Chapter 53: The Calm After The Storm
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The trees in the Shadowgrove looked like they’d been scorched centuries ago. The soil was brittle beneath their boots, a strange mix of ash and cracked earth.
Xander squinted up at the canopy...or what was left of it and then swept his gaze around the dead landscape for the third time that morning. "You know," he started, his voice echoing slightly in the silence, "we’ve been in here two days, and I haven’t seen so much as a squirrel."
Iris, a few paces ahead, kicked a rock out of the way and glanced over her shoulder. "Squirrels can’t survive in forests like this."
"No monsters either," Xander continued, more to himself. "No ambushes, nothing trying to kill us."
"That does sound like a good thing," Alyhana said from beside him, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
"Yeah," he muttered, narrowing his eyes at a burnt tree trunk that looked suspiciously clawed. "That’s what’s bothering me."
Alyhana slowed her pace, and her brows furrowed gently as she looked around too. Her hand hovered briefly over the satchel at her side before she sighed and shook her head.
"There’s no aura," she said softly. "None. Not even faint traces of dark magic, It’s like... the forest is completely devoid of life."
"Well," Iris said, gesturing at the skeleton of a forest around them, "maybe the fire did."
Xander didn’t answer right away. He stopped walking, one hand resting lazily on the hilt of his sword as he stared out into the blackened expanse. The sun hung low and hazy through the trees, casting warped shadows across the trail ahead.
"Creepy forest. No monsters," he muttered. "That should feel like a win. So why doesn’t it?"