by Rain Oxford
“I don’t know, but I’m sure she has a plan to get exactly what she wants from me, which is dark magic. That’s another reason I need to have my sorcery removed and hidden somewhere.” I laid my bag down on the ground to use as a pillow. “I’m going to sleep.”
We both settled down and I tried very hard to shake the feeling of being watched. After a while, I rolled over to look at him. He was fiddling with the string around his wrist. “What?” he asked.
“Are you going to eat me in my sleep?”
“Friends are like potatoes. If you eat them, they die.”
“Is that a no?”
“Are you a potato?”
* * *
There were whispers all around me, half lost in the wind. I was in the forest on my way to fight Magnus and the syrus was right in front of me, except everything had a blue tone. It was the whispers that woke me. The whispers had told me how to open it. They wanted me to help. But it wasn’t Merlin.
The whispers were in my head, trying to convince me to open the chest. Part of me wanted to do it, while the rest of me fought against it. The creature in there was so much more sinister than Merlin. It wanted to hunt.
I felt the unmistakable sensation of being watched and looked up into the trees. There were hundreds of sets of small, glowing, red eyes staring down at me. Suddenly, I couldn’t move, yet it wasn’t out of fear; my arms and legs were turning to stone. One of the creatures flew down and I realized it was a massive black bird.
* * *
I shot up out of my sleep, ready to attack a foe that wasn’t there. My movement startled several creatures in the tree above us, causing them to make strange howling sounds that sent chills down my spine. I looked up and saw four sets of glowing red eyes.
Chapter 7
Standing so quickly had disoriented me, especially since I was still half asleep. The glowing red eyes, however, chased away the fatigue pretty quickly. I didn’t make any more sudden movements because I wasn’t sure what the creatures were. Kirin nudged me in the back and I stroked his nose absentmindedly. “You’re going to skewer me with that horn one of these days. I think it’s time to go.”
The unicorn nodded. Sam nipped at Asiago’s chest, causing the necromancer to shriek and jump to his feet. The creatures screeched and took to the air, but that did not calm Kirin or Sam. The griffon didn’t give Asiago a chance to get his bearings; Sam lowered his head and pushed Asiago up, onto his back clumsily. I climbed up onto the unicorn and both the unicorn and griffon took off running.
Since it was still dark, I couldn’t clearly make out the black creatures that attacked us. I was pretty sure they were large bats, but I had never been attacked by a bat before. They bit and scratched at my head, nearly nocking me off Kirin’s back, so I leaned my head flat against the unicorn’s neck. Kirin suddenly went down and I hit the ground with enough force to stun me.
The next thing I knew, Sam and Kirin were standing over Asiago and me, protecting us. I tried to reach up for my staff, but my arms wouldn’t move. My head throbbed so hard I couldn’t think. Although I saw Asiago standing, it didn’t register in my mind what he was doing until he grabbed my staff, nearly getting trampled, and put it in my hand.
As soon as I touched the wood, the crystal burned with a bright blue light, its magic flooded me, my headache vanished, and I could think clearly. Protect us. And my stupid staff turned into a sword. I groaned with irritation as I stood. Fortunately, the magic was masking all the pain in my body, so it was possible to stand. Fighting was another story.
We were being attacked by not one, but four bat-like creatures. I swung the sword at one of them who was clawing at Sam’s wing. Instead of cutting the creature down, I bludgeoned it with the flat side of the blade. The sword pulsed with a deep red glow, distracting me. I shouted when a sharp pain stabbed into my right shoulder. One of the creatures gripped the blade and tried to pull the sword out of my hand.
It wasn’t a sword, though; it was a tool of magic that was bonded to me. Magic welled up inside me so quickly I didn’t know what was happening. “Go away!” I shouted. Magic burst from me, through the sword, and pulsed. The pulse was strange enough on its own, but it also amplified my words and made them echo off the trees. As if they were hit by a severe wind, all four creatures were thrown away from me.
Asiago jumped onto Sam’s back, I mounted Kirin, and we were running again, as fast as a unicorn and griffon could gallop, which was really fast. “What did you do?!” Asiago asked, barely audible over the sound of hooves.
“I don’t know!”
Sam was having a problem running on his mismatched paws, because he kept trying to use his wings. Unfortunately for him, his wingspan was too wide for this part of the forest.
I heard the stream and remembered that we were trying not to get lost. “Follow the stream!” I shouted. Kirin and Sam obeyed, changing direction very slightly. When the stream came into view, it was easy for the griffon and unicorn to follow.
Finally, my sword changed back into a staff. Unfortunately, the magic that was holding back the pain disappeared. I passed out before I hit the ground.
* * *
It was pitch black, there wasn’t enough space, I couldn’t breathe, and the only thing I could hear was a menacing whispering. I was both asleep and awake at the same time.
* * *
I jerked awake, confused and in pain. Despite that, I knew what woke me, and it made me laugh. “Stop it. That tickles.” Kirin was licking my shoulder. I sat up and he nuzzled my head gently, nearly gouging me with his horn. I patted his nose and pushed him away.
“Are you feeling better?” Asiago asked, suddenly standing right beside me.
I shrieked, because he was a very creepy man. “Don’t do that; I thought you were a ghost.”
“Thank you. You look like death as well.”
I looked down at myself and realized I was covered in blood. Obviously, the bat creatures had wounded me pretty badly, but when I pulled my tunic sleeve down to study my shoulder and chest, I didn’t see any wounds. “What happened? I was injured.”
“You were bleeding terribly. The unicorn licked it up and that healed your wounds.”
“I didn’t know they had healing powers. Thank you,” I said to Kirin, stroking his mane. “Where’s my robe?” After a moment, I remembered. “Oh, no. I used it as a blanket last night. I must have left it when we were attacked.”
“Do we need to go back for it?”
I really wanted to. Although it was a part of my Dracre lineage, it was one of the few possessions I had. It was the only thing I ever had that proved I was a Dracre; my appearance certainly made it hard to believe. “No. We can try to get it when we leave. We can’t afford to get lost.” I took off my shirt, dipped it in the stream, and wrung it out until the blood was gone. I had a spare change of clothes, but I’d worn worse.
For a moment, I heard a quiet whispering and glanced around. I couldn’t see anyone watching us, though. As quickly as it started, the whispers faded.
“Your zombies aren’t near, are they?” I asked.
Asiago shook his head. “I don’t sense them close. We did a lot of traveling and they aren’t very quick. In fact, there’s nothing to say we’re still on the same island. I doubt they can cross the ocean.”
Instead of riding, Asiago and I walked. I knew if we followed the stream long enough, we would get out of the forest somewhere, and then we could find someone to tell us how to get to Veronica.
* * *
“What in the world?” I asked. I picked up my robe, which was lying at the base of a large tree. “This is where we slept last night. We must have gone upstream when we were running from the bat creatures.”
Asiago nodded. “We must have. We didn’t, but we must have.”
“We’ve been going downstream as far as I know. Let’s just keep going.”
* * *
We walked all day, until we were exhausted and hungry. Asiago was highly insulted when we sa
w a house made of candy. “Someone should write a book about this place,” I commented. We considered hunting for food, but we didn’t have enough supplies and I couldn’t stomach killing an animal. There were no recognizable berries and plants, so we couldn’t be sure they were safe to eat. Fortunately, I had some clay left.
“Maybe we should stop here for the night,” I said, spotting a large tree next to the stream.
“Might as well; we slept here last night.”
I groaned. He was right; this was the same tree I had found my robe under that morning. “We’re going in circles! The stream is circular! How can that be possible? We were going downstream the whole way.”
“It must be magic.”
“We need to ask someone how to get out of here! You and Sam stay.” I mounted Kirin. “Try to find us someone.” The unicorn nodded and took off at a gallop.
We ran for a while before we came upon the block house. I got down and knocked on the door without hesitation. The door opened to a young girl, maybe eleven or twelve years of age, with golden blond hair, bright blue eyes, and rosy cheeks. Her dress was deep blue and she wore a red, velvet cloak over it.
“Are you a werewolf?” she asked.
“No.”
She shrugged. “Okay, then.”
“Do you run into werewolves a lot here?”
She nodded and pulled a crossbow from behind her back. “I’ve been hunting the werewolf for over a year. I’m setting a trap for that creep. He’s going to get what’s coming to him.”
“Well, good luck with that. I was hoping I could ask you for directions. I’m trying to find the way out.”
“Way out? There is no way out of the Endless Forest. You can only go in.”
“What do you mean there’s no way out? People never leave?”
She shrugged again. “People can leave, but only with magic. You need powerful magic or help from the fairies.”
I groaned. In that case, we’re trapped here forever, because the fairies would never help a sorcerer and necromancer. “But I have to get to the other side. I’m looking for a sorceress named Veronica.”
“What do you want with the sorceress?”
“She kidnapped my aunt. There must be a way to get to her!”
She shrugged for the third time. “I don’t see why you can’t. The sorceress is in the forest.”
“She is? Where? How do I find her?”
“By wanting to find her, of course.”
I rolled my eyes. “Which way do I go?”
She shrugged. “Any way is fine.”
I held back my frustration. Even her shrugging was starting to irritate me. “How far is she?”
She shrugged. “As far as you want her to be.”
I closed my eyes and sighed, pushing away the frustration. Saving Livia was priority and we were running out of time to do so, but getting angry wouldn’t solve anything. “So, if I go back the way I came from, the exit would be gone?”
“There was never an exit, only an entrance.”
“Fine. You’re saying that if I look for her, I’ll find her, right?”
She shrugged. “Probably. Unless you die first. Sorceresses don’t like visitors.”
“I know.” Fortunately, I had something she wanted. “Well, good luck with your werewolf hunting.” I left her and mounted Kirin. I didn’t condone werewolf hunting, despite knowing most werewolves were feral and most hunters got into it because a friend or family member was killed by one. I worried about innocent ones getting hurt.
Kirin and I returned to the stream, where Asiago and Sam were waiting. “Did you find anything out?” Asiago asked.
“Apparently, we can’t just walk out of here; we can only get out using powerful magic or with the help of fairies.”
Asiago frowned thoughtfully. “No fairy is going to help a sorcerer and necromancer.”
“However, Veronica’s place is in the forest, so when we save Livia, she should be able to get us out of here. We should be able to find her just by looking for her.”
“But we’ve been looking for her all day.”
“Right. This is a forest of magic. Maybe we need to use magic to find her.”
“I can resurrect some more zombies, or you can use some sorcery.”
“I’m not going to use sorcery. I can find her using wizardry or no magic at all. Let’s go in…” I glanced around, “… that direction.” I pointed down a creepy, dark path. Of course, the entire forest was creepy and dark, since it was night. “Maybe we should wait until morning.”
Asiago stood up. “I don’t think we have anything to worry about.”
“We could get eaten. There’s a werewolf out there.”
“If we get eaten, at least we would no longer be lost.”
* * *
We walked for a while before we came to a clearing with a cave and two signs.
There are dragons ahead.
And below that was another sign.
Please do not feed the dragons.
Maybe this was a bad idea. “Let’s not go that way.” I turned around and my eye caught movement. With exaggerated ease, a huge, black bird landed on a low hanging branch right above us. Kirin and Sam started making sounds of unease.
I took a cautious step towards my staff, but a deep warning sound filled the air. I froze just as the wolf stepped out of the darkness of the trees. Bright moonlight illuminated his dark brown fur and his bared white teeth. His body wasn’t like Merlin’s. His snout was shorter, his fur was sparser, and his front legs were shorter than his hind legs. It was the werewolf.
“Tell me you have some necromancy to help us,” I whispered.
“Only if he’s dead. If you would kill him, I can make him into a perfect pet.” The werewolf snarled. “I highly suggest you put aside your issues and use sorcery.”
“Sorcerers need magical tools to control their sorcery. If I tried to attack the wolf without my staff, we might all be killed.” The raven cawed and I got the strangest feeling he was laughing at me. It reminded me of my mother. No matter how cruel she was, I couldn’t deny that my mother was a strong woman. She told me many times failure was just a state of mind, and that was why she never failed. She also always had explosive powder with her.
“If you don’t do something, we’ll die. I don’t have time to call a ghost to protect us,” Asiago said.
I couldn’t reach my wand or staff, so I had to outsmart the wolf, and I had to do it quickly. Keeping eye contact with the werewolf, I leaned towards Asiago and whispered in the necromancer’s ear. “I need you to distract him. When I say go, you run towards him, and I’ll run for my staff.”
“It won’t work!” he hissed.
“Trust me.” While the werewolf was focused on my eyes, I discreetly reached for the dagger in my boot. “Now!” In the next instant, Asiago started towards the werewolf, the werewolf started for him, and I pushed him out of the way. Instead, I rushed the werewolf, startling the shifter. I knew he would hear my whisper because shifters had the same hearing as the animal they shifted into, and Merlin could have heard me.
The wolf calculated the distance perfectly; he knew exactly when to leap so that he could tear out my throat. That’s what I had been planning. I watched his eyes for that moment, and then I went down. Because he wasn’t expecting it and I was too low for his attack, his chest was open to me. I didn’t think about killing him, only that he would kill me if I didn’t fight back. I dug the dagger deep into his chest and he hit the ground, rolled, and stilled.
The horror of what I’d done clawed its way through my gut until I rolled over and threw up in the grass. I just killed someone. I’m a Dracre after all.
“Ayden!”
I sat up and turned, shocked beyond words, because the werewolf was struggling to his paws. Slowly, he turned to me, and there was murder in his eyes. There was no time for labels, no time for fear, and no time for wizardry.
I held out my hand, imagined my staff flying to me, and felt my magic reac
hing for it. No matter how many times I had failed to make my staff come to me, I knew it would work this time. It would work because I was dead if it didn’t.
The staff smacked into my hand hard enough to leave a bruise. A deep blue beam of light pulsed from the crystal straight into me. When it did, all my trepidation and reservations vanished, leaving me with unfamiliar confidence.
“Stop him!” I demanded to the staff. Dark red magic shot from my staff into the werewolf, instantly turning him to stone.
The black bird swooped down, grabbed my staff in his talons, and took off with it before I could react. It was suddenly very quiet and calm. I watched the bird disappear into the night sky with it.
“Why did you just let it go?” Asiago asked.
“Because if I attacked the bird, he would have died, and he isn’t responsible. Veronica is controlling the bird.” I carefully approached the stone werewolf and wiggled my dagger free.
“Are you in shock? You’re acting very calm about this. At least, I think you are.”
“A sorcerer doesn’t feel fear,” my mother had always said. “Fear clouds the mind and hinders your magic.”
I shook my head. “I’m not in shock. We will need to come back and free the werewolf, though. I think he was under Veronica’s control as well.”
“I thought she couldn’t control magical creatures.”
“Shapeshifters aren’t magical like unicorns and griffons.” I slipped my dagger back into my boot, patted Kirin’s nose, and reached into the saddlebag.
“How are you not more upset that your staff was taken?”
“I think I just realized that I can’t win against Veronica with wizardry.”
His jaw dropped. “You’re going to give up trying to be a wizard, then?”
“No. I still have every intention of getting rid of my sorcery for good. However, I was raised by one of the most famous sorceresses in the world. I can fake it.”