The Forest Kingdom

Book 2: Asperfell

by Jamie Thomas

Genres: Fantasy; Epic Fantasy; Romantic Fantasy

Synopsis

A mage and a lost prince journey together in this magical and romantic sequel to Asperfell.

Finally free of the prison Asperfell, Briony and Prince Elyan venture northward in search of a rumored cave wherein lies their only hope of returning home to the kingdom of Tiralaen. What they discover instead is an impossible kingdom of opulence and decadence beyond her wildest imagining. Here, an ancient goddess is about to awaken once more, and she has never forgiven Briony’s people for their intrusion into this world, nor the centuries of bloodshed that followed.

Caught in a deadly web of secrets and lies that stretches across generations, Briony holds the fate of two kingdoms in her hands. To leave this new world behind is to condemn its people to anguish and death. But to stay and fight, Briony must abandon her home and everyone she’s ever loved—including Elyan.

To save one kingdom, the other must fall.

 

Release date: June 23, 2026

Publisher: Orbit

Print pages: 450

Sample

Long ago, when I was far less of a child than I ought to have been to think it a good idea, I decided to run away and live in the Morwood.

Upon the day in question, I’d been caught scaling the outer wall on the second floor in an effort to sneak into a storage room my Aunt Eudora kept locked.

Saren’s boy claimed that hidden amongst the broken furniture and dusty rugs within was the shriveled heart of my second great-uncle, who was a playwright of some renown during his lifetime and, therefore, an utter disgrace to the House of Tenebrae. From what little I was able to glean from the annals in the library, his plays poked quite a bit of fun at the nobility, scandalizing his own class and endearing him to the common folk, who claimed that underneath all his fine silks and velvet, his spirit was fashioned from the same mettle as their own. I thought it exceedingly wonderful then, a nobleman gleefully mocking his own kind, until my tutor pointed out some years later that hardly anyone amongst the common folk could even afford to see his plays due to the extravagant cost of a seat at the theater and that, despite having ample means to do so, my second great-uncle did nothing at all to ease their burden other than declare himself their champion on the page. To make his wealthy nemeses hot under their jeweled collars was his delight, and the common folk dearly loved him for it.

Never have I loved one so well, or been so loved by one, as the people of my heart, and thus, it is theirs, he wrote in a letter to his wife, who, upon his death, took the sentiment quite literally.

His heart was removed, embalmed, and displayed in a glass case for many years in the library before my Aunt Eudora’s mother deemed it unseemly and relegated it to the aforementioned storage room, apparently believing that disposing of it might bring down the spirit of the deceased playwright upon her.

Naturally, I had to see it.

And display it in my room where, with luck, my maid Mora would see it and suffer a dramatic fainting fit.

It was not that I disliked Mora. It was that Mora had discovered the painting I’d done of my Aunt Eudora with fangs and a barbed tail and tossed it in the fire, and I was keen that she should feel the full, righteous anger of a thirteen-year-old girl most cruelly wronged.

I’d been discovered halfway between the window at the end of the corridor I’d crawled out of and the window of the storage room I hoped to enter, fistfuls of ivy clutched in both hands and my skirt torn in several places from the spires meant to deter birds. Of course it would be my sister, Livia, practicing the harp in the music room, who heard the unfortunate disagreement between my boot and the window casing. She immediately summoned my aunt despite my pleas for sisterly camaraderie, which, to be fair, we’d never had in the first place.

Aunt Eudora forbade me from the library for a month as well as from dessert, which stung only slightly less than the loss of my beloved books, and in a fit of furious tears, I told her that I’d rather live amongst the toadstools and trees of the Morwood than suffer one moment more under her roof. She simply stared back at me in that infuriatingly placid way that told me she did not believe me one bit, which angered me all the more.

I packed my sketchbook and my sturdiest clothes in a satchel, stole bread and cheese from the larder, and dashed into the wood through one of the tunnels behind the storage room.

Tiralaen’s most ancient forest stand, the Morwood, had over the centuries become quite mythical in its depiction, particularly in the Shining City and the lands in the south, whose citizens thought us northern folk as wild as they believed it to be. Haunted by the messengers of the Old Gods and teeming with all manner of eldritch creatures, they said. All of it was true, of course, but they really needn’t have worried themselves over it. I’d spent many days roaming about the Morwood since I’d arrived at Orwynd, and to my very great disappointment, I’d yet to see any messengers of the Old Gods, or eldritch creature besides, no matter how many offerings I left in the hollows of trees. There were moments when I held myself still—no mean feat, for I was never easy with myself for long—and in such moments I thought, perhaps, I felt their eyes upon me, but even if ’twas so, when I looked, nothing was there.

Reclusive though they might’ve been, I’d never felt uneasy in their presence, and so I thought they would not mind terribly if I invited myself into their bowers and groves. It was with a stout and determined heart that I forged ahead into my new home.

The effort of covering ground enough that I would not be found right away made me frightfully hungry, and I polished off my meager meal after the first hour and sipped the frigid water of the little stream nearby. Another hour passed, during which my pace slowed significantly, then another, and by nightfall, I lay curled into the thick root of a tree, deeply regretting my decision.

Everything I’d learned regarding living out of doors came from novels, and I was beginning to suspect the information was rather inaccurate. For one thing, I’d yet to encounter a single bush of wild berries or nest of eggs, which meant I would have to hunt and cook my own supper, and for another, I’d brought nothing with me with which to do this. I attempted to build a fire to keep myself warm but could not work out how to light my paltry pile of sticks, and after my teeth began to chatter from the cold, I finally gave up and slunk back home to Orwynd in defeat.

Aunt Eudora was waiting for me in the parlor, sitting quite unbothered before a cheerful fire with a cup of tea, as though I had not been missing in the forest for the better part of the day. I stood inside the threshold and stared at her sullenly.

“Good evening, Briony,” she said, setting down her cup. “Have you tired so soon of dwelling amongst the faeries?”

“My preparations were not quite thorough enough,” I admitted grudgingly. “But you’ll see—the next time I decide to run away, you’ll not see me again.”

“Yes, I will. Because you are a lady, and ladies do not live in the forest.”

“I am no lady!” I exclaimed. “And if I wish to live in the forest, I will do so!”

“No, you won’t,” she answered quite calmly. “For there are no books in the forest, nor dessert. Now go wash the dirt off your face. I’ll have Layn send a tray up to your room.”

In the end, my aunt was proven quite wrong indeed.

For many weeks now, ever since I’d fled the Mage prison of Asperfell with the rightful heir to the throne of Tiralaen and our three companions, I’d dwelled within a forest, proving beyond doubt that I was no lady.

Though she was, unfortunately, right about the books and dessert.

What I wouldn’t have given in that moment to be sitting before the hearth in Orwynd’s kitchen, devouring a warm apple tart with cinnamon custard or one of Layn’s blackberry cakes! Instead, I was crouched uncomfortably behind a bush in several inches of snow, watching my supper across a glen.

As for my companion on the hunt, Arlo Bryn was notorious amongst the prisoners of Asperfell as a drunkard, gambler, philanderer, and precisely the sort of man whose company alone might inspire my poor Aunt Eudora to banish me to the Morwood in earnest. I myself found him neither so scandalous nor so charming as his reputation, although perhaps that was to be expected after so many days and miles together in a seemingly endless wilderness. We’d been tracking our quarry since the early afternoon, and I’d long since grown weary of the chase as the shadows of the trees lengthened with the fading of the day.

Any moment, lights would appear in the distance; lights that flickered and fluttered and darted here and there amongst the glistening white that blanketed the gnarled remains of fallen trees, setting aglow the sleeping world. If we drew too near, they whirled about in earnest before vanishing entirely, appearing once more only when we were well enough away. As such, we had no idea what they truly were but could only imagine that, in this world beyond our own, their beauty concealed horror within.

Once the lights appeared, we had perhaps two hours before the darkness gathered and the nameless creatures of the glades and groves of this forest stirred and slunk forward into the world in search of prey. Most were of little consequence; our magic easily deterred them. They circled our campsites at night, keeping to the shadows and watching us balefully with gleaming eyes, afraid of our Magefire, and of Thaniel’s weapons.

Others required far more persuasion to leave us in peace.

Nightfall was a perilous thing in these woods, this much we had learned. It would not do to linger.

Beside me, Arlo blew into his hands and then rubbed them together with a grimace. “If I wasn’t so bloody hungry, I’d say we should pack it in,” he said grimly. “The wind here is murder when the sun sets.”

Indeed, the wan sunlight was hovering over the tree line, and the warming spell I’d put on my cloak only hours before had begun to fade against the onslaught of wind, bitterly cold, that had begun to gnaw mercilessly at my nose and cheeks. My hands, chafed and raw, were having difficulty recasting it and it was with a sigh of defeat that I allowed Arlo to perform the service for me, the painful ache in my limbs easing somewhat as the spell took hold.

“We can’t return with nothing,” I told him. “We’ve not had meat in several days.”

“And I’ll be damned if I eat another parsnip.”

My brow furrowed. “You will if you’re starving.”

“I’ll eat the lot of you before I eat another parsnip.”

“Quiet!” I snapped.

The creature had heard us, or sensed us perhaps, because it lifted its impossibly long neck and stared at the clump of bushes where we hid. Its long ears twitched, and we held our breath until, satisfied it was in no danger, the creature lowered its head once more to the fallen log and resumed tearing long strips of bark with its wedged teeth. It was the size of a fawn, with legs as graceful as its neck, and though its meat was sparse, it was rich and gamy, particularly about the ribs. Thaniel had killed one during the first week of our journey, and we’d been hoping to find one again. They were a skittish sort, easy to startle; we had but one chance once we made our presence known.

Arlo rested his palm on the frozen ground at our feet. “Are you ready?”

I nodded. My hands had begun to shake again, but not because of the cold. I was about to take a life, and though I’d performed the gruesome task with startling frequency since we’d begun our journey through the forest beyond Asperfell, it had grown no easier despite Thaniel’s assurances that it would.

“All right,” Arlo whispered. “Now!”

At the creature’s feet, roots burst from the ground, scattering dirt and snow into the air. They coiled around the animal’s feet with ruthless speed, dragging it down even as it threw its head back and screamed, a primal, guttural scream of rage and fear that echoed in the empty glade around us.

I stepped out from behind the bush, knife in hand, and approached the creature with cautious footsteps as it twitched and groaned in futile struggle. I knew Arlo’s magic to be more than capable of holding such a beast, even in the depth of winter when the world was frozen, but I was wary; the horns upon its head were thick and sharp. Kneeling beside the creature, I tried to fix my gaze only on its exposed throat and not its eyes, wide and moving with frantic fear. The pungent smell of the creature’s fur filled my nostrils, and I braced myself against the wave of nausea that rose within me at the stench and the task at hand.

“Hurry it up, will you?” Arlo shouted from behind the bush.

Gods, I hated this part. Pressing the edge of the blade against the animal’s throat, I closed my eyes. “Forgive me,” I whispered, and then I struck.

The animal’s blood bubbled up from the gash I’d opened in its neck and flowed in lurid rivulets down its tawny fur as it jerked and struggled against the roots that held it fast to the forest floor. Despite my visceral desire to drop my knife and retch into a nearby bush, I stayed beside the dying animal until its movements grew feeble and it lay still at last. Then, and only then, did the roots go slack and retreat back into the earth from whence they’d been summoned. The knife tumbled from my fingers into the snow and I bent to retrieve it, wiping the creature’s blood from the blade with shaking hands.

“Excellent,” Arlo said, and a moment later he crouched down beside me. “This fellow will make quite a tasty meal, I expect.”

“That’s all very well, but first we have to get it back to camp,” I pointed out as I tucked the knife back into the sheath at my waist.

Arlo Bryn made no secret of the fact that he was a Mage of mediocre skill, preferring a great many other more leisurely activities to the study of magic, which, I believed, was what Elyan found most abhorrent about him despite the plethora of other attributes he might choose from. To a consummate scholar like the prince, the idea of wasted potential was an unforgivable affront. But Arlo was still far more skilled than I, and so I watched with fascination as he laid his hands upon the fallen tree trunk the creature had been feasting upon and shaped it into a litter of sorts. Together, we lifted the creature onto it with magic, and Arlo lashed it down securely with branches from a nearby bush.

“That’s it, then,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “Let’s get back before my balls freeze and fall off.”

Twilight had settled over the forest by the time we returned to camp with our burden, and Phyra was waiting for us. Crouched in front of an enormous Magefire ringed in stone, the raven-haired Necromancer stirred something in a large-bellied caldron that I strongly suspected was parsnip; Arlo’s protestations would be sublime.

“Phyra!” Arlo greeted her, dropping the litter with a flourish on the ground beside the fire and spreading his arms wide. “We come bearing gifts. Now, where is that protector of yours? This thing wants butchering, and if I ask Briony to help me, she’ll faint dead away at my feet. Of course, women do that to me all the time…”

I scowled. “I would do no such thing.”

Phyra looked up at him with her dark, fathomless eyes and pointed to the domed shelter that Arlo had fashioned for us from the roots of an enormous tree earlier that afternoon. Then she turned her gaze to me as the Naturalist stomped off, bellowing for Thaniel.

“Are you all right?” she asked, her voice a soothing counterpoint to the uncivilized cursing coming from inside the shelter.

I mustered a smile. “I’m fine. But, unfortunately, I believe Thaniel might’ve been wrong about me and hunting.” Sinking into a crouch beside the Magefire, I let the warmth of the flames wash over me, the glorious heat blooming on my face until my cheeks tingled and burned. “Oh my, that is wonderful.”

“There is no shame in finding killing abhorrent,” Phyra said, and there was such knowing in her gaze that I felt quite exposed despite my coarse-spun cloak.

“Do you react so? When it is your turn?”

“No,” she answered quietly. “But often I wish I did.”

Necromancers passed through their lives with one foot in the land of the living and one in Death, where they bargained with his envoys. They were at all times keenly aware of the hairsbreadth that separated the two, and how perilously we all walked, tilting one way, then the next, from moment to moment. Perhaps that made it easier to take life.

Thaniel emerged from our shelter, a murderous scowl on his face and the cause of it on his heels, chattering away either in ignorance of Thaniel’s disapproval or, more likely, because of it. The two men’s disdain for one another began long before their mutual imprisonment at Asperfell, stretching back into another world and, it seemed at times, another life.

An Alchemist by aptitude and a swordsmaster by trade, Thaniel had forged the blade at my side five days after we’d escaped Asperfell and begun our journey north. We’d discovered a cave near the river by which we’d set our course, and after feeling an irresistible pull to its depths, Thaniel discovered rich veins of ore running through the ancient stone. Despite Thaniel’s uncanny skill, the metal was foreign to him and difficult to bend to his will. In the end, and only after Elyan siphoned a considerable amount of his own magic into Thaniel, he was able to extract the ore and, amidst flame and water, shape it to his design.

The knife had proven most useful, particularly in the service of keeping our bellies full and, thus, our strength at the ready.

I unsheathed the blade and handed it to Arlo as he passed, and the two men began the grim task of skinning the creature I’d killed. They used what magic they could, but their hands still grew bloody, their faces taut, and they looked quite barbaric, which I’d found shocking the first time I’d seen it. I’d spent my childhood in the splendor of the Shining City and come of age in Orwynd, the crumbling estate of my noble family; I was not accustomed to seeing my supper butchered. Darkness was nearly upon us by the time they completed their gruesome work, and the final member of our company had yet to show his face.

“Where is Elyan?” I asked Phyra.

“By the river.”

“Fool,” I scoffed. “Even if he is so very mighty.”

“You disapprove his seeking solitude?”

“Entirely. He puts himself at risk. Arrogant man.”

“You should tell him that.”

“I intend to.”

“Do you want me to go with you?”

“No,” I answered quickly; too quickly. Phyra’s brow rose, and the corner of her mouth tilted upward. I looked away guiltily. “I’ll be all right. Stay and keep warm.”

We had precious few moments alone, Elyan and I; despite the bitter cold and the dangers that dwelled in the gathering shadows, I would not squander this chance to be near him without the prying eyes of our companions, though it came at great risk, for I was a Mage of little skill and the night was hungry.

Once I’d left the bower, bright with Magefire, I was enfolded in shadow, my only retinue the moonlight upon the snow and my own meager handful of flame. Within the silence, deep in the darkness, I felt eyes upon me and quickened my pace, cursing Elyan with every step.

I found him on the bank of the river, a solitary figure, impossibly tall, shrouded in dusk. At my approach, he turned his head, his black curls blowing gently across his forehead.

“It’s dark,” I called. “You ought to come back to camp.”

He raised one eyebrow at me. “I am perfectly capable of defending myself, but your concern is duly noted.”

“Is it?” Minding the ice, I stepped gingerly down onto the bank. “If that were the case, I don’t expect you would venture out alone at all. You know how it vexes me.”

“Does it now?”

I tucked my arm within his and pressed close to him, grateful for the warmth his body provided. The top of my head only just reached his chest. “Our magic may not work the same beyond Asperfell.”

“Noted,” he answered, and I heard rather than saw the frown on his face. “Again.”

And yet, he stubbornly persisted. He’d so often sought these quiet places since we left Asperfell. At first, I thought it might’ve just been Arlo and Thaniel’s bickering, but in the weeks since, I’d suspected otherwise.

When first I’d noticed it, I’d asked Phyra if perhaps remnants might be left within Elyan from his time in Death’s realm at the hand of Master Viscario. But knowing so little of her own power and having only returned three souls to life, and only twice on purpose, she could tell me little other than that she believed Elyan was, in fact, in mourning.

“For Asperfell?” I’d asked, aghast.

Her head tilted as she studied me with dark, fathomless eyes. “Is that really so strange?”

“In Tiralaen he is a king.”

“A king without a throne.”

“He’d no throne in Asperfell.”

“No,” she said. “But he had a purpose.”

“His purpose is to rule.”

Or it should have been.

Before the night he’d been deceived into killing his father, Elyan had been the crown prince of Tiralaen by virtue of his bloodline. In truth, it was Master Viscario who had orchestrated the murder of the king, along with the exile of the kingdom’s rightful heir to the otherworldly prison of Asperfell. And thus, the young Prince Keric, nothing more than a frightened child at the time, had taken the throne as Viscario’s unknowing puppet.

In the years that followed his father’s murder by dark magic, Keric’s fear and hatred of all Mages had become a twisted obsession, and it spread throughout Tiralaen like an infected wound, until all magic-born were nothing more than prisoners or slaves to the crown. Elyan blamed himself for all of it—noble, stupid, egotistical man that he was. Even if none of it had ever happened—the murder, the banishment, the slaughter and oppression of magic-born across Tiralaen—Elyan’s reign was always destined to be far more tempestuous than his forebears by virtue of his magic. It was not that a Mage had never sat on the throne before; indeed, many had. It was that Elyan possessed one of the rarest and most dangerous aptitudes known to our world, that of a Siphon. Had he been more like his brother in temperament—charming, vigorous, and oft-laughing—he might have won the adoration of his people in spite of his arcane powers, but Elyan was a tall, serious man with a sharp tongue and a head for books rather than hunting and sport. And though he governed his immense power with restraint and gave every indication of leading as his father had before him, with fairness and compassion, he had been respected, but not loved.

Whatever fate had awaited him as king of Tiralaen, it had been stolen from him long ago, and long had our people suffered for it. If only we could return to our own world, we had cause to hope that Tiralaen would rally to its rightful king and cast down his brother. And thus, we’d escaped Asperfell together, trudging a slow path through the unexplored and unpeopled north of this world, where spirits of the dead had whispered to us that a Gate back to our own kingdom might be found in a cave far away.

We knew not how far we need travel to find it, nor what signs to seek to guide our way, and Elyan felt heavily the weight of each day lost to journeying. Another day with his brother on the throne. Another day of suffering and death for his people.

“How fared the hunt?” Elyan asked when the silence began to stretch too thin between us.

“Successful. We caught one of the horned creatures.”

He pulled back just enough to look down at me, his brow raised in pleasant surprise. “Truly? Haven’t you become quite the hunter.”

“Not by choice, I assure you,” I said, shuddering. “The river is restless tonight.”

“And has grown more so the farther north we’ve traveled,” he agreed. “At first, I thought I might’ve imagined it, but look there—the ice is nearly melted.”

“Spring come early?”

“Perhaps, though it would be exceedingly strange.”

“And, therefore, not entirely outside the realm of possibility,” I reminded him, for we were very far from everything familiar.

“Indeed.” His deep voice rumbled beneath my ear, which was pressed to his chest. “And do you still believe this mad scheme of yours will work?”

Against the warmth of him, I angled my face so that I might meet his gaze. “I told you, it is not within me to yield.”

He leaned down, a considerable effort given how dreadfully short my stature, and captured my lips with his own, a chaste kiss over all too soon.

“I do worry for the state of your back, you know,” I teased as he drew back, brushing his lips upon my forehead. “Perhaps you shall no longer wish to kiss me when you can no longer stand properly.”

I felt his lips curve into a smile. “I shall always wish to kiss you, even if I must kneel.”

How changed was he since the night I first came to Asperfell; how bitter he’d been, how hopeless, contemptuous of my untried fervor, and quick to deride me for it. And yet, I feared this mourning of his, were it mourning as Phyra suspected and not simply arrogance and pride. He slept poorly; his tongue had sharpened; there was something hollow growing behind his extraordinary eyes.

We stood so long together staring out at the ice and snow and swiftly moving water that I thought perhaps I would have to go back without him when I felt him sigh beneath my ear, heavy, resigned. He took my hand, helping me up onto the embankment, and then, Magefire in our hands, we plunged into the gathering darkness.

The smell of roasting meat greeted us as we stepped into the clearing, and my mouth began to water in a quite unladylike fashion. I’d not thought to miss the simple fare of Asperfell, especially after I had been quite thoroughly spoiled by Layn at Orwynd, but after little more than parsnips, oats, and a few handfuls of bitter greens the past several days, I desperately missed bread and butter.

Thaniel and Arlo had stripped the animal of its skin, removed its offal, and skewered it over the Magefire, where the fat dripped down into the flames, sizzling and popping merrily.

“Tonight, we eat like kings,” Arlo declared, rubbing his hands together. “No offense, your highness.”

Elyan lowered himself down beside me in front of the fire.

“Now, Bryn, don’t say things you don’t mean.”

“I never mean any of the things I say,” came Arlo’s blithe reply.

Thaniel scowled at him. “Then perhaps you could try saying nothing at all.”

“He could not,” Phyra said softly, wrapped in her cloak so tightly I could see only the shadows of her face. “He is quite incapable.”

Arlo gave a shout of laughter at that, and I could not help but grin, though with Phyra one never could tell whether she was in jest or entirely serious.

Once the beast was well and truly roasted, we tore at its flesh with as much decorum as we could muster after days of eating lackluster fare, its juices and fat dripping down our chins and running in rivulets over our fingers. Our conversation turned, as it so often did these days, toward our memories of Asperfell, for even then, we dared not speak of a life beyond this world, so tenuous was our hope.

Even I, who’d only dwelled within its walls the past two seasons, had found a measure of happiness, however strange. I missed Yralis and the Healers’ Garden. I missed Willow in the kitchen. I missed the library and its scholars, the courtyard with the terrifying and beautiful black oak tree, and I missed the little desk that stood before the window in my chamber where I’d so often sat and watched Nollie and Perkin shuffle about the graveyard, the former laying souls to rest and the latter accidentally raising their various extremities.

We often wondered aloud to one another about the people we’d left and what would become of them should Master Viscario ever return. We’d told Mistress Philomena the truth about him before we’d fled. Did this make her vulnerable? Had she told others?

“She is one of the most formidable people I have ever met,” Thaniel said as he looked around at our somber faces. “She has a better chance than most.”

When at last Phyra began to nod off inside her cloak and Arlo let out a truly impressive yawn, we decided it best to retreat into our shelter of tightly woven roots. Within minutes of wrapping herself inside the folds of her cloak, Phyra was fast asleep. My head pillowed by my hands, I listened to the distant gurgling of the river as Thaniel set a small Magefire at the center of our shelter to keep us warm through the night.

Elyan lay on his back, his hands folded at his chest, his eyes fixed on the roots above. I did not know how long he stayed awake staring into the darkness, for I fell asleep watching the light of the Magefire play about the sharp angles of his face, and as my eyelids grew heavy, the flames formed a crown upon his black hair.

We’d begun our journey from Asperfell to the rumored cave in the north nearly three weeks ago and discovered straight away that surviving in the wilderness of a world not our own would require all our skill, and full as much determination.

We had ferocity aplenty between the five of us—even delicate, ethereal Phyra with her strange, terrible aptitude—and more than a modicum of cleverness and familiarity with hard work. Thaniel and Arlo had come from humble beginnings; Phyra even more so. And I’d grown up a trifle wild myself, despite my ancient family name and the once illustrious position of my father at court. Even Elyan, who had lived as a prince in a palace until the age of sixteen, had survived far more horrific things than sleeping on the ground and skinning animals for his supper during his twelve years incarcerated in Asperfell.

And, of course, we had our magic.

Or some version of our magic.

That magic was put to the test two nights after we feasted upon the horned creature, as we prepared to pass the night in a wide clearing surrounded by tall, thin trees that grew in such numbers and in such close proximity that they more resembled several large trunks than hundreds of smaller ones. Elyan insisted I extinguish the Magefire that evening so that I might