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I gather my fire just below the surface, readying myself for a threat. Sterling and Agnar drop what they’re doing, their hands flying to their weapons as they settle into defensive postures. Around us, guards lift swords and draw arrows, watching for whoever or whatever is chasing so many people.

I come forward when the woman reaches for me. “What’s happened?”

Leaves and twigs tangle in her hair. Scratches cover her face.

“The grove.” She clutches my arm in desperation, her eyes wide with terror. “It’s alive. Expanding. Swallowed half our village already.” Her nails dig deeper into my skin as she leans closer. “It’s eating people. Snatching them from the sky. We had to flee.”

A chill sinks into my flesh. Another side effect of the gods’ civil war. Though this new calamity sounds especially vicious.

Once is strange.

Twice may or may not be a coincidence.

But three times? That’s a conspiracy.

The question is, why?

And are these attacks only targeted at the Tirenese? “Which grove?”

She points northwest with a shaking hand, toward the direction of the woods that border the village of Lydonia. “The old one. With the sacred trees.”

Against the darkening afternoon sky, an unnatural green glow pulses like a heartbeat on the horizon. “Sterling.”

He’s already at my side, his body a wall of steady strength. “I see it. We’ll send word to the capital and call for reinforcements.”

Agnar pulls a message tube from his belt, scribbles a quick note, and whistles. A royal guard emerges from the tree line to take the message before soaring away. With the way the world is going, we always have at least a few guards close by.

“Come on.” I swallow the lump of apprehension in my throat. “These people need help.”

We reach the edge of Lydonia in minutes, Sterling and I flying ahead, Agnar following with a contingent of guards.

What greets us isn’t destruction in the usual sense.

No fire. No broken buildings. No screaming livestock. Not even traces of blood.

Instead, the landscape itself appears to be…shifting.

We land on the outskirts of the village, out of reach of the sacred grove. The once expansive group of ancient trees revered for centuries now flashes with sickly green light.

My jaw drops when a tree at the edge yanks its roots from the ground. In an eerily humanlike motion, the tree lurches six paces forward, branches creaking like old bones as it settles into the soil again.

Right on top of a winged corpse.

I rub my chest. That’s what I get for thinking no one was hurt.

“Gods.” I clamp my lips closed as soon as the word leaves my mouth. At this point, calling the gods’ attention upon myself seems more likely to harm than help.

The trees groan as they move, their roots tearing through soil like fingers through soft dough. Branches reach for the village walls with deliberate, insidious intent. The unnaturalness fills me with dread.

Villagers scream and scatter as another tree uproots itself and crushes a small shed beneath its massive trunk. Water gushes from the earth in abnormal fountains, threatening to wash away what’s left of the village.

Sterling raises his hands to direct his power. “I’ve got the water.”

Agnar lands with a heavy thud behind us. “We’ve got the earth.” He and two of the guards march forward, arms moving in tangent as they push back the encroaching trees.

Fire sparks at my fingertips. “I’ve got the trees.” A firebreak across the advancing line should stop this assault.

“Don’t!” Agnar grabs my wrist, blue eyes wide with more than just fear. “They’re sacred trees. Who knows what burning them might trigger? Don’t forget what happened with the dryads.”