begun to accept this place as my new home, and I didn’t want to lose it.
I didn’t want to lose Roken, either.
I had to find him. Maybe he was hurt, and I was the only one who was here to help him. My mind whirled with worst case scenarios as I paced back and forth in my cabin.
Eventually, my patience wore out. I needed to do something, so I pulled on my leather boots, a long dress, and a fur mantle. The sun was on its downward trek in the sky, and the temperature was beginning to fall, so I needed to stay warm. Lastly, I grabbed my pack and stuffed it with a few supplies as well as the prophecy scroll.
With silence reigning throughout the forest, I made my way to the great hall and then down the winding staircase until I found myself on the ground. I looked back and forth, trying to decide which direction to go when a roar sounded to the west. I started and backed into the tree, sliding my fingers along and finding the trigger to open it and hide inside if need be.
A chorus of shouts and yelling joined the growl, and all at once, Roken broke out of the brush at a full sprint. In an instant, his eyes were upon me.
“We cannot stay here. It is no longer safe. We must make for Eldoria so we can warn them,” he explained.
“Warn them ofwhat?”
“The armies of Helheim have come for Terraheim, and the realm must be ready!” he shouted, looking back over his shoulder. He raced towards me and wrapped his arms around me, lifting me up off the ground and jumping into the air.
I shrieked as he shifted around me, his arms lengthening and his fingers edging with sharp talons. The hard muscles of his chest expanded behind me, and I closed my eyes as we shot up into the air, his massive wings forcing the tree canopy to give way. We were up above the treetop in seconds as his claws wrapped around my waist, fierce yet gentle as he flew upwards into the sky.
My stomach rolled and almost gave way. I closed my eyes, but that only seemed to make the vertigo that much worse. I opened them back up and that’s when I saw what was coming for us.
An army of monsters, tailed by a supernatural, purple cloud of magic, was storming through the trees. Thousands of beasts like the werewolf and the infernox patrolled down below, joined by stone giants, ogres, trolls, and orcs. There were massive, scraggly-haired mammoths with six tusks and giants with oozing blood and flesh. More grotesque forms followed, but soon enough, we were too far away for me to identify them.
Terror consumed me. It was one thing to see Helheim’s army from the safety of a vision that may or may not come true. It was something else entirely to be faced with it in reality. This wasn’t a slow trickle attack. This was a full-scale invasion.
“Roken is your destiny. You must save him before you can save the realm. If not, this visage of the past will only be a pebble in the ocean of what is to come.”
The old woman’s words repeated in my head, and I bit my lip. I curled up within Roken’s talons and closed my eyes. Eldoria had been mentioned in several of the historical books I had devoured, but those were centuries old. I hoped what they’d said was still true. It had been the woodland city of the elves over five hundred years ago. Now, it was the capital of the realm.
Roken’s incoming return would not go unnoticed. I just hoped we’d survive our arrival.
* * *
During the day, the army of Helheim slept. It was nightfall when their fires lit up the night. I could see their progress as the days passed and it was harrowingly fast. Their unnatural speed cut through the forest far more swiftly than I thought possible. Nothing seemed to hinder them—not the dense forest, the rushing river, or the deep furrows of the canyons to the west of the tree top village.
