Phae devoured the gift left on the stone slowly, savoring each berry as a sacred gift. She cooed with delight. Motioning for Shion to sit by her, she encouraged him to linger. When she turned back to the stone, it was nearly overflowing with berries of various sorts. Each was a treat, a delight. She ate until she was full, feeling strength and energy begin to warm her. The water from the stream provided what she needed to quench her thirst.
“Can I borrow your flask please?” she asked him.
He offered it to her and she knelt by the stream and poured it out on her hair, scrubbing through the strands to free the dirt and mud away. She dipped the flask three times into the brook before feeling like her hair was finally clean. It hung wetly down her back, but it no longer smelled of the rot and stink from the pond she had plunged into. After filling the flask the final time, she stoppered it and handed it back.
“How did you know that pond was dangerous yesterday?” she asked him. “I was so sure it was leading us to safety, yet I was wrong. It twisted my mind somehow.”
He crouched by the edge of the brook, circling his fingers in the water. He was quiet for a while. “It felt familiar. As if I had been there before. I had a premonition of warning.”
“Do you think it was a Dryad tree? It looked dead once all the insects were gone.”
He shook his head. “No, I don’t think it was. Just as there are good spirits, there are also terrible ones. When I tried to kill Tyrus, he took me with his device to a waterfall deep in the Alkire. I felt the presence of a spirit creature there, a terrible presence. It radiated fear. Whatever creature was lurking in that bog was probably like that one. The butterflies were a trap. The waters were likely poisoned.”
She shuddered at the memory of the butterfly swarm. The experience in the glen was much different. She felt safe, that the creatures of Mirrowen were guarding them.
“Look,” Shion said, his eyes narrowing.
Phae turned her gaze. Across the brook behind them was an enormous white stag. Its breath came in little puffs of mist as it breathed. Huge pronged antlers crested its head like branches of a sharp thorny tree. The feeling of peace swelled inside of her, along with something else. A deep sense of longing rose up inside her. The feeling was hard to describe. It was a yearning—a desire to belong. The feeling was deep inside her, thick with essence and it permeated all through her. She stared into the stag’s eyes, seeing intelligence there. Another puff of mist came from its beautiful nose. She longed to stroke the velvet skin. A thought brushed against her mind.
Follow, Dryad-born.
Phae rose obediently to her feet.
The stag led them through the tangle of woods, always choosing a path easy to follow. The berries had completely restored Phae’s flagging strength and it was much easier keeping pace through the forest. The birch gave way to oak and cedar as they crossed over ridges and delved deeper into the reclusive woodlands. Signs of spirit life were evident everywhere around them, colorful birds trilling and the aroma of flowers that she could not see. Phae felt at peace and safe, as if the woods were a mantle shielding her from the probing gaze of the Arch-Rike’s minions. A queer hunger to belong grew inside her as she marched. She could not speak for fear of weeping. Her emotions had been struck by some invisible chord of music and she felt oneness with the woods that she had never experienced before. Strangely, it was as if she were coming home.
The intensity of her feelings continued to mount as the sun started its fading arc in the sky. Gnats swirled in the air, dancing like dust motes. The stag’s pace did not flag, but it suddenly stopped, dipping its head to the ground, drawing attention there. It had stopped before a patch of charred earth, as if sniffing it. Then it continued a little way farther, stopping again to smell a heap of ash on the forest floor. Phae and the Kishion approached, staring at the sudden shift of color and smell. Oaks with charred trunks appeared as they got closer and the air contained the scent of smoke. Farther still, a skeleton lay sprawled near a tree, fragments of clothing rotting in the woods, alongside a spear. It startled Phae and she grabbed Shion’s arm.
He stared at the remains. “Boeotian,” he whispered.
The stag led them into a grove of blackened trees. The forest floor crunched beneath their boots, but already new growth was beginning to poke up from the dense tangle of blackened scrub. After the burning circle of trees, Phae’s heart leapt with emotion. A gnarled oak tree lay in the center of the scorched ground with hulking limbs and an enormous axe-bit wound into its bulky trunk.