Elara Pov
We moved at first light because staying still meant dying.
Kael was barely conscious so we tied him to his horse like cargo, his head lolling forward with each step.
I took the reins of both horses and started walking, Liora scouted ahead with her knife drawn.
"This is what Seraphina wants," I said to no one, to the forest, to whatever was listening...
She's practically dancing in my head right now.
"Then we disappoint her," Liora called back.
We survive anyway.
The landscape started changing about an hour in, subtle at first then impossible to ignore.
Trees grew at wrong angles, some sideways out of cliff faces, others upside down with roots reaching toward a sky that kept getting darker even though the sun should have been rising.
The air tasted like metal, like bloo
