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“I’m not flying you into the middle of a forest fire caused by your mortal enemies. We’re landing in an unknown situation that could get us killed.”
Nava thrived at solving problems as the situation arose, but perhaps this time she should put aside the need to find Ari immediately, for her soulmate’s sake. Arkimedes was making sense, and if she expected him to listen to her, then she needed to do the same.
His wings beat steadily as he lowered them into the depths of the forest. Dry brush and leaves crunched under her feet as he set her down. Even this far away from the fires, smoke wafted over the ground.
The cries of nature resounded around her. The rumble beneath her feet as animals scurried through the darkness, invisible to their eyes but deafening to her senses.
“Let’s find Aristaeus,” Arkimedes said. Much like Nava, he didn’t have a weapon to wield against the demons—and possibly the emissary.
All they had was their combined magic, and it had to be enough.
She closed her eyes and thought of Ari. His black eyes. The long trunks that formed his legs, permanently covered in moss and mushrooms. A gentle pull answered her, and Nava began walking—no, running—in its direction. Aristaeus was coming to her, and she needed to meet him.
She glanced at Arkimedes as her body shifted form. Her legs turned into swirling dust, her arms disappearing from view. “You can follow the pull of our bond. Find me there.”
“Nava,” Arkimedes called, wide-eyed, but he didn’t stop her. “Be careful.”
No mortal weapon could truly hurt an emissary of the gods. And with the demons he was letting in, the three of them might be the only thing that stood between this kingdom and certain destruction.
Nava flew through particles of ash, picking up speed as Aristaeus drew her to him like a magnet. She moved so fast her surroundings blurred into nothingness, until all that remained was the beacon calling to her. She could sense Ari, too: enveloped in a mixture of forest debris and blown across the place by a cyclone of ancient magic.
They collided in a cloud that momentarily pushed away the particles of ash raining down from above. And for a fraction of time, in the warmth of Aristaeus’s embrace, Nava felt peace.
“Dearest one, you’re back,” he whispered inside her head. Oh, how she’d missed him. Then a burst of images flashed through her mind. A black portal opening in the middle of the forest. The Zorren passing through it, crossing the barriers between their land and this world.
Nava changed from air to flesh and bones, blinking away the daze left behind by the memories Ari had shared.
Ari popped into his own true form with the screeching noises of expanding wood. “I feared the Dark Ones had imprisoned you, for I could sense you were alive, but I couldn’t reach you anywhere.”
Guilt bubbled inside of her. Of course Ari wouldn’t be able to locate her while she was in a strange safe house, guarded by spells and Neems. “I’m sorry. We had to escape the castle when my dress—” Oh, she didn’t have time to go over the details. Not when a fire hissed so close to them, ravaging the forest. If only she could take her time to reconnect with him after this period of separation. “Are the demons nearby?”
Ari tilted his head toward the wall of smoke to her right. “If you close your eyes and listen to the forest, it will tell you where they are.”
Nava clicked her tongue. Why couldn’t Aristaeus give her a straight answer for once, instead of trying to teach her a lesson? They were already on borrowed time.
“I took care of the only Zorren who made it through the portal,” he said, evidently sensing her frustration. “Where is our protector? I sense him.”
“I came to find you first,” she answered. The smoke burned her throat, and their bees flew around them in a shield of brown bodies, spilling from the hive on Aristaeus’s head. The warning rang clear through their buzzing as a ragged line of flames pushed past the haze, crackling and reaching out toward them.
Behind the red glow of fire, black demons cast wide shadows over the area, watching, waiting—approaching with abrupt, broken movements across the land they hungered to destroy.
“Ari, I thought you said there weren’t any demons,” Nava gasped, jumping back with her heart suddenly in her throat. The imminent danger sharpened her senses.
“I closed the portal.” Ari’s voice lacked his usual calm. “Another must have just opened.”
They looked at each other. They couldn’t leave because this threat was coming for them.
“Listen to the forest, dearest, and follow its calling to the portal.”
The changing wind blasted the fire through the underbrush. The dry bark on centuries-old trees caught on fire just as Aristaeus changed into his airy form and drifted away.
Nava closed her eyes, and the pained screams of the trees rang inside her ears. Tears sprang to her eyes at the sound of such devastation.
She needed to focus on her mission, on finding the portal. Like the air ruffling the leaves, she sifted through words in languages she shouldn’t understand but did regardless. At long last, there was a clear call, beckoning her in. There.
She changed shape and followed their screams. Now that she was no longer in her human form, the smoke and flames didn’t hurt her as she crossed the inferno toward the hum of the new portal.
Ari was already there, looming large like a magnificent tree. One of the four demons slipped straight through the fire. Its skull looked so similar to that of a human that Nava’s hair stood on end. If it weren’t for the small mandibles around the mouth that snapped in Ari’s direction, she would have thought it was a monstrous human spirit.
