Shades of Magic: A Progression Fantasy Epic (Restriction Book 2) by D.K. Holmberg

Author:D.K. Holmberg [Holmberg, D.K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aethon Books
Published: 2023-07-10T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 27

A WALK THROUGH THE TREES

Sarah wandered with him outside of the city, glancing all around. She seemed to take in everything with a look of curiosity, one that Torian found amusing, partly because she kept staring up at the trees.

“Are you sure that we should do this? We’ve been warned about coming into the forest. It’s dangerous.”

He had suggested it as a way of breaking up their studying, though he hadn’t been sure if she would go along with him. Torian had needed to get away, though.

“That hasn’t been my experience previously,” Torian said. “At least not before the Rusav attack. The forest around Sarot was never dangerous. My home was not dangerous. We had the usual creatures around us, but nothing deadly.”

At least nothing deadly until the shadow wolves appeared. Once they had, Torian began to see everything starting to change. And since then, Torian had experienced so many different creatures that he could scarcely even keep track of some of them.

“It wasn’t always like that here, either. When I first came to Corsalt, I used to come out into the forest and take walks, just like this. After the attack, the city faced its share of struggles. The headmaster and the professors don’t like to talk about it, but I think they are concerned about what’s out in the forest. Rusav creatures, after all. They left them behind.”

“I don’t think all of them are from Rusav,” Torian said.

“And you are an expert in them?”

“Not really an expert, but I’ve seen a few on my travels to Corsalt. I had to deal with some, as well. Most are easy enough to handle, but not all. What have you encountered around the city?”

“Me? None,” Sarah said with a bit of a smile. “But the stories suggest that our professors have encountered quite a few. The forest has been cleared, so we don’t have to worry about it… unless you are worried.”

Torian shook his head and swept his gaze around him, not really expecting to see anything. The forest was dark, and most of it consisted of oak and pine trees, though occasionally, there were taller, slender trees that were unlike any of the other trees that he had seen in the forest around Sarot. He stopped near the base of one, looking up. The trees stretched impossibly high overhead, and they had a narrow, almost bunched canopy with large leaves that shaded the ground below. Some sort of berry grew within the bunches of leaves.

“We don’t have anything like this around Sarot,” he said.

They weren’t even that far from Sarot. A couple of days, but then they were on the north side of Corsalt, a place that Torian had never been before. It didn’t surprise him that he would encounter strangeness, but he wouldn’t have expected the foliage to be so drastically different.

“These are new,” she said.

She kept walking, and Torian kept staring up at the tree until it registered with him what she had said.

“Wait,” he went on, hurrying to catch up to her.

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