14. Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fourteen
Iventured back into the woods. By some miracle, Branwyn’s glamour still hadn’t worn off.
Perhaps she’d manifested these leathers, not merely glamoured them.
Either way, I wouldn’t waste time questioning it.
Gratitude sat heavier in my chest than wonder.
I didn’t have much time. There was a soul-bonding rite tonight, and I needed to be in the temple to pray beforehand.
I couldn’t afford to be late, not this time, not when I was breaking so many rules as it was.
I didn’t want suspicion hanging in the air, nor did I want to face Brannach’s wrath.
I cut toward the forest—toward my makeshift training grounds.
I needed to move, to strike, to get out this anger that sat like a burning coal in my ribs.
The visions clung too tightly: walking in strange woods that weren’t mine, walking the liminal and finding that strange woman.
The Shaman’s words echoed still. Dreams are the passageway between the liminal and reality.
They often bleed more truth than the waking realm.
And then there was Tairngire, leaving me in the middle of the forest, alone. Didn’t even have the decency to mist me back.
My jaw locked. I didn’t remember the walk back, rage blurred the edges.
I was almost to my cave when the forest hushed. A whisper of silence, enough to make my steps falter. The Weave tremored underfoot. Something was wrong…
The sound came first: a drag across earth, low and slick, muscle grinding stone. Then another. Closer.
I turned, my breath frosting in the air, and froze.
It slid between the trees, a shadow too large to belong.
Scales rippled black-green in the starlight, wide as shields.
Its body coiled and uncoiled, faster than my eyes could track.
And then its head rose—jaws splitting open, fangs curved longer than my forearm, dripping with something that hissed as it struck the ground.
Acid.
The serpent’s eyes burned silver, liminal. Wrong. This was no wolf. But it was another creature slipped from another realm. And from the look of it? Dorchadas.
I drew in a shaky breath, grabbing my dagger from my thigh and bent my knees low. I searched my memory for the stances from my stolen scrolls. Stag Guard—weight back, lure, then drive.
Turned out the luring worked. The serpent struck.
That was when all hell broke loose. I didn’t drive.
I threw myself sideways instead like I had with the wolf-creature.
The ground tore under my boots as fangs slammed into the earth where I’d just been standing.
The dirt sizzled, smoking. The heat licked my skin.
It was a good thing instinct kicked in, because whatever came from the serpent’s mouth looked like it could have killed me.
I rolled, grit biting my palms, and came up crouched.
My lungs burned, but my hands tightened around the blade.
It hissed—no, shrieked—a sound that rattled my bones. Then it surged forward again.
It came fast. Too fast. Its body cut through the underbrush in a blur, scales scraping against moss-covered stone.
I swung, but my blade barely grazed its side before its tail slammed into me, knocking me into the dirt.
My limbs were screaming, but I wasn’t about to let that stop me. Pain is temporary.
I staggered up, stance too wide, just like the scrolls had warned against. Shit.
Feet beneath you, weight balanced. Guard high.
Duck low when the strike is heavy. I forced myself steady, breath coming out in puffs against the cool air.
The serpent’s amber eyes locked on me, unblinking, hunger in its gaze.
I couldn’t defeat it alone. I realized that. Not like this, not without help.
Gods, I was so fucked.
But then a memory from earlier struck—Tairngire crouched in the dappled light, palm pressed to the ground. The way the forest had bent to him, fox and stag stepping from nowhere, as though answering a language older than any prayer. He hadn’t summoned them. He’d asked.
I dropped my blade into a guard and slammed my palm against the moss, breath ragged. “If you can hear me,” I whispered through clenched teeth. “Your home is being invaded, I require your aid. Please.”
For a moment, nothing. Just the serpent circling, hissing toxic breath, it was about to strike again—
The forest shifted. A ripple passed through the clearing. Leaves rustled, though no wind stirred. Out of the darkness between the trees stepped a fox, flame-bright against the shadows. Behind it lumbered a massive black bear, shoulders rolling thunderously under thick, black fur.
The serpent's attention turned toward the new arrivals and hissed, its scales shivering.
“Good,” I spat, forcing myself upright, blade ready. “Let’s see you fight against the First Forest.”
The fox darted first, quick as a river in a storm, snapping at the serpent’s coils.
The bear followed with a roar that shook my bones, heavy paws striking, forcing the serpent’s head to rear back.
I used the distraction to slip behind the thing, searching my memory for anything that could help—low guard, weight in the hips, strike when they’re off balance.
My blade found scale, driving deep this time, tendrils of dark smoke slithered across my arm like dark phantoms as I sliced through the things spine.
The serpent writhed, I managed to barely avoid its tail from taking me out.
The fox vanished back into the brush. The bear held steady, ready to defend its forest. My chest burned, but I took my blade and struck downward in the middle of its back, a little to left, where I assumed its heart would be.
It let out a blood-curdling screech before its body shuddered and stilled.
Silence fell throughout the glade. My blade dripped black ichor into the moss while the serpent was taken by black mist.
I stood there shaking, chest heaving. Not just from the fight—but from the truth clawing through me. The First Forest had just answered a threat.
The bear lingered, eyes dark and fathomless like the forest itself. Its massive head dipped, almost solemn. It had chosen to stand beside me. Something in my chest cracked open. Slowly, cautiously, I lowered my blade and stepped forward.
“Thank you,” I whispered, voice raw. My hand shook as I lifted it, pressing my palm gently to the thick fur between its ears.
The beast rumbled low, in warning or acknowledgement, I couldn’t tell.
It held still beneath my touch. For one impossible heartbeat, I felt the Weave humming through its bones, steady and alive.
When I blinked, the bear was gone. Melted back into the trees as though it had never been.
The fox, though, never returned.
A chill prickled over my skin. The forest had answered me. But not all of it had stayed.
I exhaled a breath of frustration. That made two creatures now.
Two slips between realms. How many more would crawl through before the Old Gods admitted they’d lost their grip?
Was this the real reason Tairngire was sent?
And if so, where the fuck was he right now when these malevolent creatures were slithering their way into the Seventh?
I rolled my eyes. Protector, my ass.
This beast had been different than the wolf-thing. No tether. It wasn’t bound to any god or Fate, and still it had found its way here, into the sacred realm, where no blood was meant to spill. And yet, I’d spilled it.
Twice.
If the King of Ash was responsible for sending creatures into Anamcroí from Dorchadas, that would surely mean war was looming somewhere in the distance.
Branwyn was right, this was bigger than any single realm.
I remembered reading something about the king being given domain over the Underworld after the Thread Wars.
His origins were a mystery, and documentation on him was… scarce, to say the least.
I’d asked the Elder Sgàthánwing about the Ash King once, and all he said was that his kind was very old, and that most divines feared him enough to stay out of the Underworld completely, even though they technically could travel there freely.
So, I probably should have been very afraid right then.
Should’ve looked at my hands and felt shame burning a hole through my chest. Instead, all I felt was the adrenaline coursing through my veins, the echo of steel meeting flesh.
The heady rush that I’d done something useful for once, not just stared into Weave and witnessed mortal tragedies unfold.
I was meant to be a vessel, not a weapon. And yet lately, I’d been both.
I still wasn’t sure how I’d called upon the forest the same way Tairngire had, maybe that was the whole point of his lesson—to show me what I was capable of.
I couldn’t deny that the feeling of sinking my hand into the dirt had felt almost…
right. Like I’d done it before, but that wasn’t possible.
While most mortals were reincarnated and had multiple past lives, I was a new soul.
As was the requirement the Old Gods put in place when choosing the Seer.
So, familiarity shouldn’t have existed for me.
I chalked it up to the fact that I was now bonded to the Forest God.
I was probably getting residual feelings down the tether that connected me to him.
Ugh, what a grotesque thought. It was bad enough that we had a red thread connecting us, I didn't want to feel anything coming from Tairngire.
I closed my eyes and sighed. There was no chance the Godhead wouldn’t know everything I’d done tonight.
They had to feel it—blood staining holy ground.
They had to feel me stepping outside the lines they’d carved for me.
And if not them, the King of Ash would surely know something was slaying his… creations, or whatever they were.
I tilted my face to the sky, half expecting lightning to strike me down, half daring it. Then I cast it downward, waiting for the earth to tremble beneath me and suck me into some black hole.
But nothing came.
My laugh cracked low in my throat, bitter. “What? Too afraid to look upon your sacred Seer drenched in shadowed blood?” I whispered into the dark. "You should have never chosen me."
What in the gods’ names had that thing even been?
I hadn’t read much about the creatures lurking in other realms. And just like information on the Ash King, knowledge on Dorchadas and all that lingered there was also scarce.
But I remembered the scraps I’d stolen from the Elder Sgàthánwings shelves.
Notes about mirroring realms—Morhaven and Anamcroí sharing beasts and brood, animals bleeding from one world into the next.
As above, so below. As within, so without.
But this one? I’d never so much as dreamed something like it existed. And still, I’d cut it down.
The thought made my chest ache in a way that didn’t feel like pain.
It felt like…want. I wanted more. I wanted the weight of steel in my hands again.
Wanted the sharp sting of defiance that came every time I stepped beyond the bounds they’d drawn around me.
Tonight, I felt more alive than I ever had in the temple’s suffocating silence.
But I had to go back and get ready for the soul bonding. My duty was required, and if I wanted the opportunity to continue training like this, alone, I needed to put on my false stoicism and fake my way through the ceremonies, the vows and prayers.
First, I needed to wash. Not just the blood clinging to my skin, but the weight of it pressing into me. I couldn’t walk back to Saorla like this, grinning like a madwoman. She was suspicious enough as it was lately.
So I turned my steps toward Anam Lac. If I were already damned for spilling blood, I might as well continue to taint holy waters with it, too.