Chapter 45
Chapter Forty-Five
Powerful wings flap in unison, creating wind tunnels as alicorns and flyers compete to hit the skies first. Caught off guard, Zephyr’s hooves are still on the ground when the first alicorn to take flight slams into an invisible wall horn-first and bounces back.
Abel gasps. “By the heavens! What’s happening?”
Cruder variations of Abel’s exclamation echo all around as more and more flyers get repelled by the barrier. The translucent wall glimmers in spots, bringing unwelcome memories of Elijah’s attack on the beach.
Worry crawls along my skin. “I don’t get it. They trapped us in an air shield, but what’s the point? It seems silly to force us to break out right off the bat like this.”
A moment later, I get my answer. Three consecutive booms rattle the ground. Thick, purple fog explodes out of nowhere, obscuring our vision and consuming the dome with a sweet, musty odor.
Nick hacks. “What is this shit?”
“No clue.” Coughing, I wave my hand in front of my face in a futile attempt to clear the air.
The shriek of an enraged alicorn gives us our first hint, and a bellow from the opposite direction our second. Soon, the air shrills with the chorus of pissed off animals. I can’t tell what’s happening, though, because the fucking fog makes visibility impossible.
“Shit! Easy, girl. No, no, stop!” Beside me, I can hear Olive’s mount acting up as she tries to calm her. Abel and Nick seem to be struggling too. Something bumps Zephyr from behind, and my usually chill boy starts to lose his cool.
He rears up, but I can barely focus thanks to a sudden avalanche of alicorn fury crashing into me from every direction. The intensity of their rage beats against my skull like a giant boulder intent on smashing my brain to a pulp. Never before has this much emotion assaulted me. Especially not from the alicorns.
“The fog,” I wheeze. “It’s somehow engineered to piss off the alicorns.”
It’s fucking pandemonium. Yelling. Furious shrieking. Agonized cries. The coppery tang of blood perfumes the air. A constant barrage of images featuring alicorns attacking each other with horns and hooves pummels my mind.
If we don’t shut this down fast, our trial might be over before it even begins.
Zephyr squeals and lunges. I yank on the reins, but the alicorn resists. His bloodlust blazes through my veins, stirring my own rage.
No. I can’t lose control. Zephyr needs me to keep calm.
Reaching out, I soothe Zephyr via our connection. The fight gradually drains from his body. I start to do the same for Olive’s alicorn but stop again. If I alleviate the rage from only my flight unit’s mounts, that will look awfully suspicious. I’ll save that option as a last resort.
What I can do is try to bring down that air shield. Once the fog dissipates, the effects will wear off.
I hope.
While everyone else focuses on reining in their mount, I do just that. Like that day on the beach, I blast the barrier with my fire. The flames eat through the shield, destroying it. As soon as the barrier vanishes, the fog rises up toward the clouds. Riders get their animals under control, but not before damage is done. As I take in the other fledglings and their mounts, I shudder. Two, four, six, seven. I count at least seven wounded alicorns. Two sport ugly, gaping wounds that draw a pair of healers straight to them for emergency treatment. The others will likely wait until after the trial.
Abel’s the first person in our group to check in. “Are all of you guys okay? Hey Nick, Solara’s neck is bleeding.”
Though none of us say a word while Nick curses and swipes his tunic over the wound, our collective concern is palpable. We all understand that a bad injury now could ruin the trial before we even start.
Despite that reality, I find myself more worried about Solara. Nick adores his alicorn. A serious injury would devastate him.
His loud exhale breaks the tension. “It’s just a scratch. Long but shallow. She’ll be fine.”
He murmurs in Solara’s ear while the rest of us express our relief. Both Nova and Thorin appear unscathed. Zephyr too. All in all, we got lucky.
Abel directs his mount over to Nick. “Ready? I say we get the hells out of here before they decide to spring some other horror on us.”
I nod. “Agreed. Let’s go.”
Snapping the reins, I urge Zephyr into the air. He gets a running start, the flapping of his wings lifting loose tendrils of my hair. My muscles remain tense until we all reach the sky.
For the first several minutes, we all keep glancing over our shoulders. Who can blame us? The possibility of Elijah and his fuckwit crew sneaking up on us and tossing weapons at our heads sounds like a nightmare and a half. It’s not a matter of if he’ll take the opportunity to attack without repercussion, but when. Unless the gods bless us with a minor miracle and we manage to avoid him for the entire trial, we’re bound to clash at some point.
Nick yells at Abel. “Hey, navigator! Are we still headed in the right direction?”
Nick volunteered to lead this mission, and Abel agreed to keep the maps and guide us. Our leader arranged us in a diamond-shaped flight configuration, with Abel positioned out front, him in the rear, and Olive and me forming the points on the sides.
“I think so! Unless I’m holding the map upside down.”
Nick’s voice climbs in pitch. “You’re joking, right? Olive, Lark, tell me he’s joking.”
A burst of laughter from atop the head alicorn answers his question. “I had you going!”
Nick curses. “You’re such a dick sometimes. Can’t you take anything seriously?”
“Yes! I take finding the first location very seriously, which is why we should start descending. Is it just me, or does that look like a red crescent moon to you?”
He points toward a cluster of trees up ahead. Only one features red foliage. The rest form a green outer ring, while the outlier towers in the center, its deeply hued leaves a shock of color.
Nick hollers. “Good catch! Let’s go in for a closer view.”
After tossing our leader a cheeky salute, Abel guides his alicorn toward the red tree. Upon confirming that the top does indeed resemble a crescent, Nick directs us to land. While a tight fit, we find just enough space between the ring of green trees and our target to land our alicorns without risking a collision.
Before Zephyr’s hooves even touch ground, Abel shouts. “Found it!”
A piece of paper nailed to the tree trunk waits in plain sight. No hunting required. No tricks. “You know, I really thought that was going to be harder.”
Abel plucks the map from the bark. “Maybe they decided to cut us some slack and start us off easy.”
Nick’s frown matches mine. “Maybe. They won’t all be like this, though, so let’s mount back up and start flying.”
Everyone remounts. Before a single one of us can go airborne, the clearing fills with crackling and crunching noises.
Olive palms a throwing star. “What the hells is that?”
Nick and I whirl, searching the surrounding forest for the source. A predator. Another team. Something to account for the odd sounds.
Abel tips his head back. “Uh, guys? Look up.”
Olive, Nick, and I copy Abel. My stomach drops out.
“Oh, shit,” Olive says.
Oh, shit is right. The source of that ungodsly ruckus? The trees. Their branches grow and multiply at an alarming pace, stretching and twisting to form an impenetrable canopy. Thorns longer than my middle finger burst from the bark, jutting down from the canopy with spikes that look sharp enough to cut through bone and stab halfway into our brains.
A high-pitched yelp just about makes me jump out of my skin. The culprit is Nick. He’s cowering away from a tiny twig that’s tickling his face. Olive giggles.
Nick glares. “What? I don’t like the idea of murderous greenery. Is that a crime?”
Abel tries and fails to hide his snicker. “It’s okay, Nick. No judging here. We’ve all had that moment where we suspected a leaf was plotting our demise.”
Nick flips him off, prompting another giggle from Olive. Though I appreciate my team’s ability to find humor while stressed, I kind of want to knock their heads together and order them to focus.
My heart rate climbs. “Sorry, everyone, but I’ve got to side with Nick. Those trees are plotting against us. If we don’t stop them soon, we could end up skewered and at their mercy, and there’s no telling what a pissed off tree will do.”
Olive’s and Abel’s howls come to an abrupt stop when the crunching, rustling, and slithering gets louder. There are branches everywhere, blocking every potential escape route, high or low. But do they stay satisfied with that? Hells, no. They start dropping from the canopy and crawling down the trunks. I swat one off my head when it attempts to snag my hair. Olive wrestles with another one that’s grabbing at her tunic.
Out of the blue, a memory springs to life, one from the night Royce’s son and I were attacked on our way out of the village. Our attacker commanded a tree in a similar fashion. Was he truly a winged warrior from Tirene? And if so, is it possible he was searching for me?
Pain scrapes my cheek, yanking me back into the present. I leap back, dodging another strike by one of those enormous thorns. When I touch my face, my fingers come away wet with blood. These dickhead trees are really starting to piss me off.
Nick swings his sword at a branch that launches at his face. As his blade slices the bough in two, the cursed thing shrieks. “What the fucking fuck?”
I second that, because screaming trees? Unacceptable.
Abel ducks a shoe-length thorn and shoots Nick a horrified look. “Whatever you just did, please never do it again. That is not okay.”
“I’d rather it screams than us!”
Abel huffs and holds his dagger in front of him at the ready. “Valid point. I swear there are twice as many as there were a minute ago.”
Five branches dive-bomb Olive’s head. She blasts them with a gust of wind, but they fight back and keep coming. “We need to quit reacting and come up with a plan of attack.”
Abel drops and rolls to avoid a particularly aggressive branch that seems determined to crack his skull. “Any ideas? I’m open to suggestions?”
“Have you tried praying to your earth god to knock this shit out?” Nick hollers.
“Multiple times. Terro doesn’t seem to care.”
We cycle through our elemental magic. Taking another stab, Olive targets the canopy with a burst of air. Leaves rustle and float to the ground, but nothing else happens. Water magic fails, too, as does earth magic, surprisingly enough. Probably because whoever’s responsible for this leafy horror show possesses stronger earth magic than Abel.
Nick slices another attacker in two, and we all flinch at the shriek. “Lark, I think you’re up.”
My turn, right. It’s like my brain shut down in all the commotion. “It can’t hurt to try. Unless we all catch on fire and burn to death. Then it could hurt a ton.”
“There’s that optimism I love so much.”
My laugh at Abel’s deadpan humor cuts off when something claws my back. Yelping, I spin and summon fire in the blink of an eye. The branch goes up in flames and retreats.
“Hey, I think it worked!”
“Great. Can you make it work a little faster? Death by asshole tree isn’t the way I wanna go.”
The branches continue to multiply and descend like a herd of the ugliest snakes known to man. To avoid their sharp, grasping fingers, we’re forced to crouch low to the ground. Despite my appreciation for the magic wielder’s vision—it’s kind of a genius trap—I can’t say I’m a big fan.
“Everyone lay flat on the ground. The bigger the buffer zone the better.”
My team follows my suggestion without question. When they’re as low as they can get, I stoke the embers inside me and let the fire rip.
The first strike fizzles out too quickly. So does the second. By the third attempt, panic has set in. This time, the sparks ignite into a blaze. The shrieking is so terrible that I clap my palms over my ears. After a brief reprieve, I push more magic into the branches. A pungent odor of woodsmoke mixed with char envelops us. We dodge the crispy, blackened bits that rain down from overhead. I flick one Olive couldn’t avoid off her shoulder. The trees finally admit defeat and retreat, freeing up enough space for us to leave.
Abel dusts his pants off and grins. “Well, that was a real hoot. Remind me to never go hiking or fishing or honestly, do anything outdoorsy ever again. Crocheting and finger painting. Those are my new hobbies.”
When I climb into the saddle, fatigue sinks into my bones. I want nothing more than to hole up with Zephyr somewhere and take a long nap. “Are we done yet?”
“You wish.”
As the rest of my team mounts, Olive starts giggling again.
Nick groans. “Do I want to know what you’re laughing about now?”
Olive gasps her reply. “D-death by asshole t-tree. Th-there’s no t-telling what a p-pissed off tree will do.”
She loses her shit, collapsing onto Nova’s neck as she sobs with laughter. Abel joins in next. My lips start twitching, and next thing I know, I’m giggling too.
Nick’s the last man standing, but even he can’t keep a straight face. “You guys have all lost it.”
We take to the air, thankful for the transient palate cleanser. I only hope we can find the humor in the rest of the day’s challenges.
The next map leads us to a snowman-shaped boulder located at the bottom of a tree-lined ravine. Soaring in, we manage to skirt the magical cyclone by using our flying skills alone. Abel makes short work of grabbing the next map, and we take to the air in no time.
We find and claim our box with surprisingly little trouble beyond dodging a stray weapon here and there and a fire trap that Olive, Nick, and Abel combined their elements to overcome.
The trouble strikes during the home stretch, as we close in on what we believe is the finish line.