Deadlines & Dryads

by Rebecca Chastain

  Guilt pierced my heart. I was getting a story out of this, but Quinn was here only to support me. I shouldn’t be dragging him into danger.

  “I need to keep going, but it would really help me if you were in the air.” He wouldn’t return to Terra Haven if I asked him to, which made getting him above the trees’ reach the best option. He would be safe and I would still be able to use his magical enhancement if I needed the boost. The rationalization sounded mercenary and cold, and I opened my mouth to urge Quinn back to Terra Haven but stopped myself for the same reason as before. Quinn had come with me because we were friends. He’d no sooner abandon me than I would him, and I wouldn’t insult him by asking him to go. “Stay up there, and if you see anything bad happen to me, go for help.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.” I patted his shoulder, trying to look reassuring. Tension thrummed my nerves, but I couldn’t bring myself to turn around. My journalistic instincts urged me forward. Whatever had riled this forest, it was important. The story was too big to turn my back on, especially not with the chance to go to the everlasting tree on the line.

  “Okay. I’ll stick close.”

  Quinn trotted ahead of me a few steps, then spread his stone wings wide and launched into the sky. He climbed almost straight up, twisting aside when thick oak branches clutched at him. I didn’t breathe until he cleared the canopy.

  Then I turned and faced the seething forest alone.

  3

  I broke into a jog, telling myself I was hurrying to catch up with Nathan. If my heart hadn’t been knocking against my chest like I’d already run a mile, I might have believed myself. Prickles ran down my spine, and I jerked to check behind me. The road remained empty, but the sight didn’t reassure me. Giant oaks on either side of the road twisted and scraped against each other, their branches moaning and cracking as they flexed. The noise level rose and fell in an unintelligible language, but the message came through loud and clear: Danger. Run away.

  I kept my steps measured, knowing that if I gave in to the compulsion to sprint, I wouldn’t be able to slow again until my legs gave out.

  “Come on, FPD squad. Where are you?”

  At the sound of my voice, the nearest trees convulsed, long branches thrashing across the road, clawing for me. I shied, and the tree on the opposite side scratched a limb into the strap of my bag, tangling a cluster of slender twigs around my bicep. Clamping down on a scream, I yanked free, tucked my bag under one arm, and bolted. The oaks raged, roiling in a furor as I tore past them, their collective noises blending into a chilling many-throated moan. In the periphery of my vision, their writhing bodies transformed into monsters, and I whipped my head back and forth, striving vainly to keep the entire grove in sight. When I tripped, I caught myself with a hand planted in the sharp gravel and surged back to my feet, gulping air.

  Flashes of Quinn’s golden shape flickered above me, and the sight of him calmed the terrified chatter of my unraveling thoughts. I wasn’t alone. Drawing deeply on the magic inside me, I held the raw elements ready.

  This story better be spectacular, I thought. My lungs burned and pain lanced my side with every pounding step, but panic rode too close to the surface to allow me to slow.

  I pelted around a bend in the road, sprinting into a narrow grassy meadow—right into a trap. A heavy band lashed around my midsection, lifting me, my still-pumping legs churning empty air. Terror clogged my throat and I flailed, every defensive spell evaporating in my panic. I clawed into the restraint constricting around my waist, expecting to encounter the rough bark of an oak. Instead, my fingers slid against slick cables of air strengthened by delicate fibers of wood element.

  “Damn it, Kylie! What are you doing here?”

  When his words penetrated my frenzy, I froze; then I whipped my head around, peering through snarls of blond hair at Captain Grant Monaghan. Dizzying relief flooded my body, and I sagged against his sturdy magic.

  Grant lowered me to the ground and released me. I bent in half, resting my hands against my knees while I caught my breath, my face hidden as I struggled to regain my composure. Around us, the trees seethed, the cracks and snaps of their branches so loud that it drowned out my ragged breathing.

  “Are you spying on me again?” Grant demanded.

  I swiped sweat from my forehead and didn’t look up from my toes. “I see your ego’s still twice as large as you, Captain.” Which was saying something, given the man’s stature. He stood a mere head taller than me, but next to his broad shoulders and muscular frame, I never failed to feel tiny.

  “Answer the question: What are you doing here?” He narrowed the distance between us, looming above me.

  I straightened, pushing my hair out of my face. Seeing him had eased my full-throttle terror—not that I would ever admit to Grant how scared I had been—and I met his dark gaze with a measure of calm. From his severe haircut, graced with a peppering of gray at the temples, to his broad shoulders held straight and square to his trim waist and thick thighs, Grant gave the impression he could halt a runaway train by sheer willpower and perhaps the use of one bulging bicep.

  In other words, he epitomized the image of an FPD captain, and he tended to believe he could boss everyone around, not just the members of his squad.

  I rolled my shoulders back, lifted my chin, and countered his question with one of my own. “Where’s the rest of your squad?”

  “Busy.” He surveyed the agitated trees, then pinned me with a hard glare. “You need to take your damn tracker off me.”

  “I’ve never had a tracker on you in my life!” I planted my hands on my hips and did my best to look offended. As captain of the preeminent FPD squad in Terra Haven, Grant often operated at the center of the city’s most intriguing stories, and I’d made it a habit to have at least three rumor scouts circulating at all times, hunting out instances of his name. But I had never once put a tracker on the man.

  Of course, if I could have done so without him spotting my clumsy magic and destroying it, I would have.

  “Then what are you doing here?” Grant’s square jaw bunched and he looked like he wanted to shake me. “Are you blind as well as foolish? Can’t you see something is wrong? I put up a warning beacon for this exact reason: This is no place for a civilian.”

  “I’m not here as a civilian; I’m here as a reporter and—”

  Grant spun and thrust me behind him. A second later I heard pounding hoofbeats. Grant readied another net of air, and I eased sideways to peer around him.

  A wild-eyed mare galloped into the clearing, spotted us, and planted her back feet, skidding to a halt on the dirt road. The rider snapped forward and would have flown over the horse’s neck if she hadn’t reared. Arms flailing, the rider tumbled to the ground. The mare whinnied, spun on a back hoof, and galloped back the way she’d come. Nathan rolled onto his back, groaning.

  “Why, Captain, your callous disregard for that man’s well-being was shocking,” I said, privately pleased Grant had made no effort to break Nathan’s fall.

  “It was safer not to intervene,” Grant said, shooting me a sharp glance.

  Nathan picked himself up and dusted himself off. My petty delight soured when I realized that the loss of his horse decreased my odds of being able to get rid of Nathan.

  “Who are you?” Grant asked.

  Nathan shoved his glasses into place and extended his hand, his eyes lighting up. “Nathan Aspell, sir, senior writer on staff at the Terra Haven Chronicle. I recognize you from your noble work. It’s an honor to meet you, Captain Monaghan.”

  Grant shook his hand, casting a dark look in my direction. I glared right back. It wasn’t as if I had invited Nathan along.

  “Terra Haven is lucky to have such skilled Federal Pentagon Defense warriors as you and your squad defending our streets—and our forests,” Nathan continued, his flagrant fawning nauseating me. “Our paper covered everything you did to save Focal Park. I don’t know what we would’ve done if yo
u hadn’t been there when the park started to implode.”

  “Grant hardly did anything,” I snapped. It hadn’t been “our paper” that had covered the story. It had been me. How convenient of Nathan to overlook that minor detail. “The real hero was the city’s gargoyle healer, Mika Stillwater.”

  Nathan scoffed. “As much as you’d like it, your friend isn’t the center of every story.”

  “Kylie’s right; the city owes Mika an enormous debt of gratitude,” Grant said.

  Nathan’s expression pinched at Grant’s dismissive tone, and I hid my smile. Tugging the hem of his shirt straight, Nathan cleared his throat.

  “Is what’s happening here anything like what happened at Focal Park?” he asked, skewing his tone artificially deeper. He’d pulled out his “serious journalist” voice. I decided not to tell him it made him sound asinine.

  Grant spared him an incredulous look when he realized Nathan had been serious. “No.”

  The forest hadn’t calmed while we’d talked; if anything, it had grown more frenetic. The captain created a test pentagram of the five elements, each elemental side stretching as long as his arm. He set it spinning around the small meadow. The wood line flared bright, pulsing as if static electricity vibrated along its length. The oaks nearest the pentagram shied back, their branches rubbing together in sharp squeaks and shrieks. Grant collapsed the pentagram.

  “You both need to leave. Now. Before you get hurt.”

  “What’s making the trees so active?” I asked. Active sounded better than aggressive or scary.

  “Something dangerous, which is why you need to leave.”

  Nathan fidgeted and glanced back the way his horse had fled, clearly wishing he still had his mount.

  “I’m not leaving here until you do,” I announced, locking stares with Grant. Sunlight glinted off his eyes, fracturing an amber glow through his dark irises. On Nathan, a day’s stubble looked unkempt; on Grant, it only added to his rugged appeal—which I pointedly was not acknowledging, just as I pretended not to notice the shiver that ghosted down my spine when he growled my name.

  “Kylie, this is no time to argue.”

  “Maybe we should listen to him,” Nathan said.

  I didn’t look away from Grant. “You can waste your time trying to kick me out of this public grove, Captain, where I have every right as a citizen of Terra Haven to be.” As I predicted, the comment made the muscles in Grant’s jaw bunch, and I smiled inwardly. It must be aggravating for him that I didn’t jump every time he barked a command. “But I think you have more pressing concerns than arguing with me.”

  “If you’re staying, I’m staying,” Nathan said, as if anyone cared.

  “So what’s the problem?” I asked.

  The oaks around the clearing leaned in, interlocking their branches to close the canopy above us. In the deepening gloom, it looked as if the trunks of the trees split open, the bark curling free to reshape into small, humanoid figures no taller than my waist. The dryads stalked forward on wooden limbs that creaked and popped, their twiglike hands clutching sharp wooden spears. Menace defined their movements, and their glossy, ebony gazes promised violence.

  Shock locked me in place. By their very nature, dryads were docile and nurturing, not . . . homicidal.

  Grant’s hand curled around my forearm, yanking me to his side. He snaked his other arm out to drag Nathan close. I spun to look behind us, trepidation growing. Dryads spilled from the forest to enclose us, a circle of sinister wooden spears poised for a deadly assault.

  “The problem,” Grant said, pitching his voice low, “is the dryads are frenzied.”

  4

  I grabbed every drop of air magic I could hold and prepared a thick air shield, hoping Grant had a plan. Beside me, Nathan cowered against Grant’s broad back, eyes darting to take in the maniacal dryads. The closest dryads hissed, the sound reminiscent of twigs scraping a glass pane. My arm hair stood on end, and I flinched when the dryads jabbed the air with their whittled spears. Before I could cast my shield, Grant enveloped us in an impenetrable ward of oak-tuned wood interlaced with a thick layer of air. I altered my grasp of the elements, trying to match Grant’s, but I couldn’t hold the right ratio of wood to air, and I wasn’t adept enough with wood to tune it to the same resonance as oak. My weave unraveled.

  A lion’s roar split the air, and everyone froze. The limbs above us cracked and snapped as a giant golden boulder plummeted through them, landing with a ground-jarring thud so close to me that I staggered into Grant. Broken twigs and leaves rained down on us, and I shielded my head with an umbrella of solidified air. I drew heavily on the wallop of magic that burst open inside me, grateful to no longer feel so helpless. Quinn reared up on his hind legs and flared his long wings, releasing another ear-ringing roar that made the closest dryads stumble back.

  The gargoyle’s impressive display warmed my heart as much as his bravery. I shot Grant a pointed look. Even the captain would have to admit the presence of a gargoyle was advantageous, and he had me to thank for that.

  Grant stepped around me and bopped Quinn on the nose. “Hush.”

  The gargoyle dropped to all fours and folded his wings, his shoulders hunching in confusion.

  Grant surveyed the dryads, swiveling until he pinpointed a female hanging back near the trees. Like the rest of the dryads, a patchwork of bright green and faded brown leaves camouflaged her trim body, but where most of the dryads possessed gnarled and blackened skin, tones of ash and walnut dappled her bare arms—colors best matched to a young oak. I might have mistaken her for a child or young adult if not for her dark eyes. She studied us with unmistakable maturity and solemnity. Of all the dryads surrounding us, she was the only one not carrying a weapon.

  “Potentate Heartwood, you may remember me; I am Grant Monaghan, caretaker of Terra Haven. My companions and I are here to offer aid and protection from whatever threatens this forest.”

  I frowned. I thought the dryads were the threat. If they weren’t the reason the forest churned with malicious intent, then what was behind this? And why were they holding us at spear point? I shared a speculative glance with Nathan, then turned away, irritated with myself for acknowledging his presence.

  “As proof of my goodwill, I bring you herbal theriaca.” Grant opened a small pouch at his waist. From it, he produced an enormous oak leaf wrapped in a delicate preservative weave of water and wood, and at his touch, the fragile living filaments unfurled into a tenuous bowl. Pulling a small glass vile from the pouch, Grant used his teeth to uncork it, then poured the viscous green contents into the leaf. Around us, the dryads leaned forward, eyes intent upon the liquid.

  Grant dropped the shield. Quinn edged closer to me, the stone feathers of his wings rustling against each other. I rested a hand on his shoulders, taking comfort from him even as I prepared a new shield to protect us both. Nathan didn’t wait, casting a barrier of wood and air around his body so thick it obscured his features. I would have rolled my eyes if I hadn’t been tempted to do the same.

  But the dryads weren’t paying attention to the three of us. All eyes tracked Grant as he stepped forward, holding the enchanted leaf and its contents out to the young dryad leader. Before today, I’d been so certain she lay at the root of the grove’s unrest. Instead, she appeared to be the calm force holding the others in check.

  The potentate sniffed the air, and the interlocked canopy above us bent inward. Wood magic shimmered, coalescing above our heads into a thick, odorless miasma drawn from deep in the bark of the nearest trees. The formless cloud swept the clearing before funneling into a single tendril that snaked through the air and dipped into Grant’s oak leaf. I gaped at the bizarre use of magic, startling when the elemental stem connected with the theriaca and the dryads gasped in unison.

  The dryads’ magic shattered, millions of wood particulates blasting back to the oaks and disappearing into the rough bark. I’d never seen anything like it.

  The army of dryads shuffled, p
arting to make way for the potentate, and the creaks of their movements emphasized the silence that had fallen over the grove. Grant dropped to one knee, extending his offering. I didn’t know enough about dryad culture to know if he did it out of respect or simply to make it easier for the dryad leader to reach the leaf.

  Potentate Heartwood hesitated, taking in me and Nathan, her eyes lingering even longer on Quinn. Gargoyles tended to be city creatures, and I wondered if she’d encountered one before. Finally, when absolute silence had fallen over the meadow, she strode forward and took the oak leaf from Grant’s hand. He held still as a statue as she dipped her mouth into the leaf and drank. When she lifted her head, a quiver ran through her body, and even in the dim light she looked brighter.

  I thought she would speak, but instead she backed up two steps and handed the leaf to the nearest warrior. Then she folded her hands over her stomach and gazed at Grant. He remained on one knee, body relaxed as if he could hold the pose for hours. He seemed equally content to remain in his benign staring match with the potentate, and neither monitored the passage of the herbal theriaca through the dryads.

  I relaxed in increments as aggression bled from the legion of dryads. The theriaca must have been a powerful peace offering, and one I planned to learn more about the first moment I could question Grant. In the meantime . . .

  I sneaked a hand into my bag and pulled out my camera. Using one hand, I unlocked the front and extended the accordion shadowbox and lens, locking them in place with a practiced flick. Normally, I would have lifted the camera to my eye to make the appropriate aperture and focal adjustments, but I didn’t want to chance startling the dryads. Holding the camera at my hip, I toggled the aperture wide open to accommodate the shadowy lighting since I didn’t dare use the flash, chose the longest shutter speed possible, and attempted to aim through the tiny top-down viewfinder. Holding my breath, I snapped several shots of the potentate, hoping to capture a usable picture. Very few photographs had ever been taken of this quiet and normally shy race.