Chapter 2
By the time Nyra reached the heart of the Emerald Expanse, the Council of Roots had already gathered.
She had expected questions, perhaps another warning about the smoke creeping in from the west.
What she hadn't expected was to find the oldest dryads standing in complete silence beneath the Mother Tree, their faces turned toward a section of forest that had always been thick enough to hide the afternoon sun.
Now, sunlight poured through it.
Nyra stopped walking.
For several moments, she couldn't understand what she was seeing. There should have been trees beyond the western ridge… Hundreds of them, packed together so closely that their roots tangled beneath the soil and their branches touched overhead.
Instead, there was sky.
The humans had cut so deeply into the forest that the western canopy simply ended.
Nyra felt something inside her twist.
She understood then why Bria was dying.
The sickness hadn't begun beside the creek. It had travelled through the earth.
The elders spoke of retreat, of moving the younger dryads farther east while there was still time, but Nyra barely heard them. Beneath her feet came a faint trembling through the soil, followed by another, and then another. Each vibration carried the same terrible meaning.
A tree was falling. Then another. And another.
By sunset, Nyra had made a decision she was almost certain she would regret.
Lumi followed her west.
“You know,” the fairy said from somewhere near Nyra's ear, “when Elder Thalen told everyone to remain inside the inner grove, I don't think he meant except Nyra.”
Nyra pushed aside a low branch. “You could go back.”
“And miss whatever terrible decision you're making? Absolutely not.”
“I'm not making a terrible decision.”
“You're sneaking toward the humans.”
Nyra frowned. “I'm investigating.”
“Ah. My mistake.”
Nyra would normally have argued, but the farther west they travelled, the less she felt like talking.
The forest was changing around them.
Healthy ferns gave way to crushed ones, and familiar animal trails disappeared beneath deep impressions left by heavy boots.
The air grew warmer and dirtier until every breath tasted faintly of ash. Worst of all was what Nyra felt beneath the ground. Roots that should have answered her touch were simply… gone.
When she finally reached the western ridge, she crouched behind the remains of an uprooted cedar and stared.
Her fingers tightened around the bark. “No…”
The clearing beyond wasn't a clearing at all. It was a wound.
Stumps covered the earth for what seemed like an impossible distance. Logs had been piled beside a muddy road, while farther down the slope stood several rough wooden buildings beside the river.
Men moved between them carrying ropes, saws and axes, their voices drifting easily across land that had once belonged to the forest.
Nyra's gaze moved from stump to stump.
All of them?
She remembered walking here as a sapling. She remembered the trees being so old that she had once needed nearly an entire morning to walk around one of their trunks.
Now she couldn't even tell which stump had belonged to which tree.
A warm hand touched her cheek.
Lumi hovered beside her. “Nyra.”
“They killed them.”
“I know.”
“For what?”
Lumi had no answer.
Then laughter rose from below.
Nyra looked toward the sound and saw a man emerging from the largest building.
He was enormous by human standards, broad across the shoulders, with an old scar cutting from his temple toward his jaw. An axe rested comfortably against one shoulder, its metal head catching the dying sunlight.
Several men greeted him.
Nyra didn't know his name, but she knew what he was the moment she saw the others move around him.
The Destroyer.
The name the forest had given the man responsible for pushing the western boundary farther inward every season.
Nyra's courage disappeared almost immediately.
She backed away from the ridge. “We should go.”
Lumi blinked. “Probably.”
Nyra looked at her.
The fairy shrugged. “What? I can encourage you without encouraging stupidity.”
A laugh nearly escaped Nyra, but another cracking sound came from below.
One of the men had begun chopping into a young tree near the edge of the clearing.
Nyra froze.
The little tree's distress reached her through the earth.
Help.
Whether it had truly spoken or whether her mind had simply given words to its pain, Nyra didn't know.
Her hand moved before she could think better of it.
Roots stirred beneath the soil.
The man's axe rose again, but a thick vine suddenly curled around its handle and jerked it sideways. He shouted as the weapon flew from his grip.
Every human in the clearing turned.
Nyra's stomach dropped.
“Oh,” Lumi whispered. “That was definitely a terrible decision.”
The scarred man looked directly toward the ridge.
For one horrible moment, neither moved.
Then he smiled.
Nyra ran.
Shouts exploded behind her as she crashed through the undergrowth, hanging roots whipping around her legs while Lumi flew beside her. She could feel the humans pursuing them, their boots striking the ground in heavy, ugly rhythms.
“Faster!” Lumi cried.
“I am trying!”
“You're panicking.”
“Of course I'm panicking!”
Nyra threw one hand toward the earth. Roots burst through the soil behind her, twisting together across the path. A human stumbled with a curse, buying her a few precious seconds.
Then something sliced through them.
Nyra heard the unmistakable chop of an axe.
The Destroyer was still coming.
She pushed harder, but banyans were never meant for speed. Her body was strong, her roots powerful, but every hurried step pulled painfully against the earth.
Lumi suddenly flew in front of her.
“Nyra, listen to me. Your life force is steady, but you're exhausting yourself. Stop wasting magic on everything behind us.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Use what you're good at.”
Nyra almost laughed. “Gardening?”
“Growing.”
That single word steadied her.
Nyra planted one foot hard against the ground.
Instead of forcing roots blindly upward, she reached for what was already there.
The forest answered.
A curtain of thorny vines erupted behind her, weaving through bushes and fallen branches until the narrow trail vanished beneath green. Nyra didn't wait to see whether it worked. She turned and continued deeper into the forest.
A furious crash sounded behind her. Then another.
But the footsteps became distant.
For a moment, hope rose inside her.
She could escape.
Then her foot caught beneath an exposed root.
Nyra fell hard.
Pain tore through her side as she struck the ground, and before she could rise, she heard branches breaking somewhere behind her.
Too close.
“Nyra!” Lumi screamed.
She rolled onto her back.
Through the leaves overhead, she caught a flash of metal.
The axe.
Her body refused to move. She could hear her own frightened breathing and the violent pounding of footsteps approaching through the trees.
Bria.
For some ridiculous reason, that was what she thought about.
She had promised she'd come back.
Nyra squeezed her eyes shut.
She waited for the axe to fall. But it never came.