Thierren’s horse keeps smart pace with his unit of elite Mages, all the soldiers on horseback and following the lead of their young, confident commander, Sylus Bane, as they ride deep into Gardneria’s Northern Forest.
Countless leaves rustle in the light breeze, and Thierren glances at the surrounding forest with no small amount of awe.
He’s never seen trees like this before. Old growth. Ancient, untouched forest.
Primordial.
Trunks so large that it would take three of him to wrap his arms clear round. Rich, dark Ironwood with rustling canopies of deep emerald leaves, further darkened by the overcast day, the occasional rumbling of thunder to the west. The trees’ loamy scent on the air.
And something else.
A prickling unease bristles the hairs on the back of Thierren’s neck.
As the shadows of the day deepen, it’s as if the trees are increasingly leaning in toward them all. And not in a welcoming way.
The trees don’t want us here.
The thought rises unbidden, and Thierren immediately scoffs at his own imaginings. He glances sidelong at the forest, then blows out a breath and shakes his head, his body moving in sync with his horse. There’s no reason to be spooked by trees, of all things. There’s no reason to be spooked by anything. Thierren glances down at his brand-new soldier’s uniform, spotless and edged with five gleaming silver stripes, signifying his almost unparalleled proficiency in both water and wind magery.
“Ready to hunt some Fae?” stocky, rumpled Branneth asks from beside him as he flashes an excited grin. “Make their pointy-eared heads explode?”
Thierren eyes Branneth, an annoyingly uncouth presence forever trying to win Thierren’s favor. They’re both Level Five Gardnerian Mages, but the similarities end there. Branneth is unforgivably profane and often flat-out immoral, like the rest of his family. Whereas Thierren’s family is part of the Styvian sect—the most purely devout, observant Gardnerians.
The true Gardnerians.
Thierren glances at Branneth with barely concealed censure as they keep pace with their unit. There’s no silver orb pendant around Branneth’s neck, and his uniform is marked with the Erthia sphere, not the Ancient One’s white bird, which the most devout Gardnerians now insist upon. Thierren feels the weight of the silver necklace gracing his own neck, the proper way to wear the Ancient One’s Erthia orb, a symbol of shackling the earth below to the Holy Magedom. And Thierren’s own uniform is blessedly marked with the white bird.
A stronger breeze picks up, a clear command seeming to sound on the wind.
Leave.
Thierren tenses as his gaze darts around warily. A creeping chill pricks at his neck and traces down his spine, like the quick brush of skeletal fingertips. Sensing.
It’s coming from the trees.
Before he can reason away his imaginings, righteous anger flares. Thierren glares at the forest. The cursed wilds. It says right in The Book of the Ancients that the wilds are the lair of the Evil Ones and that trees are to be rendered to dead wood for use by Gardnerians.
Wood for wands and churches and dwellings to raise up the Holy Magedom.
And so the wilds must be razed. Subjugated and controlled, as the Book commands.
We’re going to tear you down, he vows, full of pious resolve. We’ll burn you to ash, along with every evil thing hiding inside you.
It’s not an idle threat. Gardnerian forces are burning large swaths of the Northern Forest to make way for new farms and to flush out hidden Fae. Evil Fae that the Gardnerians thought had been annihilated during the Realm War, but some bands of them had survived by remaining carefully hidden in the remote forests of the North.
Until the Mages started burning the wilds in earnest.
They’re monsters, these Fae—criminal, immoral beasts full of violence and depravity. Thierren has been briefed about the serious threat the Fae pose, the creatures harnessing the evil power of the wilds to attack innocent Mages in an attempt to drive them off their own land.
A heady courage ripples through Thierren.
Dangerous as these Fae are, it’s exhilarating to be ready to give his own life, if needs be, to protect his people from this terrible threat. And to be part of a great, blessed story. The one true story.
The Will of the Ancient One.
“There’re females, I heard,” Branneth muses out of the blue. He waggles his thick brows at Thierren, his green eyes narrowing into a leer. “Best we strip them and give them a thorough inspection before disposing of