Chapter 7 #3
Syndra lifted her gaze to the dark beyond the firelight. Roots hummed beneath the soil. Leaves brushed together though the air remained still. “Yes,” she said grimly. A shudder ran down her spine. Whatever was out there, it wasn’t just listening anymore. It was waiting. Expectant.
The fire’s last breath guttered into smoke, leaving the clearing dim except for starlight threading through the canopy. Tamsin’s skin prickled, first with unease, then with something colder. Not recognition, not memory, but something older than both. A pressure he couldn’t name.
He shifted, rolling his shoulders as if to dislodge it, but the sensation clung like mist. Beside him, Syndra went still in that sharp, instinctive way only she could.
“Tamsin,” she murmured. “There it is again.”
“Yes,” he said quietly. “I’ve felt something like it before.” That was true. But not enough. He could not remember where or when, only that some part of him, deep, ancient, recoiled from the familiarity.
Oakley’s eyes scanned the forest beyond them. “You two look like you smelled a corpse. I can feel some sort of pressure, like oxygen being sucked from my lungs. But, other than that, I got nothing. What am I missing?”
Before Tamsin could answer, the trees leaned inward.
Not from wind, but of their own accord. A low thrum rippled through the soil, vibrating up through Tamsin’s palms. His magic reacted instantly, light flickering over his skin like static.
Syndra jerked beside him, her breath catching as dark sparks crawled along her fingers.
“Tamsin—” she gasped, “something’s—”
The pressure sharpened. The air thickened. Something invisible hooked into his mind and pulled.
He bit back a cry as pain shot through his temples, piercing deep into his mind. Something ancient stirred, and then it was like a locked door being pushed from both sides, as if part of him were attempting to keep the door closed, while something else wanted it wide open.
Syndra clutched his arm, fingers digging in. “Make it stop, please.”
“I can’t,” he ground out. “This magic is more powerful than ours. Something that has been building for a long time.”
Oakley stumbled backward. “You’re glowing. Both of you. Like, a lit fuse about to blow. What is happening?”
Tamsin could hardly hear him. A battle waged inside his skull.
Something was pushing them away. The forest was pulling them forward.
He didn’t know why. He didn’t know what.
Only that the pressure was unbearable. Light seared behind his eyes.
A flash. A sigil he couldn’t place. A door of stone he did not remember ever seeing.
But it felt familiar. Terrifyingly familiar.
Syndra cried out, shaking, her forehead pressed to his shoulder. “Tamsin, what is this, what are we supposed to—”
“I don’t know, ” he choked. Pain, harder, like a fist closing around his mind. Then—a snap.
Air rushed back into his lungs. The pressure vanished as abruptly as it had come, leaving a cold, ringing silence in its wake. Tamsin collapsed to his knees, sweat dripping down his temples. Syndra gasped beside him, trembling. Oakley stood frozen several feet away, pale as moonlight.
“What the hell was that?” Oakley whispered.
Tamsin wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “A memory trying to surface.”
“Something you forgot?” Oakley asked.
Tamsin closed his eyes. The truth chilled him. “Appears that way,” he said softly. “It felt . . . old.”
And then came the answer. Spoken, just as they had been before, “Not the former king. Not the former queen. Not the carefully trained almost-warrior. The daughters. Elora. Cassie. One of dark and one of light. They will set us free.”
Tamsin felt the blood drain from his face. Syndra clutched his arm.
Oakley staggered back. “Elora,” he whispered.
Tamsin’s heart plummeted.
“And Cassie,” Syndra breathed.
* * *
Cassie was already awake. The forest had made sure of that.
She lay still beneath the canopy, staring up through the interlaced branches where pale morning light filtered through in thin, watery ribbons.
The air was damp, cool against her skin, and far too quiet.
No birds. No insects. Just the slow, patient breath of the woods pressing in around them.
Her chest felt tight. Not from fear, exactly.
More from a sense of inevitability and curiosity.
She didn’t know if that was a good thing or not.
After all, curiosity liked to kill things.
She reached for Trik without thinking, seeking that familiar, anchoring presence that had always answered her, even at a distance.
And hit something solid. The impact wasn’t physical, but it was sharp enough to steal her breath.
Like slamming full force into a wall she hadn’t seen coming.
Cassie sucked in a startled gasp and pushed herself upright, one hand braced against the ground as she tried again.
Nothing. No warmth. No answering pull. No sense of him at all. Just smooth, absolute silence. “Elora,” she said hoarsely.
Beside her, Elora was already sitting up, elbows on her knees, gaze fixed somewhere deep in the trees. At Cassie’s voice, she turned, and the look on her face made Cassie’s stomach drop.
“You, too,” Elora said quietly.
Cassie nodded. “I can’t reach him.”
Elora’s jaw tightened as she closed her eyes, shoulders tensing as she reached inward for Cush. Cassie watched the moment hope flickered, and died.
Elora opened her eyes again, and they were bright with anger. “It’s blocked,” she said. “Not distant. Not strained. But completely blocked.”
Cassie swallowed hard. “They wouldn’t do that.”
“No,” Elora agreed, voice sharp with certainty. “They’d fight. Argue. Storm halfway across the realm before they’d shut us out like this.”
The forest shifted as if all its focus was turned on them and it was paying attention to their every movement and every word. This was becoming the norm. Or perhaps, the forest had been focused on them from the moment they stepped into it, but they were only recently beginning to realize it.
Cassie felt it along her spine, a subtle pressure that made her skin prickle.
The trees seemed closer than they had a moment ago, not physically, but in the way a crowd leans in when something interesting is about to happen.
Her hand drifted instinctively to her stomach.
The ache there wasn’t pain. It was awareness.
A quiet, steady fullness that had nothing to do with hunger and everything to do with the small, flickering presence beneath her ribs.
“Okay,” Elora said, pushing to her feet and pacing a short line through the moss. “We don’t panic.”
Cassie managed a thin huff of breath. “What’s to panic about?
” she asked, her tone bored. “We wandered off into the forest in search of some ancient Chamber, and now the forest is luring us like bait to said ancient Chamber. I'm pregnant with no medical care to speak of and the bond we have with our Chosens are blocked. I’m pretty sure everything is fine and dandy, and we can simply relax and enjoy the scenery.”
Elora shot her a look. “Sarcasm does not become you. Focus. Maybe they’re distracted. Maybe the Book—”
“Both of them?” Cassie cut in, her voice cracking despite her effort to steady it. “At the same time? Elora, I can’t feel anything. Not anger, frustration, worry. I don’t even feel like it’s distance between us. It’s like the bond hits a wall and slides off.”
Elora stopped pacing. Slowly, she lifted her gaze to the trees.
Cassie followed it. The woods around them felt heavier. Shadows lay where shadows shouldn’t, pooled too thick between roots and trunks. Every leaf seemed angled toward them.
“Does it feel like . . .” Cassie hesitated, searching for the right word. “Like it’s waiting?”
Elora nodded once. “And listening.”
A breeze whispered through the clearing but the leaves didn’t move.
Cassie shivered. “We should go back.” The words felt right. Sensible. Necessary. But, her feet didn’t move. Screw the Chamber and whatever secrets it held. Cassie wanted to make sure Trik was okay. But deep in her gut, she knew that wasn’t an option.
Elora’s shoulders went rigid. “I can’t.”
Cassie’s heart lurched. “How did I know you were going to say that?”
Elora pressed a hand to her chest, fingers curling into the fabric there.
“Because you can’t either. Just like yesterday, this Chamber of Light and Dark is pulling us.
Not dragging. Not forcing.” She sucked in a breath.
“Just . . . insisting. Like forward is the only direction my body remembers how to go.”
Cassie felt it, too, the dull, steady tug beneath her sternum, gentle but relentless, like a hook set deep behind her heart. She had been trying to ignore it, but it was not something that was willing to be overlooked. “Me, too,” she whispered.
The ground vibrated beneath them. Not a tremor. More like a pulse, a heartbeat. Slow, ancient and dark.
Cassie’s heart skipped. “What could it possibly want with us and how could it have known that we’d decide to become explorers?”
Elora’s mouth tightened. “Magic isn’t something we can always explain or have explained. Whatever this Chamber is, the magic living in it is powerful and definitely has an agenda.”
The pressure deepened, warm and deliberate, curling not to grab, but to invite. Though she had no doubt if they attempted to resist, that might change.
Cassie’s hand tightened over her stomach as her child’s magic flickered faintly in response. Not as if it was frightened or distressed, but simply aware. “I kind of feel like if we don’t continue along with it, we will be hunted,” Cassie said softly.
Elora shot her a sharp look. “I have no desire to be prey.”
“Agreed,” Cassie swallowed.
The forest hummed, low and deep, as if in agreement and encouragement for them to continue their trek.
Elora swore under her breath. “I hate ancient magic.”
Cassie managed a small, humorless smile. “You say that like modern magic’s a joy.”
They stood there, and Cassie felt the weight of the moment settling heavy around them. She reached out. Elora took her hand without hesitation, grip fierce and grounding.
“Whatever this Chamber wants,” Elora said, her voice steady despite the tension coiled through her, “it picked the wrong women.”
Cassie lifted her chin, heart pounding, not with terror, but resolve.
“Then let’s get this over with,” she said.
“I imagine Trik and Cush will be tearing down the trees before too long if they’ve realized the bonds are completely blocked.
We might not be on this adventure alone for much longer anyways. ”
Together, they continued forward. Cassie heard rustling and looked behind them. The forest closed in behind them, blocking the path where they’d come from. “Onward it is,” she whispered as she turned back and followed after Elora.