The water parted before me, as if I were its queen. It pulled away from my feet, leaving a path of wet earth and drowning grass exposed before me. With each step I took, the floodcarved the path forward, as if the water itself recognized me as something other. Something more.
"Kill her!" The captain's voice cracked with something that might have been fear. He gestured wildly at the remaining guards. "Kill the fucking witch!"
But none of them moved.
They stood frozen in the rising flood—now up to their thighs—with faces gone white with fear beneath their helms. One guard's sword trembled so badly that the blade caught the raindrops and sent them scattering. Another backed away, shaking his head in slow denial.
"I said after her!" The captain grabbed the nearest guard by his pauldron, shaking him. "That's an order!"
The guard wrenched free and ran.
Or tried to. The water was up to their hips now, thick and resistant, slowing their movements to a nightmarish crawl. The fleeing guard high-stepped through the flood, making for the ice wall that still surrounded the property in a perfect circle.
The others followed. Training and courage abandoned them as they fought through what was now chest-deep water. Their armor dragged at them, weighing them down, making each step a struggle.
"Cowards!" The captain's bellow turned desperate. "The king will have your heads for—"
He swallowed the rest of his threat as the water climbed past his sternum.
The iron hounds were already done for, their massive forms dragged down by the weight of their own enchanted metal. They'd disappeared beneath the churning surface minutes ago, sunk like stones to the bottom of what had once been my family's modest yard. Now only streams of bubbles marked their locations—silver trails that rose through the dark water likedeparting souls, the last gasps of their magical animating force bleeding away into the flood.
The first guard reached the ice wall and grabbed for purchase on its smooth surface. His gauntleted fingers scrabbled against the lucent barrier, searching for any handhold. For a moment, his hands found a grip.
Then the wall grew.
Right where he touched it, the ice surged upward in a fresh column, smooth as glass and twice as high. The guard's hands slipped free, and he crashed back into the water with a strangled cry.
Another guard attempted the same fifty feet down the wall. Same result—ice flowing up wherever flesh met the frozen barrier, as if the wall itself refused to be climbed.
The water reached their necks.
Panic transformed them from the king's elite forces into drowning animals. They thrashed and kicked, armor weighing them down as they fought to keep their chins above the surface. Their shouts dissolved into gurgles.
The captain was the last I saw clearly. His cold gray eyes found mine across the flood, and in them, I recognized something I'd never seen before in a guard's face.
Terror.
Then the water closed over his head.
Run, Guinevere,a woman's voice sounded in my head—one I didn't recognize.You must leave this place. There will be more of them coming.
My parents,I thought in response, hating the idea of leaving them.
Are dead,the voice insisted.And you will be as well if you remain. Go now and seek refuge in the woods.
So I did exactly that. I turned around, and the water parted for me as I headed back to the treeline that had originally hiddenme. Tears streamed down my face, and I could scarcely breathe. But I ran through trees that clawed at my clothes and branches that whipped my face. I ran until my lungs burned and my legs gave out, until I collapsed in a hollow between ancient roots and retched into the moss.
When I finally looked up, night had fallen. But I could hear the distant sound of horses' hooves. And worse—the barking of the Iron Hounds. The King's Guard had picked up my scent. They were after me. And after what I'd done to their brothers-in-arms, punishment would not be lenient, nor would it be swift.
I forced myself back to my feet and continued to run through the Eldergreen woods that bordered my home until I reached the edge of the wood where no one ventured.
The WhisperingWilds—the hauntedwoods.
With no choice left to me and the sound of pursuit growing closer, I hurled myself headlong into the Whispering Wilds. The moment my feet crossed the threshold from ordinary forest into this cursed realm, the air around me changed—thickening with an almost tangible weight of ancient magic that made my skin prickle and my breath catch.
Run, Guinevere,the woman's voice insisted once more.Do not stop.
I ran deeper into the twisted maze of skeletal trees, their gnarled branches reaching toward me like the desperate fingers of the long-dead. The whispers started as barely audible murmurs but grew louder—voices sounding from everywhere and nowhere all at once. Glowing fungi painted the bark in shifting patterns of blue and deep purple, the light pulsing in rhythm with my racing heartbeat.
