Chapter 9 #2
He shrugged, “It is now.”
She took a breath, reaching out with her magic, not the neat, disciplined strands of a practiced spell, but the old instinct that came from centuries of living with this land. The forest pressed against her awareness, dense and insistent, nudging them away from a direction she could not quite name.
Away from where the girls would be.
“Of course,” she muttered. “It’s not just ignoring us. It’s actively trying to send us in circles.”
Oakley scrubbed a hand over his face. “So how do we un-loop?”
“Normally?” Syndra said. “You stop and ask nicely.”
“And now?”
She smiled without humor. “Now, I suspect, we have to be impolite.”
“I thought you were all ‘show respect, the foliage is your elder,’” Oakley said dryly.
Syndra forced herself not to smack the young man upside his head as she responded. “Sometimes elders are jackasses and need reminding that respect is earned.”
Tamsin’s gaze sharpened. “What are you thinking?”
“That we should take the path it doesn’t want us to take,” she said. “Every time it nudges, we go the other way. Every push becomes a signpost with an arrow pointing us in another direction.”
Oakley frowned. “So we do the opposite of what the forest is trying to get us to do?”
“Yes.”
“That feels like we’re asking for trouble,” Oakley pointed out. “Remember that whole thing about the forest being able to wrap us up and strangle us with roots?”
“Perhaps,” she agreed. “But sometimes trouble is necessary in order to reach the end goal. I don’t always play fair, not when it comes to people I love.”
Tamsin’s mouth lifted at one corner. “You always did solve problems by being contrary.”
“And you mated me anyway,” she said.
He reached for her hand, fingers threading through hers, grounding. “I consider it one of my better choices.”
The warmth of his touch settled some of the buzzing in her veins.
She squeezed his fingers once and then let go, squaring her shoulders.
“All right,” she said, turning just enough to feel that subtle, almost intangible pressure against her senses, the forest’s urging, like a hand on the small of her back.
With a smirk, she stepped in the opposite direction.
Was it a subtle middle finger to an ancient magic that could quite possibly kick her formerly royal ass?
Absolutely. But what was the fun in playing it safe?
The pressure spiked, then faltered, as if the woods were momentarily confused. “Come on,” she said over her shoulder. “Before it remembers it’s bigger and badder than we are.”
Oakley muttered something about needing hazard pay, but he followed. Tamsin came last, his light magic brushing the edges of her awareness like a shield.
The trees closed in. The path, if it had ever truly been a path, narrowed, forcing them into a single-file line. Branches snagged at their clothes. The air thickened, tasting of sap and stone and something metallic underneath. Syndra kept moving.
For a heartbeat, for three, for ten, it felt like they were pushing through invisible molasses.
Every step a strain. Every breath an effort.
Then, something gave. The pressure dropped away so suddenly she stumbled forward a half-step, catching herself on a low branch.
The magic around them shifted. It was still wrong.
Still heavy. Still humming with the edge of a storm that hadn’t quite broken.
But it was no longer trying to turn them around.
Behind her, Tamsin let out a slow breath.
“You did it,” Oakley said, voice low with something like awe. “You bullied the forest into cooperating.”
“I strongly encouraged it,” she corrected. “With love.”
“And threats,” Tamsin murmured.
“Mostly empty threats,” she conceded, a total lie. She’d burn the forest to the ground if Elora and Cassie were in trouble. But she felt it best to keep that to herself.
Oakley’s smile flashed, quick and fierce, then faded as he looked deeper into the woods ahead. “Do you feel them? Is your magic able to feel others like you can feel Tamsin’s?” he asked quietly.
Syndra paused and closed her eyes. To touch another's magic was intimate. It was something done mostly between friends and family. And under dire situation. She searched for the power that felt like Trik’s, considering his and Cassie’s were now one, at the same time searching for Elora’s signature darkness.
For the girls who had grown into women who carried too much on their shoulders.
It was there, faint, but present. She didn’t know if that meant they were actually in the forest, or if they were back at the castle. But they were distant. Their magic was nearly entwined and pulled taut. Like light and shadow being drawn toward the same point.
“Yes,” she said. Her chest ached. “Too far for me to determine that they are indeed wandering around through a sentient forest, being herded.”
“And the Chamber?” Tamsin asked. “I’ve been searching for the magic I felt in the memory, but it feels blocked. Like it wants me to be aware of it, but not ‘know’ it.”
At the name, Syndra felt the forest shiver. She swallowed back the flash of memory that threatened to break her again–stone, light, screaming shadow–and met her mate’s gaze.
“Also closer,” she said. “Which is why we keep moving.” She turned back to the path-that-wasn’t because the trees were doing their best to keep it from being so.
“Hold on, girls,” she whispered under her breath.
Then, louder, for the forest that seemed to want the girls.
“You know me. You know my mate. We have walked among your leaves, branches and shrubs, protecting you and restoring you. Consider that before you impede us further. Something wants the daughters,” she said.
“But you don’t get them alone. We’re a package deal.
” She stepped forward, and the trees, reluctantly, grudgingly, let her pass.
* * *
The morning felt wrong. Not in the I didn’t sleep enough kind of way, though she definitely hadn’t, but in the, I woke and suddenly the world was tilted two degrees to the left kind of way.
Cassie blinked up at the canopy. Dew dripped in slow, heavy drops from the branches above, landing on her cheek like cold fingertips.
For a moment, she didn’t know where she was.
Then it all came back. The decision, anger, and the forest. The conviction that she could not sit still another moment waiting for Trik to let her in if it was him blocking her, waiting to matter again.
She didn’t want her heart to believe that he would create such distance between them, but then she’d never thought she’d play second fiddle to a magical book.
Her eyes started to tear up and she hastily wiped away the moisture before the tears could fall.
Tears wouldn’t improve the situation. They’d give her a headache, a snotty nose, and make the ache in her chest worse.
She needed to stay calm for the child growing inside of her.
Cassie would eventually fall apart. She knew that because the pain was just too great, but it would be on her terms and when she could act ridiculous without an audience.
Namely, the magical forest. She didn’t mind wailing in front of Elora.
Her bff would threaten all sorts of bodily harm, probably with a hammer, to Trik and that might make Cassie feel a teeny, tiny bit better.
Lies, she thought to herself. She wouldn’t be better until she and Trik were right again.
She rolled to her side. Elora was already sitting up, elbows braced on her knees, eyes shadowed in a way Cassie rarely saw.
“You look like hell,” Cassie croaked.
Elora huffed a non-laugh. “Feels accurate.”
Cassie pushed herself upright. Her stomach swooped.
Not dizziness, worse. A hollow ache right behind her heart, like someone had reached through her ribs and twisted.
The damn bond. She and her Chosen, entwined souls that could never be undone, linked so tightly together that their souls cried out to return to one another.
In a book, it was romantic. In real life, it was a bitch.
She grasped for it instinctively, reaching for Trik, seeking that familiar bright-dark hum that had become a lifeline.
And hit a wall. Hard. Cassie inhaled sharply.
This was worse. How the hell could it possibly be worse?
Dumb question, and as soon as she started asking dumb questions, things would most definitely continue in the downhill motion, gaining momentum at a brain-spinning speed.
Elora startled. “What?”
“I . . .” Cassie stuttered and swallowed. Her mouth was dry as she struggled. She tried again. Pushed harder. Pain flared behind her eyes like sparks under her skull. “. . . I can’t feel him.”
Elora froze. Then Cassie watched her eyes unfocus, that little tell she got when she reached inward for Cush. Elora’s face drained of color. “Nothing,” she whispered. “It’s like a damn impenetrable force.”
Cassie’s pulse lurched. “Trik wouldn’t, not like this.
He wouldn’t leave me to feel desperate, not on purpose, never.
” Maybe she was grasping at straws. Perhaps she’d been completely wrong and the dark elf in him would always be something he fought against, a selfish nature that sought to protect himself first. She shook her head.
No, he wouldn’t. Despite all the things they’d recently faced, deep, deep down she knew how Trik felt about her.
“Cush wouldn’t either.” Elora’s voice shook, then sharpened into anger. “He might be an overbearing, territorial, impossible male, but he wouldn’t cut me off.”
The forest rustled overhead seeming to listen.
Cassie swallowed against the rising irrational fear. It had to be irrational as her mind battled her heart. “What if they’re mad at us? What if this was too much?”
“We’ve done stupid stuff before,” Elora snapped. “They’ve never, never, shut us out.”
The ache behind Cassie’s sternum tightened, clawed. Her baby fluttered faintly, so small she almost thought she imagined it. The instinct to get home, to get safe, flared sharp in her chest. But home felt impossibly far.
Elora shoved to her feet, pacing a tight line in the moss. “Okay. Okay. Let’s not panic. Maybe they’re . . . distracted.”
“Both of them? At the exact same time?” Cassie’s voice cracked. “We would feel something. Even distance. Even irritation. This is, this is silence. I’ve never felt silence.”
Elora stopped pacing. Her eyes lifted to the trees.
Cassie followed the gaze.
The forest seemed . . . closer. Like a crowd leaning in. Shadows shifting where shadows shouldn’t. Every leaf angled toward them.
“Does it feel like,” Cassie hesitated, searching for the right word, “like the forest is anticipating something?”
Elora nodded once, jaw tight. “And watching.”
A breeze whispered through the branches, but the leaves didn’t move. Cassie shivered violently. Elora blew out a sharp breath, her hands running through her hair. “Cass . . . this isn’t good.”
Cassie snorted, no humor in the sound, “No kidding.”
The forest seemed to inhale.
Cassie swore the ground vibrated under their feet, not a tremor, but a heartbeat. Slow. Ancient. Wrong.
“We should go,” she said forcefully, as if that would change the whole situation. “Back. Now. Even if they’re pissed, even if they’re ignoring us, we’re not safe out here. We need to fight whatever this is.”
Elora didn’t move.
She tilted her head slightly, expression going soft and strange, like she was listening to something Cassie couldn’t hear.
“Elora.” Cassie grabbed her wrist. “Hey. Stay with me.”
Elora flinched back into herself. “I’m here,” she said. But her voice sounded far away.
Cassie’s stomach twisted. “We need to go.”
“Cassie . . .” Elora said slowly, “I don’t think it’s going to let us. Whatever this Chamber is, whatever power it has, it’s stronger than us.”
A gust rushed through the clearing, swirling their hair, chilling their sweat-damp skin, but not a single leaf overhead stirred.
Cassie’s heart slammed painfully against her ribs. Panic built fast, hot, rising in her throat. She pressed her hand over her stomach protectively. “Elora—”
“Don’t freak out,” Elora said, though her own voice trembled. “I’m freaking out enough for both of us.”
Cassie almost laughed. Almost cried again. “Great. Wonderful. Love that for us.”
Silence fell again so heavy it felt like it might force her back to the ground. Then, so faint Cassie thought she imagined it, a whisper threaded through the trees. Not audible words. They hummed in her mind.
Near. Closer. Come.
Cassie’s breath hitched. “Did you hear—” her words cut off as she tapped her temple.
“Yes,” Elora whispered.
Their eyes met. Fear and determination and something like resignation flickered between them.
Cassie nodded once. She straightened her spine and reached for every ounce of determination inside.
She harnessed the strength that had gotten her through the terror of Lorsan, the drink Rapture, the fear of losing Elora, of never seeing Trik again when she’d been in the hands of the dark elf king, and wrapped it around her like a shield.
“Okay, we’ll keep going. We’ll see this damn poor decision through to the end.
We watch each other’s backs, but if it begins to become physically dangerous, then we come up with a new plan. ”
Elora rolled her head on her neck, as if preparing for a battle. She bounced on the balls of her feet and shook her arms out at her sides. “We got this. There was a momentary lack of courage. It’s over now and we’ve got our big girl pants back on.”
Cassie knew that Elora was simply saying what they both needed to hear.
She wasn’t sure she’d call what they were doing courage.
It was dumb. But they’d made their bed. So, they’d both pretend for the other’s sake.
Side by side, they stepped forward into the waiting forest, straight into the pull neither of them could escape.