Starborn Legacy (A Starborn Series prequel)

Chapter six

With every frantic breath she took, Audrey felt the darkness press in tighter, squeezing the air from her lungs like a boa constrictor crushing its prey. She tried to wrestle her way to freedom, but whatever had her in its grip was strong and unrelenting. The walls around her scratched at her skin, rough like the bark of the tree she'd felled only moments earlier.

And, through it all, she could hear Welkin shouting. She stopped resisting for a second and strained to hear what they were saying. Perhaps it was the lack of oxygen playing tricks on her mind, but their words didn't sound like words at all. Instead, Welkin's cries sounded like music; a melody without lyrics, played on an instrument that existed only in dreams. She would have found it beautiful had she not been fighting for her life against some unknown attacker.

Suddenly, the pressure ceased. Audrey's heart skipped a beat as a monstrous groan came from all around her. It sounded like the tree did as it gave way to gravity. Welkin's musical voice trilled again, less frenzied than before. Then came another groan, and Audrey realized that what she was listening to was a conversation in languages she couldn't even begin to fathom. Slowly, and somewhat reluctantly, the walls that held Audrey prisoner began to recede. Cracks formed and she had to blink back against the onslaught of sunlight that seeped in. The light illuminated a tight nest of branches that coiled around Audrey from all sides. Rather than try to make sense of it, she scrambled out of the widest crack she could reach and fell to the earth with a graceless thud. She didn't even stop to consider whether she had hurt herself, fumbling instead to her feet and dashing directly into Welkin's outstretched arms.

"Take a breath, Audrey," Welkin said in a language Audrey actually understood. Their tone was delicate and soothing, and they stoked the top of Audrey's head as she burrowed her face into the safety of their shoulder.

"What happened?" she sobbed, quaking all over. "Did I do that too?"

"Not this time," Welkin replied. They unwound their arms and, with their hands on her shoulders, pushed Audrey back and turned her around. What she saw staring back at her was a creature unlike anything she'd ever seen before. It stood tall on a pair of root-like legs, with long arms that hung like thick, twisted vines at its sides. Its hands and feet were as black as freshly turned soil up to its wrists and ankles, where the skin—or was it a coat?—gradually transitioned to the color and texture of weather-worn bark. A pair of elegant antlers protruded from a bed of moss and other flora that made its home atop the creature's head. Two dark and intense eyes stared back at Audrey from a face that made her think of an impossibly old person. She wondered if she even would have noticed the creature among the trees had it not been standing directly in front of her. Audrey bit her lip and glanced at the mangled knot of roots at the creature's side, the ones that looked to have erupted from the ground and twisted together to form the crushing prison from which she had just escaped.

"What is that?" she whispered, her heart hammering violently against her ribs.

"That," Welkin replied, "is a forest spirit."

"A forest spirit?" Audrey repeated, gawking in disbelief. "They're real?" She had grown up hearing stories about forest spirits and other magical creatures, but aside from the fae in the woods and a ghost who roamed the old library in town, she had never actually seen any of these creatures in person. To her own surprise, she was overcome by a shyness normally reserved for meeting a favorite author or a famous singer.

"Why do you sound so surprised?" Welkin asked, keeping their eyes locked on the forest spirit. The spirit tipped its head, as if it too was curious to know the answer. Audrey considered the question.

"I guess I just assumed forest spirits only existed in stories," she explained. "I've never seen one in real life before."

Welkin patted her shoulder. "Yes, well, some might say the same thing about you." They cleared their throat and spoke a little louder. "Do you know what forest spirits do?"