The Veil of Darkness

"No, I’d better do it on my own. Once my brain recovers..." Annalise lifted her hands and tried to concentrate as she considered what spell might break an invisible barrier. Probably not wind. Fire seemed too dangerous when they were alone in the woods, and it might not work anyway. The only option seemed to be a straight-out energy force created from the mix of all elements. She focused on her breathing. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale, and exhale until she felt connected to her own powers. She thrust out her arms—

The force of the spell lashed back at her as soon as her powers collided with the ward and knocked her down. Esmeray was immediately there to help her up and if not for her attention fixed on the tree, she should have really taken her time to feel embarrassed for falling so gracefully on the ground in front of him.

"Did it call me all the way here just to give me a hard time?" her question wasn’t directed at anyone in particular but since Esmeray was the only one there ho could speak other than her, he did respond - "Maybe you should calm down and think of a way to take down the protection field."

Maybe that was exactly what she was supposed to do, to use peace and not force. After all, she was there to ask for a weapon from the tea, she should be behaving like one. She slowed down her breathing again and tried to connect with the tree, but it was no easy task and she was struggling a little.

"This is a weird place..." she couldn’t help but say after another attempt of failure at making a connection with the tree. Her eyes scanned the area and returned to the tree, studying it closely.

"The energy isn’t bad," Esmeray spoke from beside her as he too was studying the tree, or maybe the protection field surrounding it. He was silent for a moment before he spoke again - "Or maybe it’s not quite good either... I feel like someone’s been here recently. This is a strange smell. A...fae smell."

"A fae?" Annalise was taken aback by surprise. They were in the Primordial Realm, no fae was supposed to be venturing these lands.

She whirled around, suddenly feeling like there were eyes on her. She caught a glimpse of a raven watching her from the trees. She immediately shot off a little wind spell toward the raven, shoving it out of its perch. "Maybe the tree isn’t the one testing me..."