Sleep had been a stranger to Rose. She'd spent the night tossing in her cot, the alien mark on her palm burning with a phantom heat, a constant reminder of the magical chain now linking her to Draven Thorneblood. She rose two hours before sunrise, the silver light of the waning moon filtering through the woven branches of her dwelling. The air was cool and still, but her mind was a tempest.
She moved with grim purpose, packing by the soft glow of a single candle. Her fingers, usually so steady when grinding herbs or setting a bone, trembled slightly. Into her worn leather pack went dried rations, a full water skin, and flint and steel. Beside them, she carefully placed canvas pouches filled with her true essentials: ground willow bark for pain, sun-drenched marigold petals to ward off infection, and the precious, tightly-wrapped leaves of the silverwood tree, a potent antidote for most common poisons. She added rolls of clean linen for bandages and a small, sharp knife, its handle worn smooth from years of use. Her entire life, the essence of her magic and her purpose, reduced to what she could carry on her back.
Her gaze fell to her right hand, resting on the pack. The dark, swirling thorn branded on her palm seemed to mock her. She felt a sudden, suffocating wave of anger—at Draven for his arrogance, at the blight for its existence, and most of all at Maeve, for forcing this upon her. She was a healer, a nurturer of life, not some sacrificial offering to be handed over to a savage.
"The hardest journeys require the strongest guides."
Rose jumped, spinning around to see Elder Maeve standing in the doorway, her silhouette framed by the pre-dawn gloom.
"He is no guide," Rose spat, her voice low and venomous. "He is a plague in his own right."
Maeve entered, her eyes soft with an understanding that only infuriated Rose more. "I did not say he was a good guide, child. Only a strong one. You will need his strength before this is over." The Elder reached out and gently took Rose's hand, her thumb stroking over the magical mark. "Do not mistake the nature of the bond. It is not a cage. It is an anchor. It will not force you to like him, but it will not allow you to be truly lost from one another. In your moments of greatest need, it will pull you together."
"I don't want to be pulled toward him," Rose whispered, the anger draining away to reveal the cold fear beneath.
"I know," Maeve said softly. "But you must be the heart of this quest, Rose. His world is one of violence and shadow. Do not let his darkness extinguish the ember of life you carry within you. Now more than ever, you must burn brightly." She pressed a small, smooth river stone into Rose's free hand. It was warm to the touch. "A piece of home. For when you feel lost."
Tears pricked Rose's eyes, but she blinked them away fiercely. She would not cry. She would not show weakness. She nodded, tucked the stone into a pocket, and shouldered her pack. It was time.
The air at the northern edge of the Wildthorn territory was sharp with the coming dawn. Draven and his four remaining warriors were already there, waiting. They looked like statues carved from night and stone, utterly alien against the vibrant green of the forest's edge. Draven stood slightly apart, arms crossed over his massive chest, his gaze fixed on the northern horizon. He was already gone from this place in his mind.
He turned as she approached, his stormy eyes raking over her from head to toe. She wore practical, dark-green leather breeches, a simple tunic, and a sturdy cloak—nothing that would snag or hinder her. Still, she felt his gaze like a physical touch, clinical and assessing, as if he were judging a beast of burden for its stamina.
"You're late," was all he said, his voice a gravelly rumble in the quiet morning.
"The sun has not yet risen, Alpha," she replied coolly. "I am precisely on time."
A muscle in his jaw twitched. Without another word, he turned his back on her and on the forest. "We walk north," he commanded to no one and everyone. "Keep pace."
He set off without a backward glance, his long, powerful strides eating up the ground. His warriors fell into formation around him, a silent, deadly phalanx. With a deep breath and a final, longing look at the home she was leaving behind, Rose followed, the sole speck of green in their world of gray and black.
The transition was jarring. One moment, she was walking on soft moss, the symphony of the living forest in her ears. The next, the ground became harder, littered with scree and stone. The ancient, benevolent trees of her home gave way to sparser, more suspicious pines. The air grew thin and cold, and the silence was broken only by the crunch of their boots and the mournful sigh of the wind.
An hour passed in this tense, punishing silence. Two. Draven set a relentless pace, clearly designed for his long-limbed, battle-hardened wolves. Rose was strong, her stamina built from long days traversing the forest, but this was different. This was a forced march, a brutal assertion of dominance. She focused on her breathing, on the feel of the earth beneath her feet, falling into a rhythm that conserved her energy.
She was hyper-aware of him, even when he was a dozen paces ahead. She could feel his impatience like a constant, low-grade fever through the bond on her palm. It was a new and deeply unsettling intimacy, feeling the emotions of a man she so thoroughly despised.
"The little healer is already flagging, Alpha," one of the warriors, a brute with a scarred face, called out, his voice laced with amusement. He had dropped back to walk beside her. "Perhaps she needs us to carry her pretty pack for her."
Rose ignored him, her eyes fixed on the path ahead, her jaw tight.
"Garrett," Draven's voice cut through the air like a whip crack, though he didn't stop or turn around. "Silence."
"But Alpha, at this pace—"
Draven stopped so abruptly that Garrett nearly walked into him. The Alpha turned slowly, and the sheer, glacial menace in his eyes made the much larger warrior flinch and take a step back.
"She is the key," Draven said, his voice dangerously low. "Her purpose is to get us to the heart of the blight. My purpose is to get her there alive. That is the only command that matters. Her pace is our pace until I say otherwise. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Alpha," Garrett mumbled, his gaze fixed on the ground.
Draven's stormy eyes then landed on Rose. There was no kindness in them, no concern. Only cold, hard pragmatism. He was a general assessing a critical but fragile piece of equipment. "Can you continue?" he demanded.
"I can," she said, meeting his gaze without flinching, though her calves were beginning to burn.
He gave a curt nod, turned, and resumed the march, his pace just a fraction slower than before. It wasn't a concession to her, she knew. It was a concession to the mission. But it was a concession nonetheless, and the silent acknowledgment that he was bound to her just as she was to him sent a strange, unwelcome flutter through her chest.
They walked until the sun reached its zenith and began its slow descent. As dusk began to bleed purple and orange across the sky, they crested a final, barren ridge. And there, stretched out before them, it lay.
The Gloomwood.
The line was as stark and unnatural as a wound. On their side of the ridge, the hardy pines and sparse grasses of the foothills continued their struggle for life. But on the other side, everything was dead. Gray, skeletal trees clawed at the sky, their branches twisted into agonized shapes. The ground was cracked, barren soil the colour of old ash. No birds sang. No insects chirped. A foul, sickly-sweet stench—the smell of profound decay—wafted up to meet them.
Rose felt the wrongness of it in her very soul, a wave of nausea washing over her. The earth here wasn't just silent; it was screaming.
They stood on the precipice between life and death. Draven came to a stop beside her, his presence a dark, solid wall against the fading light. He stared down into the corrupted forest, his expression unreadable.
"Welcome to my world, healer," he murmured, his voice a low, grim rumble. "Try not to die in it."