With our goodbyes out of the way, I turned and led our party down the dirt road, slowly increasing my pace until Marin began to struggle to keep up. I pushed my Detection out to its maximum limit, stretching over the forests and fields for miles in every direction. Although we had a specified direction to head in, I was unsure how much time had passed since the ambush took place, and I was determined to find the beasts no matter how far they had moved in the intervening hours.
We sprinted out of the forest and onto the main road in total silence, gradually slowing down as Marin’s breath grew strained. I kept a close eye on her mana reserves as we traveled to ensure she wasn’t entirely spent by the time our combat started. While it was clear that she was tired, she showed no signs of stopping and made no complaints. The hardened resolve on her face was familiar; I could see Val in her eyes, inscrutable and unfaltering as steel.
I planted my heels in the dirt and skidded to a sudden halt when the first sign of the monsters’ auras appeared at the edge of my Detection. “They’re close,” I murmured, tilting my head towards the forest in the direction of the presence. “We’ll go slowly from here.” Turning to Marin, I put a hand on her shoulder and gripped it tightly. “I promise that we’ll do everything we can to keep you safe, but I need you to be on your guard. If things go wrong and you’re forced to fight, don’t hold anything back.” My eyes fell to the massive gauntlets on her arms. “Do whatever you can to survive.”
“I will,” she said firmly, clenching her hands into fists.
“Now stay behind us,” I commanded as I turned back to the woods. As we made our way off the road, I sent a pulse of mana forward to completely encompass the static void in my head. Where the first monster we had faced had held a perfectly circular field around it, the field before us was slightly oblong in shape and seemed to undulate back and forth at various points around its edge. There’s definitely more than one in there. The thought sent a fresh wave of anxiety tingling through my already wired body, and I leaned against a nearby tree to compose myself.
A sudden wave of blissfully cool energy washed over me, scratching an itch at the back of my mind I hadn’t been able to pinpoint since we had returned from our canceled adventure. My head rushed as I incorporated an entirely separate set of sensory inputs: cool air against bare skin, hands gripped tightly around matched longswords, and a view of myself, standing frozen in the forest, through different eyes. My shoulders relaxed as we shared a mutual sigh of relief. Hi, we thought in unison, both smiling. I missed you.
With my head feeling whole once again, I pushed forward with renewed confidence. The trees became more densely packed as we continued deeper into the forest; initially, tall grass and wildflowers had filled the ground between the sparse emberwoods, but they quickly subsided to mossy, root-covered dirt with hardly an arms’ breadth of space between the ancient tree trunks. Any light that managed to filter down through the thick cover above us was tinged red from the emberwood leaves, giving the forest a seemingly sourceless crimson glow.
I stopped our advance a dozen yards from the edge of the monsters’ auras. The forest was far too thick to catch sight of them, but my Enhanced Senses picked up on the sharp tap of their talons and scythes against stone as well as the unmistakable ripping, dripping, squelching noises of a beast consuming its prey. They’re eating. We’ll catch them unaware. Our thought was triumphant, pointedly ignoring the idea of what their meal might be.
“Marin,” I whispered, turning to face her, “we’re here. Once we enter their aura, they’ll know, so we have to move quickly. You won’t be able to extend your mana, either; just focus on your enhancements and listen for our orders. When you catch up to us, stay at least twenty feet back.”
“When I catch up?” she asked, wrinkling her brow. “You want me to wait here first?”
I shook my head in frustration. “What? No, I want you to do your absolute best to keep up.” It took me a moment to remember that Marin wasn’t tapped into the mental bond I held with Lia, so she couldn’t see the plan we were constructing while I spoke. “We’re going to outrun you, but you’ll know where we’re going.”
Her eyes hardened at the apparent challenge, accentuating the steely calm of her face. “Okay.”
Satisfied, I turned back towards our target, but my gaze caught on Lia’s eyes. I watched the golden, sparkling pools with fascination as they stared back at me, revealing my own hard, icy-gray eyes in turn. My hand raised to her chin and brushed along her cheek, and I nearly recoiled at the feeling of the leather across our shared skin. Whatever I wanted to say to her faded away into the swirling sea of our shared experiences and left me with a single thought.
Forever.
Without a word, we turned and charged ahead into the forest. The glowing map in our head fizzled away as we entered the suffocating aura. Each footfall rocketed us forward at impossible speeds, and we wove between the trees in an intricate dance of spins and leaps that carried us closer to our final destination. Marin followed along behind us, her footfalls heavy, awkward, and fading in volume as she immediately fell behind. Lia and I covered the hundred-yard dash in just under two seconds, and the scene we had been trying to predict finally revealed itself.
Four of the beasts were packed around a pile of mangled, bloody corpses within a
