Aiden and Mira received a reply from Brexton stating that they could sign Aiden’s paperwork in the Mouth of the Bramble, and that he couldn’t wait to see Mira. It was clear that Brexton mined enough information from harvest traders to know something about my appearance was off.

  “He doesn’t want you to go,” Aiden warned.

  “Don’t worry, we’re not losing you,” Mira said. “If they try to touch you, they’ll learn the true meaning of power.” Her voice was cold yet calm, as if she had already planned it out. It felt good to know she cared, but her warning left him queasy.

  There would be a confrontation. That was a fact. So long as people were trying to conquer the forest, they would want to kill Aiden. Mira and Hadrian were powerful, sure. If either of them met Aiden’s “army,” they would obliterate unlimited quantities of his “soldiers.” That said, they were two people. Mira’s spirits could control twenty-five square miles at any point—five miles in any direction. Hadrian could dominate one mile, tops.

  The Fourth Ring was five thousand square miles.

  Mira could only be in one place at a time, and there were three major locations they had to protect: The Brute River, the Keliam River, and Harrowed Pass. If they protected those three locations—no one could make it to the Fifth Ring. If they made it to the Fifth Ring, it would be a disaster. The area they needed to protect would instantly double, and the number of people who could reach the Fifth Ring was very limited. It would send everything into chaos—so it was imperative to protect all three locations—and Mira could only protect one.

  Aiden didn’t have that problem. He was an army. So long as he could make strong contracts and systems with beasts, he could theoretically monitor and protect an unlimited area—or wage war on multiple fronts. If he organized the forest’s already terrifying beasts, the conquerors had to fight two armies at once.

  Aiden was also invaluable for monitoring and transporting supply lines.

  That’s why anyone planning to conquer the forest would seek to kill him first. That included the Dante, and perhaps even the Claustra, as no one would pay them for information if the forest were impossible to conquer.

  They wanted him dead—

  That’s why a confrontation was guaranteed. If things went wrong, Mira would have to live up to her words.

  “Well, we have another year,” Aiden said, rubbing his forearm nervously. “It’s the last year… How are you going to spend it?”

  “I’m going to extend the Bramble,” Mira said. “As of this year, the harvest’s for trading only. If anyone actually enters here, I want them to be swimming in illusions and dangerous plants.”

  “Where are you going to get the seeds?”

  “Fifth Ring. I’m taking the leaders on a trip through Misty Row to go hunting.”

  Aiden stopped rubbing his forearm. “Can you actually make it through there?”

  “It’s just soul force and illusions, and…” Mira smiled thinly. “Reta and I are fine, but you guys—”

  “Me guys? Mira. I’m not gonna lie. If you make me go through that—”

  “You’ll be unconscious,” Mira said, interrupting him. “It’ll be fine.”

  “Like that matters. If it was that simple, the Jacksmores would have won.”

  “The Jacksmores almost did. They lost the final battle in the Sixth Ring. The sixth.”

  Aiden shrugged. “I don’t care if they took two trips a day, and sipped tea the whole way. There’s no way I’m going there.”

  “Yes, you are,” Mira said. “It’s your duty.” She walked out the door to end the conversation definitively, but Aiden knew one thing—he wasn’t going to Rall’s Fort.

  Despite declaring that, he found himself riding Kael beside Malo toward Rall’s Fort three days later, flanked by Mira and Weaden. Malo’s addition made it worse. He looked like he wanted to die most days, and that made the ordeal extra grim. Yet there was only so much time that Aiden could feel tense, so he soon relaxed until he arrived at Rall’s Fort. Then, he started panicking again—because Mira called them to her new house and informed them that they would be leaving the next day.

  2.

  I had to plant seeds that fall so they could grow during the spring and summer, so there was no choice but to leave right then. I immediately collected my elites, Aiden, Malo, Kai, Sika, Weaden, Yaksa, and Dranta, who were bound to cause trouble if I left him out. Casain and Asail were also elites, but they were protecting Felio and wouldn’t leave, and as much as Tyler wanted to be an elite, he wasn’t even in his second evolution yet. So I kept him out of the room as I explained the plan.

  “We should go at night,” Yaksa said over dinner that night. “If soldiers see us leave down the river, they’re going to try to follow.”

  “You really think it’s going to be a problem?” I asked.

  “It’s already a problem. People talk about it constantly. I catch ‘em staring into the mist for twenty minutes at a time. I’m not sure what it is about that mist, but it’s giving them conquer-fever. Dranta’s been chomping at the bit to jump inside.”

  “It’s just ‘cause I don’t believe it,” Dranta said. “Everyone keeps sayin’ this forest is deadly. It’s supernatural. It’s this or that. But I ain’t seen it. I walk around barefoot—no problem. I see beasts, they’re marked and run. This forest’s a joke.”

  “That’s why we’re going to a section of forest that will challenge you,” Weaden said.

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  “We shouldn’t need to go up a ‘ring.” Dranta said. “If I wanted to be challenged by simple higher entities, I would’ve just waltzed into the Third Domain.”

  “As much as I want to let you experience the true terror of the forest, keeping you awake is going to get everyone killed. So we’re doping you until you hit the Fifth Ring. Then you can fight as many enemies as you want.”

  Dranta gave me a strange grin. “Okay.”

  I didn’t like it, so I gave him a threatening glare. I couldn’t kill or harm him without a good justification, which was the downside of his soul pact. So I just ate the loss and looked at the others. “We’ll leave tonight. Before we leave, you’ll be drinking a powerful elixir to keep you unconscious. If you don’t drink it, it’ll be viewed as a conspiracy to harm the group, and I’ll have just cause to kill you. And given the stakes, I will.”

  Dranta’s eyes flickered, but he said nothing. He was trouble. I hoped he died during training. I really did.

  That said, it was either having him on my team or on the enemy’s team—and I’d rather have him on my team than have my people fight against him. So I ignored him and prepared my elixirs.

  That night, Aiden complained, but he choked down the elixir with everyone else. Dranta made a big show of him drinking his elixir, swishing it in his mouth, and swallowing. I gave him another half dose. He shrugged and took that too.

  That’s when Reta appeared.

  “You think he’s resistant?” she asked.

  “Yeah. He was in a deadly location and has survival skills. I’m sure he has super resistance. That’s why I have these.”

  I pulled out mana deprivation chains. “They siphon mana from the person shackled.”

  “Are they enough?”

  “No. There’s a limit to what the stones can take, but it’ll help. Now help me.” We chained him up, and then I pulled out wax.

  “What’s that?” Reta asked.

  “Wax. For their ears.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Sight and hearing aren’t necessary. They’ll see and hear their hallucinations in their brain.”

  “So that’s why blinding the soldiers wasn’t effective…”

  “Correct. The only thing that helps is knocking people out and restraining them, and restraining them will kill them if the boat’s flipped.”

  “How often do the boats flip?”

  “Enough to stop an invasion.”

  I shivered.

  “That’s why we used the elixir. It’ll allow them to wake if they’re drowning and need to swim. Now let’s go.”

  I had Tyler and trusted guards help us fill a boat made by master boatmakers, and then took off down the Cable River in the moonlight. I thought we would have some leeway, but there was none. The second that the Cable River forked off into the Brute, I felt the mist. It was clear as day.

  I suppressed the illusion and wished I hadn’t. The entire world turned foggy and white. To see in an area drenched in mana, I used a soul sight technique and then shivered. The Brute River was far larger than I thought. It was thousands of feet deep to ensure that nothing but the most powerful soul sight techniques could see the bottom. About a hundred meters down, well out of the range of more techniques, there were massive plants suspended like standing cobras, coiled at the bottom—capable of striking if they sensed someone falling out of the river.

  Worse, the currents pulled boats into the center. Reta must’ve guided us onto shore during my “lesson.”

  “You can see it now, can’t you?” Reta asked.

  “Yeah… this is brutal. How long did this take to build?”

  “Millennia,” Reta said cryptically.

  “I thought you built this to slow down the Jacksmore.”

  “We did. But the construction didn’t end there.”

  “But in order to win the war…” I suddenly felt goosebumps snaking up my arms when I realized what she was saying. Brindle entered the forest, and then walked out the gates and became a god. Reta already told me that Brindle brought plants back with him, specifically the periwinkle flower that cured Kai’s core. I had a feeling that he brought Escala, the dryad, back with him. Yet like Escala, I didn’t find such plants particularly worrisome. Strong plants needed large quantities of mana or soul force. If they didn’t get it, they would revert to the power of their area. It was the same concept as a bonsai tree; any tree could become a miniature one, so long as the grower placed it in a pot to deprive it of essential nutrients.

  That said, if someone put a plant directly onto a mana or soul vein, or into the Diktyo River, it could grow far above its station. The domain suppressed them, but if Brindle subverted Areswood’s domain system, couldn’t he do the same things for plants?

  If he could, and he hid such plants within Misty Row, an area where everyone was too confused to see it, that would be terrifying.

  “Brindle evolved…” I finished. Then, I added, “But he returned.”

  “He returned,” Reta confirmed. “And he brought wrath and fury with him.” She pursed her lips. “That said, there are limits to this power. Back then, the Glaves didn’t exist. We’ve yet to see them, but for over a millennium, harvesters have been trying to lead the zealots into Areswood to deal with the Bramble, but have failed to entice them. They only seek intelligent offenders—not natural phenomena. But were they to come, the natural defenses of the forest would fall.”

  “Are they that powerful?”

  “They’re that many. Over the last thousand years, we’ve heard consistent accounts that they will send millions of soul hunters to fight, and have never given up or lost a fight. That’s likely the true reason that Yakana chose to welcome humans into Areswood.”

  “I see…” I stayed vigilant, watching the river as we slowly guided through. It was a one-day journey through Misty Row, and it was mostly peaceful. There were traps in the river, but Reta smoothly guided the ship, and we would continue on, listening to the rock and splash of the boat.

  Then it turned still—deathly still.

  The area was eerie as we passed Harlan’s Pillar, that monument that was visible no matter where you were in Misty Row. It was ghostly in person, a rock tablet that was inscribed with countless runes. I imagined that it was a monument erected to record the names of the millions who came to create the location—or perhaps died doing so. It was unclear.

  In the near distance was a staircase fit for titans, each step being fifteen meters high, and God knew how far across. On each step was a colossal statue on both sides. I couldn’t see the statues through the mist, just feet the length of semitrucks, leading into ankles that disappeared into the clouds. After that, I could only see silhouettes that didn’t even make it to the knee. Such was the size and grandeur of the founders.

  These were the Empyrean Steps that led to Aelium—the location Escala asked me to bring her seed to. I didn’t think I was powerful enough to go then, but one day, I would return. I made a promise I would.

  2.

  An hour after Mira admired the Empyrean Steps, the elixir wore off Dranta, who had diamond-level tempering against poisons and natural elements. That was a good thing. He was on his knees—arms bound behind his back. The sun was bright, so it took his eyes time to adjust, but when they did, he saw Mira walking toward the boat with Weaden.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” Weaden asked.

  “He’s a serious liability,” Mira said. “There’s no choice.”

  Dranta’s heart welled with rage, and he prepared to attack.