Chapter 18
The weight of Ellisar’s agreement stayed with Imani. She’d turned it over in her mind relentlessly, but with only three weeks until the heist, they couldn’t afford to waste another hour.
Two days after the meeting, Imani and Esa rode out of Vathis alone in the pitch-black hours before dawn.
Ellisar remained behind to govern the city, coordinate the recovering forces, and prepare the army that would meet them for the strike in three weeks.
For now, the journey into Sprite territory belonged only to Imani and her First Witch.
The heavy gates parted at their approach without a sound, an intentional lack of spectacle meant to avoid drawing the attention of Tanyl’s or Kiran’s spies.
Even riding hard, Esa expected the journey to Galwell to take three days.
They would spend most of the first day riding north through the upper reaches of the Draswood before crossing into the Moorlands, then continue north-northwest across increasingly rough country.
With only three weeks before Ellisar intended to move against Tanyl, even a short delay mattered.
The city’s rigid cobblestones soon yielded to untamed earth. The clean, paved road dissolved into an uneven trail that bowed to natural obstacles rather than cutting through them, demanding their constant attention.
Esa took the lead once the roads beyond Vathis began thinning toward the northern Sprite territory.
She didn’t pause to check her bearings, navigating the shifting landscape as if the earth itself whispered directions.
By afternoon, the last of the Draswood had disappeared into the horizon.
The ancient trunks thinned into younger forest as the road carried them into Sprite territory, toward Galwell, leaving the sentient woods close enough to darken the western horizon but no longer surrounding them.
“Gorrum doesn’t operate like Ellisar… or Kiran,” Esa called back over her shoulder, not bothering to slow her mount.
“He doesn’t build power through manipulative schemes or sheer force.
He holds it through territory, through influence, through loyal alliances that go back a century.
” She shot Imani a warning glance. “You don’t negotiate with him the same way.
If you try to control the exchange, you’ve already lost.”
Imani absorbed the warning. Ellisar was organized; she could assess and handle him.
Kiran’s madness was volatile, yet predictable now that she understood it.
But Gorrum would be another beast entirely—unmapped and untamed.
The High Sentinel of the Sprites wasn’t just another ally.
He was the fulcrum on which Imani’s entire survival rested.
As afternoon bled into early evening, the land changed around them.
They had left the Draswood and entered the first reaches of the Moorlands, where the ancient forest loosened its hold on the earth.
Trees still gathered in irregular stands along the road and across the lower slopes, but wide stretches of exposed heath opened between them.
Coarse grass bent beneath the wind, broken by dark patches of scrub and low purple-brown brush.
The ground rose and fell in long, uneven swells, with shallow hollows collecting black water that reflected the paling sky.
The air blew differently here too. Wind moved freely across the open ground, carrying the wet smell of peat, crushed grass, and distant woodsmoke.
Beyond the hills, water rushed over stone with a faint, persistent hiss.
The temperature had dropped as the sun sank, and dampness clung to Imani’s face and gathered along the loose strands of her hair.
Their trail took them through one of the Moorlands’ more heavily wooded stretches.
Dense undergrowth crowded both shoulders, tangled with ferns, thorny scrub, and knee-high grasses that brushed the horses’ legs.
Young trees stood only a few feet beyond it, their trunks close enough together to hide a person while leaving plenty of room to move between them.
Beyond those trees, Imani caught intermittent glimpses of the broader moor rising in dark, treeless humps beneath the evening sky as they picked their way downward.
The openness of the Moorlands should have made the country easier to read. Here, however, the road had dropped into a fold where the trees, slopes, and thick brush closed around them.
It was Esa’s home territory, but Imani disliked it immediately.
They pushed their horses hard, eating up the miles at a punishing pace until the dense canopy forced them into a wary canter.
Imani lifted her chin, nostrils flaring.
The air smelled of damp earth, smoke, and something metallic.
Despite the foreboding scent, Esa kept her stride.
Imani followed without hesitation, trusting that whatever challenge the terrain offered, they would meet it in motion.
Ambient rustles of wildlife vanished, an unnatural silence slowly swallowing the air around them.
Esa eased her horse’s pace, a subtle adjustment rather than a full halt. “We’re not alone,” she murmured out of the corner of her mouth.
Imani stiffened in the saddle and pushed her magic outward, trying to read the surrounding brush. Her signature spread well beyond her body, searching between the trees.
If another powerful witch was hiding nearby, she had just made herself much easier to find, but they had no choice.
A brief scrape broke the quiet, like heavy boots grinding against gravel. The sound came from somewhere ahead and to Imani’s right, in a low ridge crowded with ferns. Another scrape answered from the opposite side of the trail.
Their horses grew uneasy, whinnying and grunting.
The road had narrowed considerably over the last mile.
Dense undergrowth crowded both shoulders, and young trees stood only a few feet beyond it, their trunks close enough together to hide a person while leaving room to move between them.
Behind Imani and Esa, the trail curved west and disappeared around a rise.
Ahead, it descended between two wooded slopes before bending east again.
They were riding through a funnel.
Imani and Esa exchanged a look.
The strike came without a battle cry.
A soldier burst from the brush on Imani’s right and swung for her ribs, aiming to knock her from the saddle rather than drive the blade through her.
Imani threw herself down the opposite side of the horse.
Her boots struck the trail as the weapon passed over her back, and the startled animal lurched toward the western shoulder.
Esa dismounted almost simultaneously, landing several feet ahead of her. She slapped her horse away from the fighting before backing toward Imani.
More figures emerged from the tree line.
Three came down the slope to their left, cutting off the northern road. Two more spread across the trail behind them while the first attacker recovered on Imani’s right. The remaining soldiers held closer to the trees, creating a loose outer ring around the road.
Imani backed toward Esa until their shoulders nearly touched. The horses paced nervously behind the western edge of the formation, effectively removing the easiest retreat.
“Don’t kill them if you can help it!” a voice barked. “We need to know their value.”
One of the approaching fighters hesitated, but his attention dropped toward the space around her body as another witch stepped forward from behind the formation.
The newcomer carried himself differently from the soldiers, his wand already raised and his concentration fixed entirely on her magic. Imani felt his signature press outward, probing against hers with enough force to make understanding arrive before he spoke.
A Master Witch.
Her glamour could change what weaker witches believed they saw. It could give her another face, another shape, another recognizable collection of features. Her magic signature remained her own.
Most people would never have someone powerful enough to use that against her. Master Witches had grown rare, and nearly all of them served the Order in Stralas. Tanyl, however, had access to exactly the kind of witch who could sense past the disguise.
Worse, these men had already known where to look. They had intercepted two women traveling out of the Draswood, the same forest where Tanyl knew Imani had been hiding, and one of them was a pixie known to travel at her side.
They had crossed beyond the Draswood’s true boundary hours earlier.
The trees here were dense, but their magic no longer pressed against Imani’s own, and no roots stirred beneath the soil in answer to the threat.
Tanyl’s people had chosen their ground carefully.
They could patrol the forest’s edge, watch the roads leading out of it, and wait for her to emerge without risking the Draswood turning on them.
The Master Witch’s expression changed. “It’s her,” he said. “The fugitive elf.”
“The impostor queen,” another corrected.
The soldiers converged, treating Esa as a mere obstacle to keep away from their true prize.
This was a targeted abduction. The glamour had done exactly what it was meant to do.
Against ordinary soldiers, her borrowed face would have held.
Tanyl had simply sent the one kind of witch capable of confirming what his men already suspected.
Her anonymity outside of Vathis wasn’t entirely shattered, but she would need to be far more careful.
“They’re not here to kill you,” Esa rasped, parrying a thrust. “We need to use that to our advantage.”
Two soldiers peeled away from the northern blockade and came at Imani from either side.
A third held the center of the trail ahead of her, while the men behind prevented retreat toward Vathis.
Esa engaged the attacker on Imani’s left, forcing him into the undergrowth, but another immediately moved into the space he’d left.
Esa was correct because they were tightening the ring instead of attacking outright. Swords and the witch’s wand remained angled defensively while empty hands reached for Imani whenever she gave them an opening.
But she was finally far enough from the Draswood to stop fearing what her shadows might do to its damaged magic. No strained roots lay beneath her feet, no wounded Fabric for them to tear wider. The restraint that had kept her from unleashing them inside the forest no longer served any purpose.
Imani stopped playing defense.
Drawing the Drasil, she fought back with the ferocity of a cornered predator. Shadows erupted from her signature, dark and violent, bolstering her physical strength. She swiped the wand overhead in a devastating arc. Swaths of black magic exploded outward, shattering the soldiers’ rhythm.
She intercepted a soldier mid-lunge, knocking him off balance before conjuring a thick, shadow-woven tether. With a vicious flick of her wrist, she slammed him into the earth hard enough to take him out of the fight entirely.
The Drasil vibrated in her grip.
“His Highness wants her alive!” the Master Witch roared, panic edging into his harsh voice. “Don’t lose her!”
Raising the Drasil over her head, Imani bared her teeth. More shadows erupted and spread across the trail.
She struck the eastern side. A sweep of the wand sent a heavy wave of darkness into the three men blocking the road. One staggered into a tree trunk. Another dropped to a knee. The third jumped aside, opening several feet of empty trail.
Esa used the opportunity to drive her opponent backward while Imani pivoted toward the men behind them before they could close. A shadow-woven tether caught one soldier across the waist. With a vicious flick of her wrist, she ripped him sideways and slammed him into the packed earth.
The formation broke in two.
For the first time since the ambush began, their formation broke.
Seeing the opening, Imani unleashed a storm.
A feint to the left, a concussive blast to the right.
Shadows tore through the soldiers’ ranks, forcing them into a panicked retreat.
They couldn’t predict her; they couldn’t contain her, and their coordinated assault dissolved into a desperate scramble to regain their tight circle.
One soldier lunged, breaking formation in a reckless bid to grab her wrist. Imani saw it a fraction too late. His fingers brushed her skin before she violently twisted free, the shadow magic throwing him off balance. He crumpled to the dirt, his attack collapsing as quickly as it began.
A low, dark chuckle escaped Imani’s throat. She leveled the Drasil at the remaining men. “Who’s next? I have chains of my own to offer.”
A silent, terrified command passed between the men.
“Retreat!” the Master Witch shouted.
The soldiers nearest the eastern road withdrew first, disappearing between the trees.
The others followed in pairs, one retreating while another covered him, until the ring around Imani and Esa emptied and the path opened completely.
Within seconds, they were gone, leaving behind nothing but trampled ferns and fresh blood on the soil.
Imani stood rooted to the ground, her wand still raised. Her chest heaved as she squinted into the gloom, tracking the shadows to ensure they weren’t circling back. But the terrain remained still. A light breeze ruffled the canopy, indifferent to the violence that had just occurred.
She swallowed hard and lowered the wand.
This hadn’t been an opportunistic bandit raid.
Tanyl had anticipated where she would emerge from the Draswood.
She cursed herself fiercely under her breath.
Tanyl couldn’t send his people deep into the Draswood without risking Ellisar’s swift retaliation, so he had done something smarter.
He had stationed them beyond its boundary and waited for her to come out.
“Tanyl is looking for you hard,” Esa breathed, her eyes still locked on the tree line.
“It was stupid to think this would be easy,” Imani muttered, forcing her rigid limbs to move. “We keep moving.” Standing still only made them a better target.
They found the horses pacing nervously near the trees.
They mounted quickly and spurred the animals north.
With every stride, a colder awareness settled over Imani.
Tanyl would send more hunters. The Moorlands’ trees now seemed to lean in closer, their branches knitting together overhead like the bars of a cage.
No more attackers materialized, but the prickling sensation of being watched clung to Imani’s skin.