"Literally?" Rhyss sounded a little too hopeful.
"Maybe?" Bel tugged her ponytail over her shoulder. It was stiff with dirt, which was an absolute tragedy, but she didn't want to waste her magic on a cleaning script. At this point she doubted it would do much. "Possibly? And Heln should definitely rest."
"I'm fine." Heln sounded tired, but they all did. "You don't have to baby me."
"You are the baby. You're the youngest."
"And the tallest." Heln used her own words against her. If that wasn't just like a little brother. "As you said."
"You're right, and as the shortest—"
"Oh, maybe by like, absolutely nothing, since my boots have a higher heel than yours, and—"
Bel interrupted Rhyss. "As the shortest with the smallest but nicest legs, I am in need of rest and in setting the pace."
Both of the others groaned, and Bel was pretty sure they rolled their eyes. The status quo was restored. Pretending to be selfish, and admittedly actually being a little selfish, was so much easier when she wanted to be nice.
*~*~*
After the shortest break they could possibly have, they were moving forward again. Bel didn't feel like she had to look behind her every second, but being in front was almost as bad.
It didn't help that it was much darker close to the wall. Even with two illumination bubbles it was dim. Here, the trees crowded close, most of them skeletally bare. A pale white mist flowed over the ground, obscuring tree roots and dips in the moss. The damp made everything stink like rot and death and her boots squelched unpleasantly with every step. If Bel hadn't felt like they were going the right way, she would have insisted that they turn around.
"I don't like this." Her voice sounded too loud and too small at the same time.
It had been quiet before, but now the only sounds were their movement and the occasional drip from somewhere in the trees. Silence pressed in her ears and it felt like the moisture in the air was crawling on her skin.
"Just keep moving." Rhyss sounded confident, but when she glanced back at her, she was looking uneasily at the trees.
"I'm with Bel. This part of the forest is obviously dead and that can't be a good thing," Heln said after a few minutes. "I… I think I made a mistake. I must have just felt the difference in the trees. I mean, they're alive everywhere else, they have magic, but here they don't, so…"
"Let's just get to the wall." Rhyss didn't sound completely convinced of her own plan. "If it looks bad we'll just follow the wall to the real exit, or back to the entrance, but if we turn around now we won't have a choice, we'll have to go back to the center. It's gross and… and I don't like it, either, but we have to try."
"I guess." Bel was technically in the lead, and she could decide they should turn around any time. Except, that kind of thinking wasn't what they'd agreed to as a group. "I just think…"
She had turned her head to the side just for a second to listen to Rhyss, and when she turned back there was someone standing in front of her. Bel screeched and threw herself back. Heln caught her by the arms and she flailed for a moment before she realized it wasn't a person at all.
"I knew that was a statue." She looked up at Heln.
"Uh huh." Heln clearly believed her.
"I wasn't scared."
"Right. Get up or I'll drop you."
It took some shuffling but Bel got back on her feet and no one was dropped in a pile of long rotted leaves. Rhyss was already inspecting the statue.
Bel rubbed her chest. Her heart had pounded so hard it actually hurt. She had thought she understood what the phrase 'frightened half to death' meant, but she hadn't, not until that very moment. "Who? Who puts a creepy statue in the middle of a bunch of dead trees? Huh? That's just wrong. Ugh. I hate this place."
"I thought you weren't scared." Heln gave her a bit of a grin. "Impressive bit of screaming there, by the way."
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure anything that didn't know we were here definitely knows we are now, so we should get a move on," Rhyss muttered, but she didn't move away from the statue.
"So, who in Eleti's name is so important that she has a statue in the worst place in the world?" Bel asked. The statue itself actually wasn't that creepy. It looked like it might have been painted once, but now it was mostly smooth, white stone. There were some dark spots on it, lichen and rot spreading across the stone, but the face was clear. It was a person in full battle armor, their expression determined as they looked out onto the forest. Despite the short hair of the statue, Bel got the distinct feeling it was supposed to be a woman. She had a sword in one hand and her other held a helmet against her hip.
"Well." Rhyss gestured to the writing at the base of the statue. "I don't think it's just Eleti's name. I think this is supposed to be Eleti herself."
"Nah," Bel said, but it was an automatic response, arguing with Rhyss. "She's supposed to have like… a dress."
"We all know that the depictions in any illustration of Eleti are grossly inaccurate." Heln was referencing of course the beautiful figure of Eleti standing in a dark field, shining with white light, from her pale blue hair to her long, flowing white dress. "Eleti was a war general so… this… makes more sense."
"Hmph." Bel knew he was right. After all, they'd taken the same history class. It was one thing that anyone who had even the most basic understanding of
