Chapter 5
Five
Lepidolite
Willow’s eyes blaze through the night as she watches me, glowing against the charcoal smudged in a strip over her eyes.
“Follow me,” she says as she slips off of her wyvern. “The wyverns will be fine here.”
“My friends,” I repeat, refusing to move until I know where they are.
Willow angles herself toward me and answers, “Nearby. There isn’t enough space in the forest to land that many wyverns at once.”
I hesitate, not wanting to trust her yet.
I’m in her territory here; I can’t as easily outrun her if she decides to turn her magic on me.
But Zephyr shifts her weight, angling her wing and tilting herself so that I have to slide off.
The moment my feet touch the ground, she twists her head toward me and nudges my back.
This protective—and incredibly sassy—creature hardly lets anyone near me without growling several times. And yet, she’s pushing me toward this strange fae, willing to let me go on alone without her.
I clench my jaw, having no other choice but to jog after Willow, who is already disappearing into the forest. By the time I catch up with her, my breath is short and my eyes are beginning to adjust to the dark.
Twigs snap, and I whirl toward the sound.
“Remain calm,” Willow’s voice soothes.
Vines surge forth, wrapping around her wrists like cold snakes, and I jerk and cry out, flailing to try to free myself.
Then, something itchy that smells faintly of hay is thrown over my head.
My magic roars to life, fire dancing on my fingers, as my feet are knocked from beneath me.
I crash into the dirt, my temple hitting at just the right angle to make me see stars.
Disoriented, I don’t know where to aim my magic.
The vines loosen around my wrists and my hands shoot up to remove the covering over my head, but just before my fingers reach for it, I’m suddenly hoisted onto something—onto a horse.
I hold on with every ounce of strength I have left in my body as it starts to gallop.
I don’t have time to consider running and finding my friends, because the horse races through the forest, the sack over my head obscuring my vision as we turn more ways than I can keep track of.
My magic begins to gather in my chest, aimed at anything around me and hoping to catch something. But then the horse stops, its hooves sliding as my body teeters sideways. The sack is ripped off my head, and I scramble off the horse, my shadows slamming up around me like a physical barrier.
With my teeth bared and ears back, I raise my hands, fire eagerly burning to life in my palms.
“Careful.” Willow’s voice again. “A necessary precaution to bringing an outsider in.”
My shadows close in tighter around me, leaving the world distorted and hazy beyond it.
“Zephyr was always a brilliant creature,” Willow muses.
I pause. “You know her name?”
Willow blinks, her eyes turning glossy. “In another life,” she whispers.
My head tilts to the side, and I wait for an explanation.
“I knew her almost as well as I know my own wyvern,” she says softly. “She’s a stunning creature. Inside and out.”
Her words make me pause. There’s a tenderness in her gaze—one that says far more than her words. Something about it disarms me. Carefully, I pull my shadows back in until I can see Willow standing in front of me. My arms stay raised, fire still jumping off of my palms and winding around my wrists.
“Aren’t you afraid we’ll hurt the people here?” I ask carefully, because if I were her, I wouldn’t want anyone near my home—my family. Why save us? Why risk us bringing death and pain here?
“Zephyr chose you. That is all I need to know.” She steps sideways and sweeps her arm out.
Her words roll over me, seeping into my thoughts and warming my chest.
Words Reichardt often spoke to me bubble up. “No one will choose you, Amira. They will choose what your last name can bring them; always remember that.”
A hint of comfort wraps around my shoulders, followed by the scent of warm vanilla.
Zeph.
She must feel my emotions.
Reichardt wasn’t my father, not by blood or love. He never knew the real me, never even tried. What he knew was himself and his selfish needs—he knew money and greed.
He was wrong. Someone did choose me, and not just Zeph. My mother. Graylen. Addie and Avery. The Riders that were chosen by the wyverns when I was. They chose me, and I chose them back. They’re not only my friends, but my family.
I push back, letting Zephyr know I’m okay.
“This is why you had to be brought here the way you were,” Willow urges gently, pulling my attention to the view behind her as she nods toward it.
The moment I take in the scenery, my fire extinguishes.
Small cottages are built into the trees—not on the ground, but so high up that it’s a wonder anyone can get up there without wings. The houses are wrapped around the trunks in a circle, a narrow, planked walkway lining the outer rim of each one.
There have to be fifty of them, maybe more, though there’s no sight of anyone outside of them. Pale yellow lanterns are draped along the branches, all of the limbs connecting as if all the trees weave together into one.
Small insects with pulsing bodies that glow slowly blink to life, filling the makeshift village one by one. They light up the forest even more, shedding light on the carefully laid ecosystem.
The area is in the shape of a horseshoe around us, everything off of the ground and built into the forest above. Colorful tarps stretch between branches, anchored by three points to various limbs. They’re stacked throughout the trees, scattered from the tallest branch to the lowest.
A light catches my eye, flashing quickly from the top left of the horseshoe. The outline of a fae is illuminated by several of the glowing insects, though they quickly retreat from the edge of the triangle-shaped tarp.
“Is this place abandoned?” I ask carefully.
Willow huffs a soft laugh and shakes her head. “They’ll come out soon; we aren’t used to visitors.”
My gaze drifts back to where I saw the fae in the trees, the area dark and empty now. This place…it feels untouched by the rest of the realm. It isn’t anywhere I’ve seen on a map or heard about since being in Penyth. It’s as if it doesn’t exist at all.
This village—this oasis—feels sacred. Pure. A place that has locked itself away from the nightmares of the world and thrived on its own.
I look back at Willow to find her bright green eyes watching me softly.
“Why bring us?” The unspoken—why save us?—lingers in the air.
Dark figures emerge from the brush. My body tenses and muscles buzz as I prepare for what lies ahead. But Willow doesn’t so much as flinch—not even a sidelong glance in their direction as they come forward.
She smiles as they stop by her side—three of them. Two on the left and one on the right. I size them up, taking note of the double-crossed spears attached to their backs and the grim frowns they wear as they watch me closely.
Warriors—guards of some sort.
“Another precaution?” I say with a raised brow. Not that I blame them for being cautious, but if they had any reservations about me, why bring me here?
Willow’s grin turns into a smirk, and she dips her chin. “You are in no danger here,” she says simply. “As long as we are not in return.”
A crashing of sticks snapping and leaves rustling comes from behind us, followed by a shout. “Lu!”
I spin around, hearing a quiet laugh rumbling from Willow’s chest.
A pair of familiar, warm, honey-colored eyes focuses on me, and warmth fills my heart.
His tattooed throat moves as he swallows, his chest expanding rapidly.
The gold hoop on his lip glimmers as his mouth stretches into a relieved smile.
I can’t help the mirroring grin that works its way onto my face.
“Calix?” I breathe, a weight lifting off of my chest now that I’ve finally laid eyes on my friends.
He runs to me, his arms wrapping around my waist as he pulls me in close. “Trouble always has a way of finding you,” he huffs and squeezes me a little tighter.
“You’re okay.” A laugh of disbelief tumbles from my mouth. “All of you?”
My voice breaks as I squeeze my eyes closed, knowing I’ll have to open them to face the answer.
He leans back and steps aside, his eyes rimmed with red. Silence follows my question. My heart sinks as another rustle of motion catches my attention.
Leda and Maddox burst through the thick brush, dragging an unconscious Brielle with each of her arms thrown over their shoulders. Brielle’s cropped auburn hair sticks out in all directions, the top of her head facing me as her upper body sags forward like a sack of grain. Lifeless.