Page 34 of The First Trial
I looked back at Tinky-Winky with this new perspective. It changed everything. For some reason, his immediate infatuationwith my sister was going to give us a leg-up in these trials, since we were going to need to work together to get out of here alive. That was if we ever got out at all. For all I knew, we were stuck here forever.
Fuck, I hoped not.
Armed with that new knowledge, I took a step towards the Deamon, only to freeze when a pulse of magic washed over me. It was subtle, more like a gentle breeze than a tsunami of power, but there was something about it that screameddanger.
The grass began to undulate as if caught in the snare of the magic, the movements like choppy waves compared to their previously gentle sway. The leaves on the trees copied the movements, but I could find no pattern in them. The motions were random, starting off slow before they picked up speed, no longer smooth but jerky.
Hawthorne and Enid were already well on their way to those trees, unaware of the danger I felt until Thorne suddenly stopped in his tracks, looked back at me, then settled his gaze uncertainly on the trees. Tinky-Winky hadn’t left my side, and I was oddly comforted by his steady presence.
A series of cracks preceded the sound of thundering footsteps and shouts heading right for us.
I watched, the icy fear running through my veins freezing me in place as, one by one, the tops of the trees bent and rose much the same way a person’s head bobbed as they wove through a crowd. The damn trees weren’t trees in any sense I had ever known before, and they were waking up.
Their movements were slow at first, their bark creaking like stiff joints as if they had been stationary for too long, and they needed to work out the kinks. Like a domino effect, their roots tore from the earth, and they stood at a greater height. The canopy of their leaves shook like a dog after playing in a muddy puddle, water droplets, twigs and other debris flying offin every direction. I raised my hands to protect my face after a particularly sharp twig scratched a line down my already sliced face, adding to the scars this whole ordeal had undoubtedly given me, and the grunts of pain from my friends proved I wasn’t the only one getting slashed.
Then, it stopped. The world paused as if holding its breath, like it was waiting for something to set it off again.
It didn’t take long for pandemonium to hit.
Screams echoed from within the forest as movement began again, and a horde of people raced from the trees, dodging their flailing branches and tripping over the rising roots. Tinky-Winky’s friend was in the front of the throng, sprinting toward us at full speed.
‘Phenex!’ he shouted in a similarly grinding voice, followed by more words in their language I didn’t understand. What Icouldunderstand, however, was the panicked insistence in his body language. He wasn’t runningtous. He was runningfromsomething. If a big dude like him with those massive horns protruding from his skull and long, wicked-looking talons poking from his fingers was running, then we’d better start too.
The next moment, a root whipped out from beyond the shadows of the trees and snaked around one of the Fae that was running. It yanked him back into their fold, cutting off his shrill scream in seconds. There was no sound of flesh rendering or bones cracking, so I had no idea if he was dead, alive, or merely unconscious. I wasn’t planning on sticking around to find out.
‘Move!’ I ordered. Thorne and Enid were already racing away, but they immediately halted. There was nowhere to run to. We were surrounded on all sides by sentient trees, and since they were currently attacking us, I didn’t believe it was the best idea to run directly into their wooden clutches.
I inhaled sharply at the realisation that we were trapped. ‘Shit.’
‘What do we do?’ Enid asked, her voice higher in pitch than usual from her fear.
I racked my brain trying to find a way out, but it was Barney who figured it out. He knelt on the ground, ignoring the chaos surrounding us as people ran around and also came to the understanding that they were stuck, and started clawing at the ground.
Hope lit a fuse up my ass, and I bent down to join him. ‘We dig,’ I told her, hands already buried in the soil. It was difficult at first since the grass roots were a tangled mess just beneath the surface, but once we were able to tear through those and get to the softer soil, things moved a lot faster. It also helped that Tinky-Winky and Barney were a lot stronger than us, their claws shredding the roots faster than our blunt fingertips and flimsy nails.
When we’d dug what was essentially a shallow grave, the trees had started to converge on the group. A few had seen what we were doing and were frantically digging their own holes, but many had been lost, ripped away by roots, vines, and branches. When a Fae woman beside us was next to be taken, our efforts took on a renewed vigour. They were so close, our lives tilting on a precipice, but I didn’t dare look up from my task. Not until our purple Daemon friends practically threw themselves inside the grave and started scooping the soil back on top of themselves.
Until that moment, I’d assumed we were digging to get as deep into the ground as possible. Like a pit rather than a grave. But those two clearly had other ideas. Ones that were less time-consuming and more likely to save our lives. I followed suit, calling for Thorne and Enid to copy as well, and soon the five of us were burying ourselves alive.
At the last moment, when only my face was clear, I called out to the Witches and Warlocks copying us to do the same. I also prayed to the gods that the other races caught on before it wastoo late. I didn’t know how well this plan would pan out – we wereburyingourselves, after all – but I knew there wasn’t any other way out of this.
And then, once again, the world went deathly quiet. All I could hear were our panting breaths sawing in and out of our lungs from both fear and exertion. There was no more cracking from the trees’ movements, nor were there any more screams or sounds of digging.
I tried to calm my heart rate and slow my breathing, afraid the tree creatures would notice the rise and fall beneath the soil. I’d tried to cover my face as much as possible, but I couldn’t bury myself completely or risk suffocation. I didn’t even know if the trees had eyes to see with, or if they had some other method to sense us, but I wasn’t about to tempt fate.
There was a scratching sound from nearby, and I heard the low, grinding voice of Barney breathing out a single word that I instinctively knew was a curse before a whip-like crack sliced through the air. I felt the wind from it as it passed right over my nose, and then a loud, panicked scream as Barney was snatched into the air and pulled away from us. I sat up, my body involuntarily moving to pull him back, but he was already consumed by the shadows of the forest. Tinky-Winky had also risen to make a grab for him, but was too late. We shared a look, his more dismayed than mine, even though I was no less worried for the giant purple guy. We may not have really known each other, but he had shown me in the brief time since we’d met that he was genuine and selfless, putting himself in harm’s way for people he didn’t even know, let alone have any reason to trust.
Suddenly, his eyes darted over my head and widened, and I realised too late that I had made a fatal mistake by sitting up. I was now visible to the tree creatures, and there was nowhere to hide. A root snapped out from the shadows and wrapped around my midsection, its force pulling me forward so hard and fast thatit whipped my head almost far enough to touch my back. If I survived this, my neck was going to be stiff and achy for alongtime.
I didn’t bother making a noise beyond an initial startled yelp. There was no point. Either I was going to die, or the tree creatures were taking me and the others they had captured somewhere else. As prisoners? There was no way to know until it was over, but I’d take captivity over death any day. I couldn’t help Junie from the dead.
All thoughts of my twin, the Daemons, or my friends fled from my brain when I was thrown into a dark hole, the roots releasing me as I fell. And fell.
I fell for so long that the wind stole all sound when I finally screamed.
Chapter 13
Juniper
