Chapter 116- The Cursed Forest
Chapter Fourteen - The Cursed Forest
Elowen POV
The portal spit us out into a sky that didn’t feel like our own.
The air was heavy, and swollen with damp magic and the faint metallic tang of old blood. Even the light seemed wrong, it was too sharp and too pale, like it had been filtered through bone dust. The forest before us stretched for miles, its trees tall as towers, their bark slick with a black sheen that glimmered faintly when it caught the light.
I knew this place once. It had been alive and radiant. Now it looked hollowed out and starving.
Lachlan took one look and groaned. “Bloody hell, this looks like a fae’s nightmare after tae much whisky.”
Daxon grunted beside him, his hand on his blade. “I don’t like the smell. Talon says it’s wrong.”
Talon’s growl brushed through my mind through Daxon’s bond in a low warning hum.
Lyssira’s voice followed, sharp and dry in my own head. "Wrong? Try cursed. I can taste it. The ground’s bleeding magic, Elowen. It’s not supposed to do that."
“I know,” I murmured, scanning the twisted treeline. “Something’s off.”
Vaelrix’s eyes narrowed, gold slitted like a serpent’s. His dragon, Rhygar, rumbled into the bond. "This forest is tainted."
“We can see that,” Vaelrix muttered aloud, flexing his claws. “We’ll stay on high alert.”
“Remember,” I said quickly, placing a hand against his chest. “No magic. Not until we reach the temple.”
Bram huffed, adjusting his pack. “Three days of walking through that,” he said, nodding toward the forest, “without a spark of magic? Perfect. I can already feel the blisters forming.”
Ashrian smirked, his eyes glinting crimson. “I’ll carry you, mountain man.”
“Try it,” Bram said flatly, “and I’ll use you as a walking torch.”
Their banter earned a quiet laugh from Jace, who led the rear with Amaris. “At least we’ll die entertained.”
The humor barely reached anyone’s eyes. Even the wind seemed to flinch as it passed through the trees.
Ravek crouched, brushing his claws across a patch of earth. When he pulled them back, the soil stuck to his fingers like tar. “It’s wet,” he said. “But it hasn’t rained here in weeks. This isn’t water.”
Noctara stepped closer, her eyes glowing faintly violet. “That’s not mud. That’s ichor.”
The word hung there, cold and ugly.
Kylion tilted his head, the faint hum of stormlight whispering through his skin. “The gods said the path would test our devotion,” he said softly. “Perhaps this is the first of those tests.”
Lyssira snorted in my head. "Or perhaps it’s a trap wrapped in divine paperwork. Gods love their little jokes."
"Not helpful," I thought.
"Neither is walking into a corpse forest without a single spell," she shot back. "You’re a goddess, not a pilgrim."
"And yet," I replied, "here I am."
The path ahead was narrow, and bordered by thick, bramble like roots that looked like they’d been burned and regrown again. Every instinct screamed at me to stop, but Selene’s command still pulsed faintly in my veins. The temple must be reached without the use of magic.
We didn’t have a choice.
“Form up,” I said, my voice steady despite the unease threading through my chest. “Two across. Bram, take point. Daxon, you’re rear guard.”
“Already on it,” Daxon said, rolling his shoulders as silver flickered faintly in his eyes.
We moved forward.
The deeper we went, the stranger it became. The light dimmed, swallowed whole by the canopy. The air thickened, humming faintly like it carried a heartbeat. Every few yards, we passed a tree split clean down the center with black ichor dripping slowly from the wound.
Ashrian brushed one with his fingertips and hissed. “It’s alive.”
“Alive?” Amaris repeated.
He nodded grimly. “And watching.”
Lyssira’s voice rumbled low in my skull. "You shouldn’t be here, moon born. The land’s trying to warn you."
"I don’t have a choice."
"You always have a choice. You’re just too stubborn to take the easy one."
A humorless laugh escaped me. "You’d miss me if I wasn’t."
"I’d get some damn sleep," she muttered, but affection pulsed beneath the words.
We kept walking.
Hours blurred. The deeper we went, the more wrong everything felt. Birds didn’t sing here. Even insects stayed silent. The only sound was the squelch of our boots and the occasional hiss of air escaping from the cracks in the trees.
When night fell, the mist rose, black and silver, curling around our legs like smoke.
“Set camp,” I ordered quietly. “No fires.”
Vaelrix raised a brow. “You expect me to sleep in the dark surrounded by bleeding trees?”
“Would you rather announce ourselves to whatever’s watching?”
He growled but obeyed.
We made a small circle, resting against the roots of a massive oak that looked more bone than bark. Lachlan muttered half-heartedly in Gaelic under his breath, the tone protective.
“Ye ken what’s funny?” he said after a long silence. “The gods said nae magic, but they never said nae prayer.”
Ashrian smirked. “You think prayer’s going to help?”
Lachlan shrugged. “Can’t hurt. Unless one of the bastards is in a mood.”
Bram snorted. “They’re always in a mood.”
Noctara leaned against a fallen log, her eyes scanning the shadows. “I hate this,” she said flatly. “Everything about it feels wrong. It’s too quiet.”
“Maybe that’s the point,” Amaris said gently. “The gods want us to remember what fear feels like.”
Noctara frowned. “Or they want to see if we still trust them.”
The air shifted then, it was so subtle I almost missed it. A ripple in the mist, and a whisper that brushed past my ear and vanished before I could turn.
“Did anyone hear that?” I asked softly.
Everyone froze.
Another whisper, faint but real, drifted from somewhere deeper in the trees.
"The rot returns."
Lyssira growled low inside me. "I don’t like that voice."
"Neither do I."
Daxon was already on his feet, his blade half drawn. “It came from the north side.”
“Stay together,” I warned.
The mist parted.
Something moved between the trees, too fast to see clearly. A shadow against shadows. Then another. And another. Eyes glowed red for the briefest heartbeat before vanishing.
“Wolves,” Ravek muttered, scenting the air. “But wrong.”
Bram’s hammer was already in hand. “Define wrong.”
“Too thin,” Ravek said. “Too quiet. Too dead.”
Lyssira’s snarl echoed in my skull. "Shadow forged. Not real wolves. They smell like the Blood Goddess."
Raelith’s name hit me like a slap. My pulse spiked. “Everyone...ready!”
The forest exploded.
Black-furred shapes burst from the mist, with eyes burning like coals, and teeth dripping shadow. They weren’t wolves anymore, they were more bone than beast, their bodies flickering between forms as if reality couldn’t decide what they were.
Bram swung first, his hammer cracking through one’s ribs with a sickening crunch. It didn’t bleed, it screamed, the sound echoing like a dying god.
Daxon lunged beside him, silver flaring briefly in his eyes. “Stay behind me!”
“I can fight!” Noctara shouted back, her blades already flashing.
Lachlan’s runes lit by instinct, lightning crackling faintly along his arm before he forced it down with a curse. “Nae magic,” he hissed. “Nae bloody magic!”
I ducked beneath a swipe of claws, my own dagger slicing through shadow like smoke. But for every one we cut down, two more crawled out of the darkness.
Then I heard it again. That whisper. Closer now. "The rot returns."
Lyssira’s voice roared in my head, wild and furious. "Elowen, MOVE!"
Pain flared through my arm as something sharp grazed me, a claw, or a fang, I couldn’t tell. Hot blood splattered across my sleeve.
The world tilted, a rush of nausea sweeping over me as the shadow dissolved. I stumbled, gasping.
“Elowen!” Daxon’s voice tore through the chaos as he caught me before I fell.
“I’m fine,” I lied, my breath shaking. “Keep fighting!”
But deep inside, Lyssira’s growl trembled with something I’d never felt from her before.
"That wasn’t just shadow," she whispered. "That was chaos."
The forest pulsed once, slow and deep, as if something enormous beneath us had just opened its eyes.
And somewhere in the dark, something laughed.