The Veyul

  Volume 1: The Assessment

  Chapter Thirteen

  Roads That Narrow

  26th Day of the Crimson Sky, Year 754 of the Feyroonic Calendar

  The road out of Invasia was not a road so much as an agreement.

  Stone gave way to packed earth within the first mile, the carefully maintained paving that had served the trade town's immediate surroundings surrendering to something more practical and less expensive to maintain. The transition was gradual enough that travelers might not notice the exact moment when civilization's grip loosened—one step on fitted stone, the next on earth that had been compressed by generations of passage until it achieved something approaching permanence.

  Earth gave way to trampled grass where the passage of feet and hooves and cart wheels had worn channels through vegetation that tried to reclaim the path each season. The grass fought back every spring, sending shoots across the worn channels, testing whether this year might be the year that travelers stopped coming. Every spring, the grass lost. The channels remained, deepened by another season of boots and wheels.

  Grass gave way to paths worn thin by generations who had passed this way knowing they would not linger—merchants carrying goods between markets that existed in different worlds, refugees fleeing circumstances that had made home into something dangerous, soldiers marching toward conflicts that would reshape borders, pilgrims seeking destinations that existed as much in faith as geography. All moving toward destinations that lay beyond this threshold territory. All leaving nothing behind but the impression of their passage.

  Invasia did not encourage permanence.

  It existed because it had to—because trade required thresholds, because borders needed mouths through which goods and people could pass, because forests and kingdoms alike preferred intermediaries to direct collision. The town served a function. The function was not growth. The function was transition, facilitation, the brief pause between departure and arrival that commerce and survival both demanded.

  The buildings understood this. The merchants understood this. Even the children who played in the streets understood, in the way children understood things they had never been taught—that Invasia was a place you passed through, not a place you stayed.

  Behind them, the town continued its careful breathing.

  Smoke rose from chimneys and cookfires, the accumulated evidence of thousands of small lives being lived in the space between forest and farmland. The grey plumes climbed into morning air that had not yet decided whether it would become warm or remain cool, their shapes shifting with breezes too gentle to feel at ground level. Merchants shouted prices that grew fainter with each step until the words became merely sound, then merely suggestion, then nothing at all.

  Lives resumed their rhythms with the indifference of people who had survived enough danger to recognize that not all danger was theirs to face. The baker continued baking. The smith continued smithing. The guards at the gate continued watching the road with the particular attention of people whose job was observation rather than intervention.

  Invasia would continue existing whether the travelers who passed through its gates survived their journeys or not.

  That was the nature of threshold places.

  They witnessed. They did not participate.

  Ahead, the land changed again.

  The Ember Forest did not return—not truly, not with the ancient weight and pressing attention that had characterized the journey's earlier stages. The territory they entered now was something different. Something that remembered the forest's dominion without fully submitting to it. Something caught between worlds, belonging fully to neither.

  Nor did the forest vanish entirely.

  The trees grew taller once more, their trunks thickening from the managed specimens near Invasia's walls to something more substantial, more confident in their claim to the soil they occupied. But not ancient. These were trees that had grown for decades rather than centuries, their canopies lifting higher to allow broader light to reach the ground below. They had the patient strength of middle age rather than the overwhelming presence of true antiquity.

  The undergrowth thinned, shaped by deliberate cutting rather than primal competition. Axes and machetes had been through here regularly enough that the dense tangles of the deeper forest had not been permitted to establish themselves. This was managed wild—territory claimed, released, and reclaimed over centuries by hands that knew how much nature could be bent without breaking.

  The borderlands.

  Places where law thinned and instinct sharpened.

  Places where the authority of kingdoms extended in theory but not always in practice, where bandits and honest travelers shared roads without always knowing which category their companions occupied. Where a friendly greeting might be genuine hospitality or the opening move in an ambush that had been planned for days.

  Siyon preferred them.

  Cities were crowded with intentions that wore friendly faces—smiles that concealed calculations, courtesy that masked hostility, civilization that provided cover for predators who had learned to use its rules rather than fight them. In cities, danger wore pleasant masks and spoke in reasonable tones. In cities, the blade that killed you might belong to someone who had shared your table the night before.

  Forests carried danger honestly, announcing threat through silence and shadow, through the absence of birdsong and the wrongness that trained instincts could detect. In forests, danger made itself known through signs that could be read by those who had learned the language. In forests, survival was a matter of attention rather than deception.

  Borderlands did both.

  Smiled like cities.

  Killed like forests.

  That combination kept Siyon alert in ways that either environment alone could not.

  They moved early, before dawn had fully established itself over the eastern horizon.

  The sky held the particular blue of moments before sunrise—deep enough to show stars but light enough to reveal the shapes of trees and terrain. The air was cool, carrying the dampness that accumulated during night and would burn away once the sun climbed high enough to assert itself.

  Not hurried—hurrying announced fear, and fear attracted predators both animal and Mortal who recognized vulnerability when they saw it. The pace was steady, sustainable, the rhythm of travelers who intended to cover ground without exhausting themselves before the day's true challenges arrived.

  Not slow—lingering provided opportunities for enemies who were watching and waiting for favorable conditions. Every moment spent in one place was a moment that observers could use to count numbers, assess capabilities, identify weaknesses that might be exploited.

  Purposeful.

  Every step, deliberate. Every mile, a decision rather than merely distance.

  Grimjaw took point again, his bulk reassuring in a way that transcended size. Four hundred pounds of Zunkar muscle and experience moved through the terrain with the confidence of someone who had done this countless times before and expected to do it countless times again. His amber eyes scanned the path ahead, tracking details that normal senses would have missed entirely—the way certain branches had been moved, the pattern of animal tracks that suggested recent disturbance, the subtle wrongness of ground that had been walked on by those who did not want their passage noticed.

  "Clean so far," he rumbled over his shoulder, voice low enough to carry to the group without announcing itself to listeners beyond. "But clean can be arranged."

  Siyon nodded once, acknowledging the observation without contradicting it. "Stay sharp."

  "Always am." A pause. "Wouldn't have survived this long otherwise."

  The Zunkar escort maintained spacing with practiced ease, five wolf-lineage warriors flowing around their commander in patterns that required no verbal coordination. Their movements were relaxed but alert—the posture of professionals who understood that tension exhausted and complacency killed.

  One of them—a younger warrior with grey fur that suggested northern heritage—caught Zenary watching him and offered a small nod of acknowledgment. She returned it, recognizing the gesture for what it was: one protector acknowledging another.

  "First time in borderland territory?" he asked, falling into step beside her.

  "Third," Zenary replied. "First time with this much... anticipation."

  The Zunkar's ears twitched. "Anticipation's good. Means you're paying attention." He glanced toward the treeline. "Fear's what gets people killed. Anticipation keeps them alive."

  "There's a difference?"

  "Fear freezes. Anticipation prepares." He shrugged, the motion rippling through shoulders that could have crushed stone. "My first commander taught me that. Right before he died proving it."

  Zenary absorbed this information without comment.

  The Elves of Ethereal Grace vanished almost immediately after leaving the road's last maintained section.

  One moment they walked with the group, their ageless forms moving through the borderland's mixed terrain with the ease of creatures who had grown up in places like this. Their leather armor blended with the forest's colors, their bows resting across backs that held centuries of accumulated skill.

  The next, they were no longer there.

  Not gone—present in higher layers of space, above and ahead, where bowshot mattered more than proximity. They climbed into the canopy with the soundless efficiency that their forest training had instilled, their Moonweave Draw bows ready for threats that might appear from any direction.

  Makayla watched them go with an expression that held something between pride and longing. These were her people's techniques, her heritage's discipline, being exercised by warriors who had trained in the same traditions that had shaped her own skills.

  "They move well," she murmured.

  "They should," Siyon replied. "The Ethereal Grace hasn't accepted a poor archer in three centuries."

  "High standards."

  "The only kind worth having."

  The Moonweave Draw favored distance, patience, lines of sight that others could not even imagine. If something moved in the trees ahead—if scouts positioned themselves for observation or ambushers prepared their approach—it would be seen before it knew it had been noticed. Arrows would fall from angles the targets could not anticipate.

  That was the purpose of the Elves' elevated position.

  Early warning.

  Precision response.

  The ability to shape an engagement before it began.

  Flora circled high above, her recovered wings cutting through morning air with the strength that Tuta's healing had restored. The hawk's sharp eyes provided another layer of observation—a perspective from above that complemented the Elves' canopy positions.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Kuyal padded alongside the group with the easy grace of a predator who understood that this territory held nothing capable of threatening him. His amber eyes tracked movement in the underbrush, his great head turning occasionally to investigate sounds that Mortal ears could not detect. He did not seem concerned.

  That meant something.

  Paghers survived by recognizing danger before danger recognized them. If Kuyal was relaxed, the immediate area was clear.

  The immediate area.

  Not the miles ahead.

  Mai stayed near Aanidu again.

  Not because she had been told to—Siyon had made no specific assignment of her position, trusting her instincts to place her where she would be most useful. The Legendary Shadow understood that Mai's Affinity worked best when it was permitted to operate without constraint, when her Instinct could guide her to positions that conscious analysis might never identify.

  Because she chose to.

  Her golden eyes tracked the terrain with the patient attention of someone who expected threat and intended to meet it. Her panther ears rotated constantly, processing sounds from every direction simultaneously—the crunch of boots on earth, the whisper of wind through leaves, the distant call of birds whose patterns might reveal disturbance.

  Her small frame moved through the borderland's undergrowth with the ease that her Dimetis heritage provided, her feet finding purchase that heavier travelers would have missed. She flowed rather than walked, each step an expression of the training that Torvyn had instilled before his death.

  She had decided Aanidu needed her close.

  She had decided to be there.

  The decision required no justification.

  "You're quiet today," Aanidu observed, his voice low enough that only Mai could hear.

  "Listening," she replied.

  "For what?"

  Mai considered the question. "For the thing that's wrong."

  Aanidu's brow furrowed. "You feel it too?"

  "I feel... something." Her ears flattened briefly, then relaxed. "Like a sound I can almost hear. A shape I can almost see." She shook her head. "Torvyn used to say that Instinct speaks in languages the mind hasn't learned yet. This feels like that. Like my body knows something my thoughts can't translate."

  "My Frequency does the same thing," Aanidu said quietly. "Since Invasia. Since..."

  He didn't finish the sentence.

  He didn't need to.

  Sypha walked on Aanidu's other side.

  At first, she had tried to keep up without being noticed—as if she still thought the road might swallow her if she moved wrong. Her small legs worked hard over uneven ground, bare feet finding purchase on surfaces that seemed designed to trip her. Every so often she stumbled—not from weakness, but from the road's sudden insistence that she pay attention to where her weight was landing.

  She clutched the little pouch of food like it was a treasure she couldn't afford to lose.

  Not hoarding in the frantic way of children who had never been fed—the desperate grasping of those who expected every meal to be their last.

  More like... fearing it would vanish if she loosened her grip. As if the universe might decide it had made a mistake, might reach down and reclaim what had been given.

  She didn't speak much.

  When she did, the words were small.

  "Are we still in the city?" she asked once, voice thin with sleep that hadn't quite released its hold on her.

  "No," Aanidu said gently. "We're outside it now. We left before the sun came up."

  She looked back over her shoulder at the disappearing walls, watching until they were gone—swallowed by distance and the curve of the land. Her expression held something that might have been relief or might have been loss.

  "It's quieter," she whispered, almost to herself.

  And it was.

  Not safe. Not peaceful.

  But quieter in the way places became quieter when there were fewer eyes. The constant pressure of observation that cities generated—the feeling of being watched, assessed, catalogued by thousands of gazes—had lifted. The borderlands watched too, but with different eyes. With fewer intentions.

  Sypha kept close to Aanidu, but not boldly. She walked as if she expected to be corrected for being in the wrong place, then froze every time a branch snapped or a bird startled up from brush.

  Each time, her shoulders would hunch, her head would duck, her body would prepare for impact that never came.

  Each time, Makayla's gaze slid to her and away again—measuring without cruelty. The archer had seen children like this before. Children who had learned that sudden sounds preceded pain. Children who had been trained by experience to expect violence from any direction.

  "She's terrified," Zenary murmured to her mother.

  "She is," Makayla agreed.

  "Of us?"

  "Of everything." A pause. "That kind of fear doesn't choose targets. It reacts to movement, to sound, to the possibility of threat rather than threat itself."

  "Can we help her?"

  Makayla's grey eyes softened slightly. "We can not add to her fear. The rest... the rest takes time."

  Siyon watched the child when he thought no one noticed.

  Not because he trusted her.

  Because he didn't.

  Three centuries had taught him that survival often wore unexpected faces. Had taught him that the most dangerous weapons were sometimes the ones that seemed most harmless. Had taught him that anyone could be used—knowingly or unknowingly—as a tool for purposes they did not understand.

  He had seen too many people survive too long to be helpless in truth.

  Yet Sypha's helplessness looked... disturbingly consistent.

  The flinch when Grimjaw's shadow fell across her—not performed, not calculated, but genuine recoil from something her body associated with danger.

  The way her shoulders rose to her ears when a Zunkar laughed too loud—the instinctive protection of vulnerable areas that abuse taught without words.

  The tiny questions that came out wrong—

  "Do wolves bite?" she asked once, standing beside warriors who were wolf-lineage, then a quick, frightened whisper: "I didn't mean you, I meant... the other wolves."

  One of the Zunkar escorts—the grey-furred one who had spoken with Zenary—chuckled without malice. "All wolves bite, little one. Some just choose not to."

  Sypha's eyes went wide. "Oh."

  "Don't worry. We've been fed."

  The joke landed badly. Sypha took a small step closer to Aanidu, as if his presence might shield her from teeth that had been mentioned even in jest.

  Real child logic.

  Real child fear.

  And still—

  Sometimes she would go still for half a breath.

  Not like a frightened freeze—the locked muscles and stopped breath of someone whose body had decided that stillness was the only option remaining.

  Like... listening.

  Like a child who had heard her name from far away, in a room she couldn't see. Her head would tilt slightly. Her eyes would unfocus. Her attention would drift toward something internal, something that existed beyond the range of ordinary perception.

  Then she would blink and continue walking as if nothing had happened.

  Siyon catalogued it.

  Every instance. Every duration. Every context that might reveal pattern or purpose.

  Mai noticed it too.

  Her Instinct stirred, tried to sharpen into warning—

  And met that same soft resistance she had felt in Invasia.

  Not calm.

  Not comfort.

  Something that made the edges of urgency feel rounded, as if the world had been wrapped in cloth. As if the sharp points that Instinct usually provided had been filed down to something duller, something less useful.

  Mai's jaw tightened faintly.

  She disliked anything that dulled her.

  Torvyn had taught her to trust her Instinct above all else—to follow its guidance even when conscious thought suggested different directions, to believe in warnings that had no obvious source. Her Instinct had saved her life more times than she could count. Had warned her of danger that no ordinary sense could have detected.

  Now something was interfering with it.

  Something was making threat feel less urgent than it should.

  "Problem?" Siyon asked, falling into step beside her.

  "I don't know," Mai admitted. "Something feels... muffled."

  "Muffled how?"

  "Like trying to hear through water. Like something's between me and what I'm supposed to be sensing." She shook her head. "I can't explain it better than that."

  Siyon's green eyes flickered briefly to Sypha, then away.

  "Stay alert," he said. "Trust what you feel, even when you can't name it."

  "I always do."

  Aanidu felt it in his own way.

  The hum in his chest—his Frequency—did not scream, did not flare, did not point accusation at any specific source. It remained present, active, processing the world around him in ways his conscious mind could not fully access.

  It only shifted sometimes when Sypha tugged his sleeve or stumbled close.

  A faint unevenness.

  A note that refused to resolve.

  Like a song where one instrument was slightly out of tune—not enough to ruin the melody, but enough that something in the listener knew it was wrong. Enough that attention kept returning to the discordance, trying to identify what was off, trying to correct what could not be corrected without finding its source.

  Not enough to accuse.

  Not enough to name.

  Only enough to make him breathe in a little deeper, as if his body was trying to catch a scent his mind hadn't learned to recognize.

  The land began to slope downward.

  Gradually at first—so gradual that the change might have been imagination rather than geography. Then with a steadier insistence that pulled the road toward something unseen but felt. The earth itself seemed to lean forward, eager to reach a destination that lay ahead.

  Water did that.

  Even before it could be heard, the terrain changed around its presence. The soil darkened, holding moisture longer, the color shifting from the pale brown of drained earth to the rich dark of ground that remembered recent saturation. Roots grew thicker, angling toward a shared hunger that pulled them all in the same direction. Insects gathered in unfamiliar densities, their rhythms subtly altered by the presence of the water that sustained their breeding grounds.

  "We're getting close," Grimjaw said, pausing to test the air with senses more acute than any Mortal possessed. "Can smell it. Old water. Deep water."

  "The Lahan River," Siyon confirmed.

  "Heard stories about it. Never crossed it myself."

  "Few have. Fewer have crossed it twice."

  Grimjaw's amber eyes studied the path ahead. "That a warning?"

  "An observation."

  The road narrowed.

  Not by erosion or neglect, but by design.

  The change was deliberate—the product of decisions made by hands that understood what this threshold meant. The path that had been wide enough for carts compressed to single-file width. The undergrowth pressed closer, the trees leaning inward as if to examine those who passed.

  Ancient stone markers appeared at irregular intervals—worn smooth by time and weather, half-sunken into the earth like old teeth in tired gums. No writing remained on them. No sigils announced authority or ownership. Whatever messages they had once carried had been erased by centuries of rain and wind and the patient grinding of seasons.

  But everyone who had traveled these lands long enough knew what they marked.

  The approach to the Lahan River.

  Beyond it lay no road worth the name.

  Beyond it lay the Forbidden Forest.

  They stopped briefly when the sun climbed higher, its light filtering through the borderland's incomplete canopy to warm ground that had been cool with morning shadow.

  Not for rest.

  For recalibration.

  Grimjaw crouched, his massive frame somehow becoming smaller as he lowered himself toward the earth. The motion was practiced, natural—the posture of someone who had spent years reading ground the way scholars read books. Thick fingers brushed soil, reading information no Mortal tutor could teach.

  "Tracks," he said. "Old. Deliberately obscured."

  Siyon knelt beside him, green eyes scanning the patterns that the Zunkar commander had identified. "How old?"

  "Yesterday. Maybe earlier." A pause. "They're not following the road."

  "They won't," Siyon replied. "Roads announce intent. They'll parallel us. Stay out of sight until they're ready."

  "Hunters?"

  "Professionals."

  Grimjaw's jaw tightened. "How many?"

  "Enough." Siyon rose, brushing dirt from his hands. "The Acolyte doesn't send insufficient forces."

  Mai closed her eyes.

  Her breathing slowed—the deliberate pattern of someone accessing senses that operated below conscious awareness.

  Her ears went still, no longer rotating to track individual sounds, instead opening to receive the full spectrum of what the forest offered.

  "They're wider now," she said after a long moment. "More spread. Less pressure."

  Zenary frowned. "That sounds like good news."

  "It isn't," Mai said calmly, opening her eyes. "It means they're done measuring. They know our numbers. They know our capabilities. They know our route." She met Zenary's gaze with golden eyes that held no comfort. "They're not scouting anymore. They're positioning."

  "For what?"

  "For when the road narrows enough that we can't maneuver."

  Aanidu felt it too.

  The hum had changed—not louder, not heavier.

  Directional.

  Like a compass needle finding north, his Frequency had begun pointing. Not at any visible target. Not at any presence his ordinary senses could detect. But pointing—indicating a direction, a quadrant, a space in the world where wrongness had gathered and was waiting.

  "They're ahead," he said.

  The words came out before he could consider them. Before he could question whether a seven-year-old should be making tactical assessments. Before he could wonder if anyone would believe him.

  Siyon did not question him.

  "Then we don't slow," Siyon decided, rising to his full height. "But we don't rush. We move like we expect the engagement. We move like we've chosen the ground."

  "Have we?" Grimjaw asked.

  "No. But they don't need to know that."

  They moved.

  The terrain rose and fell in shallow folds, visibility collapsing from hundreds of yards to dozens. Each crest revealed new ground that had to be assessed, new shadows that had to be checked, new angles that might hide threats.

  Perfect terrain for staged contact. Perfect terrain for bleeding a group without committing fully. A force that knew this ground could appear and disappear at will—striking, withdrawing, striking again, never offering a stand-up fight that might go against them.

  The Elves in the canopy would help. Their elevated positions would provide warning of approach from most directions.

  But warning was not prevention.

  And the enemy knew about the Elves.

  The enemy knew about everything.

  Sypha stumbled once.

  Her foot caught on a root that seemed to rise to meet her, and she went down hard—knees striking earth, hands slapping ground, a small cry of surprise escaping her lips.

  Aanidu was down beside her instantly.

  "Are you hurt?"

  She shook her head, but her eyes were wet. Not crying—not yet—but close. The kind of wetness that came from accumulated frustration rather than immediate pain.

  "My feet," she whispered. "They hurt."

  Aanidu looked down at her feet—bare, dirty, the soles showing the wear of miles traveled without protection. Cuts and scrapes marked the skin. Bruises were forming where stones had struck.

  Mai's hand moved toward her blade—and stopped.

  Some instinct had triggered.

  Some response had begun.

  But the soft resistance met it again, and the motion died before it could complete.

  "It's... mean," Sypha whispered, looking at the ground.

  "The road?" Aanidu asked gently.

  She nodded. "It doesn't want me here."

  "Roads don't want anything. They're just... paths."

  "This one's mean," she insisted, with the certainty of a child who knew what she felt even if she couldn't explain it.

  Aanidu helped her to her feet. "We'll get you better ones."

  "Better roads?"

  "Better shoes. When we can."

  The words landed.

  Something in Sypha's expression shifted—not dramatically, not obviously, but present. The kind of shift that happened when someone received kindness they had not expected.

  "Promise?" she asked, so quietly it was almost not a word at all.

  "Promise."

  They did not camp until late.

  The sun had dropped below the treeline, painting the sky in oranges and reds that faded into the deep purple of approaching night. Shadows stretched long across ground that had been holding its breath all day, waiting to see if violence would find them before darkness did.

  They stopped short of the water.

  Not because anyone gave the order.

  Because no one crossed the Lahan River without choosing to.

  It cut through the land like a verdict—wide, slow-moving, deceptively calm. The surface reflected sky that was darkening toward stars, the last light of day fragmenting across gentle ripples that barely seemed to move. Moonlight fractured across its surface as the first of the evening's illumination arrived, reflections carried away before they could settle.

  The water was dark. Deep. Ancient in ways that had nothing to do with time and everything to do with what the river meant.

  Siyon’s gaze moved—not across the water at first, but along its banks.

  “There,” he said softly.

  The party followed his eyes.

  Trees lined the river’s edge—thick-trunked, dark-barked, their roots gripping soil worn smooth by centuries of passing water. On this side, they marked the last stand of the Ember Forest. Across the river, those same trees continued, unchanged in shape and presence, as if the land itself had refused to let the boundary interrupt them.

  “They grow on both banks,” Siyon continued. “Same species. Same age. Same reach.” His voice carried something quieter than memory. “They were old when I crossed the first time.”

  The Lahan River had not always been the end.

  But it had always been the line.

  The Ember Forest ended here.

  Not gradually.

  Not politely.

  Across the river, the trees beyond the shared line changed—older still, denser, leaning inward like conspirators sharing secrets they would never repeat. Their canopy was complete, allowing no light to reach the ground beneath. No signs of cutting marked their trunks. No paths suggested Mortal passage.

  This forest did not negotiate.

  It accepted or it refused.

  There was no middle ground.

  “Smells wrong,” Grimjaw muttered, nostrils flaring as he tested the air. “Old. Like something that’s been waiting.”

  “It has been,” Siyon said quietly. “Waiting is what it does.”

  Aanidu felt the hum deepen.

  Not louder.

  Truer.

  As if his Frequency had finally found something worth resonating with—something that matched its nature in ways that the borderlands and the Ember Forest had only approximated.

  The Lahan River was not merely water.

  It was separation made physical. It was boundary given form. It was the line between one world and another, drawn by forces that did not care about kingdoms or commerce or the small concerns of Mortals who thought their wants mattered.

  Three centuries ago, Siyon had crossed this river.

  This one. This exact stretch of water, where the current ran slow and the depth allowed crossing.

  He had crossed it because he could not watch children be taken in chains. He had crossed it because his conscience would not permit him to remain on the safe side while evil happened on the other. He had crossed it because the Council’s neutrality had felt like complicity.

  He had never crossed back.

  The exile that followed had shaped three hundred years of his life. Had brought him to Maja, to Kalron’s service, to a wife and daughter and a duty that had become identity.

  Now he stood on its near bank again.

  Behind him slept a child the world should have left alone—a seven-year-old prince who carried Affinities that should not have been possible, who resonated with ancient things in ways that ancient things noticed.

  Beside him stood warriors who had chosen to protect that child—Zunkar and Elves and a Dimetis girl and a wife whose bow had sung death through forests darker than this one.

  And somewhere in the darkness, another child huddled against sleep—a child who might be exactly what she seemed, or might be something else entirely.

  Ahead lay a forest that had never spared anyone.

  And between them flowed the Lahan River—silent, patient, waiting to see what kind of people would step into it next.

  “Tomorrow,” Siyon said quietly, addressing no one and everyone. “We cross tomorrow.”

  Grimjaw nodded. “We’ll be ready.”

  “Will we?”

  The question hung in the air, unanswered.

  Because the truth was that no one was ever ready for the Forbidden Forest.

  You simply entered it, and discovered what you were made of.

  The roads had narrowed.

  And narrowing roads always led somewhere unavoidable.

  — End of Chapter Thirteen —

  https://www.patreon.com/Merlin321