“Seris, wait,”
But I was already moving, following the silver thread through trees that bent aside to let me pass. Behind me, I heard Daemon curse and hurry to catch up, his shadows writhing with agitationas they struggled to keep pace with something they couldn’t see or touch.
The forest grew stranger with every step.
Trees moved when I wasn’t looking directly at them, rearranging themselves into new configurations that somehow felt more right than what had been there before. Violet flowers bloomed and withered in seconds, their petals falling upward to disappear into branches that shouldn’t have been able to catch them.
“This isn’t natural,” Daemon said, his voice tight with strain.
“Nothing about the Nightwood is natural.”
“This place… it feels like,”
Home. The word felt strange on my tongue. I’d never seen Vaelthorne, had no memories of the place my mother had described in her stories. But as we followed the silver path deeper into the forest’s heart, I felt something in my chest loosening. Recognition. Belonging. The sense that every step was bringing me closer to where I was meant to be.
The voice came again as the sun began to set, painting the forest in shades of gold and crimson.
Almost there. Almost home.
“I hear a voice. Someone is leading us,” I told Daemon. My thoughts immediately went to my mother. My brain began to plant seeds of hope, that she was still alive. That she had survived the flames and was here now.
He didn’t argue, but I could see the skepticism in his dark eyes. Death magic users didn’t believe in gentle ghosts or protective spirits. To them, the dead were either gone completely or twisted into something hungry and malevolent.
But my mother had always been stronger than death.
The silver path led us through a grove of trees. Beyond the grove, the path began to descend, winding down into a valleyhidden from the outside world by mists that moved without any breeze to drive them.
At the bottom, light shimmered between two trees. It was as if the space wasn’t a part of this world. As we got closer, I could feel the magic held within it. It was a portal in the shape of a mirror, adorned by a flowery silver frame.
And there, nestled in the valley’s heart like a jewel in a velvet box, was Vaelthorne.
But it wasn’t in ruins.
The village was unlike anything I had ever seen. The trees blended flawlessly with the buildings, intertwined into perfection. Streams flowed through the streets in careful patterns, their water so clear I could see the bottom despite the depth. Gardens bloomed in impossible profusion, flowers in colors that had no names growing beside herbs that sparkled with their own inner light.
It was beautiful. Alive. Perfect.
And completely impossible.
“It’s preserved,” Daemon said, his voice full of wonder and suspicion in equal measure. “This place… it’s not our world.”
“How is that possible?”
“Someone with incredible power would have had to anchor it. Pin it to some… space and maintain the binding for…” He looked around at the village that should have been ash and memory. “Decades. Maybe longer.”
That’s when I saw her.
A figure stood at the village’s edge, tall and graceful and achingly familiar, despite the fact that I’d never seen her before. Silver hair that moved like water. Eyes the color of deep forest shadows. Skin that seemed to hold its own inner light. She wore robes that shifted between blue and green and silver, changing with each breath like the surface of a deep pool.
Fae. Unmistakably, undeniably Fae.
I knew immediately she was the one who had been speaking to me. The one who had led us here.
“Seris, daughter of Lyanna,” she called, her voice carrying easily across the distance. “Welcome home.”
CHAPTER 9
SERIS
