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With a sigh, I carefully started climbing over it, using the branches like ladder rungs. It wasn’t until I was nearly over it that I saw the acora, its yellow eyes nearly level with my own as it perched on a branch on the other side of the trunk. I flinched, cursing, and the bird took flight, spooked. My foot slipped on the rain starting to freeze against the trunk, and then I was falling, nearly identical to when I’d touched the mirror. My leg landed first, taking all of my weight. Pain ripped all the way to my hip, and I screamed. My head hit next, the pain nearly as bad as when I’d hit it before. My vision blurred and my ears rang. I tried to stand up, but a new wave of pain shot up my leg, making me want to throw up.

“Fuck,” I gasped.

CALLUM

The claustrophobic nature of transportation magic was my second least favorite part of the whole endeavor. The worst was just how sick it made me when we finally stopped moving. Bile rose in my throat as the island of Magefall materialized around us. It took me a minute to swallow past the burning and remember how to breathe without grimacing.

“Welcome to Magefall, alphas of Marish,” the Votarist said.

I inclined my head, not trusting my voice, as the others offered formal farewells and gratitudes. After a brief moment, they were gone, leaving the four of us in the middle of the ancient island forest. Hugh stood to my left, his tunic properly pressed and lint-free, the perfect example of formal court dress in our kingdom. Arden, though, had left his tunic unlaced, revealing the hollow of his throat. The small swirling vine tattoo that ran just beneath his collarbones—the mark of his rank within the guard—was just visible as well.

I took a moment to evaluate the forest around us. The large ludian trees towered over us, their red leaves casting oddly colored light on the forest floor. They made Hugh’s golden skin appear even more flushed than typical. My magic recoiled from the earth, curling inside my chest like a snake readying to strike. The tendrils that had pestered me all morning were absent, too. It was their missing presence that unnerved me the most. I frowned and stretched my neck, trying to attune to the oppressive atmosphere of the sacred island.

“It’s worse than the descriptors,” Arden whispered. “The creeping sensation is unsettling.”

“You feel it as well, then?” Elise asked, the first she’d said since we gathered on the beach of the Passage. “I wasn’t sure if it was my own magic that was causing the sensation. No one mentioned it last time.”

She lowered the hood of her traveling cloak, glancing furtively around the small clearing. Her hair was pulled back, small silver leaves woven through the low-lying messy bun. She’d exchanged the formal court dress she’d worn to receive the mark for a much more practical pair of sturdy pants and tunic that corresponded with the rest of us. Her tunic matched the less intricate needlework of Arden’s rather than the higher-ranking notation of Hugh’s.

A bird called, flying from one canopy branch to another, the blue-gray wings catching in the odd pink lighting of the leaves.

“Yes, it feels as though something lurks beneath the ground, something powerful,” Hugh said. He took a step away from us, his eyes on the bird high in the canopy. The light shone pink against his white hair. He wore his short for the court, the ends only brushing his chin, not quite long enough to pull back at the nape of his neck. “The various historical accounts speak of a great power being within Magefall and that’s part of why it remains set apart. I wasn’t sure I believed them, but I absolutely do now.”

It didn’t surprise me Hugh could feel the rumbling of the island beneath our feet. As a Drulean man, just like Vincent, he could feel the power within the earth, could harness it if needed and bend it to his will. The fact Elise could feel it, too, as well as Arden—who had no latent magic at all—was more curious.

“That you would come back here at all is a testament to your bravery, Elise,” Arden said. “Best be on our way so we’re not here for any longer than needed.”

Hugh nodded, then turned to Elise. “Do you feel anything in particular? A place we should begin?”

Elise, being Sylvorian, could sense the living, could use her magic to feel where life might be. It was difficult to sort through all the information, though, as the magic didn’t differentiate between plants or animals or the nearly dozen races that populated Espar and Ferias.

Hugh’s eyes darted to me, but I knew he would not pose the question to me if Elise had no substantive answer. While I, too, was part Sylvorian and had inherited the magic, it would be a gross overstep for him to ask for such a use of my power when he was outranked by me. Even with my standing as the bastard son of the king, I was still a prince, while the others were simply other titled people within the court.

Elise glanced around again as the bird took flight a second time, swooping low enough to flit between the large trees and disappear deeper into them. My magic quivered inside my chest, aching to follow the bird’s flight. I swallowed down the odd compulsion and focused on Elise. Her eyes fluttered closed, and then she hummed just a bit.

“I don’t have a clear feeling,” she said after several long minutes. “There is significant life that way.” She pointed deeper into the forest the opposite direction of the bird’s flight. When I focused that direction, I could feel the warm pulses of life, too. My magic recoiled from them, uninterested in getting any closer. Elise continued, “It feels too heavy to be birds, and I don’t believe Magefall has the bison that herd together. It might be where they escorted the omegas.”

Arden’s gaze sharpened, his hand drifting to the dagger on his thigh. Hugh took a step in the direction, his own body tight with wariness.

“Vincent warned me that there will be rain,” I said. “It will probably freeze given how cold it is.”

Hugh muttered a curse that had Arden chuckling.

“Well, now we definitely do not want to delay,” he said, clapping a hand on Hugh’s shoulder. “Being soaked to the bone is not on the list of things I’d like to experience today.”

Elise followed behind both men, her own eyes darting around the towering trees, her hand brushing one of the trunks as she passed by it. I took a step to follow them, ignoring the pulsing of my magic. A tendril of magic lashed around my ankle, halting me mid-stride. I forced back the knee-jerk reaction to kick it away.

Elise paused as she saw my hesitation. Arden looked over his shoulder a moment later and frowned.

“You sense something different, Callum?” he asked, forgoing formality in favor of the way I spoke with my personal guard. Hugh bristled beside him, uneasy at the use of my name rather than an honorary, regardless of the fact Arden was one of the men I routinely entrusted with my safety. The pulsing of my magic grew more insistent as I thought of the bird. Slowly, I nodded.

Elise frowned. “You feel something for us and yet I didn’t sense it?”

The thought troubled her, though she wouldn’t dare say such a thing out loud. I shook my head even as the tendril of the earth skated higher, wrapping around my knee.

“No, I don’t think it’s something for us all,” I said. I shoved my hands into my pockets to keep from swatting at the tendril. Phoebe’s coin brushed against my finger. Was this why I would need it? To keep the earth’s seeking touches from pestering me the entire time I was on the island?

Arden dipped his head and started walking again, his attention returning at once to his own decisions lying in wait for him here. Hugh went with him, their heads close together as they talked in hushed voices that blended with the ominous forest. Elise hesitated longer, her bright green eyes worried.