**DAPHNE**
Glancing behind us, at the empty road leading back to the Woodland Realm, Petra grimaces. “I really had hoped Ash and the others would have caught up to us by now.”
She meets my eyes with a shudder as we trot over the bridge. Gazing down over the side of the stone made railing, I grin at the swirling purple rapids of the river below.
“How is the water purple?” I hiss - to myself mostly. Then, gazing ahead at the barren forest, I shiver. We are about to be swallowed by the mantle of thick white fog that hovers over the opposite side of the river. “Petra?”
“Trust in Trielle, Daphne,” she tells me, right before her face disappears into the mist. “Command her to take you to the Trail of...”
She falls silent as the fog falls over my ears. I begin to pant, clutching Trielle by her mane, the top of the mare’s head is all I can see, and I lean down to press my face against her neck. Opening my mouth to speak, it is as if my words are swallowed by the fog. This cloud is alive with thickness, guzzling the sound from my lips. I am finding it hard to breathe and try as I might, I cannot create any words with my useless tongue.
*What is happening?*
*Trielle! Trielle!*
I clamp my eyes shut and will her to read my mind. It is then that a whispering hisses through the mists. A shudder in the thickness that quivers with shape. The outline of a man fluctuates before me and I want to scream, but I cannot.
Trielle stops moving and gooseflesh erupts all over my skin. I can sense it. Something is out here. Someone is standing is the mists.
*No! No! No!*
*I cannot die here! I have a child inside of me that deserves to live!*
Sitting up and away from Trielle’s neck, I feel it. A buzzing inside of me is taking shape. The warmth of an electric current sparks to life inside of my chest and a radiant yellow light begins to thrum around me.
I gasp, taking in deep breaths of air as Trielle begins to glow a brilliant red beneath me. An aura of color surrounds the two of us, battling tendrils of mist away from our path.
I open my mouth, “Petra!” I shout and the sound echoes, bouncing in waves through the haze and burning it away.
I lean down yet again and whisper in Trielle’s ear, “Take us to Petra.”
She neighs only once before she shoots through the trees, stomping through the clouds and beating them backward into the purple madness of the forest.
My mouth is agape in wonder as I study the convulsive glint of energy that surrounds my body.
*Did my child do this?*
*Could he have?*
*...He...*
Suddenly I know without a doubt that I carry a son.
Leaning into Trielle once more, I whisper, “Faster, please.”
Although she hears me, glimmering with a burst of fire beneath her hooves, she slows down, and the fog begins to dissipate. A glance to my left tells me why.
Petra is there. Panting just as heavily as I. She laughs with me as the thick of the mist withers away. “I forgot to tell you!” She says, “Delago and Trielle never separate. I was next to you the entire time.”
“B-but, I couldn’t hear you!” I shout.
“I know. The Fog of the Forgotten Wood feeds off many things. Voices, memories, tears. It is made from fear and sorrow,” she informs me. With a shudder, she glances about at the desolate woods on each side. Then turning back to me she narrows her eyes. “But I saw you when you started to glow, and I heard you when you shouted my name,” she declares softly.
I stare at her, barely noticing the soft trot of the horses as they continue through the last thicket of lavender trees.
Remembering the outline that quivered in the clouds I tell her, “I saw something in it. The shape of a man.”
She nods but says nothing. Turning away to stare at the road ahead.
I shiver as I realize I no longer find the barren forest beautiful. Now, the woods resemble a collection of tall skeletons, with branches like bony arms reaching maliciously toward the sky.
“I wonder,” I whisper. “Do you suppose my pregnancy caused the glowing. If somehow, Ash’s son protected me somehow.”
She gulps, “So, you are certain then. You carry his child?”
I nod as we leave the last of the haunting forest behind us and wander onto a path of giant gray stones that seem to lead, toward the base of the mountain of pulsating rock.
“A son?”
Again, I nod. “Don’t ask me how I know it, I just do.”
She sighs. “And you truly did not lay with-”
“Do not even say it!” I warn.
She lowers her head and says reassuringly, “I believe you, Daphne. Perhaps I shouldn’t, but I do.”
I squint at her. “And why shouldn’t you? You of all people know I was never alone with Prince Hayden long enough for that! If anyone should believe me, you should!”
I groan in frustration and resist the urge to pull my hair out.
*What lies did Hayden tell?*
*How did I not see this coming?!*
*I already knew he had something up his sleeve. I just didn’t think it involved him lying to Ash about me.*
“Listen,” Petra says carefully. “There is a reason, beyond the tales your mortal prince told, causing Ash to distrust you. A curse, and one I cannot speak of, as I was not there when it was given. To speak a curse is to bestow one and only those who bear witness to the giving of a curse, and those who are bound by it, may speak of its existence. Or else, the condemnation multiplies in power.”
“So, what you are saying-” I affirm, “-is that Ash must be the one to tell me.”
She nods, “Yes.”
I sigh heavily, resigning myself to the possibility of never finding out. Looking up from the bounce of Trielle’s bobbing head I am met with a gruesome sight. A shrill scream wrenches from my lips as we pass what appears to be the speared head of some sort of hideous goblin.
I cry out shakily, “What is that?”
Petra laughs, “That, my dear friend, is the head of Ambassador Furel. And that marks the Trail of Fallen Rock.”
“Okay! Well, thank heavens.” I gag, looking away from the insect infested head, the smell of dead blood causing me to retch.
“We are minutes away from the Castle!” She smirks at me, “So try and hold your lunch.” Then laughing, she kicks Delago into high gear, “I’ll race you!”
Wait! What?
Before I can stop her, Trielle is speeding toward the mountain ahead and the crazy blond faerie that is in the lead. We bound toward the mountain at breakneck speed and the closer we get the more I can see the kingdom around it.
Strange stairways and gleaming doors wind around the mountainside, with living breathing faeries congregating around the river that curves around the base. Waterfalls of various altitudes, feed into what appear to be crevices along the structure. They sparkle and mist in countless numbers. My mouth falls open in wonder and my grip loosens on Trielle’s mane as we journey downward. Lower and lower we ride, until the streaming rapids on each side of a massive open archway, decoratively feather into a curtain of water and the open creek bed below.
But all this is nothing compared to the glowing rocks that surround us once we enter into the cave at the base. For the sight before me, is truly one of magic and I cannot help the tingles of familiarity that incite inside of my blood.
I belong here. I can feel it.
This is exactly where I am supposed to be.