The unforgiving slope flattened. Rock turned to gravel, gravel turned to dirt, and suddenly Keriya was in the Felwood.
She had a good sense of direction when it came to the outdoors, and she’d snuck into these trees plenty of times in her youth, usually dragging Fletcher along. As he paced faithfully at her side, they slipped into a familiar and long-forgotten routine without realizing it. Up a dusty slope, down a rocky gully, through a thorny thicket, and—
“The ceremonial hill,” Fletcher breathed, coming to a halt as the grassy hilltop grew visible through the trunks of the trees.
“Just needed to get my bearings,” said Keriya. “We head east from here.”
They marched on. The sun rose, casting black-and-gold patterns over the moss carpet, then fell toward Shivnath’s wretched mountains. W
