Chapter 23: Sil’Karrel

  The third morning of their journey broke soft and pale. The air at this height cut cool in the lungs, sharp with the scent of open sky. Below, rivers wound bright through rolling green, their bends glinting like silver threads in the light. Hills spread in long, gentle backs, veiled with grass and clustered trees, the land stretching wide and unbroken to the horizon. Above lay only the endless road of air and the steady roll of wings.

  Aeor kept his grip light, letting the avian set its pace. Each beat of its wings drove a pulse through the leather saddle, a rhythm that thrummed into his hands. A tether line running from Salthar's saddle to his own gave the occasional tug, humming faintly like wire drawn too taut, a quiet reminder that he was not flying alone.

  Zoey rode off his right, tethered to Pevthar's avian. Her seat was loose, almost too loose, swaying with the avian's rhythm more by instinct than skill.

  Velora and Dregor followed behind, their mounts bound to Korren's avian at the head of the line. Its silhouette cut sharp against the washed sky, anchoring them as they drifted above the scarred ridges and rivers that shimmered silver where the light caught.

  Zoey makes it look easy, as if she's done this before. The other two can barely keep steady on the tether.

  The sky above was so wide, so bare, it seemed as if the world itself had been thinned to air and light alone.

  For a time, nothing moved but wings.

  Aeor let the silence stretch, the rhythm of wings the only measure of time, until Korren's voice cut through it.

  "Two hours more," Korren called back. "By midday, we'll be over Sil'Karrel."

  Zoey adjusted her coat, voice sharp against the draft. "So we're still doing the flyover first and ground later if the canopy decides to be difficult?"

  "Yes," Korren said.

  She tilted her head. "Should we really stay tethered when we reach it? Faster to react if we're not lashed together. Less chance of a chain crash if one of us spooks."

  The question rode with the wingbeats.

  Salthar's head tipped a fraction, jaw setting as if to answer, but he let the words die, eyes fixed on the horizon.

  Korren's voice cut clean through. "You and Aeor ride easier than you did three days ago. But ease isn't experience. We don't know what awaits in that forest. The tether stays. If one falters, the tether steadies more than it hinders."

  Zoey exhaled sharp, shoulders shifting beneath her cloak, then gave a small nod. "Fine. Tethered it is."

  The avians rippled as if the decision had reached them too, wings shivering down the line. Velora's gaze stayed fixed ahead, violet lenses catching the sun, her silence drawn tight.

  Dregor broke it first. "What's weighing on you, Velora?"

  Her voice carried low against the wind, even and steady. "The merchants from last night. They haven't left my mind. Was it right to leave them as we did?"

  Pevthar leaned closer across his tether. "They said they'd come from the coast. Korvessan, wasn't it?"

  "They packed in a hurry," Dregor murmured, words nearly swallowed by the air. "We treated their wounds, gave what we could. We can't save everyone."

  "Dregor's right," Korren added. "Escorting them back would've delayed us. This thread is marked high priority. The lands near Sar'Vareth are safer than most."

  Salthar's mouth thinned. "Patrols should have kept the coast clear."

  "They tried," Korren said, his tone scraped raw. He left the rest unsaid.

  Velora's lenses caught the light as she spoke forward. "They said Sil'Karrel felt... wrong?"

  For a moment Korren gave no answer. His gaze stayed locked on the horizon.

  Pevthar shifted in his saddle. "Did they mean the corruption spreading through the beasts?"

  Velora's tone stayed even. "It felt different. They carried a sort of palpable fear within them, as if the forest itself had turned against them."

  Korren exhaled through his nose, voice low, clipped. "We'll know soon enough."

  The wind leaned harder, tugging at the lines.

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  By midday, the world below was nothing but trees, their canopy stretching vast and dark, flowing like water to the rim of the sky.

  Its name carried on the wind like a warning.

  Sil'Karrel.

  The avians held their line, but the rhythm of wings had changed. Each beat came shorter, clipped, as though the air itself pressed back against them. The sky above was clean and clear, the sun fixed at its height, yet its warmth thinned the deeper they flew over the crowns. Shadows pooled where no clouds lay, and the light faltered as it touched the trees.

  Aeor noticed it in the leather first. The dark grain of his saddle looked faded, as though sun-bleached in an instant. He frowned, blinked, but the pallor clung.

  The change spread the longer he looked.

  His avian shivered, wings hitching before steadying again. The tether line tugged once, twice, unease running down the chain.

  Pevthar's voice cracked the silence. "Why does the air look... bland?" His knuckles worked the reins, jaw rigid.

  Velora's lenses flickered pale. She looked down, voice clipped. "It isn't just the air. Look."

  Below, the canopy had lost its depth, greens thinning into a flat, lifeless wash.

  Aeor's chest tightened. Each inhale came shorter, as though the forest itself refused to let the air fill him.

  Korren lifted a hand, signaling hold. His voice carried back, flat and sharp. "The merchants said it worsened the deeper they went."

  He let the pause hang, then added, "We don't have much of a choice. Stay sharp. Call out anything that feels out of place."

  The others gave terse nods, as the rhythm of wings carried them deeper into Sil'Karrel.

  After color, sound withered too. Birds fell quiet first, their chatter cut short. Then the insects stilled, their drone slipping away into nothing. The world peeled itself bare, layer by layer, until only the wind remained, muffled, reluctant, as though the air itself held back.

  They circled a basin once. Nothing stirred. No wings rose from the trees, no branches bent below. A wide nest sagged empty on a bare limb, brittle twigs spread like bones. A stream flashed silver between trunks, but no voice accompanied it. Even the water had fallen silent here.

  Aeor's chest burned beneath a growing pressure, breath sour with iron. His avian stuttered again, wings faltering before correcting.

  He looked at the others. Velora sat rigid, her cloak snapping in the wind though her frame never shifted. Dregor held steady, but his stone-marked hands strangled the reins, cracks feathering along the ridges of his skin. Zoey's lips pressed thin, her eyes darting downward too often, as though looking away from something just beyond sight. Salthar mouthed half a prayer, biting the words down before they left him.

  The dread grew until even the creak of leather felt too loud, every sound a trespass in a place that resisted them.

  Then the forest broke.

  A groan rose from deep within Sil'Karrel's heart, cavernous and vast, rolling upward through the earth until it tore through the canopy. The ground shuddered in answer, soil spilling loose in streams along the ravine walls. Trees bent and quivered, their crowns thrashing as though seized by unseen hands.

  It was not only the shift of stone, but the drag of something greater, like bones grinding after centuries still.

  The avians faltered mid-wingbeat. Tether lines snapped taut, jerking riders together. Dregor's mount pitched hard to the side before Korren hauled it back into line.

  Then, for a breath, the lament of the ground ceased. An eerie silence swept across the basin, pressing heavier than the sound had.

  "What was—" Aeor began, but the words never left him. A colossal dread surged outward, swallowing voice and breath alike, until the air itself felt claimed.

  The tide of dread pressed into his chest and throat and bone, making his stomach lurch as though falling.

  Hands numbed on reins all down the line. Aeor's avian screamed through its beak, the cry torn raw, and the others answered in kind.

  The dread pressed on them all.

  All six avians keened together, wings thrashing ragged air. For a heartbeat they tried to rise, instinct clawing against tether and rider alike.

  Korren's hand came up without thought. Silver motes burst from his fingers, streaming along the chain of riders. They aligned to his will, sharpening into ordered ranks across shoulders and eyes, steadier than breath. The pressure eased, not broken, but tempered by discipline, by the memory of standing in line.

  "Hold," Korren called, voice taut but steady.

  Zoey closed her eyes, and warmth pulsed outward. Softer than Korren's light, but no less steady, it brushed Aeor's chest like the memory of a hearth in winter.

  Her new skill? Aeor thought through gritted teeth.

  Her Anchor flared, Essence flowing in a quiet, unbroken rhythm. Korren's motes held the chain straight, disciplined as soldiers in rank. Zoey's warmth filled the spaces between, letting them draw breath within the weight.

  The pressure eased, not gone, but enough that the avians steadied and the riders found their wits. Aeor exhaled, a sharp breath through his teeth, and glanced toward Korren, then Zoey. Words would not have carried, but the look was thanks enough.

  "By the guidance of Sol, what was that?" Pevthar said, voice shaking.

  "Whatever it was, it's not planning on staying dormant any longer," Korren replied. "We must make haste."

  The group looked uncertain, almost hesitant, but they pressed on, wings driving them deeper into Sil'Karrel.

  The ravine widened until the forest could no longer hold its shape. Earthen walls split and leaned away from one another, roots stretched taut across open air, soil crumbling in slow streams into the hollow. The riders slowed, tether lines pulling tight, wings beating ragged to keep their formation.

  At the place where several ravines converged, the break revealed more than stone.

  At first it looked like jagged rock torn up by collapse. But the lines sharpened the longer Aeor stared, angles too straight, blocks too neatly fitted to be natural. A broken arch thrust from the earth, its keystone long fallen, the curve strangled by roots. Moss cloaked the blocks, lichen crawling over faint carvings and glyphs.

  It was hard to wrap their heads around the immensity of this place. The hollow opened wide, vast as a cathedral, large enough to swallow a village whole. Great stone ribs jutted at crooked angles where the ground had torn apart, the buried structure forced into the open. What remained was the entrance to a hall, its shattered frame exposed like the bones of something that was never meant to be unearthed.

  No one spoke.

  They all felt the same truth settle within them. Whatever this place was, it had not been meant to surface.

  Korren's voice cut hard through the press of air, clipped and commanding. "We descend slowly."

  Pevthar's voice cracked first, rough with strain. "Descend? You want us to go down there? This isn't what we signed up for. We were meant to scout, not crawl into ruins ripped out of the world's spine. We turn back, report, and let the barracks send a real force to deal with this."

  His words fell raw and sharp.

  Velora's lenses caught the dim light of Korren's motes. Her tone stayed measured, cold in its clarity. "He is right. What waits below could end us. Retreat is wiser than blind descent."

  The tether lines quivered as the mounts fought another gust. Dregor edged closer, voice low and steady, weight behind every word. "If we leave, we gamble the time it takes for a larger force to march. We don't have that time."

  Zoey was next as she shifted nearer to Velora's line. She lowered her eyes, shoulders set as if bracing against the storm. No words came.

  Pepper turned to Salt, expectation sharp in his gaze.

  Salthar's jaw ground, then he shook his head once. "We lost Ora'Then waiting for reinforcements. I can't risk another. We find out what this is."

  Three and three.

  One by one, their eyes turned to Aeor.

  Fear pressed him hollow, every instinct clawing for retreat. His avian's wings beat ragged, each motion heavier than the last. But the thought of turning back tasted worse than death.

  He remembered Zoey's words, the truth she had given him once already.

  I don't want to die, Aeor. Not here. Not like this.

  Her Anchor burned low now, fragile as an ember. She met his gaze, but he broke from it first, urging his avian forward, winging into place beside Korren's.

  The choice said enough.

  No one nodded. No one thanked. The line itself shifted, formation tightening as the decision carried down the tether.

  Korren lowered his hand. Silver motes flared, wavering before they steadied. Zoey's breath caught as she forced her Anchor to hold, its warmth dim but unbroken.

  Together, the avians banked. Wings folded, and the chain descended as one.

  The hollow widened beneath them, vast and waiting, until the ruin swallowed the sky and the world above was gone.