As the sun rose over the desolate valley and the empty expanse seemed to stretch forever, I began to doubt Maveryck’s word. This seemed no different from an ordinary desert, and I saw no signs of creatures mutated by magic. As I prepared to question him once again, we passed through a magical barrier.
A blast of hot air radiated around me as we crossed through the magical shield. Kull and Heidel didn’t seem to notice, but Maveryck winced as we crossed it. The air shimmered in shades of white and blue, and as if we had flipped a switch, the world transformed.
The sun shone with an orange haze as it filtered through layers of billowing, sulfur-smelling clouds. We stood in a jungle of tangled vines with carnivorous-looking flowers in shades of orange and purple. Humidity saturated the air as sounds of insects chirping came from the forest. Magic pulsed with a fever pitch from the smallest shrub to the clouds overhead. The feeling was so overwhelming, I had to stop and catch my breath.
“What?” Heidel spun around. “Where are we?”
“We crossed through the barrier,” Maveryck said.
Kull unsheathed his sword. “You could have warned us.”
“I had no way of knowing where it was.”
My arms and legs tingled with magic, making me feel as if ants crawled under my skin. “I didn’t sense it either until we crossed through.”
The sound of a creature howling echoed in the distance. Something disturbed the leaves overhead, making me jump back. Water pooled from the canopy, splashing us with large droplets. I wiped the liquid off my face, tasting its brine on my tongue.
“Well,” Maveryck said, wiping the moisture from his tunic, his eyebrows raised as if the water had offended him somehow, “welcome to the wild lands.”
“Where do we go from here?” Heidel asked.
“I’m not the best person to ask. It’s all changed quite a bit since I was here.” Maveryck looked at me. “Olive, do you have the map?”
“Yes.” I pulled my pack off my shoulder and dug through it until I found the journal. I flipped through the book until I came to the sketch of the map, although I wasn’t sure how useful I would be at reading it, so I handed the book to Kull. “You’re better at navigating than me.”
Kull studied the map as the rest of us looked on. “We’ll need to find one of these trails as soon as possible. I believe we entered here, in the south. If we travel due north, we should run into this trail here, and that in turn should lead us to the center of the lands where we’ll hopefully find the lake.”
“Sounds good to me,” I said as I replaced the journal in my pack. When Fan’twar had given me the diary, I had never planned to use it to navigate through an unholy land full of magically mutated plants and monsters, but then again, my life never seemed to go the way I planned.
Hoots and whistles came from the canopy as we trudged forward. We all used our swords and knives to cut away the vines and plants blocking our path. The sun rose higher, making the heat even more oppressive. Sweat beaded on my neck and forehead as I chopped through a thick vine that sprayed white fluid as it burst open, then shriveled back.
Near me, Kull severed a vine that lashed out, cutting his hands with sharp barbs.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Fine.” He wiped his hand on his tunic. “This cursed forest better be worth getting through.”
“It will be if we get that egg back,” I said.
Rumbling came from overhead. At first I assumed it to be thunder, but as it grew louder, I glanced up to find a horde of bat-like creatures flocking over the canopy, blocking out the sun. I’d never seen so many creatures in one place.
Thousands of wings created a rushing sound, brushing the hot air, creating a maelstrom of wind. After they passed, only silence remained.
“That was odd,” Heidel said. “Do you think they were flying toward something?”
“Away from something, most likely,” Maveryck said.
“Let’s keep going,” Kull said. “Whatever disturbed them is something I’d rather avoid.”
Pressing forward, we hacked through the brush until blisters formed on my fingers. We entered a small, circular clearing. Neatly trimmed grass grew around a single flowering plant blooming in the center of the glen. The air seemed cooler here than in the rest of the forest. Bunches of flowers in pastel purples and blues sprouted from its delicate branches, moving gently in the breeze. The bush reminded me of the hydrangea flowers blooming around my grandmother’s house. A low, crumbling brick wall had been built around the plant, and in places, it looked as if words or symbols had been etched into the stone.
I wiped away a bead of sweat as I stared at the flower. “That’s odd,” I said. “Who would have built that wall? Maveryck, has this place ever been inhabited?”
“No, it would have been impossible for anyone to inhabit the wild lands. The magic here would take over any man-made structures a person built. I imagine the castle—if it exists—is protected by powerful spells in order to survive the magical onslaught. Anything else would have been destroyed ages ago.”
“Then how did that get there?”
He shook his head. I reached out, feeling for enchantments in the glen or surrounding the wall, but the magic from the forest was too strong and overpowered any spells I might have felt.
“Is it safe to approach?” Kull asked.
“I can’t say for sure. The magic here is too strong for me to detect spells.”
“Maybe Dracon built it,” Heidel said. “Is it pictured in the journal?”
“Good idea,” I said and pulled my pack off my shoulder. After I found the journal, I flipped through the pages until I found the map. The others gathered around me as we
