Soul Bound

Chapter 4

At first sight, nothing about the forest looks unusual. The sky is slightly clouded and several flocks of birds fly over the greenery. However, the deeper in the forest, the more unsettling it gets.

Everything is placed in a similar pattern, as if someone carefully measured each single centimetre found between every tree, rock and bush. The trees grow in random places, yet there is a clear path. The big rocks are constantly found on the right side like a trail mark.

It's as if nothing was left uncalculated.

A few minutes into the trip, Zephyr deviates from the path and the rest follows. The surrounding shifts and the path disappears completely- except there is a short, crooked trail. It's covered in twigs, leaves and pebbles, making it almost impossible to distinguish from the forest. It took them all several months to get a hang of at least half of the hidden paths. The forest almost seems to be enchanted to lead people astray.

Once the trail stops, they go over the wobbliest part with eroded stones. and part down and they run through the forest. Juno, who keeps on tripping over the tree roots coiled around the stones, holds onto Indra with a tight grip. Slowly, the big rocks start to line up on the left side together with some big bushes. Once the rocks disappear and only the bushes are left in their view, they come to a standstill.

The twig covered trail stops as the ground following is a half a metre lower, switching to a terrain with jagged rocks sticking out. Everyone sticks as close as possible to the left side.

In the meantime, Sorin explains the plan and asks for their opinions. Soon, the uneven trail evens out into a small grassfield.

"I usually don't question your plans, but why are we specifically using this beacon?"

Sorin expected Dae or Juno to say this; they typically say whatever that is in their head out loud. However, this time around it's Indra who has stayed silent for the entire trip. "If anything goes wrong and the hunters manage to get into our base, teleportation from places with barely any traps is too risky."

Teleportation from those beacons hasn't gone wrong before, so there shouldn't be a reason to not go for the usual route, usually. This time around Sorin has a really bad feeling about using the main beacons. He's not sure why, but he'd rather go by his gut instincts than to risk his clan getting destroyed and burned down to the ground.

The beacons are all located in different parts of the forest, but two of the main ones are in a close distance to the clan due to expansion over the past few years. The other beacon is by far his favourite, but it's no longer in use after hunters chose a route close to it, much to their frustration.

Indra stops in front of a pine tree and digs a hole into the earth. Soon, her hands reach a brown, wooden box and she pulls it out of the ground. The box has an opening so she pries it open with her index finger.

Zephyr rummages through his pockets and pulls out a thin, blue glowing stick and breaks it into six parts. The fragments shapeshift into stones that slowly stop glimmering, leaving ice-coloured gems behind.

They hand it over to everyone, except he gives Sorin two. The latter puts the second one into the box. He doesn't put it back into the ground just yet. He takes a look at everyone and says: "Remember, our goal is to save Cyra. The rest comes later."

Juno fakes a yawn. "Yes, yes, captain, you've repeated that like five times already. How about we hurry up instead? Our plan cannot unfold on its own."

"Alright, sorry." Sorin puts the box down and closes it with earth. Once he's done tamping the ground, he puts a rock on it.

The stones glow a bright, icy blue and the squad vanishes from the forest.

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