Beat.
Beat.
Beat.
“But I need you to do something now, Elora,” Sorin says against my hair. Screams erupt from the trees, piercing my ears. “I need you to destroy the woods.”
My head spins and chest aches, like a block of ice slowly thawing under the sun. I was dead and now I’m not. There are so many questions but no time for answers.
“We have to destroy the Wicked Wood, Elora,” Sorin demands again. “It’s the only way to ensure you’ll never be trapped here again.”
My mind races. Images from our lives past and this one blurring together. “I can’t…” I rub at my temples. “How am I to destroy it? Grawgeth said it would just grow back.” My chest tightens, pain blooming beneath my breast.
“Maybe this will help.” Sorin gestures to the necklace he’s placed around my neck. “Maybe there’s something in here that can destroy it?”
I wrap the stone in my hand and my magick stirs, drawing to life after days of death. “I…” I bring it to my lips, pushing the cold stone against my mouth, and all at once, I’m filled with magick.
Healer and Seer magick swims together. Memoria and Arma and Stormweilder magick light a fire beneath my veins. It burns and hisses, but I hold the stone close to my lips, searching until the one magick I need comes to the surface.
I suck in a sharp breath as I spin, turning toward the woods.
“Elora?” Sorin steps to my side.
Plague magick pushes forth, silencing all the others. I glance down at my arms, veins turning black.
“Elora,” Sorin says again, but I sprint forward, heading directly back to the Wicked Wood. Sorin screams my name again, following close behind, but I don’t stop until I’m right in the center of the wood. Right in the very place he just kissed me.
“Stand back,” I say over my shoulder. I have no idea if this will work. No idea if Plague magick is powerful enough to destroy the sentient wood but it’s the only option I have. The only option to ensure the Wicked Wood can never draw myself or Grawgeth back here. Without a second thought, I slam my hand down to the ground, letting the magick run through my fingertips and bury itself deep beneath the soil, into the roots of the trees.
The forest erupts. Trees hiss and sway, branches break free, and when I glance up, my heart skips a beat. The deformed, skeletal birch trees of the Wicked Wood have turned black.
“Don’t let go of me,” I say in a panic, not entirely sure what I’m doing. I grab Sorin’s arm. “Ruse, come.” She does in an instant and the three of us hold each other as I grasp the necklace and pull us out of the wood just before the trees come crumbling down.
We tumble to the ground in a heap, Sorin’s body under mine, Ruse just to my left. More and more screaming sounds from behind us, grating against my ears. I push myself off Sorin and spin toward the wood.
The bark on the trees peels back, roots seeped in black. They crash to the ground, groaning and hissing. The amulet pulses around my neck in time with my thoughts so I bring my fingers to it, giving it a gentle stroke.
“Elora?”
Glancing over my shoulder, Sorin has stood, dusting dirt and broken bits of tree limbs from his clothes and hair.
“Are you all right?” He reaches a tentative hand forward then drops it.
Ruse joins my side, her nose nuzzling my shoulder and a sense of ease washes over me. “Yes I’m all right.”
“And you remember?—”
“I do,” I say, and his dark eyes light up, his face perhaps hopeful. “I remember everything.”
His arms wrap around me with lightning speed, his lips on my neck, my forehead.
I reluctantly pull away, so many things in my mind still mixed together. “But we’re not done.”
“No,” he says through a sigh, “we’re not.”
A splintering crack sounds as a large birch tree tumbles down.
“The Fates said we must leave the Wicked Wood something, to somehow ensure they don’t grow back. To make sure Grawgeth doesn’t find herself back here. To ensure you…” He doesn’t finish the sentence but we both tense anyway.
