Chapter Seven
Pow-pow flew over the sun-drenched land. The castle seemed frozen in time. Stone residents remained forever captured in their last moment. Twelve protectors stood as sentinels over the kingdom. White energy and royal blue lightning crackled between them.
Outside the castle walls, a long ravine stretched for nearly a mile in each direction. The gap was so deep that at one time molten rock from the planet’s core had flowed within it, leaving a hard crust as evidence. On the other side of the ravine was a blackened forest. Ghostly trunks of dead trees populated the landscape for hundreds of yards into the once lush forest.
Past the dead trees, life thrived. Wynter saw a frightened herd of deer running through a meadow and a pack of wolves that sought cover in the thick forest
