BOUND BENEATH ROOTS AND SOUL

Chapter 10

I was back here.

The transition didn’t feel like falling asleep; it felt like being pulled through the bottom of a barrel. One second, I was tucked into the safety of the tree-house, the scent of Elara’s calming herbal tea still clinging to the back of my throat, and the next, I was standing in the thick of the woods. But this wasn't the vibrant, breathing forest I had walked through with Ashthorne. The air here was stagnant—a heavy, suffocating cold that felt like it was trying to seep into my marrow.

I was dreaming again. I had to be. My body felt light, yet every step I took on the blackened, brittle leaves felt impossibly real. I turned slowly, trying to orient myself. The realization of where I was didn't come all at once. At first, there was only the sense of trees—too close, too quiet. The trunks were tall and skeletal, their bark faintly luminescent, yet the light did not feel kind. Shadows clung too tightly to the roots, pooling in places where darkness should not settle.

I spun around, my breath hitching in my chest, searching for a landmark or a path that made sense. Everything felt foggy and off-center, as if I were seeing the world through a layer of dirty glass. I turned back toward the deeper shadows, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs, and that’s when the world went deathly quiet.

I came face-to-face with an abomination.

It was the unicorn. Or at least, the horrific memory of what a unicorn used to be. Up close, without Ashthorne’s emerald barrier to shield me, the terror was a thousand times more visceral. Its fur wasn't white anymore, as Ashthorne had described it predecessor to be; it was a matted, oily mess of grey and black rot that smelled like stagnant pond water and old copper. One of its eyes was a milky, sightless orb, while the other—a pale, sickly yellow—was locked onto me with a mindless, starving intensity.

Its breath left it in a wet, rattling wheeze that made my stomach churn. As it lowered its head, I saw the jagged, weeping stump where its horn should have been, dripping with the same black sludge that was currently eating the forest alive. My feet scrambled backward on instinct, slipping against loose soil. I didn't scream; I couldn't. I just scrambled back, my hands scraping against the rough, peeling bark of a dying tree.

"No—no—" I whispered.

My footing failed me, my heels sliding in the slick mud, but a primitive surge of adrenaline forced me upright. I didn't plan a route or think about survival tactics. I just turned and ran.

I ran and ran and ran. My lungs burned with every gasp of the thin air, and the branches whipped against my face, leaving stinging welts I could barely feel through the panic. I let my instincts take the wheel, trusting a pull deep in my chest that felt like a magnetic needle swinging north. My heart was dragging me toward something—a physical tether pulling me toward the edge of the trees.

Keep running, a voice in my head whispered. Don't stop.

I'm pretty sure my physical body was safe in my bed, but the fear was so sharp that it didn't matter. Something in the back of my mind warned me that if that wheezing monstrosity caught me here, I wouldn’t be waking up.

As the forest began to thin, revealing the silver-grey light of a clearing, I broke through the final line of brush and skidded to a halt near the shore of the obsidian lake. There it was: the mirror-still water and the heavy, ancient silence. But something new had been added. A shimmering wall of ultra-dark emerald light—almost like the same kind of barrier Ashthorne had used earlier that afternoon just more throbbing—It was stretched across the bank like a vast curtain. It hummed with a low, vibrating power that made my teeth ache. It was a line drawn in the sand against the rot.

And standing just beyond it was the Dark Shadow.

I couldn’t see his face. It felt as if my eyes refused to register his features, sliding off him like water off a duck's back. He was massive—a towering, impenetrable silhouette that felt heavier than the trees behind him. He stood with his hands crossed over his chest, his posture relaxed, almost amused. His head was tilted slightly, as if he were studying me, measuring me.

He didn't look at me directly at first. To him, I was clearly nothing—a "thing," a stray thought drifting through the woods. I could feel the utter indifference radiating off him like cold heat. He felt so far above me,I was almost convinced that my existence didn't even warrant a glance.

“You,” I breathed.

The Shadow did not respond. As I drew nearer to the barrier, his posture shifted subtly. He straightened, uncrossing his arms, and his attention sharpened. Then, deliberately, he turned his back on me. It was a look of total, arrogant dismissiveness. He clearly thought his sanctuary was impenetrable; he was expecting just a wandering, intruding ghost who would hit the green light and bounce off like a moth against a windowpane.

Panic flared sharp and sudden in my chest. “No—wait—please” I said, rushing forward.

I didn't stop. I couldn't. The pull in my heart was a physical force now, a rope tying me to the space just beyond the light. I stretched out my hands, my fingers reaching for the emerald shimmer. I expected to hit a solid wall. I expected the shockwave of power that had sent those monstrosities flying in the afternoon.

Instead, I passed through.

The light rippled, flaring briefly where my skin met it, but it did not resist me. It did not burn. It rippled around my skin like silk, welcoming me into the inner circle with a soft, harmonic chime. I stepped through the light and into the sanctuary, the air suddenly smelling of cedar and old parchment.

I froze, my heart hammering against my ribs, so loud I could almost hear it. The Shadow went rigid. He spun back around, and for the first time since I had seen him, his composure shattered. I could see his eyes now. His eyes widened—molten gold and fierce-like in their intensity—as shock cut through the darkness like a blade. Whatever certainty he had carried cracked, replaced by a shock so deep it looked like a physical blow. He looked at my hands, still glowing faintly from the barrier, and then at my face. He looked like he couldn't believe what he had just seen.

“You—” he started, taking a sharp step toward me.

I stood there, still trying to catch my breath, my chest heaving and my mind a mess of a thousand questions. I wanted to know who he was. I wanted to know why I was here. But he recovered from his shock faster than I did. His presence loomed over me like a storm cloud, appearing not just angry, but alarmed—as if my presence here was a sign of something truly understandable approaching.

He didn't wait for me to explain. He didn't give me a chance to find my voice. He raised a hand, and the sound of his movement snapped like breaking glass.

With a sudden, sharp snap of his fingers, the world didn't just go dark. It vanished. The emerald light, the obsidian lake, and the dark shadowed man were erased in a heartbeat. I felt my consciousness slip away, falling back into the heavy, dreamless nothingness before I could even utter a single syllable.

I woke with a jolt, but I wasn't in bed.

The floor beneath me was cold and hard—the smooth wood of the tree-house, not the damp, mossy earth of the forest floor. I sat up, my head spinning, and realized with a surge of terror that my dress was torn and my hair was full of leaves.

I hadn't just been dreaming. I had sleep walked, deep into the woods, and I had just returned. The morning light just barely beginning to filter through the canopy of the tree house.