The Well of Wyrding (Revenant Wyrd Book 3) (29 page)

They floated on the currents of the shadows, and before long they could see nothing more. . . .

S
ara came to herself with a gasp to see Annbell kneeling over her, a strange, attractive man beside her. His face was lined with not only worry, but perplexity.

“Your head was nearly taken off, who made such an attempt on your life?” her twin asked, helping Sara to stand.

“It was Grace,” she said. The man suddenly became uneasy.

“Sara, this is Maeven. Maeven, this is Realm Guardian Sara Bardoe.” She crossed her arms over her chest, and in the light of a flickering oil lamp Sara saw concern marking her sister’s face.

“I don’t know how it happened, or what has gotten into our sister, but something certainly has taken root in her. Something dark and full of Chaos,” Sara said, looking at the wadded, bloody parchment in her hand. Her throat was once more whole, but it ached beyond belief. Her voice sounded hoarse and she wondered how long it would take to heal. “I’m sorry Annbell, but I can’t really discuss it now; we need to get back to the Guardians’ Keep. I need some more tea, I know that for sure,” Sara rubbed her head as a headache started to bloom behind her eyes.

“That reminds me of something I saw while venturing around the Realm of Earth with this young fellow,” Annbell said. “There’s a poison creeping into the realm, have you noticed?”

“No.” Sara looked concerned, and so did Annbell. Something as profound as Annbell was suggesting should have been felt by both of them. “That’s indeed strange, and needs looking into. I’ve been consumed with Congress and the upcoming attack of the chaos dwarves, that might have been why I didn’t notice,” Sara said as they extinguished the lamp. Sara conjured a golden ball of light above her head, and led the other two up the stairs. Once they reached ground level there was no longer any need for the orb for light, but Sara didn’t bother extinguishing it.

“It could be several things, I imagine,” Sara said. “It could be the chaos dwarves, the new weapon they are said to possess, or even the Well of Wyrding itself.”

“I suppose. For now, let us get you back home, and then we can discuss it further,” Annbell said. “I need to continue his training at any rate, and there’s nothing more I can train him in at present without some of the tools within the keep.”

Sara nodded as they stepped out of the Mirror of the Moon. Once her feet touched the ground, however, she felt what Annbell had been talking about. There was most certainly something wrong with the Realm of Earth.

“Has the sickness just happened suddenly?” Sara asked her sister, walking into the shelter of trees across the yard.

“Fairly recently, after the corruption, but not long after that,” Annbell admitted.

“I feel odd about traveling through the earth,” Sara confessed. “But I guess whatever is affecting the realm will affect us in time, right?”

“Is that how it happens?” Maeven asked. “You feel the sickness of the Realm and vice versa?”

“The realm does not get sick when we get sick, or at least I have never heard of that happening. I’m assuming it could, but it would take a drastic, deadly virus on our part for the realm to feel it. But yes, eventually we will sicken with the realm. It’s the only other thing that can kill a sorcerer besides beheading — if they are attached to a realm that gets too sick, the sorcerer will perish.”

Maeven nodded.

“At any rate, let’s get you home,” Annbell said, and they joined hands, vanishing into the ground beneath their feet.

J
oya’s first thought on entering the strange wood that had suddenly loomed up on them was that they had entered a paradise of unimaginable dense green forest. One moment they had been walking between densely fogged trunks and then suddenly, as if walking through a curtain, the fog had disappeared.

“It could be that we just think the trees are greener here because we have not seen anything but white fog for the last few weeks.” Jovian looked around, answering a question he knew they all must be thinking. “Do you think Fog Month is finally drawing to a close?”

“Has it been six weeks already?” Angelica asked, coming to a halt as her eyes adjusted to the new sights. “Wasn’t it midday when we were in the fog?” Angelica asked them all, her breathing erratic.

“Yes, it was,” Joya answered as she looked around, her breath feeling heavy, her head slightly light. She noticed the same thing Angelica had — within this new wood the light was fading rather quickly, as if they were in the late evening.

“It could just be that the trees are so thick here,” Jovian said.

“That could be it,” Angelica agreed.

“The air is different also, as if we are at a high elevation,” Jovian commented.

“I think I can see mountains just up ahead,” Joya said, walking to a part of the path where the trees parted enough to glimpse the snowy peaks of a mountain range.

“Did we get off track?” Jovian asked, coming to stand beside his elder sister to look through the canopy with her. “We couldn’t be in the Barrier Mountains, could we? I don’t remember climbing at all.”

“We couldn’t have,” Angelica said joining them. “Tegaris has been leading us the entire time.” Which hadn’t been exactly true; none of them had been able to sleep well since Porillon’s recent attack and had instead decided to travel through the day, keeping up the same track Tegaris had led them on. As foolish as this was, traveling without their guide, they figured they were safer from attack while traveling than while sitting still. “At least we couldn’t have gotten that far off track,” she corrected herself.

“No, the strangeness that we are feeling is wyrd. This place is absolutely filthy with it, and yet it is not the corrupt wyrd from the Well of Wyrding, either. I think I know what this place is,” Joya said as a welcoming feeling flooded through them. She felt pure wyrd for the first time since Porillon had poisoned the Well of Wyrding. This place seemed like home, as if it were more a part of them than even the plantation had been. “This is our ancestral home; the Shadows Grove.”

The moment that she said this they knew it was true. They looked around them and at once the hard dirt walkways with their pine needle carpeting, the thick green foliage, flowering trees, tall bushes and warm hospitality was familiar to them, as if this had been a part of them since even before their births. This forest, mysterious and unknowable, was like a trusted friend. They knew that no matter how long they were to stay among the branches, they would never be able to learn all of the secrets the Shadows Grove possessed.

They stood in awe at the scenery around them, which looked large enough to harbor giants, for truly the trees were larger than any they could imagine. The sounds of animals were welcome after having traveled so long in dead silence. Birds chirped noisily overhead even as rabbits and deer dashed through the bushes. One deer bounded out of the woods and stopped in the trail, looking at them as if curious about what they were. It truly had been long enough since there had been humans there that maybe the animals didn’t recognize what they were, for the deer began walking toward them, cautiously at first, its deep brown eyes watching them. Angelica thought that within those eyes she could almost glimpse the secrets of life and nature, so wild and knowing was the look within them.

As if realizing what they were, finally the deer gave ground, turned and dashed off in a zigzagging pattern up the trail away from them. Then, suddenly, the deer flashed a deep blue, and became a ball of light hovering in the path ahead, bobbing around playfully. Jovian was not sure what it was, but he got the impression that it was once more watching them.

“I do not think that is a normal deer.” Jovian itched the back of his head, perplexed.

“Whatever gave you that clue?” Joya asked with a smirk, the muscles of her face twitching slightly.

“What should we do?” Angelica asked, but Joya already started moving forward. “Do you think that’s wise?” Angelica called after her, but Joya strode away from them, turned left, and disappeared within the underbrush.

Jovian and Angelica gasped, for she had not disappeared
into
the brush, but had disappeared by merely
touching
the brush. Angelica dashed forward, but Jovian halted her.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Joya’s gone!” she said in exasperation, as if it had escaped his notice.

“I know, but I don’t feel as though there’s anything wrong.” Once he said it, Angelica could feel it too. There was a sense of calm that permeated this place, infusing them with serenity and peace like they had never known. There was no need to worry, for there was nothing here that would harm them, nothing here that would cause them stress. They needed only be, and follow that beautiful light. This was, after all, the home of their mother and aunt. The very home, it was said, that might have created itself merely for their use. If there was ever to be a less malignant place for the LaFaye children, wouldn’t it be the Shadows Grove?

“We’ve gotten into trouble before by believing something that seemed too good to be true,” Angelica told Jovian as they took their first tentative steps toward the bobbing blue orb.

“We’ve also gotten into trouble countless times by following bobbing orbs of light,” he smirked.

“If this is our death, then I will go happily,” Angelica said, and Jovian had to agree.

As they neared the end of the trail and the bobbing blue light, the orb dashed off, shooting with incredible speed across an overgrown clearing. However, once Angelica and Jovian entered the clearing, a most amazing thing occurred.

A gigantic building began to appear. It wasn’t as if the building suddenly came into being, but instead vines and leaves that had seemed to build a great wall across the clearing from them began to abate. The dead leaves and vines of the wall decomposed rapidly back into the earth as stone walls were revealed. The stone of the building was grimy and dingy, but even as they watched it became pristine as the day it was cast. Flowers and bushes rapidly grew in the courtyard of the large building.

Angelica peered at the flowers and bushes within the courtyard and shook her head. The flowers, as the trees, were incredibly large, and she bet that they would stand, if not up to her shoulders, at least to her elbows. This abnormal size was the way of everything here, and Angelica felt for a moment that she had shrunk, or that she was just not tall enough. It was not the first time she had ever felt this way; she remembered keenly being in the Realm of the Dead and standing before Baba Yaga’s place.

A dilapidated sign hanging from the archway righted itself. The wood of the sign reconstituted and once more read in curving script: The Haven.

“That’s the tavern Grace was telling us about,” Angelica said to Jovian. They stared in awe at the sprawling, three-story building. Through the large windows Angelica could see a fire crackling in welcome in the hearth and the smell of freshly baked bread issued from the tavern to her nose. Was it possible that there was someone in there? Well, there had to be, right? The only alternative was that the building had made the fire and was preparing a meal and that was just absurd…

They were too interested in the building to notice the other changes that were taking place around the clearing.

Bushes and flowers seemed to perk up, reaching for the sun. Trees stretched wide and shivered in an unfelt wind. All around them the forest came to life, welcoming one of the sacred blood back home. It was as if this were truly the first time since Pharoh and Sylvie had died that the Shadows Grove was alive.