Only then did I take in my surroundings. I was in a forest, at first glance, not unlike the woods of Brier Len. But the resemblance ended there.
These trees weren’t sick or rotting. They stood tall and imposing, towering high above, their trunks thick and ancient. Massive roots curled around their bases, twisted and gnarled like frozen serpents, each bend like a page in a fairytale.
They were beautiful. And they were dangerous.
While the trees of Brier Len made their venom obvious, these were more insidious. The trees of Torhiel didn’t warn, they welcomed. Theyloomed in quiet majesty, drawing you in with their grandeur. But beneath their bark, I could sense something else. Something darker that I needed to stay away from.
Water.
Right, water.
I needed to find it. Now.
Where there were trees, there had to be water.
I forced myself to my feet, every movement aching. My knees trembled, and pain radiated through my limbs, but I stood. My eyes flicked in every direction, searching for a clue, anything to point me toward a stream. A spring. A drop.
I sensed danger from the trees, but beyond them, the forest felt still. Safe enough, perhaps, to wander. If there was water, I would find it. I stilled myself, drawing in a slow, careful breath. I let everything else fall away, every ache, every thought, and focused what little energy I had left into listening. But the silence was absolute.
No trickle of water.
No rustling leaves.
Not even the faint chirp of a bird.
The only living things in this forest were the trees and me. The weight of that realization tightened in my chest. Panic surged suddenly. I tried to suppress it, to hold the line as I always had, but the strength just wasn’t there anymore. Everything that had happened, the escape, the wounds, the hunger, it was too much. I was slipping beneath the surface, unable to stay afloat.
How long had it been since Falhurst?
And Leya. What happened to Leya?
Had they killed her after I left? I hadn’t planned to take her far, just far enough to give her a chance to start again, somewhere new.That’s her fault, not yours, a cold, selfish voice whispered at the edge of my thoughts. I never asked for her to become my responsibility. Still, I couldn’t shake the image of her falling into Gadriel’s hands. Would hetorture her? Try to use her against me? Leya didn’t know anything, not really.
But she had seen what I was.
She saw the power. The darkness.
And there was no hiding it now. Not from her. Not from anyone.
I wondered if anyone had survived Falhurst at all.
The inner city might have been spared. But the outer gates, the sentries, the archers on the second wall, those who rushed to respond, they had fallen. I saw them slain. I saw them die. The darkness had pulled me away before I could watch every last one of them fall, but I hoped none walked away from what I’d done.
Word would soon reach Gadriel. Someone had to have survived long enough to tell him what happened in Falhurst. News of the destruction I left behind would reach him eventually. And when it did, Gadriel would know what I’d become. I wasn’t just the woman he found on the outskirts anymore, I was something else entirely. Something wretched.
A monster.
Then, a colder thought crept in, tightening in my chest.
Was Gadriel already here? In Torhiel?
Time had unraveled since Falhurst, slipping through my grasp like water. I had no real sense of how long it had been. That city had marked the beginning of his journey, and he’d told me himself that it would take three months, at the very least, to travel from Hyrall to Torhiel.
But I recalled the creature. How we fled. How the world molded around us. The way space and time seemed to bend beneath the weight of our escape.
With the darkness pushing us forward, what should’ve taken months by carriage had passed in weeks, perhaps even less.
Gods, what was happening? What did I turn into?
