Chapter Nine #2
With a few more steps, we made it to the end of the tunnel. Vines draped over the exit, with light spilling through. Keegan stepped in front of me and pulled them aside as Twobble did the same, and I stepped through.
I couldn't believe what I saw in front of me.
For a moment, I forgot why we were here.
The swamp stretched out in front of us, wide and open in a way that felt almost endless, with twisted trees rising from the earth and curling toward the sky like they had stories to tell if anyone stopped long enough to listen.
Gnarled shrubs looked as if they’d provided shelter for centuries.
Soft light filtered through the canopy above, catching on the damp ground and the thin layers of water that still clung to parts of the land, turning everything into a quiet shimmer that felt both alive and holding its breath.
It was beautiful, but not in the way I expected.
There were patches where the water still gathered, shallow pools reflecting the sky in broken pieces, and clusters of reeds swayed gently as if they were still trying to remember the rhythm they once had.
The air was thick, heavy with old moisture and something older that settled into my chest as I took a breath.
But I knew nothing about it was right.
I took a few steps forward, and my boots pressed into the softened ground, and that was when I saw it.
It was impossible to miss all the spaces where the water should have been.
Wide stretches of earth lay exposed, cracked in places, uneven in others, with dried lily pads scattered across the surface like remnants of something that had once thrived and now simply… didn’t.
I crouched slightly, brushing my fingers over one of them, and it crumbled at the edges like watching lace shatter.
There was nothing like the lush, floating leaves I knew they were meant to be.
“This is what she did,” I murmured, more to myself than anyone else.
Behind me, I heard Nova step out of the tunnel, her breath catching softly as she took it in.
We were all looking at devastation. Something that my grandmother created to drive out the orcs, and it worked, just like it did in the caverns and mines of the others.
“She drained it,” Nova said quietly. “Or at least disrupted its balance enough that it couldn’t sustain itself.”
I could hear the despair in her voice.
Stella followed, her gaze moving slowly across the land.
“But it’s still holding on,” she said. “You can feel it.”
“I can,” I said, though the sensation was faint, like something trying not to disappear completely.
It killed me. There were no words to sum up this kind of wicked destruction.
Keegan stepped up beside me, his presence steadying, and for a moment, I let myself lean into that, just slightly.
“It’s not what it should be,” he said.
“No,” I agreed. “But it’s still something. We’ll be able to fix this.”
“Not everything is fixable,” he whispered.
“Well, this is.”
“Maeve, do you ever lose hope?” Keegan’s question surprised me.
“Seldom.”
A smile touched his lips as Twobble climbed up onto a small rock nearby, his expression more serious than I’d seen in a while. “The orcs weren’t exaggerating.”
“No,” Nova said. “They weren’t.”
I straightened slowly, my gaze moving further out, deeper into the marsh where the land grew darker, where the light didn’t reach quite as easily, where the water either pooled too deeply or not at all.
And then I felt it.
That pull.
It was stronger now, but it didn’t tug at me.
It didn’t drag me forward.
It simply… waited.
I took a step and another.
“Maeve,” Keegan said softly.
“I know,” I replied, though I didn’t turn back. “I’ll be careful.”
The ground shifted beneath my feet as I moved further in, the soft earth giving way to patches of drier ground, then back again, uneven, unpredictable.
With each step forward, the distance between us grew.
“I said we needed to be quick,” Nova called.
“I am,” I said, though my voice didn’t carry as far as I expected.
The air changed as I moved deeper. It was cooler and quieter as the others' sounds softened behind me, replaced by something else.
I stepped around another patch of dried ground, my gaze catching on a cluster of brittle plants that had once been tall and full, now bent and pale, their leaves curled in on themselves.
“This was alive,” I whispered.
It still was…somewhere beneath it all, but it was struggling.
And that made something in my chest tighten.
I moved forward again, drawn toward the darker edge of the marsh where the trees grew thicker, their roots tangled and twisted through the ground like they were holding on just as much as everything else.
“Maeve,” Keegan called again, but I didn’t stop.
“I see him,” I said to myself.
Because I did.
At the edge of the darker stretch, just beyond where the light broke through the trees, a figure stood.
He was still and waiting.
And something in me stilled in response because there was no mistaking it.
I knew exactly who I was looking at.
Gideon, and he had the stone in his hand.