Page 7 of The Shadow Path
Only to freeze when they saw a massive black bear rising on two legs as they walked into a small clearing.
“This is Abukcheek.” Kere patted the bear’s side. “He’ll lead us across.”
Carys turned to Duncan, who was frozen and staring at the bear. “Okay, I did tell you it’s a little bit different here.”
“That’s a… very large bear.”
“He’s a shifter.”
“Right. A shifter bear,” Duncan muttered. “So much better.”
Carys took his hand and shook him a little. Duncan blinked and started walking.
They followed Laura, who followed Kere, who followed their black-coated ursine guide. The trees grew denser and the forest darker. The wisps flew around them, swirling and dancing in the heavy darkness.
Carys kept Duncan’s hand in hers, just as he’d done for her when she crossed the gate in Scotland. “I promise it’s not far.”
“It’s so dark.”
Carys looked up at the living sentries that guarded the portal between the human world and the magical. “The trees are older here.”
The redwoods seemed to grow taller and thicker as they walked, crowding out everything around them. No sunlight. No stars.
The world pressed in to the point where Carys didn’t know how the bear guiding them could even make it through the narrow alley of gnarled reddish bark.
The scent of green life was thick in her throat until the air seemed to loosen, the wisps sighed and flew away, and a pearl-grey light peeked through the cathedral of massive trees.
The bear in front of them started to gallop toward the light, but Kere and Laura walked hand in hand, strolling into the gentle light that opened up and bathed a forest meadow where flowers bloomed, a gentle stream trickled, and birds were beginning to sing.
Kere turned to Duncan and Carys and smiled. “Welcome to Pauwau Aki, Duncan Murray.”
Carys could feel her dragon approaching, and the low, rumbling voice in her mind was like gentle, distant thunder.
As they walked into the meadow, she lifted her face to the cloudy sky to see her dragon soaring overhead, wheeling and turning in the grey morning light, his emerald-green wings outstretched and red fire glowing in his belly.
Nêrys, there you are.
CHAPTER TWO
“Iwas about to cross the gate to look for you.” Cadell sat on a log around a friendly fire in a clearing. “You should have been here an hour ago.”
He was clad in leather armor, his muscled arms bare, as if he didn’t feel the morning fog at all. He stretched out his massive legs and leaned toward the fire.
Dragons really loved fire.
“Duncan showed up at the college,” Carys said. “We had a cup of tea before we walked over. I’m sorry if you were worried; we kind of lost track of time.”
Men and women were bustling around the village, getting ready for a busy spring day as children ran around the camp, calling to their friends and gathering their belongings from long, low cedar-plank houses that were halfway dug into the ground. The roofs were covered in redwood shingles, and from each house, a grey stream of smoke rose from a clay chimney.
It looked like a typical morning as children grabbed knapsacks for school, parents readied them for the day, and others headed off toward the forest to hunt or fish.
Though the faces were as familiar as the ones in Baywood, everyone in the village spoke a dialect of the local Yurok language that Carys was still trying to learn. But though she didn’t speak the common language, the Shadowkin in Kere’s village had always made her feel at home.
Cadell turned to Duncan. “Perhaps you think that I’ve become derelict in my role as Carys’s protector?—”
“No one was thinking that, Cadell.” Carys tried to stop him.
“I have learned that there are no malignant forces in Baywood—other than the typical human dangers,” Cadell continued, “but also that I can feel Carys from this side of this gate. The old growth forest exists in both worlds, so the gates are more porous than they are in Briton.”
