Page 41

Neith

I really shouldn’t have worried, my magic keeps me stuck to the trunk, although I have no idea how, and we swiftly move down. Before I know it, my feet touch the floor and I turn around to look at the guys with a giant smile, finding them all smiling at me proudly.

“Well done!” Reed grins as he pulls me in for a tight hug, lifting my feet off the ground and then only just stopping himself in time before he kisses me. As he puts me down he growls, “For fuck sake.”

I grin and pat him on the chest, “It’s alright.”

“I beg to differ,” Reed mutters seriously.

“Me too,” River adds.

“And me,” Doc smirks, his eyes flashing gold as they meet mine.

“I’m pretty sure we’re all in agreement that it is not alright,” Ransom points out.

“Agreed,” Evander says.

Griff’s eyes study me closely, “I’m tempted to suggest that we throw caution to the wind, but then logic dictates that we don’t.”

Raiden sighs heavily, “Caution is unfortunately and regretfully right in this case. It’s okay, we can make up for it.”

My eyebrows rise, and my lips tilt up into a smile, “Oh, I am so going to hold you guys to that.”

“Good,” Reed replies. He glances at the sphere still in River’s hand, “Wow, that’s pretty. What the fuck is it?”

“We figured that it was some sort of gemstone,” I reply.

River looks at Raiden and holds it up for him to take, “Any ideas?”

Raiden takes it from River and studies it closely. As he opens his mouth to reply, there’s a flash of light.

Everyone moves with precision and ease, all of our weapons are drawn, and magic is heavy in the air, as everyone prepares to attack.

It only takes a couple of moments to realize that we aren’t about to be attacked, but rather the Choosing has done its thing, kind of like when I was doing my trial with the levels, and hanging in the air, in glowing script, is what we need to do.

Van reads it out loud, “Take the Bellator Lapis, and deliver it to the highest cave, north of this point.”

“Well, that’s nice and vague,” River adds.

“Bellator Lapis?” Griff asks.

“It literally translates as Warrior Gemstone, which is an interesting name,” I reply immediately.

“You know Latin?” Raiden asks, looking impressed. “I think I remember you mentioning it before.”

I nod, “Yeah, it came in handy for what I did. A lot of supernatural stuff is in Latin, or a language that is close enough that you can figure it out.”

“You mean Fae?” Doc asks, his eyebrows lifting in surprise.

I nod, “Yeah, it’s pretty close to Latin.”

“You can understand Fae?” Reed asks.

Again, I nod, “Yeah, well, I could probably get by easily enough, but it’s only by picking up bits and pieces here and there. I probably know far more curse words than anything else, but that’s mostly because I’ve had to curse a couple of Fae out a few times.”

“You’ve cursed Fae out?” Griff asks. He then quickly adds, “Don’t answer that, that is probably a conversation best had at a different time.”

“Griff’s right, we need to find this cave, something tells me that’s not going to be as easy as simply taking the gem there,” Doc agrees.

“Oh, it definitely won’t be,” I reply.

We all start heading north, that’s where the glowing words said that we should head. Currently, all I can see are trees. I feel like this trial is going to require a lot of walking.

We’ve been walking for a while, with nothing but the sounds of the forest accompanying us and my colorful curses, ruining the apparent peace.

It’s not my fault, I know that we should be moving stealthily, and I have been, but it seems that every branch and every root, hell even the fucking bushes, are intent on tripping me up or snagging my clothes.

I am not making a good impression at all, and I don’t mean on the supernaturals watching, I couldn’t really give a shit about what they think of me, they’re all strangers that it’s very unlikely I will ever meet.

I mean that I’m not making a very good impression on the guys.

Crashing through the woods and having to be caught so I don’t land on my face, is not exactly showing them how capable I am and I’m actually still new to their team, and because of that I want to prove to them that I’m worthy of being on the team, even if I know that I don’t need to prove it.

They know what I’m capable of, we’ve actually done quite a lot together at this point, but it’s still important to me to show that we can work really well as a team. For the Choosing as well, I really don’t want to get put on the Draconian team.

After the third time that I trip over a root, I mutter, “I swear the trees are trying to get to me.”

Reed looks over at me, watching as my clothes get tangled in branches again, and frowns, “I think they’re reaching for you.”

“What!” I exclaim. “I was joking, I didn’t seriously think that the trees have it out for me.”

Ransom frowns, “I don’t think they have it out for you. Meaning that I don’t think that they mean any malice by it.”

“Well then, why are they making it exceptionally hard for me to walk?” I ask, as I continue to walk forward.

Ransom shrugs, “I have no idea.”

Griff frowns, “It is curious. Try asking it to give you some space to walk?”

“It, who?” I reply.

“The forest,” River confirms for Griff. “It might just be curious.”

I hear what he’s not saying, the forest is curious about me because I’m an oddity, either as a nearly human, or it can sense my mom’s angel blood, and it’s reacting to that.

It’s very unlikely that the forest has ever seen either of those things, or if it has seen an angel, then it hasn’t seen one for a very long time. Which means it’s curious.

I shrug, it’s worth a go, “Forest, I appreciate that you’re curious, but I really do need to be able to move easily, so that we can accomplish our task, and I don’t die or give away our position.”

Sure enough, the forest immediately retreats to normal, and I breathe a sigh of relief that I’m no longer tripping over everything or getting things tangled in my hair.

“Huh, it worked,” Raiden says, with surprise.

“Thank you, forest,” I tell the trees before looking at Raiden and raising my eyebrow. “Why do you sound so surprised?”

He shrugs, “Because I didn’t think it would, forest spirits like this rarely listen to anyone and tend to just do their own thing.”

“Oh,” I reply. Looking around at the forest, I add, “In that case, thank you for listening, I really appreciate it.”

I have no idea if it can understand me, but I think it’s important to say thank you when it’s needed.

Unless you’re dealing with certain types of Fae, and then it’s really not a good idea.

Those ones take your thanks as a sign that you are indebted to them until death, and then can ask of you whatever they desire, and it’s very rarely simple or nice things.

There is a reason why there is so much cautionary lore when it comes to the Fae in the Earth Realm, it’s well earned. We all fall silent as we move through the trees, and thankfully, this time, I remain silent in my movements as well.

Thank fuck.

The further that we walk through the trees, the more on edge we all become.

I really thought that something would have jumped out at us by this point, and Asael is buzzing impatiently in hand, clearly as bored as I am.

I’m half tempted to put him on my back, but I know that the second I do that, something will come out of the trees and try to eat me.

I pull a face, of course, I wouldn’t be bored if that happened. Is it worth the risk?

“Whatever you are thinking of doing right now, don’t do it,” Van says with a knowing smirk.

I sigh dramatically, “Fine, spoil sport.”

“I think I see a break in the trees up ahead,” Griff says suddenly.

My excitement picks back up, finally, a change of scenery.

We all follow Griff as he switches to take the lead, and sure enough, I soon see the break in the trees that Griff was talking about.

It’s not a clear gap, it could honestly be just a slightly thinner patch of trees, but at this point I pretty much have everything crossed that there really is something different beyond the trees.

Maybe even something a bit stabby that would be fun.

I don’t know what it says about me that I want to run into something that wants to kill me, but I am certain that it’s not good, so maybe that’s one of those things that we don’t ever tell a therapist.

Yeah, because that’s a sane plan.

Thankfully, it’s at that moment that we step through the break and find ourselves at the very edge of the woods.

Stretching before us is a rocky and deserted landscape.

There are deep crevices and high rocky outcroppings; none of them show a cave, but in the distance, I can make out a sheer cliff wall.

It stretches in either direction as far as the eye can see, and I can see pretty damn far.

It’s impressive and intimidating in the sheer size of it, and quite frankly, I kind of miss the woods.

“Well, at least we know where we’ve got to go,” River says. He points, “The cave has got to be high up on that wall somewhere.”

“Well, Griff and I aren’t hampered by the trees and space anymore, we could fly ahead and see if we can find the cave, so at least we know what direction we’re supposed to be heading in,” Reed suggests.

“Yeah, that’s a great idea actually, it will be easier to find now and head in the right direction instead of getting to the cliff face and trying to find it, we have no idea what’s over there.

It looks like this rocky terrain leads straight to the cliffside, but it could be that there’s a massive crevice there or some sort of obstacle that’s going to make it difficult to search that close to the cliff,” Raiden replies.

Van nods, “It’s settled then, be as quick as you can, we’re quite exposed out here. Does anyone recognize what realm we’re in?”