Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The trees thrashed, their branches suddenly swinging violently. All at once, everything attacked me.
I cried out in terror as a vine ensnared me around the neck, wrapping around my windpipe. The seekerill made a high-pitched whining noise, alerting me to the fact that I’d almost reached the Stone, but before I could search for it, a foreign consciousness entered my mind.
Who are you, daring female of Mistvale Kingdom?
I jolted upright, and my fire element flamed from my hands, burning through the vine that was choking me. Gasping, I coughed and sputtered, then ripped the vine off me and gripped my throat. The plant fluttered away into nothing but ash.
I continued coughing violently, but before I could answer whatever being had mentally projected to me, another tree swung for me, and then a new creature launched itself from a branch, barreling right toward me.
I commanded my carpet to veer right at the last second and zoom away, but pounding footsteps came in my wake. Animals were chasing me. Pursuing me. I no longer had control of them.
The seekerill whined even higher, and I looked every which way. Magic cascaded out of me, and I managed to grab hold of some animals near me, ensnaring their minds and commanding them to protect me, but the entire forest was attacking me.
Those are my creatures you toy with, the ancient voice hissed.
“Who are you?” I called, so breathless I barely got the words out.
Another ear-piercing whine came from the seekerill, and then I saw it.
A glowing, shimmering light rose from the black Wood’s floor, only fifty paces away. It sparkled with magic, pulsing rays of starlight emitting from its core. Its beauty and exotic power called to me. Begging. Demanding. Coaxing.
The Wishing Stone.
Stars Above, I was nearly upon it. I was so close. I’d actually found it!
I pushed the carpet to move faster, not to stop, and flooded the air around me with more fire, anything to stop the trees and plants from reaching me.
Answer me, you insolent girl! That ancient, primal all-seeing presence clouded my thoughts again.
“I’m sorry,” I said aloud. “I’m so sorry. My name is Primelle Hollaran, and I’m only here to take the Wishing Stone. I mean you, the creatures of this land, and this forest no harm or disrespect.”
Yet you kill my children. You toy with them as though you own them.
“I’m sorry,” I sobbed as the Stone loomed. “Please forgive me.”
I do not forgive. I only punish.
A crashing wave of magic rose like a tidal wave around me.
The glow from the Stone plunged into darkness, and all sense of where I was cut off.
Magic pushed me down, down, down.
And in that moment, I knew that the rumors had been right. It was the only thing that could explain any of this. A god’s soul indeed slumbered within Silventine Wood. Its terrible power and might cascaded all around me. Through me. In me. Everywhere I felt, a galaxy of power responded.
I screamed. Terror exploded inside me. Oh Gods. He’s going to kill me.
The feel of the carpet disappeared from beneath me, and the sentries I’d once commanded vanished entirely.
I knew that I was seconds away from death.
The ancient force, perhaps a god thought long extinct, had awoken in the forest, and he wouldn’t stop until I was dead.
Until I was nothing but ash, just like the dead plant life I’d scattered on the wind.
I’d failed. Failed Timith. Failed Gwenery. Failed myself. It’d all been for naught.
I clutched the lock of hair from Goddess Nuleef even harder, then grabbed Kole’s charm too. The warrior would never know what’d happened to me. Neither would my family. Or Ree. I would just be another fairy who’d ventured into Silventine Wood and was never heard from again.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry, Gwen and Timith. I’m sorry that I failed you.”
The pressure upon me built.
You deserve to be punished. My vengeance is all you’ll get in this Wood.
The ancient god layered primal magic upon me, stacking and stacking it, burying me alive in its suffocating wrathful punishment.
Vengeance. Power. Death.
I was seconds away from crossing to the afterlife, and I could do nothing to stop him. My magic was immense, but it would never rival a true god’s.
Punish. Punish. I shall punish you, female.
It suddenly struck me who had likely died here.
Diredan, the God of Vengeance, was rumored to have once walked this land.
But the ancient tomes said that he’d faded away, having not returned to the stars in time to reclaim his godly place.
But he hadn’t. He’d gone into hibernation here. A land he had apparently never left.
I curled inward, wishing so desperately that I could have told my aunt, uncle, and Ree goodbye, told them that I loved them, and apologized for leaving them when they needed me most. But I couldn’t.
My magic wasn’t working. I couldn’t even connect mentally one last time with them to tell them a fleeting goodbye.
Worst of all, they would never know what became of me.
But just as I was about to succumb to Diredan’s vengeance, a memory tingled in the back of my mind.
My studies. The texts I’d read. Who the God of Vengeance had once been mated to.
I sucked in a lungful of air, hoping against hope.
Hands shaking, I uncurled my fingers to reveal the lock of golden hair and beseeched the God of Vengeance.
“Please! Please hear my call, God Diredan!” I begged. “Even if you won’t allow me to take the Stone, please at least let me live so my family doesn’t die wondering what happened to me! I beg of you!”
I fought against his power with everything I had and held the lock of Goddess Nuleef’s hair above my head. I didn’t know if the hair was genuine, but the feeling of being squashed into oblivion abruptly halted.
The pressure lifted, just enough that I could suck in another breath.
But that terrible, awful presence hissed into my thoughts again, What do you have there?
My hand still shook, and it took me a moment to understand what Diredan was asking. I released my death grip on the hair. Darkness still loomed around me. Utter blackness. It was as if my soul had been suspended in nothingness.
Yet I could still speak. Still feel. “A gift. For you,” I said haltingly. “I have a lock of Goddess Nuleef’s hair. Please, it’s yours. Just please grant me safe passage in return. I beg of you.”
Everything stopped.
Time stilled.
The feel of impending death and that horrible pressure lifted even more.
Her hair? You have her hair?
“Yes.” I opened my palm completely, my fingers shaking so violently that I nearly dropped it into the void.
A brush of wind stroked the hair. Tears fell in rivers down my cheeks. I hadn’t even realized I was crying.
The goddess’s hair was lifted from my hand as though phantom fingers had taken it.
Nuleef. My love.
I could barely breathe as I watched the lock of shining metallic hair rise before me, and then it hit me—the metallic border that had shone silver.
It’d shone as brightly as the goddess’s gold hair, as though her mate had never stopped calling her, beckoning her, and wishing their souls didn’t part.
The ancient tomes spoke of the gods and goddesses who once walked the realm. It was rumored that some had bred with fae before they left our realm to venture back to the stars.
But some gods had stayed, either dying out from not returning to their celestial realm or choosing to morph into new beings.
And I knew, knew to my bones, that God Diredan had fallen here when his godly power had faded too much to return to the stars.
All at once, the horrible crushing sensation around me lifted completely.
The Wood returned around me. Darkness was still everywhere, but I could see once more.
I hovered on my carpet, the seekerill in front of me, and I was shaking so violently my teeth rattled. I had no idea if I’d gone anywhere at all or if the void the god had created had been an illusion and entirely in my mind. Regardless, I blinked rapidly, trying to clear my tears away.
Out of nowhere, Diredan spoke again. You may pass, female of Mistvale Kingdom.
Sagging, I nearly fell off my carpet, but just as fast, my eyesight sharpened.
Straight ahead of me, the Stone waited.
“Thank you,” I whispered. Cautiously, still breathing so quickly I felt lightheaded, I began to move my carpet forward, fearful that at any moment the labile god would punish me again.
But as each second ticked by, his promise held.
The forest remained calm.
No creatures came for me again.
And right in front of me, the Wishing Stone waited.
Magic surged around the magical gem, and it washed over me as I approached it.
Disbelief filled me that my uncle’s device had truly led me here. The irony that his invention would save him nearly made me weep anew, especially when the Stone fully appeared before me.
Laying upon the Wood’s floor, in a small crater devoid of any plant life, the Stone sat. It was so beautiful, so blinding, that for a moment, all I could do was stare at it.
Its magic sang an ancient song of beauty and grace. Power vibrated around it so poignantly that it called to me as I reached for the shimmering gem.
It was a million colors all at once, oscillating and shifting from shade to shade, as though it were alive and breathing all on its own. Its magical essence vibrated the air around it, and I extended my hand to clasp it.
The second I touched the Stone, a brush of wind graced my cheeks. Tingles shot up my arms, and the urge to claim it as mine grew like a lifeforce inside me.
Yes, the Stone seemed to say as I lifted it. You are worthy.
A shout rose in the distance, a male calling and cursing.
Your warrior is looking for you. Diredan’s ancient, primal voice again entered my mind. He chuckled. So many have tried to enter my domain today, but entry has been barred. I do not like how you all want to play with my creatures.
I held the Stone firmly, and it glowed and heated inside my hands. “Kole? He’s here?”
He’s been here since you entered, trying to find his way inside to follow you.
My eyes widened. And Nym, Jessip, and Felix? I cringed, waiting for the worst news, to hear that my friends had all been killed in their quest for the Stone.
The god laughed in my mind. They turned back around the second they stepped foot past my perimeter. They were no match for me. Not like you.
I sagged, breathing a sigh of relief that my Faewood friends still lived and that Kole remained outside, unharmed. “Thank you for letting me pass.”
But the god disappeared, his interest in me forgotten. I was only a fleeting second in his slumbering eternal existence, and I knew he no longer felt me worthy of his time.
Not wanting to press my luck further, I held the Stone tightly and turned my carpet around, then zoomed back the way I’d come as fast as I could go.
The creatures of the Wood watched me pass, their magic brimming and their curiosity flowing, but they let me fly by, no longer trying to maim and kill me.
Increasing my speed, I barreled back to the forest’s edge.
Ahead of me, the barrier loomed, the silvery essence calling to me.
I burst through the Wood’s perimeter and gulped in a lungful of fresh air on the other side. Behind me, the Wood’s energy pulsed, and above, the first few stars began to appear.
“Primelle!” Kole’s roar came from farther away, and then a surge of magic billowed in front of me, and the warrior was there.
Wild eyes filled with terror gazed down at me. He grabbed my shoulders, his grip like steel. “I thought you were dead.”
I shook my head rapidly. Tears formed in my eyes. Shaking and still processing the craziness of what had just happened in Silventine Wood, I gazed up at Kole’s shining cerulean irises.
A grin bloomed across my face. “I got it, Kole. I found the Stone.” Tears of happiness cascaded down my cheeks, and I held the glimmering gem up to him, revealing the coveted relic as it glowed as brightly as a sun from within and bathed the realm in a plethora of starlight colors. “I can save my uncle!”