Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 103333 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 517(@200wpm)___ 413(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103333 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 517(@200wpm)___ 413(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
His horse veered sharply again, choosing a path no Hunter would ever take, through tangled briar and low-hanging branches that tore at cloak and skin. Dar ducked instinctively, curling tighter around Elara, shielding her from every strike.
“Elara,” he murmured, not knowing if she could hear. “Stay with me.”
As if in answer, her fingers twitched against his chest.
Dar froze for half a heartbeat.
“Elara?” he whispered again, hope and terror colliding in his voice.
Her breath hitched just once. Barely there but real.
At the same moment, the forest screamed.
Not aloud and not in sound, but with force.
A shockwave rippled through the trees behind them, branches snapping, leaves tearing free, the air itself shuddering as something tore a path where none should exist.
“They are close,” Amelia cried, panic sharpening her voice. “The warlock presses hard. He forces the forest to remember fear.”
Dar felt it then, the truth of it settling into his bones.
He could not outrun magic by skill alone.
So, he did something he had never done, he surrendered—to the forest.
“Help us,” he said aloud, not to Amelia, not to any creature he could name. “She belongs to you as much as she does to me.”
The words tasted strange, yet right.
The response was immediate.
The ground shifted. Roots surged upward, tangling and knotting in their wake. Low fog rose without warning, thick and silver, swallowing their trail whole. Birds burst into flight again, not fleeing but circling, screaming confusion into the canopy.
Amelia gasped, awe bleeding into her fear. “It listens to you.”
Dar did not answer. His heart thundered too hard for words.
Elara stirred again, this time stronger. Her head shifted beneath his chin, a faint sound brushing his throat.
“Dar…” she breathed.
The sound nearly broke him.
“I’m here,” he said fiercely, lowering his face to her hair. “Hold on. Just a little longer.”
Behind them, the air convulsed. Trees groaned as if wrenched from their roots, bark splitting, branches snapping with violent cracks. A pulse of power surged through the undergrowth, scorching moss and leaf alike, leaving a blackened scar where green had thrived moments before.
The warlock had lost patience.
Dar felt it then, no longer pursuit, but declaration. The man was no longer hunting. He was destroying, forcing the forest to yield through fear and force.
Amelia streaked back to him, terror blazing bright around her. “He tears at the land. He will burn his way to you.”
Dar slowed his horse.
He understood now, clarity settling cold and sharp in his chest. He was the prey and he could not outrun this hunter. He could not hide from power that bent the world itself. Flight would only end the same way, with Elara dying in his arms while he fled.
His grip loosened on the reins.
The forest stirred again, differently this time. Not frantic. Not panicked.
Waiting.
Dar dismounted and gently lowered Elara to the ground, easing her onto a bed of leaves and soft earth as if the forest itself had prepared it. He brushed a strand of her silver hair from her face, his hands steady despite the storm raging inside him.
He rose slowly, feeling something shift, not around him, but from within.
The sounds of the forest sharpened until he could hear sap moving beneath bark, roots grinding stone, distant heartbeats not his own. Strength flooded his limbs, not the savage hunger of the hunt, but something much older.
This was what Hunters had once been. Not weapons, but guardians.
Elara stirred.
His heart lurched as her eyes fluttered open, unfocused but searching. She looked at him as if seeing him through water, her lips trembling as she struggled to speak.
“You…” she whispered faintly. “… know him.”
Dar dropped to his knees beside her, gripping her hand. “Rest. Don’t speak.”
A ghost of a smile touched her lips. As if she already knew it was too late. Her fingers tightened once around his, then weakened. Her gaze never left his face.
“Love you,” she breathed, the words barely sound at all. “Always.”
Her eyes drifted closed and her breath faded then stopped… she was gone.
The forest went utterly still.
Dar bowed over Elara, his forehead pressed to hers, his breath shuddering out of him in a sound too raw to be grief alone. He had fought. He had begged. He had carried her through shadow and blood and magic, believing—knowing—she would live.
And now she was gone.
“Nay,” he whispered, the word tearing free of him. Then louder. “NAY.”
The pain broke through him like a dam giving way.
Rage followed.
It ripped out of his chest in a roar that shook the air itself, a sound born not only of loss, but betrayal, by fate, by kings, by the world that had dared take her from him. He stood, threw his head back, and roared, the sound carrying through the trees, through stone and root and soil.
The forest answered.
The ground trembled beneath his feet. Roots burst through the earth, coiling and snapping, stones splitting as if struck from within. Branches bowed low, leaves shuddering violently as a wind surged from nowhere, carrying with it the scent of rain, blood, and old magic.