Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
The music fell quiet and the crowd hushed, all of us enraptured by the movement of the trees before us.
We all knew they could move. We’d awoken countless times to find their positions changed, their borders having stolen more of our land, of our people, but no one had ever witnessed their movement and lived that I knew of.
To watch the forest wander was to be consumed by it.
A weight formed in my chest as boughs creaked and leaves rustled, a swathe of hanging white moss moving across the thick trunks like a curtain being pulled wide.
I couldn’t see much of what was taking place as the crowd surged around me, every pair of eyes peeled wide to gain a better look at the spectacle before us, a sea of heads bobbing and necks craning ahead of me and blocking all too much from view.
The Champions filed from the stage, their footsteps loud as they descended the wooden steps, and my attention snapped to them, the line of humans approaching their fate while unknowingly beckoning me to seize mine.
I gave my mother and father a lingering look, my throat thickening with the goodbye I couldn’t utter before I slipped away, using the distraction of the forest’s movement to my advantage.
Pain splintered through my heart as I hurried from them, that final glimpse of their faces searing itself into my mind as I captured it like a butterfly in a jar, wanting to keep it to cherish in the dark that awaited me.
“This day will go down in the histories,” Chancellor Haydon called, his voice perhaps less steady than it had been.
I supposed he knew as well as all of us did that if no one won the Great Hunt this time, then history would only tell of our demise – not that anyone would be left to lament it.
We were out of chances to complete this challenge and everyone here knew it.
The trees were still shifting beyond the crowd, but I couldn’t see more than the rustling of their upper branches from within the density of the nervous bodies.
Birds took flight and a piercing trill hummed through the air, the sound so beautiful in its other-worldly nature that it drew a tear to my eye.
The spirits were calling to us from within the cursed forest and I could almost believe there was something more than death awaiting us at the sound of that cry.
“These fine Champions are tasked to save us all from ruin, to lift us out of hopelessness and return the land that was stolen to our people. When the spirits are aligned once more, the forest will quiet, the trees will be tamed and they will return to the heart of this land where they belong. Think not of the fate that awaits us if we fail but of the hope success can offer. This curse will be broken!” Haydon exclaimed.
A cheer followed his proclamation, a raucous frenzy to the sound which betrayed the panic we all felt.
My lips stayed closed against their cries, my pulse pounding in my ears and perspiration gilding my spine.
I was no Champion, no hero. Hell, I wasn’t even a fighter by any means of the word.
I was a woman who had been sheltered with a desperate protectiveness for almost all of my life, the burden of loss clinging to me like a second skin.
I hadn’t trained for years like the Champions before us or honed my body into a weapon worthy of the challenge ahead.
But my steps stayed steady all the same, my focus fixed on what I needed to do, what I had needed to do for so long that it felt as though my entire life had been consumed by it.
“I’m coming, Rissa,” I breathed to no one but myself.
I finally made it to the edge of the crowd, finding a gap between the town hall and the edge of the platform the Champions had been crowded upon moments before.
All of them stood facing the forest several feet from the onlooking spectators, and I couldn’t help the way my feet faltered as I beheld what they were staring at.
The ground sloped downward towards the trees, their looming trunks blocking the view to both the left and right of my vantage point, and only one space between them lay open.
My lips parted as I stared at the writhing movement at the edge of the forest, the trees creeping aside on tangled roots, vines twisting through the hanging boughs like knotted twine cracking open a door.
Everything within the forest looked utterly ancient, the massive trees stained with a bright and eerie green moss.
The bark that was visible was chipped and scarred as if having survived a thousand storms. And yet, none of those trees had been here yesterday.
It was impossible in the way all magic was impossible, but water sprites and bargaining Hags were nothing in comparison to this.
The magic here was ancient, sentient and hauntingly intimidating.
Something in my bones told of a wrongness to that place without me needing to take a step closer to see more.
Whatever had caused the forest’s curse had done its job well.
A dull cry echoed out from within the dense canopy of the trees, its source lost to the deep darkness of the woodland.
I sucked in a sharp breath as I spotted a face protruding from the bark of a tree to the right of the opening.
Moss and lichen had claimed most of the man’s flesh, but his blue eyes were open wide and staring out at us, filled with pain.
I stared at the poor soul in horror. His body was almost indistinguishable from the trunk of the tree which had consumed him, only the rough outline of his shoulders and arms discernible at all while everything beneath his chest had vanished into the tree.
His lips parted on another groan, and I couldn’t help but wonder what madness had made me believe I could face this.
How was he still alive? How long had he been there?
I’d heard whispers that the victims of the forest were destined to become a part of it, but never had I imagined a fate so twisted as this.
A chill ran through my veins and coated them in ice, my boot slipping in the mud as I found myself questioning the choice I’d made so long ago. Surely no one could survive the clutches of that place for long. Certainly not for years.
But the songs I’d heard hadn’t been lies. I knew that in my soul. And I’d made her a promise.
I took a deep breath, trying to quiet the panicking drum of my heartbeats, but my terror only increased as a crooning voice called out from the depths of the forest.
“Don’t walk into the woods, my dear,
For worse than darkness lingers here,
The spirits sleep between the trees,
Their voices lost to sultry breeze.
A long time I have mourned my loss,
Your children gained but mine forgot.
Your Offerings soothe my pain,
And stealing them is not in vain.
For here within the woods that wander,
We wait for those who chance did squander.
The time shall come for truth to rise,
And justice return to the skies.
My power waits for one to claim,
But no two spirits are the same.
One blesses with a force of grace,
Another curses in its place.
The weak may rise by claiming one,
The strong might find they can claim none.
But one fate strikes all who wander,
The spirits pull all souls asunder.
To halt the progress of the trees,
You must unite them all with ease.
Return the world to what it was,
Before greed corrupted my cause.
In forty days, your time is done,
Their amulets must all be strung.
For if you fail to find them all,
The price you pay will be your soul.
But should you happen to succeed,
A boon you’ll win for such a deed.
A prize worth more than any other,
A gift for which you will not suffer.
The one who finds most of my kin,
Shall be the one to truly win.
And beneath the light of sultry moon,
I’ll grant my favour with your boon.
Be warned, though, if this curse endures,
The final price to pay is yours.”
I looked between the Champions who had all fallen stock-still to listen to the words the forest whispered. A few of them exchanged glances, and one even took a step back, but my gaze lingered on Colton Evast.
I knew him just like all the others, his prowess and strength having been boasted of throughout our realm for years in anticipation of this day.
He was taller than the rest, broader too, and I couldn’t deny that there was good reason for so many of my peers to swoon over him.
I’d always found him to be boorish and arrogant beyond the point of me allowing myself to admit to the somewhat obvious attractiveness of his features, but in that moment, I couldn’t deny it.
More than any of the others, he looked the part of the hero destined to save us all from this fate.
I could practically hear the other unwed women swooning throughout the crowd even though we all stood staring into the face of our demise.
He pushed his fingers into the strands of dark hair which had spilled into his even darker eyes and glared at the forest like it was little more than a bug standing between him and his destiny.
My stomach knotted as I watched him, a spike of adrenaline coursing through my limbs as he broke from the line and began to stride towards the opening in the forest as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
It was impossible not to admire his courage.
Cries went up, cheers and wails alike, women calling out for him to be careful, men begging him to save us all.
The other Champions may as well have not been there, though they had all started walking too, descending the hill in a long line, their armour glinting in the bright sunlight, weapons hanging heavily around their bodies.
Then that haunting voice called out from between the trees once more, halting them where they stood.
“Beware the woods when darkness falls – protect yourself within four walls.
Unite the spirits wild and good – but you cannot earn them shedding blood.
Forty days to do it all – earn your boon or you shall fall.”