Branches of Life

This portal was more jarring than the last, and this time Koa was unable to hold onto me as we slammed into the ground. My clumsy and somewhat painful roll wound up with me laying on my back, staring up at the gloomy grayish-green sky. Not really a reassuring color. It took nearly a minute for my stomach to settle from that rough-ass portal. My internal organs felt like they were being slowly yanked out through my navel. Whoever made the portal was a dick. There was no reason it had to be so jarring. Before today, I'd never been in one this shitty.

Pushing myself off the ground was way more difficult than it should've been. My body felt weighted and sluggish. A hollow feeling settled in my chest and I couldn't immediately pinpoint why.

Giving my surroundings a cursory glance, I wasn't reassured by what I saw. The ground was made up of gray, cracked dirt. Dead trees dotted the land and were the only foliage to be seen. A few of the trees oozed a mysterious green substance. A bubbling pool of some sort of yellow liquid sat nearly fifty feet away from us. Without a doubt, I was staying far away from that. I couldn't imagine anything living in this environment. Even the air around us lacked a scent.

"What kind of creatures live here?" Harmony looked around with a pinched expression. With her affinity for nature, it must've been painful for her to be in this barren land, void of life.

Wyatt slowly spun around, observing every little detail. The way he pursed his lips and squinted at the sky wasn't reassuring in the slightest. "I highly doubt any creatures live here."

"Come again?" I asked, hoping I somehow misunderstood him. A region that no creatures lived in sounded good in theory, but in practice meant there was something so wrong with this place, that not even the monsters wanted to deal with it."

"Nothing lives here. This land is dead—in more ways than one." Wyatt squatted and ran his fingers over the cracked dirt, before rubbing his fingers together. "We've landed in a magical dead zone, no creature would dare step foot here."

Starling's head shot up from where she had been dabbing at the scratches on her thigh and calf. Her blood stained her pants. "What do you mean by magical dead zone?"

"Summon your animal," Wyatt suggested, not looking up from the ground.

When I tried reaching out for my wolf's energy nothing happened. I wasn't able to sense her energy or presence. Not even when I closed my eyes and allowed myself to focus, fully reaching out with my mind. It felt like there was this solid wall between us, one that hadn't been there before. Realization had me gasping, this was why I felt so empty and drained. My wolf was always with me, pouring energy into my body. It was how I had enhanced senses and physical abilities.

Now that I was cut off from the stream of energy, exhaustion began wearing on me. The scrapes littering my arms stung and would continue to do so, now that I no longer had quick healing.

A sense of loneliness kept trying to weigh me down. I felt so alone, even with everyone around me. Normally I was never alone, even when there were no others in the room with me. I always had my wolf for company, even if she couldn't speak. We understood each other on another level.

Looking around at the others, I could see the same effects wearing on them. Even Rowan looked weak and tired.

Harmony swayed on her feet, a dazed look crossing her face. Ari and I darted toward her as her knees buckled. We threw her arms over our shoulders, propping her up between us. Normally she stood a couple of inches taller than us, but not now as her head drooped to the side. Sweat dotted her brow, and her skin felt cold.

Ander made to come help us but stopped short when I shook my head. Like the rest of us, he wasn't spared from the effects of this land. He may not have cast since the forest, but that didn't include his permanent sigils.

Like how summoners received a constant flow of energy from our animals, blood mages got theirs from permanent sigils. When they turned twenty-eight, they were allowed to choose five sigils to be permanently tattooed on their body. They couldn't choose just any sigils, there was a whole list of the ones they were allowed to have. Ander's were on his chest, the sigils interlocked in a beautiful design, tattooed in blood ink. He had chosen: strength, speed, sight, hearing, and healing. If he wanted to enhance any other senses, he would have to cast.

"Lead us to the next portal, we need to get out of here, now. This land is poison to her," Ari said looking at Wyatt.

"I'd love to." Wyatt wiped the dirt off of his hands as he stood. "But there's just one problem; I can't sense a portal."

Looking up at the dreary sky, I groaned and raked a hand down my face. Growls and sighs of frustration came from the others, mirroring how I felt. I knew the portal-jumping plan, to get to the demon region, seemed too easy.

"I'm sorry what?" Starling's face scrunched up into a frown, her hands resting on her hips. "A portal brought us here, how the hell is there not one to take us out?"

Wyatt exhaled slowly as he now scanned the sky. "Magical dead zones are rare, hard to create, and dangerous. Some cataclysmic event happened here, creating the magical void. The portals were already here before the event occurred. Allowing the portal to bring us here. It's also why this one was so unstable. However, it's tethered in the last region, so it can't be sucked into the void."

"But the portal out of here was tethered to this land. So when the void sucked up the magic, the portal went with it," Ander finished, pushing his hair back from his face.

I shot a glance back in the direction of where the portal dropped us off, hoping maybe we could take it back to the lava region. Not an ideal move, what with the wyvern, but it was a better option than this. My hopes were dashed when I didn't see the translucent swirling of the green portal, nor did I feel it, and this close I should've.

Of course the damn thing would be a one-way door.

"We're going to have to use the river to change regions, and we need to do so now," Wyatt said, glancing around at the vast and open land. After a few moments of deliberation, he headed to the left.

"I'm sorry, but did he just say we're going in the river?" Starling asked incredulously, her brows raised.

"I'm starting to see why he lives alone; he's useless."

"You're just pissy because you're not the one in control anymore," I threw out over my shoulder at Koa, as Ari and I led Harmony around the bubbling pool, of what had to be some sort of acid.

Koa grumbled under his breath, but without my wolf, I couldn't hear what he said.

As time went on, Harmony's breathing became even more labored, and her feet starting to drag. Readjusting my grip on her waist, I hoisted her up higher on my shoulder. My body was tiring faster than normal, my legs beginning to shake, and I knew Ari and I wouldn't be able to keep this up for much longer.

Rowan brushed against my leg and I realized that I no longer felt the warm ball of energy, tethering us together, in my chest either. "Is it safe for Rowan to be here?" I asked, my voice rising with panic at the thought of losing her to the void.

"Spirit familiars are made up of an untested magic. There is still so much we don't know about them. With that being said, I don't think she'll get sucked up right away, but we shouldn't risk staying too long."

Relief and worry warred within me. "Stay close," I murmured, meeting Rowan's less bright yellow eyes. She dipped her head in acknowledgment and it already felt so weird not having her voice in my head.

"What do you keep looking for? I thought you said there wouldn't be any creatures here." Ander's comment drew my attention to Wyatt and his constant surveillance of the land around us, as well as the sky.

"I'm making sure the weather doesn't change," Wyatt said as if that answered everything.

"We need more details than that." I sighed, hating the cryptic way he spoke.

"I won't give you a lesson on magical dead zones. You should've learned about it growing up. It's embarrassing how little they seem to be teaching you these days." Wyatt shook his head, pausing for a moment, looking behind us. "But basically, the void creates weather phenomenons. They come out of nowhere and end as abruptly as they started, leaving nothing but destruction in their wake."

"What kind of weather phenomenons?" Harmony's voice was breathless and barely above a whisper. Her skin had taken on a waxy pallor.

"Anywhere from acid rain, floods happening nowhere near water, random firestorms. Essentially, weather you wouldn't want to be caught out in the open in," Wyatt said, and my panic doubled.

After Wyatt's warning, I was now on high alert, nearly jumping when Harmony coughed. My shoulder supporting Harmony's weight had gone numb some time ago, and my back was aching from the extra weight. Add in the hollow feeling weighing my chest, and I was a complete hot mess.

To make matters worse, the first weather phenomenon showed up. The ground violently shook, throwing us off balance. Before we could even get our bearings, another quake shook the earth, and this time we weren't lucky enough to stay on our feet. The three of us landed on top of one another. As we pushed ourselves back up, the ground rumbled again, this time accompanied by an earsplitting crack.