Chapter 5
Ihit the ground face-first.
Not the graceful emergence centuries of fae training should have afforded me. No, I eat dirt, then skid forward on my chest for a solid two feet before stopping against the exposed root of an ancient tree.
Peeble bounces off my back and rolls into a patch of moss, legs flailing skyward.
For a moment, neither of us moves. The stillness of wherever we've landed presses in, threaded with birdsong, wind through leaves, the distant hum of something living and old.
My ribs ache where I connected with the root.
My jaw throbs. The locket is still clutched in my fist, warm and pulsing, though the frantic energy from the Elm Gate has faded to a slow, steady beat.
I push myself up onto my knees and spit out dirt.
"What," I say very carefully, "did you do?"
Peeble rights themselves with the dignity of a beetle who did not just slam into a prince at full speed and send them both hurtling through a dimensional rift. They clean one antenna with a front leg, then the other. Taking their time about it.
"Me?" They blink those compound eyes at me. "I didn't do anything."
"You flew directly into me while I was channeling the bond through an unstable gate."
"I was avoiding a vine! A murderous, hallucinogenic vine that was trying to crawl into my shell and make me see my dead relatives! Forgive me for having survival instincts!"
I stand. My armor is covered in soil and leaf litter. There's a scratch across my forearm that's already closing. Corruption has its benefits, even if the healing feels like cold needles under the skin.
"I was pulling her through, Peeble. She was right there. I could feel her. And you—" I point at the beetle with more venom than the gesture probably warrants. "You knocked me off the gate. Into it. We were not supposed to go anywhere."
"Well, technically we went somewhere." Peeble gestures grandly at the surrounding forest. "Somewhere with lovely trees and excellent soil composition. Very earthy. I'd give it a seven out of ten."
"I'm going to crush you."
"You always say that. You never do. It's becoming a hollow threat, honestly, and it's undermining your credibility."
I close my eyes and breathe. In. Out. Count to three. It doesn't help, but the exercise is more for Peeble's continued survival than my actual composure. I open my eyes and look around, setting aside the rage to take in our surroundings.
We're in an old, dense forest with a canopy so thick that the light filtering down has that green-gold quality to it.
The trees are massive. Trunks wider than I am tall, their bark covered in moss and lichen.
The air tastes the way it always does in the deep woods of Wynmire: rich, layered, alive.
Roots crisscross the ground in gnarled networks, some of them pulsing faintly with bioluminescence even in the dim daylight.
The Wyrmwood.
I know this place. Not this exact clearing, but this forest. I've spent years of my life hiding in it, fighting in it, bleeding in it.
The trees here are older than the Crown itself, predating the realm's political structures by millennia.
They don't care about kings or rebels or the petty wars of the fae. They just grow.
"We're in the Wyrmwood," I say.
"Oh good, you figured it out. I was going to give you another minute before I said something, but you got there on your own. Gold star."
I ignore the beetle and press my palm to the nearest trunk.
The corruption in my marks flares faintly at the contact.
The trees have never liked what I carry, and they make that known through a subtle vibration that feels like disapproval.
But the Root magic underneath is strong here.
Anchored. Which means we're in a functioning iteration, not some collapsed pocket of time.
"If we're in the Wyrmwood," I say slowly, "then Elle could be here too."
"Ooh, optimism! From you? Mark the calendar. Actually, don't. It'll just make the disappointment worse when it doesn't pan out."
They pat their face with one of their mandibles like they are contemplating something.
"Or… she's scattered across twelve more timelines because of what happened. Or she's back in the void. Or she ended up somewhere lovely, like the desert. Point is, we don't know."
I hate that the beetle is right. I check the locket. The portrait inside still shimmers, Elle's face overlapping with her mother's, the edges distorted. But the pulse is there. Faint. Distant. She's alive somewhere, scattered or whole, and that has to be enough for now.
I close the locket and tuck it back under my armor. "Then we figure out which iteration this is and how to move to the next."
"Wonderful plan. Very detailed. Really thought that one through."
"Peeble."
"I'm just saying, a beetle appreciates specifics. Step one: figure out where we are. Step two: question mark. Step three: save the girl. It's a very loose framework."
I start walking. Peeble follows, buzzing along at shoulder height and continuing to provide commentary I didn't request.
"ELLE!" Peeble suddenly shrieks at the top of their lungs, the sound ricocheting off every tree in a hundred-foot radius. "ELLE, ARE YOU HERE? IT'S PEEBLE! YOUR BEST FRIEND!"
I grab them out of the air and clamp my hand over their mandibles. "Are you trying to get us killed? We don't know who or what is in this iteration. We don't know if the Crown exists here, if there are patrols, if—"
Peeble wiggles free and huffs. "You're so dramatic. It's a forest, not a war zone."
"Every forest I've ever been in has tried to kill me at least once."
"That says more about you than the forest."
We walk in tense silence for another ten minutes. Well, I walk in tense silence. Peeble continues in barely contained silence, which for them means they hum, click their mandibles, comment on the quality of various mushrooms, and ask me twice if I think Kevin misses them.
Then I hear it. My hand goes instinctively to the hilt at my side.
A distant low rumble, except there’s a rhythm to it. Drums. Beneath them, voices. A lot of voices. Cheering, shouting, the unmistakable roar of a crowd.
We push through a dense thicket of ferns and reach the edge of a clearing. I stop.
It’s massive. A natural amphitheater carved out of the Wyrmwood floor, ringed by the largest trees I’ve ever seen.
Their roots form terraced seating that rises in concentric circles.
It’s packed. Hundreds of fae, maybe more, crammed onto roots, branches, makeshift wooden stands.
Banners hang from the canopy in deep greens, burnt umber.
In the center, the ground has been cleared and divided into distinct areas. A throwing pit. A series of tall wooden poles rigged with ropes, platforms. An archery range. A massive log suspended between two posts.
Torches burn at intervals despite the daylight, their flames unnaturally bright, casting the entire scene in warm amber light.
Peeble's wings stop buzzing. Their entire body goes rigid on my shoulder. Then they start vibrating. Not with fear, but with excitement so intense I can feel it through my armor.
"Oh," Peeble breathes. "Oh. Oh no. Oh YES."
"What is it?"
"I know where we are." They launch off my shoulder and do a loop in the air, shrieking. "I KNOW WHERE WE ARE! This is Iteration Fifteen! Oh, this was a FUN one!"
"Peeble, keep your voice—"
"THE ROOTbrEAKER GAMES!" Peeble shrieks with a glee that borders on unhinged. "Kaelren! It's the Rootbreaker Games! Oh, we MUST! We absolutely must!"
"What are the Rootbreaker Games?"
"Only the greatest athletic competition in Wynmire's history!
Well, this version's history. They held them every seven years in the Grand Clearing.
Feats of strength, speed, combat, the whole thing!
I watched the last ones from Gerald's branches, there was a stone-hurling event where someone accidentally launched a boulder into the Sage's meditation garden. Best day of my life!"
I watch the activity below. Competitors are warming up, some stretching beside the throwing pit, others testing the ropes on what I now realize is some kind of climbing apparatus.
A group near the archery range is arguing loudly about the rules of something.
Food vendors line the outer ring, selling roasted roots and what smells like honeyed mead.
"Oh yes. Oh, we have to compete." Peeble's antennae are practically vibrating off their head. "They have a caber toss! A CABER TOSS, Kaelren! Do you know what that is? It's where you pick up a log the size of a small tree and THROW it! Who comes up with that? Geniuses, that's who!"
"We are not here to play games. We're here to find Elle or move to the next iteration."
"Oh, psh." Peeble waves a leg dismissively. "We can do both. Multitasking. You know, fun AND purpose? I realize those are concepts you're unfamiliar with, but—"
"Peeble," I grab them again. Gently this time, but firmly. "Focus. What do you know about this iteration? Anything useful?"
They settle down, though their legs are still twitching with excitement.
"Iteration Fifteen. Okay, okay. Let me think.
It was a weird one. The Crown fell early in this version.
Auradelle got overthrown by a territorial uprising before he could consolidate power.
So there's no royal authority. The realm kind of fractured into territories, and things got.
.. colorful. Lots of independent factions.
The Rootbreaker Games were their way of settling disputes without war. Mostly."
"Mostly?"
"There were a few incidents. Nothing worth mentioning."
"Peeble."
"A competitor got launched into the sun once. He's fine. Probably."
I scan the crowd below, searching for a specific face. Red hair. Sharp eyes. The kind of presence that draws attention whether she wants it to or not.
"What about Elle? What happened to her in this iteration?"