Page 73

Clusters of small mushrooms crowded the roots. At least I thought they were mushrooms, given their stems and bulbous hoods, but in Elyrdin, I didn’t know.

Was I still in Elyrdin? This place felt unsafe, and Elyrdin was supposed to be safe.

A snapping sound drew my attention to the left, where I noticed larger mushrooms. Some rose as high as my knees, while others towered above me by several feet, with their caps layered into jagged spirals resembling rows of teeth that could clamp down on me any second.

Around the fallen logs, an eerie blue light pulsed from the dense undergrowth of mushrooms and twisted plants. It was the only light in the otherwise dark forest.

I tried to follow the trail of footprints leading away from where I’d woken up. They might lead me to someone who could help—as long as I didn’t run into my kidnappers first.

It didn’t take long to realize that the plan wasn’t going to work. The decaying foliage scattered over the ground made it nearly impossible to follow any sign of life.

I sighed and looked around, unsure where to start, when something growing out of a mound of black moss caught my attention. Thin stalks several inches long were topped with swollen bulbs that looked disturbingly similar to eyeballs.

Milky veins pulsed beneath their semi-opaque surfaces, and every few seconds, the bulbs contracted before expanding again as if they were breathing.

I shuddered and pressed on.

I wanted to call out for help, but something told me making too much noise in a place so eerily quiet was dangerous.

Forests on Earth were full of the sounds of life. If the sounds stopped, something was usually horribly wrong. Like an earthquake, tornado—or predators.

I shivered, wrapping my arms around myself.

I wondered if I was heading farther into the forest instead of closer to civilization, but I couldn’t just stand around doing nothing. I needed to find a way home.

“She’s got to be around here somewhere,” a voice called several feet ahead on the other side of a cluster of gnarled trees.

“I’m going to fucking rip Kairian apart if he’s behind this.”

I nearly stumbled at the sound of Cyn’s surly voice.

I held up my dress to avoid snagging on anything on the forest floor and ran toward their voices. When I saw them together, I wanted to cry.

Cyn turned with his claws extended when I shuffled through the last of the foliage into the dirt-and-moss-covered clearing. He retracted them when he saw it was me.

“Rae!” Zeke ran to me and grabbed me around the waist.

I wrapped my arms around his neck, nearly sobbing against him but forcing the tears back. I sniffed, lifting my head. “Are you okay? What happened to you?”

“After Cyn fell, they injected you with a tranquilizer. Before I could do anything else, they got me too. The next thing I knew, I woke up out here next to Cyn.”

“Why did they separate us?”

“To make sure you didn’t make it home. Since we know where we are and can transform, we have a better chance of making it back,” Cyn said, crossing to us. He stopped in front of me. “Are you hurt?”

“Not really,” I whispered, caught off guard by the intensity of his focus as he scanned me from head to toe.

“They hit her in the head hard,” Zeke said.

“My forehead was sore when I woke up, but it doesn’t hurt now.”

“You’re healing,” Cyn said, reaching up and brushing a few strands of hair from my forehead.

“You said y’all know where we are. Where are we?” I asked, wanting to redirect Cyn’s focus from me to our situation. After what happened in the palace’s hall, it felt strange to be the center of his attention.

“Feranzis,” Cyn said, lip curling in disdain as he looked around.

“Wait.” I looked around. “We’re not in Elyrdin anymore? Where are Ash and Ezra?”