Chapter 106
Serafine POV
I’m not sure how long the darkness lasts, but it’s calm, almost perfect in what it is. It’s like my body and mind are too worn out to even do anything, it doesn’t last, though. Eventually, things shift, and I find myself walking through trees.
My eyes flicker around and everything in my screams to stop walking, that this is just a dream, and I don’t need to follow that instinct that is dragging me forward, even if my body burns to.
The forest seems to breathe like a living thing. I can see that every tree is holding itself unnaturally still; they aren’t meant to be that still. They aren’t, their silver leaves tremble, but there’s no wind, there’s no howl of it, and nothing else moves except for the leaves. It’s hush that settles down is like the silence you hear before something screams, before it all goes bad. The light in the grove is wrong, it’s too sharp, too cold and too steady. It’s spilling down in pale beams that pierce brightly through the canopy and cling to my skin like frost.
I move without thought, I don’t think, even as my bare feet sink into the dirt. The ground is warm, and I can almost feel it humming with something like magic, something older than fear.
Each step I take feels like I’m trespassing, like I’ve been allowed in only because something has given me permission. They don’t want me here, but they are watching from the dark, curious and waiting to see what I do.
I’ve got no idea where i am, but my heart stutters in my chest, and it feels like my heart remembers this place, like it knows what this place is and what to expect. The trees arch more around me, twisting into unnatural shapes, and their branches curve like ribs. The bark is slick with sap that shines gold in the light and when I look closely I can see it pulsing like veins.
Suddenly, I smell smoke, I can’t see it, but it’s faint and bitter. I panic and begin to look around trying to spot where it’s coming from. Then I see it, curling between the trees like an unseen serpent, moving slowly, like it’s weaving through the shadows.
My skin prickles and the back of my neck tightens as the air thickens and begins to warm. It’s too slow, and feels like when a fever creeps in while you’re telling yourself you’re not sick. The silence is crushing now, not empty exactly but still crowded and suffocating, like the very ground beneath me is speaking and I just can’t hear it.
Suddenly I hear it, a soft broken sound that is high–pitched and desperate. A cry, and it shatters through the stillness and silence so hard, that everything inside of me clocks up instantly.
T
I know that cry, and I don’t think before I start to run toward it. I’m not breathing, I’m just crashing through the grove even though the roots are clawing at my ankles while the branches seem to reach for my arms. It’s like,they are grasping at me, trying to stop me, but I keep running.
The trees blur past, silver turning to red at the edges of my vision, until I stumble into a clearing and see him lying there.
Eryx.
He’s lying on the forest floor, he’s not hurt, not screaming in a way that signals pain, but he’s wailing. It’s that helpless sound that babies His tiny fists are clenched, and his face is red and wet with tears. His legs are kicking quick, twitchy bursts.
‘y make.
I look around him and notice the ground is scorched black into a perfect circle, and the grass nearest to him is hissing, it’s curling back, trying to escape
him as if it’s afraid to touch him.
My chest seizes and I rush forward toward him, but the air thickens like syrup and it makes every movement I try to make a struggle. I see the flames flickering at the edge of the clearing, it’s bright and gold but also wrong. It’s not spreading how fire normally does, it’s not consuming, but it’s growing. It’s licking up through the roots like the fire itself is growing from the ground, not from a natural source.
I call our Eryx’s name, or at least I try as no sound comes out and my voice dies in my throat, it’s swallowed by the heavy pressing magic that coils around my tongue. It’s like there’s a silencing spell that’s been cast to stop me speaking. I reach for him, desperate, furious, aching, but the fire between us rises glowing brighter with each step I take.
The heat is becoming unbearable now, and my skin begins to glow. My veins light up with the same flickering gold that is pouring from the flames. I look down, confused and watch as my fingertips spark, then pulse slowly. Suddenly, they crack open like fissures of light are splitting my from the inside out Power spills out of me in thick heavy waves, it’s not wild but steady and deliberate. It’s like it’s choosing not to show itself, to give up on being silenced by
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09:08 Tue, 3 Jun NI
Chapter 106
- me.
The trees start to move. I watch them bend toward me, groaning and creaking. The branches weave together into shapes that I don’t understand, but! also do. They are shapes I’ve seen in my dreams, ones I forgot about and have now remembered too late.
I cry out in rage, and the flames surge higher, feeding off the sound as Eryx cries harder. His little body writhing, his screams becoming jagged as the fire starts to circle him like á ring.
I feel something in me snap.
I throw my hands forward, and golden light bursts from my palms, not fire, not heat, but something deeper, like raw will turned into substance. The flames vanish instantly, collapsing inward, devoured by the magic pouring from me like a broken dam. The wind howls, not from nature, but from me, rising up from my skin like I’ve become the storm itself.
Eryx falls silent, and the light fades, everything suddenly plunging into darkness as the world around me trembles and shatters.
