by Janna Ruth
My heart aches for all that loss Grune bears so deep inside him. There are far fewer dryads now than there were before, but he’s stayed on. He’s defended his forest as well as he could and cared for the trees left to him, even when the Erlking and his sylphs settled here and used the trees to wage war against the humans, ripping them out of the ground. He recognises me as the one that made an end to the realm of terror the Erlking had erected, but he doesn’t know where I stand exactly.
“With you,” I tell him softly, or instead, I show him how I feel about the spirits, how much I care, and how much sorrow is in me, knowing that so many natural places have been destroyed, are still being destroyed.
The following image Grune flings at me is that of a woman with short, blond hair and steel-blue eyes. I don’t recognise her, but she carries a staff on her back as she walks through the forest. I recognise a trap in her hands, and at first, I think she’s like me, that she wants to free the spirits. She opens the trap, but what comes out of it makes me recoil. It’s a dryad, thin and wiry like ivy vines. Her leaves are full of holes, and what grows inside can only be described as something rotten.
The dryad slithers onto the ground like a snake. The woman leaves, and the dryad remains still for a while. Then she begins to spread. She chokes the sunlight from the small plants on the forest ground before wrapping herself around a tree, sapping its life force out from underneath its bark.
“When did this happen?” I ask, aghast.
And for the first time, Grune answers, “Two sunsets ago.”
“That’s horrible.” My words can’t convey what I feel, but they don’t need to. Grune can see into my soul. Just as I can read him, he reads me. And as he does, his anger ebbs away.
“You didn’t know,” he concludes.
It doesn’t matter that I wasn’t here two days ago. I know in my heart that no one in this citadel knew of this, not even Wulf. “We’re gonna get to the bottom of this,” I promise. “Do you need help with the…” I don’t even want to call her a dryad because she’s not life; she’s death.
“The abomination needs to be removed from the forest. Your kind has already killed too many of my children. I can’t afford to lose any more.” There is so much sadness in him I want to reach out and hug him. He seems to know it because suddenly, I feel wrapped in his embrace, leaves brushing over my hair.
And then he says something that knocks the wind out of me. “You’re a true spirit seeker. One of the old ones.”
He shows me another image: A middle-aged man in medieval garb sits under the oak tree where I stand, his back against the dryad, a hand on Grune’s bark and a gentle smile on his face. There’s a staff over his knees, but it’s like Wulf’s, gnarly and whole. A gift from Grune himself.
“They’ve forgotten.” I gasp. “The spirit seekers have forgotten their purpose.” The ancient staffs they value so much are the only relics of that time. A time when spirit seekers and spirits worked together. When dryads gifted parts of themselves to friendly seekers so they could defend their people from the wilful destruction of other spirits. I see the complete picture, past and present now.
“They’ve forgotten so much,” Grune says. “Will you help them remember? Will you help the spirits?”
The answer is already written in my heart. “To my very last breath.”
I have to wipe tears from my cheek when I leave Grune. He’s calm now, and I feel his strength pulsing through me. But there is so much pain, loss, and grief in him it takes my breath away.
Aeola envelops me in a warm hug, and the ache in my heart lessens a little. She understands me more than anyone, with or without words. “You did well,” she whispers.
“I haven’t done anything yet,” I answer, facing the door to the spirit seekers’ living quarters. The promise I gave Grune weighs heavily on my shoulders. I can’t run away. I have to stay and make them see, whatever it may cost of me.
Bracing myself, I open the door. Immediately, Camille pulls me into her arms and hugs me tight, gasping. Then her hands run over my face and my arms, inspecting me with worry. “That was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen. Are you okay? How are you holding up?”
“I’m fine.” I point to the oak tree in the courtyard. “He’s not here to fight us.” He was. His anger towards the spirit seekers brought him here. They brought something vile into his forest, and he was prepared to take their fortress down in response. “I’ve talked to him. There’s a lot I need to tell you.” I wish I could do it like him, just share my memories with them. Right now, I’m exhausted.
Leon looks at me, awe in his eyes. “You calmed him down. I didn’t quite get it, but… you’re amazing, Rika.”
I smile weakly at him. In my opinion, that remains to be seen. My gaze drifts to the one person who can stop me dead in my tracks. One report, and I’ll never be able to keep my promise to Grune.
Wulf has stepped away from the door, but his eyes linger on me. I don’t know what to make of the look in them. Is it desperation like the one I’ve seen in Iván’s eyes? Helplessness? Awe? Certainly not awe. Or is it?
He swallows and takes a step forward, holding his staff out to me. “Your attunement is higher than mine,” he says, his voice full of gravity. “You should be the one leading this team.”
Thanks so much for reading Natural Enemies. If you think Rika deserves a little pick-me-up after all that turmoil in Budapest, please consider leaving a review. The Spirit Seekers could really use some good press after the near-disaster in this book.
Become a Story Seeker and read Wulf's adventure in Naples for free by joining my mailing list! Don't miss another release and get all the spirit intel.
Join the Story Seekers
Do you want to find out where Rika's next adventure will take her? Turn the page and read the first chapter of Back to Nature (Spirit Seeker Book 3).
CHAPTER ONE
I’M POSITIVE THIS is all just a dream.
An ancient dryad—Grune of the Grunewald—attacked the spirit seeker base, causing an entire forest to sprout in the courtyard. I managed to talk him down, and in turn, he showed me the truth about the spirit seekers. Fighting spirits is not the only way. The true spirit seekers of old kept relationships with the local spirits. And to top it all off, Wulf, who was willing to throw me out on the street just a day before, did a one-eighty and handed over his command.
“He wasn’t serious, right?” He couldn’t have been. For weeks, I had been fighting with Wulf. He’d basically told me that the only time I would ever come close to leading his team would be over his cold, dead body. And now he offered the leadership to me?
Camille chuckles as she pushes me down into the comfy chair in my room. According to her, I look like I need a rest. “What you did was mind-blowing. You went in there, branches raining down on you, a hail of acorns pelting your skin…” She huffs in awe.
Now that she mentions it, there are dozens of little spots darkening on my arms. I remember a branch tearing into my skin and carefully raise a hand to touch my temple, only for my fingers to come away red.
“It’s not a deep wound. You lost some skin and a bit of hair. Leon will be here soon with the first aid kit.” Nevertheless, Camille dabs the wound with a tissue. “You just kept walking. As if the entire world stopped turning and only you and the spirit existed. And then, the world did stop turning.”
I remember the calm. I don’t think I’ve ever felt safer than in Grune’s embrace. A dryad so old and powerful he had been here long before anyone else. I can’t believe that I met the spirit that is the heart of the Grunewald. Not just met him but talked to him and shared his pain.
“It blew Wulf’s mind,” Camille says with a helpless smile. “It blew all our minds.”
A knock at the door announces Leon’s arrival. It looks like he’s brought the contents of the entire first aid cabinet. “How are you feeling?” he asks, looking concerned. His eyesight has got much better, and he’s moving around with ease.
&nb
sp; “I don’t really know,” I answer. Overwhelmed would probably be a good start. There is still all this sadness in me. Over the centuries, Grune has seen so much death, experienced so much loss. His forest, which once stretched as far as the eye could see and beyond, had been reduced to a small fleck at the border of the city. And even that bit is crawling with people on a clear-skied day.
“You look like you’re gonna pass out any minute,” Leon comments. He puts his load down on the table I’ve never found a use for and rummages through it to locate the disinfectant and some tissue.
Camille moves aside for him. “She just faced down an ancient spirit. Of course she’s exhausted.”
“I didn’t face him down. I… I guess, I calmed him down.” I know very well how easy it would’ve been for Grune to kill me. His branches never hit, though. “He tried to scare me off. And when that didn’t work, he settled.” I still can’t quite believe it.
“Sounds good enough to me.” Leon pours some of the disinfectant on the tissue and begins dabbing at my wound.
Immediately, I shirk away from the pain that’s so much more intense than the scraping I got. “What are you doing?”
Leon chuckles a little. “I’m cleaning your wound, Rika. It’ll stop hurting soon. Can’t have our new team leader drop dead from an infection, can we?”
It’s a harmless joke, but his words make me sick to the stomach. Yes, I tried to pull rank on Wulf when we were in Budapest, but that was because I was upset—and angry that he had gaslighted me about the relevance of our natural attunement value. But to actually lead this team, with no experience or education, just because my NAV was a little higher than his? That makes me queasy.
Fortunately, Camille picks up on my uneasiness. “Talk to him. I’m sure this was a spur-of-the-moment decision. He might even regret saying it.”
“That does not make me want to talk to him.” I haven’t forgotten how angry he has been with me for the last few days.
Camille puts a hand on my shoulder, smiling ruefully at me while Leon sticks a huge plaster to my temple. “What I meant was that he must have been overwhelmed. The sentiment was genuine, but the delivery might have been a little off.”
A little? After weeks of telling me that all I know about spirits is utterly and dangerously wrong, he basically threw his staff at my feet, surrendering to me. If only I could figure him out. But in that way, Wulf is like Grune, full of pain and anger. “I guess I could try to talk to him.”
With a squeeze of my shoulder, Camille nods at me. “You definitely should.”
“But first you’re gonna tell us all about that spirit,” Leon says, his eyes shining with excitement.
I find Wulf downstairs in the common area, where he’s cooking as if this was a normal day, and we’re just about to have dinner. There’s no sign of Lukas or Miriam. I assume Miriam has taken the unfortunate spirit seeker to the hospital.
Wulf hasn’t noticed me yet as he concentrates on endlessly kneading some yellowish dough. I wonder whether the dough really needs that much attention or whether he has taken his workout to the kitchen now that a mini-forest and an ancient dryad have taken over our courtyard.
There’s something peaceful about watching him direct all that pent-up frustration into something useful and hopefully delicious. But standing here and watching his muscled arms bear down on the poor blob of dough won’t get me my answers. With a sigh, I knock against the doorframe.
His head jerks up. Upon recognition, I can see him hold his breath for a second. Then his face softens. “Hey.”
“Hey.” So far, this has been the most civil exchange we had in days. “Do you have a minute?”
“Of course.” He gets out some weird metal machine I’ve never seen in my life. “You’re in command.” So, it wasn’t just an offhand comment.
“Please stop saying that.” I thought it would be nice to have a say, but it feels all off now, like a jacket worn the wrong way around.
Wulf frowns slightly as if he, too, is unsure about all of this. “Sorry.”
He takes a piece of his dough and holds it over the machine before turning the crank. I watch as the dough gets sucked into the machine and comes out flat and even on the other side.
“What are you doing?” I ask, distracted.
The flicker of a smile appears on his face. “Pasta.”
“From scratch?” I’ve only ever got hold of the store-bought one. They’re a horrible choice to eat on the streets if you don’t happen to own a gas cooker.
Now the smile turns into a low chuckle. “My Nonna would kill me if I ever thought of buying dried pasta.”
We both know that he doesn’t really have an Italian grandmother. He’s German in all his stiff, rule-abiding glory, except for the part that was raised in Italy after his parents died. Apparently, that part stands in the kitchen right now and hangs up strings of pasta.
“What did you want to talk about?” he asks, while starting the second batch from the dough.
Well… the one thing I told him to stop mentioning. I turn my attention to my fingers, noticing that one of my nails has split at the corner.
After several seconds of silence, it is Wulf that restarts our conservation. “What happened out there?”
I remember now that there is so much I need to tell him. Grune didn’t just show me his pain. “I met Grune.”
“Grune as in Grunewald?” He frowns more deeply as he uses the crank to flatten the second piece of dough. “The forest?”
“That’s the one.”
“Wow.”
I look up at Wulf. ‘Wow’ doesn’t fit him. I expected alarm, an instant rise to action. After all, there is an incredibly powerful dryad in our courtyard, and he has sworn his life to fighting the spirits. “Wow?”
He rubs the back of his neck, smearing some flour there. “I never heard about the tree coming to life before.”
Now this is something I can shed light on. “He did a long time ago.”
The confusion on his face is priceless. It doesn’t happen often that I know more than him about the history of spirit seekers. “What do you mean?”
“Grune showed me his memories.” Since I’m going to tell him, I might as well make myself comfortable. I take one of the high bar stools and sit down, arms on the bench, while he keeps working at his pasta. “I don’t understand how he did it, but he let me into his heart.”
Wulf looks down at his dough, which he has decided needs some more kneading despite having already been put through the pasta machine. “It must be because of your high NAV. Maybe five hundred is the limit to a spirit seeker’s most powerful intuition.”
It’s no more than a wild guess. While three hundred has been established as the limit of sight, there is no way the other limits would line up so nicely. But I get the gist. I’m above the line, he’s below. Case solved.
“A long time ago, the spirit seekers living here and he worked with each other.” The dryad had even gifted the seeker with a staff of his own essence: the ultimate sign of trust.
“And when was that supposed to be?” Wulf asks, his voice showing a strain I’m more familiar with.
“I don’t know. I assume when Spandau was founded or shortly after.” I’d only seen a man leaning against a younger blooming tree. The clothes had looked old, like medieval-old.
Wulf looks up with a snort. “The SSA was officially founded in 1767. That’s over five hundred years after Spandau’s founding.”
“There were spirit seekers before that.” Rebeka told me about the ones she learnt about at university. I wait a moment before I let go of the juiciest bit of information I got from the dryad. “True spirit seekers.”
Naturally, Wulf frowns, his eyes darkening with hardly suppressed anger. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I sigh. I have absolutely no interest to be caught in another one of his storms. “I can only tell you what he showed me. I mean, people with an attunement to nature didn’t just turn up in the eighteenth centur
y, or did they?”
The storm settles a little. “No, of course not. Rudimentary structures were established in most Eurasian and African countries before then, but they’ve never been organised until 1767. So, what is a true spirit seeker according to a dryad?”
My toes are tipped on the lower metal bar of the stool. This might go fatally wrong. “He called me a true spirit seeker.”
Wulf locks eyes with me. So many emotions pass over his face in seconds, yet he doesn’t voice any. I can only imagine his outrage, the denial, the confusion. But when he finally speaks, it’s only to tell me to continue.
“I think that a long time ago, spirit seekers didn’t so much fight against spirits—at least not exclusively—but work with them. They listened to the trees and the wind and tended to both humans and spirits alike.” At least, that’s what I got from Grune. “You’re at war with the spirits. Maybe us humans are at war with nature, and that’s where it all went wrong.”
I can see Wulf taking a couple of deep breaths, once again fighting down the impulse to tell me how wrong I am. At long last, he asks, “Do you think he told you the truth?”
“He showed me his heart,” I say instead. “I believe him.”
Another deep breath, and he breaks eye contact. He goes back to cranking his dough through the machine, leaving me hanging until I hear a mutter, “Well, I believe you.”
So, he believes me. That’s a new one, for sure. He never… “Oh.” I suddenly realise why he would back down so easily. “About that. Did you really mean it? That I should lead the team?”