They would regret tossing him away.
CHAPTER1
Smoke.
Fire.
Screams.
Rance surfaced from deep meditation, groggily trying to separate his human consciousness from his home tree. Still sluggish, he couldn’t process what was happening until pain seared up his spine, snapping him alert.
Screaming, he tumbled from his tree and onto the smoking forest leaves. His back throbbed from the burn, and billowing ash stung his eyes and clogged his lungs. Coughing, with his heart pounding double time, he lurched to his feet, narrowly avoiding a flume of fire.
His tree!
Frantic, he spun around, pushing out enough magic to extinguish the flames scorching the bark. He swayed woozily as magic burst from his thin frame and stole most of his stamina. At fifteen, his reserves were low, andhe could only perform a limited amount of magic. Before his tree could catch fire again, he pressed the travel runes his mother had carved into the trunk years earlier. With a flash of white light, the tree twisted and shrank out of sight beneath the smoldering underbrush.
Rance dropped to his knees and batted away the smoking leavesto uncover a chain with a shiny, silver, stylized tree dangling from its links. He threw the necklace over his head, wincing as the hot metal seared his neck. He’d rather have a minor injury now than no home later.
He couldn’t afford to lose his only place of safety. Trees had to grow a hundred rings before a dryad was strong enough to produce a new one. He remembered what his mother endured when her last one contracted a rare fungus, and she had to grow a new tree. It was one of his few memories of her spending extended time with him outside their trees. Unfortunately, saplings were rare, leading to a lonely childhood.
A swift breeze swirled through the burning forest, fanning the flames and carrying the smoke back at him.
“Mother!” he shouted between hacking coughs.
Where was everyone? His mother would never abandon him in a burning forest.
Why was the Grove burning anyway? The protection runes should have prevented anything from catching fire. Someone would have had to find their hidden location and destroy the wards for this to happen.
It was either a horrible accident, or there was a traitor in the Grove.
A tree beside him exploded with a loud bang.
Rance ducked.
“Focus, Rance,” he whispered. A lonely childhood had ingrained the habit of talking to himself.
“Mother!” he shouted again. Some of the other dryads would have gladly let him burn, but never her. He was not blind to their disdain for having a male in their Grove. Their discontent had increased significantly as he grew older. However, that did not include everyone. Something else must have happened for the entire Grove to abandon him to the flames.
None of the trees around him had occupants, and the screaming that had woken him had fallen silent. Ominously silent.
Dryads would never voluntarily abandon their trees. Had they been taken? Why had no one kidnapped him from his tree along with the others?
It took specialized magical knowledge and much power to de-tree a dryad, and few had enough energy. His mother once explained the process when hepanicked after reading a story about wizards stealing dryads for rituals or potions.
Despite the inferno blazing around him, the silence in the trees sent a chill shivering down his spine. Had his mother been stolen? He tried to see through the smoke, but his watering eyes blurred his vision. His back hurt, his lungs ached, and if he didn’t move soon, he was going to die in this forest that had once been his home.
Swirling white ash would’ve given the illusion of fluttering snowflakes if the trees around him weren’t exploding like bombs. The release of built-up dryad magiccaused the trunks to burst, but knowing the science behind the sound did little to calm his nerves other than reassure him that his dryad family wasn’t shattering along with their homes.
But his mother wouldn’t have left. She wouldn’t have abandoned him.
Where was she?
He couldn’t see!
“Mother!” he screamed, gasping for breath and hoping against hope to spot her between gaps in the inferno.
“Rance!” Her voice carried over the crackling flames.
