Chapter 28 Rowan
Rowan
The moment the forest closes around me, the storm changes.
The wind still howls, but here it threads between trunks instead of battering me head-on, slipping cold fingers beneath my cloak.
Rain patters against the canopy, gathers, then drops in heavy, unpredictable splats down the back of my neck.
The forest floor is soft, sucking at my boots with every step.
In the distance to the west, smoke and flame rise over a mountain path I remember from Kyrian’s map. That’s where the fighting is happening. Where the Eryndor army is right now. Where I need to get to.
I test the bond again, tugging at it. Carefully at first, then with more force.
Nothing but the familiar, distant hum answers.
No sharp recoil. No immediate flare of awareness.
No reason to make the males suspicious. And since they and the Eryndor force are currently co-located, I don’t even have to worry about inconveniently discovering the end of the bond’s range.
After all, I am only moving closer to them now.
I run down the narrow hunter’s trail, getting as much distance between myself and the draken field as I can. I’m fairly certain Pherix was telling the truth about not coming after me, but the less I tempt fate the better. My heart pounds, my stomach churning uncomfortably with each step.
Stop feeling guilty, I remind myself. They’ve been lying and manipulating everyone for years. And you can still keep your word about making an antidote for Lilith. Except you do it from a position of strength. Equal ground.
It’s a good motivational talk, as far as those go.
It even has the benefit of being all true.
But it still does little to settle me. It’s not the returning to Eryndor per se that sits poorly in my chest, but the little moments of memory that insist on replaying themselves in my head.
Like the confidence in Kyrian’s voice as he told Auri that he trusted me with the maps.
And the way Logan fed me bread and soup —as if he cared for me, not for what I could do for him.
And the care Kai took with me in the bathing pond.
The males never treated me like a commodity.
Except for the part where they stole me as one.
I run through a puddle that’s deeper than I expect and cringe at the splatting noise from my boots. And then again as I lose my balance and go sliding on my side down the trail. Maybe running through an open path in the middle of a storm isn’t my wisest choice.
I veer off the trail to my right, pushing into a tangle of wet undergrowth until I’m far enough from the trail to just be able to make it out for guidance.
It’s slower progress here, where the forest swallows me whole, but it’s safer to stay hidden.
Unseen. Just another shadow moving through the rain.
Time blurs into the steady rhythm of rain against leaves.
I move slowly, letting the wet ground take my weight without complaint, my feet so wet and cold that I can barely feel them anymore.
The deeper I slip into the trees, the quieter I become, letting the forest’s breath cover mine.
I start to believe I’m alone out here. I want to believe it.
Coming to a low hanging branch, I crouch to duck beneath it, pausing until my pulse matches the steady fall of water.
That’s when the quiet shifts—barely a tremor at first, a weight settling where it shouldn’t.
But then it happens again. Not just a shifting of the storm, but a change in the whole rhythm of the forest. Like soft, deliberate footfalls, timed between gusts of wind.
No, not like footsteps. Those are footsteps. My skin goes tight. Someone’s moving through the same storm. And they are close.
I flatten myself against the soaked earth, sliding behind a tangle of fern and thorn. The less I move, the less noise I make. I force myself to breathe through my mouth, shallow and quiet.
Shadows slip through the trees, resolving into soldiers in mottled forest gear, every stitch of their uniforms built to disappear into this place.The storm blurs the edges, but it doesn’t hide them completely.
I count five… no, six figures materializing through the rain.
They don’t stumble. They don’t speak. They move like they own the darkness.
And they’re not empty-handed. A long, armored crate rides on a carrier between them, their formation built around it. That’s why they are on the trail—their burden wouldn’t fit through the trees. Whoever they are. Not a patrol. Not scouts. So what they bloody hell are they? Delivery boys?
The last one of the group turns toward exactly where I’m hiding and surveys the forest. I stop breathing. I don’t even dare blink or shift my eyes. And even with all that, it still takes me several heartbeats to realize who I’m looking at.
My mother.
Her blond hair is hidden beneath earth-colored covering, her face painted in colors to blend in with the leaves. And the male beside her? Collin. Though he looks different with a black strip of cloth covering half his face, including where one of his eyes used to be before Logan took it.
Stars take me.
My mouth dries, my thoughts racing faster than the wind.
Why would my mother be anywhere but on the battlefield?
Hells, why would any humans be here at all?
I glance up toward the skies just to ensure that I’ve not lost my mind completely and there really is a battle happening.
Smoke and flame lick the skies just as they had been, about two miles west of our current location.
It makes no sense. Yet here it all is.
I wait until their formation slips past, then ease to my feet, keeping to the thickest parts of the undergrowth.
The storm does its assigned job of swallowing the sound of my movements as I shadow my mother’s unit.
I’d not usually keep up with warriors like them, but the crate they are carrying makes them slower and less flexible.
Forced to take the cleanest line through the woods.
I follow my knowledge of the trail as much as following them, my pulse is a drum in my ears.
They stop abruptly just where the trail turns around the draken field, and I nearly stumble into a rotten log trying to halt as fast as they did.
I ease closer, hidden behind a slick-trunked tree, careful not to break the waterlogged twigs under my boots.
The group stands right at the bend, where the forest yawns open to an empty, mud-drenched field on their right.
“There’s nothing here,” a male voice says, rough and irritated. Collin, I think. “We dragged the case out here for nothing.”
“Shut it.” The front soldier turns slightly, his hood hiding his face. “It’s here. The coordinates match.”
“It’s a damned empty field,” Collin mutters.
My mouth dries, confusion swarming my thoughts. Why is my mother here? Why is any Eryndor force here? And why are they carrying a big rune-covered case through the woods in the middle of a storm?
“Walk forward,” my mother orders Collin.
He hesitates.
“If you think the field is empty, then walk through it,” she says.
Collin stays where he is.
“No?” My mother snorts softly. “Then do as Badger says and shut up.” She turns away from him, and surveys the muddy field.
I hold my breath. The illusion-shrouded overhang, and the precious egg it conceals, is only a hundred feet ahead. But she can’t see it, can she? No one can.
My mother’s shoulders roll back, her chin rising. This is Commandant Ainsley standing here, the hero of Eryndor. And she is always victorious, whatever that means today.
She raises one hand, giving a sharp gesture with two fingers, and the crate carriers settle their burden to the ground. Another gesture and they unsling their bows, notch arrows in perfect unison and stand at the ready.
“Left quadrant,” the commandant orders. “Loose.”
A volley arcs into the air, whistling through the storm to land in the mud. I clap my hands over my mouth to keep from screaming. At least they aren’t shooting auric steel. Though they have it. I can feel the alloy greeting my magic.
“Again. Shift fifteen points east. Loose.”
Arrows are nocked, strings drawn. The second volley cuts through the air in a deadly whisper, rain sliding off the shafts. Like the first set, they fall harmlessly into the field, splattering mud. One of the archers runs a hand through his hair in disappointment and Collin groans softly.
I let out a breath. Keep walking the forest, Mother, I beg. Whatever you are looking for, it’s not here. There is nothing here. Nothing but mud.
“Again. Another fifteen degrees.”
I do the calculations a moment too late. Not that it matters. Four shafts fall to the mud as before, but the last, it doesn’t fall at all. It vanishes. Mid-flight.
“That’s not nothing,” Badger says.
“Correct.” The commandant’s voice is a blade. “That’s a lie wrapped in fog. Change tips.”
One of the soldiers unslings a black-wrapped quiver and draws out auric steel. The arrowheads glint faintly even through the storm as he passes one to each archer.
Panic rushes through me and I can’t imagine what the draken and riders inside must be feeling.
How close Pherix and Ilian must be to throwing caution to the wind and charging the humans.
Which would be suicide. The archers have all the advantage at this distance.
Stars, the fae may not even know what arrows are being notched now.
And if they don’t make that run? My pulse slams against my throat. The arrows will pierce the ward. Hit the egg. Kill the dam. I step back, mud sucking at my boots, mind spinning.
“Loo—” Ainsley starts.
“STOP!” I don’t think. I just move. I crash out of the tree line and into the open, stumbling and slipping over the wet ground. “Stop,” I yell again, planting myself between the humans’ bows and the invisible overhang. “Please. This isn’t what you think it is!”