Chapter Five
Erindor
Three days into the journey, we passed a landmark known as the Whispering Spire.
A single jagged stone jutted from the forest floor like the tooth of some ancient god.
Faint carvings spiraled around it, half-lost to moss and time.
Someone had stacked three smooth river stones at its base, which was either a silent offering or a stark warning.
Wynessa gasped softly when she saw it, reining her horse to a halt. “I’ve read about this,” she murmured, more to herself than to anyone else. “The Spire marks the place where the gods last spoke before the silence. It was a place of oaths. Of unmaking.”
Gideon raised an eyebrow. “Charming. That’s exactly where I hoped to pass the morning.”
No one laughed.
Even the birds had gone quiet.
Wynessa remained still for a moment longer, sketching the stone’s outline into her journal before nudging her horse onward, her expression heavy with an unspoken thought.
“Were you aware marrowgrass only grows in places where the veil between life and death is thin?” she said moments later.
I glanced at her.
“No.”
That was all.
She’d turned back in her saddle, clearly trying to pretend she hadn’t hoped for more.
By midday, the forest changed before us.
The path narrowed as we approached a rotted blackwood bridge arched over a chasm so narrow it looked like a wound in the earth. Jagged stone teeth jutted from the sides below, partially hidden by rising mist. Charred handrails leaned precariously, and half the planks groaned under our weight.
Alaric peered down. “If that drop doesn’t kill you, the embarrassment will.”
“It’s said that a company of Caerthaine soldiers disappeared crossing this very spot,” Jasira said, her voice low. “Some say the forest swallowed them. Others say they turned on each other.”
Wyn tilted her head. “It’s likely someone misled them. Someone omitted checking a map?”
She smiled subtly, but her gaze lingered on the trees, as if searching for something unseen.
The shadows on the other side of the bridge were deeper. The trees grew denser with every step, their branches knitting together overhead as if the forest itself had been waiting for us to cross.
And we did. One by one. Without breathing a single word.
It began with the trees. Gradually, towering giants replaced pale-trunked birches and sleepy elms, and their bark flaked in red and black, like something had scorched them and left them to bleed.
The leaves hung in thick clusters overhead, colored crimson, copper, and ember-gold.
The wind moved through them in fits, sending the rustle of dry paper across our path like a whisper that didn’t want to be caught.
The horses’ ears started twitching, their hooves scuffing nervously along the ash-dusted path. The forest was strangely muted. No birds chirped. No breath of a breeze stirred the crimson canopy. Instead, an oppressive stillness reigned, the forest not welcoming them, but watching.
They called this place Emberwood.
Beside me, Wynessa scribbled in her journal again, oblivious to the crunch of poison-bramble underfoot.
She rode with both legs side-saddled today, her boots tucked neatly under the pale lavender riding skirt, which was utterly impractical.
Her hands moved like a painter’s, sketching the shapes of moss or lichen, as if they were worthy of a crown.
We were riding through a forest that had eaten whole patrols. And she was writing poetry about vines. Silly girl.
“Why is it called the Emberwood?” she asked aloud, turning in her saddle to glance at Gideon.
He perked up like a bard on cue. “Because it looks like it’s perpetually on fire,” he chirped, gesturing at the trees. “And sometimes it tries to eat you.”
She laughed. Light, high, like something unafraid. “Eat me?”
“Carnivorous moss,” he said, deadpan. “Hangs from trees like lace. Pretty, until it isn’t.”
She squinted upward. “You’re joking?”
He paused for a moment. “I am,” he said. “Well, mostly.”
I didn’t correct him.
This forest had killed men. Not only with teeth but with silence. With wrong turns, with half-remembered paths, with spores that paralyzed and vines that waited. The monsters weren’t the ones who initially got you; it was what you couldn’t see or hear.
Ahead of me, Wyn reined in and her gaze caught sight of something in the undergrowth. I watched it with her. A cluster of low ferns, their fronds tipped with pale lavender blossoms.
Until suddenly, she slipped from her saddle before I could call out.
Her boots hit the earth softly. She crouched beside the flowers, inching closer to sketch their shape in her little notebook, her silken strands tumbled from beneath her hood, catching the dappled light filtering through the canopy. It gleamed, a vibrant spill of color like captured firelight.
She looked like she’d wandered into the wrong story.
I leapt from my horse, my boots landing with a soft thud into the soil. The air ahead had grown unnaturally still, the silence pressing down, heavy and wrong.
“Stop,” I said, sharper than I meant to.
Wyn jumped, her head snapping up to meet my gaze. “What?”
I closed the gap between us in swift strides. I dropped my voice low, “What are you doing?”
She glanced down at the blossoms. “I’ve never seen these before,” she said. “They looked like some kind of fern, but with open faces. Like asters, almost. I thought—”
“Poisonbramble,” I said, cutting her off. “Don’t step in it unless you want to hallucinate your own ancestors.”
Her head snapped back, eyes wide, as she recoiled
“You might attempt walking if you do not want to survive this forest,” I grumbled.
She looked at me for a long moment, narrowing her eyes, expression unreadable. Then she stepped around me without a word and went back to her horse.
I almost let it pass, but as I watched her fingers quiver as she lifted the reins, the knot of impatience in my gut tightened one more.