Chapter Seven
Wynessa
Emberwood breathed around us, but not the way a forest should. It didn’t speak in birdsong or rustles of leaves. It murmured in pulses of pressure and silence, a hush that lived beneath the bark. Not dead but dreaming, watching, and waiting.
We should’ve kept riding.
But the fire betrayed us.
I should have known better. I’d read the old texts, written by moss-fingered scholars who warned never to light a fire beneath an amber canopy. But knowing and remembering are not the same thing.
The sun had barely kissed the horizon, casting the sky in watercolor gold and purples. We meant to rest only for an hour. My fingers were stiff. I tossed a twig into the flames, and something in the smoke caught my eye. A spark leapt upward and touched the mossy carpet.
For one suspended heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then the world lit.
Not in violence, but in a sudden curtain of shimmering orange, like the forest had exhaled flames. These spores. I’d read about them. Ember Veil Spores: flammable as oil, invisible until touched by heat. They shimmered through the air like fireflies, drifting upward and vanishing into dawn.
We stomped it out quickly, the flare only a gasp of light, but the damage had been done. Spores drifted like burning silk, igniting midair and vanishing. The horses panicked. Hooves pounded. One guard nearly fell to the ground. My mare screamed next to me, wild-eyed, and bolted into the brush.
“Wynessa!” Alaric’s voice cracked sharply and loudly. He shoved through the smoke toward me.
I lunged for the reins, gripping them tight, murmuring whatever calming words came to mind.
She jerked back hard as I held on too tight.
For a few wild steps, she dragged me through the leaf-littered clearing; the reins burning through my hands as I stumbled after her.
Then she tugged the reins out of my hands, and I hit the ground hard, the breath slammed from my lungs, as the saddle blanket vanished into the trees.
When I rose to my knees, my horse was gone.
So was my pride.
Alaric cursed under his breath. Gideon muttered something about keeping matches away from royalty. Erindor offered his hand.
“We’ll find her,” he said. But he spoke in a clipped, tight tone. “Next time, leave the fire to us, Princess.”
Next time.
His words stung sharper than they should have. I brushed his hand aside and stood on my own.
“I’m fine.”
“If you say so,” he muttered, clearly unconvinced. His eyes lingered on mine for a moment longer before flicking away.
I turned away before he could see how right he was.
I didn’t sit.
It was impossible.
…
I walked. Alone.
No one noticed, not right away. The morning’s chaos had left the camp in disarray.
Gideon was helping Tyren to his feet, muttering something about bruised ribs.
Jasira knelt by Kellen, checking the bindings on his leg.
Someone had gathered the scattered supplies.
Somewhere behind me, Erindor gave orders in a raised voice.
It was easy, really. One step. Then another. Then gone.
A silly thought, certainly, but I was unable to stand the idea of my terrified mare alone in this blazing forest. The mist was thinning, but the sun only made the wrongness more vivid—the silence too sharp, the trees too watchful.