I left my note and gifts for Kai and then walked out the door, preparing to flee as fast as possible. Yet I couldn’t. Not yet. As if in a trance, I paused and held my breath as a single snowflake fell toward the ground. A snowflake.

  It was late fall, so snow was to be expected. Soon, the ground would be dusted white, and the water would mix with poison, making it deadly to walk around. So my people would be huddled up in the community centers and their homes or… whatever they built. It was just like before.

  And yet it wasn’t.

  This single snowflake was visible because there were strings of glow stones hanging from trees.

  I looked around in wonder, realizing that Trigan must’ve had them built in secret, and planned to unveil them the night that I left.

  Traditions.

  A taste of home.

  A place where my parents could live and be safe and feel comfortable. A place that was far away from the violent god-rearing bullshit BS the Oracle was spewing.

  Wasn't this my dream?

  To live away from this violent world of gods and magic, and live life on my own terms?

  I turned down the street of what was now downtown. The original strait now had a strip mall of community centers that led to public baths, an outdoor community area, my alchemy lab, and the greenhouse where plants and poisons, and alchemic supplies were growing.

  All of these things were lit up by strings of Christmas lights, making way for a white winter, bleak and poisonous as it may be.

  More snowflakes fell, and they shone like prisms as I turned the corner and looked into the distance. Hundreds of tree houses were built, thirty bodies to a trunk as apartment complexes were built for more sustainable living. Soon, there would be a full town with streets and roads and bakeries in this cozy mountain town resort in the middle of hell.

  I wasn’t alone anymore.

  Kline tugged at my pants with his teeth to remind me that I was never alone, and I smiled and picked him up, staring at what we had built in amazement.

  Just four years prior, I woke up in this very location and was swarmed by the Wandering Reaper. The forest was too deadly to walk through. Trap plants were tearing me apart. I almost died from poison. My soul was partially eaten. I survived on meat from weak prey, and ran from second evolution beasts. I fought for my life.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Now, this site was home to a beautiful downtown in a budding village. A village of guardians, like me, who would protect this forest through tradition, just as the Drokai did before us.

  My life had changed—but it was worth it.

  It was all worth it.

  Somehow, after life and death battles and violence and killing and Brindle’s memories—things turned out okay. I turned out okay.

  It was beautiful.

  I suddenly heard a door bang open. Kai and Jaylin were friends of the leaders, so they got their own house. But there were thirty feet between trees, and they were five away. That didn’t give me much time—but it would be enough.

  Kline turned into his panther form, and I mounted him.

  “Mira!” Kai yelled as he rushed onto the main path.

  I grinned and whispered, “Come on. Let’s go.”

  Just for spite, Kline waited until Kai came into sight—then he warped out of existence, taking us deep into the forest, en route to the teleportation circle that would bring us to Lake Nyralith.

  Training, building, love, gods, and war.

  There was a rhythm in place—an overarching sense of urgency that drove everyone’s actions. A form of electricity that brought the Oracle and Drokai together to train and aid me in my quest to protect the forest. Areswood had secrets—but they seemed irrelevant. There was just a pulse, a need to protect them regardless of what they were.

  And there was a timeline.

  At the end of the decade, Brexton Claustra would give proof that the Drokai existed—and thus that this forest had an enemy, rather than a mystique. That auction would bring with it gods and armies from empires all throughout the multiverse—including Glaves and grieves. But it would also bring gods and elites throughout the universe, gods who would bid on my line of elixirs—an event that could earn me a legendary reward—a reward that very well could save this forest from destruction. Before that time, we needed to build fortresses, supply armies, and get as strong as possible. War was coming—and we had to be prepared for it.

  And yet—

  There are moments where the world slows down enough for you to look around and see how beautiful and wonderful things have become.

  Wraithwood Village wasn’t just a requirement—it was an ideal. That night, I truly understood that as Kline and I blinked in and out of existence, moving north, forever getting closer to the boundary between me and the fourth evolution beasts that could kill me—and the place that would teach me how to kill them.

  It had been a hard four years—

  But it was worth it.

  It was all worth it. And now that I had it, it was a matter of protecting it.

  https://www.royalroad.com/amazon/B0DPJDRPWH