The corners of her lips tilted up as she moved towards the nearest tree. Pulling off her glove, Aileana placed her hand flat on the trunk, closing her eyes. Ribbons the color of bright leaves slipped from her palms as her skin shone a vibrant green. Her markings glowed and our mating bond tingled as she tugged on her power.
After a few minutes, Aileana’s shoulders loosened, and the lines on her face disappeared. All around us, the blackened trees pulled back their branches, moving to clear a path.
“Incredible,” Maiela breathed.
She was right. There was no one more incredible than my mate. Aileana worked with skill, pouring herself into the land. The forest shifted all around us, changing before our eyes. Midnight black vines dissolved in a flurry of green. Trees grew stronger. The air itself seemed lighter.
When my Earth Elf stepped away from the tree, a faint green sheen still tinging her skin, she seemed more relaxed than before.
“That’s better.” She exhaled, rolling her shoulders. “For a moment there, I really thought I was going to explode if I couldn’t get rid of some of my magic.”
Pulling her in for a kiss, I murmured, “The earth and I are both lucky to have you.”
“Both of you?” she raised a brow.
I chuckled. “Both of us.”
I couldn’t imagine my life without her. It wouldn’t be worth living. She was everything. She was my fire and my life and my reason for living.
Smiling, Aileana reached into her pocket and withdrew the compass. Everyone crowded around as she flipped it open. Glowing green like her skin, the interior was just as expertly made. Four points, each one made of pure gold, pointed north, east, south, and west. Unlike a typical compass, the middle of this one was not an arrow, but the branch of a pine tree. The needle spun in a circle three times before settling in a northeastern direction.
Aileana looked up at me expectantly. “Xander?”
Taking out the map, I unfurled the parchment and held it flat against the nearest tree. It didn’t take us long to find our location; the compass made navigating much easier.
Our destination was brightly marked, still a distance from where we currently stood.
Aileana tapped the map. “Can you fly us there?”
A forest stretched from the bottom of the parchment, leading toward a massive mountain range. Biting my lip, I studied it intently.
“I don’t think so,” I said after a moment. “The weight of five people is too much to carry for long periods of time, especially if we aren’t sure where we’re going.”
Not to mention I could fly us into a trap, or worse, we could go so off course that it could take days to correct.
“So hiking is our only option.” Aileana groaned. The way she said “hiking” made it sound like the activity was akin to dying. “Great. Well, let’s do it. Hopefully, this is the worst part of this quest. We’ve already faced a pack of murderous wolves. What else can go wrong?”
What else, indeed.
In hindsight, that was the moment I should have known this quest would end the way it did. That was the moment I should have put a stop to all this.
But hindsight, in all its cruelty, does not exist to help us. Hindsight is the curse of survivors, there to taunt us in all the ways we could have done things differently. Hindsight, like the hands of fate, plays games with us.
So instead of stopping this quest, I rolled up the map, took my mate’s hand in mine, and together, we hiked once more.
Nothing but a Problem
RYLLAE
Four days of nothing but trees and snow and cold were taking their toll on me. Tiredness had come and gone two days ago. At this point, my exhaustion was so complete, I did not know how I was still putting one foot in front of the other. In all my years, I had never seen a winter like this. I’d never known that I could be so completely cold. That the air could be so painful. I had never experienced a wind that ate away at your bones until you forgot what it meant to be warm. Though the sun shone periodically, its rays did not warm me.
Memories of sun-kissed skin and heat were distant dreams at this point.
If it wasn’t for Daegal’s constant presence by my side, I would have collapsed long ago. Every time snow fell from the cursed sky, it made this trek even more perilous. Walking in snowshoes while carrying a heavy pack for days required a level of physical ability that I simply did not possess.
Case in point: the bruises that now covered my arms and knees. I had fallen more times than I could count, catching my feet on branches and roots that always seemed to find themselves in my path.
Daegal and I were walking at the back of the pack, a small distance from the others, as I struggled to keep up. My breath came in short bursts, and my muscles burned. I couldn’t help but feel bad about keeping him from his friends. He was stuck here with me.