Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
Driochmor Forest
The Escape
Dar did not wait for dawn to fully break.
He was already mounted when the first pale light filtered through the canopy, Elara cradled against his chest, wrapped tight in his cloak.
Her head rested beneath his chin, her body unnaturally still, her breath shallow but there.
Always there. He held to that truth as fiercely as the reins in his hands.
“Faster,” Amelia urged, darting ahead of them, her blue glow flickering sharp and anxious. “They are close.”
Dar leaned forward and his horse responded at once, surging into motion without needing spur or command. Branches lashed past. Roots threatened to tear at hooves. The forest thickened, not randomly, but deliberately, paths narrowing, shadows deepening, the air heavy with moss and damp earth.
This was no road.
This was escape.
Dar felt it then, the forest watching him. Not with suspicion, but with intent.
Leaves shifted where no wind stirred. Birds burst from branches in sudden flight, wheeling low and wide. Small shapes, fox, hare, squirrel, scattered across the ground behind him, their movements chaotic enough to destroy any clear trail.
Good, Dar thought grimly. Hide us.
Amelia flashed back to his shoulder, her tiny face drawn tight. “They bring iron and fire,” she said. “One speaks words that twist the air. He hunts by scent and spell both.”
Dar drew in the air around him, catching the scent of sweat and a hint of fear, stronger than he ever had. What followed was a stench so strong it stung his nostrils so badly it almost robbed him of smell. He knew, there and then, it was pure evil.
His horse veered suddenly—not at his command—and Dar let it. The animal knew this land now better than he did. The path dissolved entirely, swallowed by fern and fallen timber, and still the horse ran, sure-footed, unhesitating, as though guided by something older than training.
Dar kept both arms locked around Elara, one hand never leaving her back, his body shielding hers from every jolt. He did not reach for his weapons. He did not think of them.
All that mattered was putting distance between her and whatever followed.
A sound echoed behind them, too distant to name, too wrong to ignore.
Amelia hissed softly. “Do not slow. Do not look back.”
“I won’t,” Dar said, low and fierce. “I gave my word.”
The forest closed tighter around them, branches knitting together, undergrowth rising thick and wild. Somewhere ahead, the land dipped, dark and unseen, drawing them deeper.
Beyond paths.
Beyond tracking.
Dar rode straight into it, and then the forest changed.
Dar felt it before he saw it, his instincts misfiring, the familiar rhythm of hunt and flight slipping out of alignment. This was no chase that he understood. No trail to read. No wind to test. The forest was in command of the hunt.
That unsettled him more than the thought of pursuit.
A pressure rolled through the air behind them, subtle but wrong, like heat before flame. His horse snorted, ears flattening as it surged forward again, hooves pounding earth that no longer felt solid, but alive, shifting, resisting, guiding.
Amelia streaked back to him, her glow dimming, flaring again. “They cut through what should not be cut,” she warned. “They bend the land instead of listening to it.”
Dar’s mouth tightened. “That won’t help them.”
Yet even as he said it, his chest tightened, not with fear, but with something deeper. A memory. A pull.
This land was not resisting him.
It was awakening him.
The thought struck hard enough to steal his breath. As the old tales whispered, Hunters once belonged to the land. Not trackers. Not killers. But keepers. Listeners. Guardians. Something his blood remembered even if his mind had been trained to forget.
His horse veered sharply again, choosing a path no Hunter would ever take, through tangled briar and low-hanging branches that tore at cloak and skin. Dar ducked instinctively, curling tighter around Elara, shielding her from every strike.
“Elara,” he murmured, not knowing if she could hear. “Stay with me.”
As if in answer, her fingers twitched against his chest.
Dar froze for half a heartbeat.
“Elara?” he whispered again, hope and terror colliding in his voice.
Her breath hitched just once. Barely there but real.
At the same moment, the forest screamed.
Not aloud and not in sound, but with force.
A shockwave rippled through the trees behind them, branches snapping, leaves tearing free, the air itself shuddering as something tore a path where none should exist.
“They are close,” Amelia cried, panic sharpening her voice. “The warlock presses hard. He forces the forest to remember fear.”
Dar felt it then, the truth of it settling into his bones.
He could not outrun magic by skill alone.
So, he did something he had never done, he surrendered—to the forest.
“Help us,” he said aloud, not to Amelia, not to any creature he could name. “She belongs to you as much as she does to me.”
The words tasted strange, yet right.
The response was immediate.
The ground shifted. Roots surged upward, tangling and knotting in their wake. Low fog rose without warning, thick and silver, swallowing their trail whole. Birds burst into flight again, not fleeing but circling, screaming confusion into the canopy.
Amelia gasped, awe bleeding into her fear. “It listens to you.”
Dar did not answer. His heart thundered too hard for words.
Elara stirred again, this time stronger. Her head shifted beneath his chin, a faint sound brushing his throat.
“Dar…” she breathed.
The sound nearly broke him.
“I’m here,” he said fiercely, lowering his face to her hair. “Hold on. Just a little longer.”
Behind them, the air convulsed. Trees groaned as if wrenched from their roots, bark splitting, branches snapping with violent cracks. A pulse of power surged through the undergrowth, scorching moss and leaf alike, leaving a blackened scar where green had thrived moments before.
The warlock had lost patience.
Dar felt it then, no longer pursuit, but declaration. The man was no longer hunting. He was destroying, forcing the forest to yield through fear and force.
Amelia streaked back to him, terror blazing bright around her. “He tears at the land. He will burn his way to you.”
Dar slowed his horse.
He understood now, clarity settling cold and sharp in his chest. He was the prey and he could not outrun this hunter. He could not hide from power that bent the world itself. Flight would only end the same way, with Elara dying in his arms while he fled.
His grip loosened on the reins.
The forest stirred again, differently this time. Not frantic. Not panicked.
Waiting.
Dar dismounted and gently lowered Elara to the ground, easing her onto a bed of leaves and soft earth as if the forest itself had prepared it. He brushed a strand of her silver hair from her face, his hands steady despite the storm raging inside him.
He rose slowly, feeling something shift, not around him, but from within.
The sounds of the forest sharpened until he could hear sap moving beneath bark, roots grinding stone, distant heartbeats not his own. Strength flooded his limbs, not the savage hunger of the hunt, but something much older.
This was what Hunters had once been. Not weapons, but guardians.
Elara stirred.
His heart lurched as her eyes fluttered open, unfocused but searching. She looked at him as if seeing him through water, her lips trembling as she struggled to speak.
“You…” she whispered faintly. “… know him.”
Dar dropped to his knees beside her, gripping her hand. “Rest. Don’t speak.”
A ghost of a smile touched her lips. As if she already knew it was too late. Her fingers tightened once around his, then weakened. Her gaze never left his face.
“Love you,” she breathed, the words barely sound at all. “Always.”
Her eyes drifted closed and her breath faded then stopped… she was gone.
The forest went utterly still.
Dar bowed over Elara, his forehead pressed to hers, his breath shuddering out of him in a sound too raw to be grief alone. He had fought. He had begged. He had carried her through shadow and blood and magic, believing—knowing—she would live.
And now she was gone.
“Nay,” he whispered, the word tearing free of him. Then louder. “NAY.”
The pain broke through him like a dam giving way.
Rage followed.
It ripped out of his chest in a roar that shook the air itself, a sound born not only of loss, but betrayal, by fate, by kings, by the world that had dared take her from him. He stood, threw his head back, and roared, the sound carrying through the trees, through stone and root and soil.
The forest answered.
The ground trembled beneath his feet. Roots burst through the earth, coiling and snapping, stones splitting as if struck from within. Branches bowed low, leaves shuddering violently as a wind surged from nowhere, carrying with it the scent of rain, blood, and old magic.
Dar felt it then—not as something entering him, but as something awakening.
This was not the hunger of the hunt.
Not the thrill his kind had been taught to crave.
This was belonging.
Power flowed through him, ancient and fierce, settling into his bones, his breath, his blood. The land did not fear him. It recognized him.
He dropped to his knees beside Elara once more, his hands shaking as he gathered her close, pressing his face into her hair.
“I swear it,” he rasped. “By the land. By my blood. By everything I am becoming, I will not let this stand.”
A voice cut through the chaos, smooth and amused.
“Good.”
The word slithered through the clearing, untouched by the fury around it.
Dar’s head snapped up.
“That leaves me only one to kill.”
Amelia streaked to his side, her glow flickering wildly. Dar did not look at her at first. His gaze was fixed on the trees ahead, on the place where the forest recoiled rather than welcomed.
“Stay with her,” he said, his voice low and iron-hard. “Do not leave her side.”
Amelia hesitated.
“When it is done,” Dar continued, finally turning his eyes to her, “you will tell Lord Oaken that Elara and I are to be buried together. No separation, not even in death.”
Her tiny hand flew to her mouth. She nodded fiercely.
Dar rose.
He knew that voice.
Elara had warned him.
He turned toward the darkness, toward the power pressing against the land like a wound that refused to heal.
And he stepped forward to meet it.