Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The Wood’s metallic border glimmered. My carpet rushed toward it, and the closer I got, the more I could feel the forest. Its border rose in a haze, like a pearly soup of gleaming silver. It was beautiful in its own way, but something about it screamed other.
Magic heated inside me, and I extended my mental fingers forward, intent on pushing through the border to seek any creatures that could be waiting for me on the other side.
But when my magic hit the Wood’s barrier, it scattered, and an electrifying hum filled my mind.
I hissed, the sensation bothersome, but not painful. Putting more of my magic into it, I pushed and surged until my mental extension reformed and began to force its way through the Wood’s encapsulating dome.
Breathing deeply, I concentrated more. As I neared the edge of the Wood, my magic finally penetrated the border.
On the other side, hundreds of lifeforces greeted me.
My breath sucked in, and I mentally spanned my magic out. There were so many creatures of varying degrees and sizes. Some were intelligent. Others weren’t. And some were so foreign that I didn’t even know how to categorize them.
“Dear Gods.”
I sucked a breath in but didn’t slow. I hit the Wood’s barrier at full speed, and a glimmer of magic surrounded me. The realm turned into a cloudy shimmer. Sparkling dots appeared in the air, touching and caressing my skin.
Stars, galaxy, and all the moons, but the Silventine Wood was assessing me.
It released me to the other side, and my heart immediately jumped into my throat.
Darkness greeted me.
Thick, unrelenting night.
Even though the sun still hovered in the sky on the outside of the Wood’s barrier, no sunlight penetrated the Wood’s canopy. The only saving grace was that it was warmer in here. No snow either.
I immediately halted my carpet. A low chatter filled my ears, like thousands of buzzing insects filling the quiet, but nothing fluttered near me.
My eyesight shifted of its own accord, my sensory magic activating.
Objects came into view. Thick plants, trees, and vines hung everywhere.
Above, several pairs of eyes watched me.
They glowed in the darkness, but my magic told me they were the less intelligent creatures that I’d initially detected.
I sent a pulse of magic toward them, more curious than anything to learn what they were, but before my magic could reach them, they blinked and then disappeared into the tree.
My heart pounded like a drum, and I hastily consulted the seekerill again. The needle still vibrated eagerly, aggressively, and pointed straight ahead.
I palmed the device tightly, knowing that if I dropped it or lost it, I was entirely fucked. I called upon a stream of the carpet’s magic and tethered the seekerill tightly to the fibers, directly in front of me so I could watch if the needle turned.
Once certain that it wouldn’t budge, I whispered a command to the carpet and cautiously began to move forward.
I kept my breathing silent, my movements still. The last thing I wanted to do was alert any creatures or nefarious plant life to my arrival, although if the Wood’s perimeter had already done that, then it was too late.
Still holding the lock of Goddess Nuleef’s hair tightly, I commanded my carpet to pick up speed, using my sensory magic to see clearly.
Something rustled in the bushes, only thirty paces away. A head lifted. Horns appeared on a creature I’d never seen before. It was large, easily the size of a small domal, and two large fangs extended from its gums.
It hissed at me, and its tail flickered and made a rattling sound like an ominous snake about to strike.
I watched it out of my peripheral vision, hoping it would let me pass peacefully, but just as it began to disappear from my view, it lunged.
It moved so fast, flying toward me in a gigantic leap. Its gaping maw opened, and several rows of razor-sharp teeth appeared.
“Stars!” I shrieked and instinctively shoved myself to the far side of the carpet. It was nearly upon me by the time I blasted it with mental magic. My magic coiled around its consciousness, commanding it to sleep and be still.
It fell with a thud, right into a patch of vines—another plant I wasn’t familiar with. If my heart didn’t feel like it was about to explode, my academic side would have found the discovery of a new plant species fascinating.
But as it was, fear raced through me anew, making my heart pound in a painful beat, and not even an unknown plant created any interest in me because that horned creature had moved so fast and with such certainty that I knew it thought I was its next meal.
The beast lay still on the ground, horns ensnared within the foliage. Vines roped around its body, and a horrible sucking sound filled the air. Blood welled up from the creature’s hide as the plant began to devour it.
I shuddered and zoomed away as fast as I could.
More eyes appeared in the darkness in front of me, glowing orbs of various sizes. A shriek rose in the distance too, part howl, part scream. And then another howl came. And another.
Pulse thrumming wildly, I turned every which way, trying to determine what those howls meant and where they’d come from. And more importantly, if it was from a couple of creatures or a herd. Or even worse . . . from the thing Kole had battled outside of Inisville.
My magic hummed and stretched out. Dozens of creatures surrounded me. Above. Below. To my sides. All around.
Animals were everywhere.
“Shite.” In a near panic, I commanded the carpet to propel forward at its max speed. Simultaneously, I sent a blast of mental magic out, unleashing my power upon the Wood. And at the last second, I released my hidden magic too. My forbidden one.
It’d become entirely apparent to me that if I was going to survive this Wood, all bets were off. I would need to use everything I had, and I wasn’t going to second-guess the wisdom of that, especially since I had yet to encounter any siltenite consciousnesses here.
Power welled up inside me. Immense, beautiful, and sparkling power. As had happened when I’d been following Kole in the village, my magic breathed a sigh of relief. This, it seemed to whisper, this is what you’re made to do.
Dozens of foreign consciousnesses hummed back at me, and that was only in my initial surroundings. I tethered my magic to them, penetrating their minds and grasping hold of their essences.
The sound of a stampede came from my left, and more howls and screams rose. Whatever they were, they were coming, but they weren’t in my vicinity yet. They were still far off.
Stop whatever is hunting me, I commanded the creatures I’d taken control of.
All of the animals rose from the Wood’s floor like sentries coming to life. Creatures of various sizes with a range of intelligences and magical capabilities marched toward the rumbling ground.
Hisses came next as slithering snakes appeared on the Wood’s floor, wiggling from underground burrows to answer my call.
Sweat beaded on my upper lip as magic cascaded out of me.
Yet even though I had to concentrate, I didn’t feel any hint of fatigue.
The opposite happened. Power surged through me, as though multiplying as I used my forbidden magic.
It was as if my magic was rewarding me for commanding it as it’d always sought.
Howls and screams tore through the air just as a herd of horrifying-looking animals burst through the foliage—not like the creature Kole had fought but still just as terrifying.
They ran on two legs, backs hunched over, arms short and stubby but talons on their ends.
They were hairless and eyeless, yet they seemed to know exactly where I was.
I zoomed ahead on my carpet and commanded my sentries to attack.
A clash of hairless bodies and fur came from my left just as my controlled creatures formed a wall at my side. More screams rose, and I dared a look to see what was happening.
My jaw dropped. Hundreds of animals were fighting, more sentries appearing as they answered my magic’s call.
Teeth gnashed. Claws tore. Maws ripped.
Blood began to soak into the Silventine Wood’s soil, bathing the ground scarlet as I took more control of those around me, and then I pushed my magic to extend farther until it ensnared the hairless creatures too.
The fighting instantly stopped, and sheer magic pounded out of me.
Hundreds. I had hundreds of animals under my command.
Yet I felt like I could control more. Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands.
Power soaked through my essence, intoxicating in a way.
My magic was even stronger than I’d ever imagined it could be, but my uncle’s teachings from my childhood came back to me just as fast.
“You must never control others, Prim.”
But I knew here in this deadly Wood, even my uncle would understand. It was either kill or be killed, and I had no plans to die today.
I zoomed forward even faster, watching the seekerill’s needle to ensure I was still going the right way.
Directly in my path, the heads of two larpanoons appeared, lifting from where they’d been smelling something on the ground. They were only five paces away.
My magic surged toward them, and when I pierced their minds, they roared in anger. The shock of it nearly made me tip off the carpet.
More sweat poured from me, but I pushed my magic to its max. Worming my way through the magic encasing the larpanoons, I forcefully took control of them too.
Limply, the feared predators fell to the ground, growing entirely docile, and I flew right over them.
Breathing a sigh of relief, I looked at the seekerill again. It vibrated more sharply than it ever had before. I was so close to the Stone. So close.
But then I felt it.
An ancient presence.
A magic unlike anything I’d ever felt before.
A slumbering entity seemed to rise up all around me, brimming with power and might, anger and hatred, and a terrible wrath and vengeance like I’d never felt before.
Ancient magic exploded in a shockwave through the trees.
It was the only warning I got before chaos unleashed.