Page 9 of Invocation

Chapter 3

They slept, and another day passed.

Aruna sat across from her at the table the next evening after they awoke. He set his chin on his hand and watched Neiryn help Shadri cook again, not looking at Novikke even once. He was in a visibly poor mood. Novikke didn’t comment on it.

Kadaki, who had left by herself earlier in the evening, returned and stopped in the open doorway. She stood there until Novikke and Aruna looked over at her.

“You need to see something. Outside,” she said. She was looking at a spot between the far wall and the floor, her hands folded in front of her.

Aruna finally glanced at Novikke, waiting for a translation.

“All of us?” Novikke asked.

“All of you.”

“Is something wrong?” Neiryn said.

She sighed. “Just come.”

They followed her out into the waning daylight and across the village, garnering displeased glances as they went. She led them to the edge of the village, then stopped, waiting. A small crowd of Varai were already there, gazing into the forest at whatever she’d brought them there to see. None of them looked happy.

At first, Novikke saw nothing. Then, looking closely, she spotted a pattern among the trees. A line of dying trees and bushes and grasses, following an invisible path to the east.

Toward the ruins, which she could see in the distance.

Aruna placed a hand on the closest tree. Its black bark had turned an odd brown-gray, its branches had withered, and its needles had turned from a healthy deep blue-green to almost white. The bark crumbled under his touch, and when he pulled his hand away, his fingers were coated in an ash-like substance. A solid heaviness settled in the pit of Novikke’s stomach.

He looked down the path of dying plants, then at Kadaki, and said something.

“What is this?” Neiryn translated quietly.

Kadaki crossed her arms, looking into the trees. “The forest is dying,” she said simply.

There was a stunned silence.

“You can’t know that. A dead tree or two doesn’t mean the entire forest will die,” Novikke said.

Kadaki just gave her an unhappy look.

Aruna nudged Neiryn’s arm, still waiting for a translation, but Novikke could tell that he, too, had guessed what was happening.

Kadaki pulled them away from the other night elves and explained further as Neiryn murmured translations to Aruna.

Kadaki hadn’t stopped Theros in time. Things had already been set in motion by the time she’d closed off the leak at the ruins.

The loosing of the ruin’s magic had disrupted the precarious equilibrium of magic energy in Kuda Varai. Like shaking a basin full of water, it created waves, overflowing in some parts and sinking in others. And now that this death had begun, it was unlikely to stop.

“I wasn’t sure what kind of effect an event like this would have,” she said, frowning up at the dying trees. “But I can feel something happening. The forest is changing. It feels unwell. Magic energy is snapping and flickering everywhere, like a guttering candle.”

Novikke couldn’t feel any of that. Neither could anyone else, it seemed, not even the night elves. Not yet.

“How can you be sure?” Novikke asked, more because she wanted it to not be true than because she doubted her.

“I’m sure, Novikke. I wish I wasn’t.”

“What will happen?”

She paused, chewing her lip and staring into the forest.

---