Page 128 of Kingdom of Shadows and Wings

Olive, Nick, and I copy Abel. My stomach drops out.

“Oh, shit,” Olive says.

Oh, shitis right. The source of that ungodsly ruckus? The trees. Their branches grow and multiply at an alarming pace, stretching and twisting to form an impenetrable canopy. Thorns longer than my middle finger burst from the bark, jutting down from the canopy with spikes that look sharp enough to cut through bone and stab halfway into our brains.

A high-pitched yelp just about makes me jump out of my skin. The culprit is Nick. He’s cowering away from a tiny twig that’s tickling his face. Olive giggles.

Nick glares. “What? I don’t like the idea of murderous greenery. Is that a crime?”

Abel tries and fails to hide his snicker. “It’s okay, Nick. No judging here. We’ve all had that moment where we suspected a leaf was plotting our demise.”

Nick flips him off, prompting another giggle from Olive. Though I appreciate my team’s ability to find humor while stressed, I kind of want to knock their heads together and order them to focus.

My heart rate climbs. “Sorry, everyone, but I’ve got to side with Nick. Those trees are plotting against us. If we don’t stop them soon, we could end up skewered and at their mercy, and there’s no telling what a pissed off tree will do.”

Olive’s and Abel’s howls come to an abrupt stop when the crunching, rustling, and slithering gets louder. There are branches everywhere, blocking every potential escape route, high or low. But do they stay satisfied with that? Hells, no. They start dropping from the canopy and crawling down the trunks. I swat one off my head when it attempts to snag my hair. Olive wrestles with another one that’s grabbing at her tunic.

Out of the blue, a memory springs to life, one from the night Royce’s son and I were attacked on our way out of the village. Our attacker commanded a tree in a similar fashion. Was he truly a winged warrior from Tirene? And if so, is it possible he was searching for me?

Pain scrapes my cheek, yanking me back into the present. I leap back, dodging another strike by one of those enormous thorns. When I touch my face, my fingers come away wet with blood. These dickhead trees are really starting to piss me off.

Nick swings his sword at a branch that launches at his face. As his blade slices the bough in two, the cursed thing shrieks. “What the fucking fuck?”

I second that, because screaming trees? Unacceptable.

Abel ducks a shoe-length thorn and shoots Nick a horrified look. “Whatever you just did, please never do it again. That is not okay.”

“I’d rather it screams than us!”

Abel huffs and holds his dagger in front of him at the ready. “Valid point. I swear there are twice as many as there were a minute ago.”

Five branches dive-bomb Olive’s head. She blasts them with a gust of wind, but they fight back and keep coming. “We need to quit reacting and come up with a plan of attack.”

Abel drops and rolls to avoid a particularly aggressive branch that seems determined to crack his skull. “Any ideas? I’m open to suggestions?”

“Have you tried praying to your earth god to knock this shit out?” Nick hollers.

“Multiple times. Terro doesn’t seem to care.”

We cycle through our elemental magic. Taking another stab, Olive targets the canopy with a burst of air. Leaves rustle and float to the ground, but nothing else happens. Water magic fails, too, as does earth magic, surprisingly enough. Probably because whoever’s responsible for this leafy horror show possesses stronger earth magic than Abel.

Nick slices another attacker in two, and we all flinch at the shriek. “Lark, I think you’re up.”

My turn, right. It’s like my brain shut down in all the commotion. “It can’t hurt to try. Unless we all catch on fire and burn to death. Then it could hurt a ton.”

“There’s that optimism I love so much.”

My laugh at Abel’s deadpan humor cuts off when something claws my back. Yelping, I spin and summon fire in the blink of an eye. The branch goes up in flames and retreats.

“Hey, I think it worked!”

“Great. Can you make it work a little faster? Death by asshole tree isn’t the way I wanna go.”

The branches continue to multiply and descend like a herd of the ugliest snakes known to man. To avoid their sharp, grasping fingers, we’re forced to crouch low to the ground. Despite my appreciation for the magic wielder’s vision—it’s kind of a genius trap—I can’t say I’m a big fan.

“Everyone lay flat on the ground. The bigger the buffer zone the better.”

My team follows my suggestion without question. When they’re as low as they can get, I stoke the embers inside me and let the fire rip.

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