A forest spirit's predatory form stalked towards us with a thirst for violence, making me draw my sword without a second thought. What were we going to do? Where was Lorella with our horses? We could have gotten on them and fled down the main path. At least she was safe.

I had only ever seen a forest spirit in story books before as Kayne had brought them to the blacksmiths to show us. There were mentions of the creatures having magic to protect the forest, I never would have thought this was what it entailed though. Not a nearly eight-foot monster carved from wood, leaves, and vines.

"Over here!" Auron called, motioning us to follow him through the forest behind him. He ran into the trees, assuming we would be right on his tail.

Kayne and I followed, not bothering to turn around to see if the forest spirit followed us. Even if it did, hopefully, the small spaces between the trees would slow it down. If the forest spirit's predatory form was built to protect the forests of Racaea, a giant was either a foolish choice of defence, or there was something else hidden about the forest spirit that we were unaware of.

The prince took the lead of the group, his natural speed useful in a dire situation. That meant I took the back, my lungs already beginning to burn despite the short time we had been fleeing. Running had never been my strong suit.

Where were we going to go? We had no map with us as it was tucked safely into Auron's horse's saddlebag and no supplies with us either. If we got lost — which was almost certain to happen — we'd be dead anyway.

A thorned vine shot out from the ground beneath me and wrapped around my legs, causing me to yell out in surprise and fall to the floor. I held my sword tightly and tried to turn around to attack, but the forest spirit flung me into the air. My back collided with a tree several feet away, knocking the air from my lungs.

Slowly, the vines dragged me towards their master lurking in the shadows. We had run so far into the forest that the canopy had thickened and hardly any sunlight streamed through the leaves.

I tried to hold onto something, anything that would stop me from being hauled to my demise, but nothing seemed to do the trick. Everything screamed at me to run and get as far away from the forest spirit as I could. I would have done just that if my legs weren't bound. Fighting back was my best chance of surviving this. How did a forest spirit even kill its prey? I shuddered. That was something I didn't want to discover the answer to.

"Sabre!" Kayne and Auron called in the distance, their voices holding more of a questioning tone to them. The former would undoubtedly find me with his hearing in no time, but I didn't want them to find me. I needed them to get to safety.

Raising my sword when I was close enough to the forest spirit, I mustered all the strength I could and stabbed it into its body. The bark-like material with the toughness of steel shattered my blade on impact, leaving me stranded with no weapon. All of my others were still in Cirrus' saddlebag.

Cursing under my breath, I tossed the handle aside and attempted to crawl away from the creature. However, that only made the forest spirit reel me in quicker. It was as if I was a fish being dragged out from the ocean ready to be devoured. This was it. The forest spirit's sharpened claws were waiting for me a few feet away. I could only make a guess now as to whether my life would end by them or the equally menacing teeth it bore.

Kayne burst through some trees to my left and instantly rushed to my side. He used a foot to stand on the vine and stop it from moving, giving him time to lean down and use his sword to sever the vine. It took him a few tries to get it through the tough material, but I was eventually freed.

I didn't waste any time, ignoring the screech of pain the forest spirit released, and reached down to the vines wrapped around my legs. Only, when I got to them, there was nothing there. The vines had decayed to nothing more than dust.

The prince helped me to my feet, quickly checking me over for injuries. "Can you still run?" He asked through laboured breaths.

I nodded, wondering where Auron was. Had he gotten lost when Kayne had come to my rescue? Thankfully, when we ran a little distance away, he was waiting for us.

"What do we do now?" I questioned while we continued to run as far as we could from the monstrous creature tailing us.

"How are we supposed to know?" Auron retorted. "I doubt any of us has been attacked by a forest spirit before."

"Just keep running!" Kayne interrupted, taking the lead of the group once more. This was the only time I envied his fae abilities.

After what felt like hours of darting through the trees to try and get the spirit to lose us, we eventually couldn't hear anything anymore besides our own footsteps and heavy breaths. There was no rustling of the fallen leaves on the ground behind us, nor were there any earth-shaking thuds from its footsteps. We had to have lost it.

I slowed to a stop to rest my lungs and the others did the same.

"This is bad," Auron began. "We don't know where we are and we have no supplies."

"At least we're still alive," Kayne mused, something between a chuckle and a gasp for air leaving his chest.

It didn't feel right. The hairs on my arms stood on their ends and something felt like it crawled up my back, no, down my back. It had to just be my imagination, but it still had me shaken. Why did the forest spirit stop attacking us in the first place? It didn't add up.

Fallen twigs and branches snapped behind Kayne and Auron, alerting us to a presence lurking in the shadows. Though, when we peered closer, nothing was there. Not a physical being, anyway. The forest floor began to rise, moulding into the form that had been chasing us moments ago.

If the forest spirit could appear from anywhere it wished, there was no point in running through the trees to try and slow it down. It would get us no matter how hard we tried to outrun it. What did it even want from us? We weren't a threat to the forests of Racaea in the slightest. Perhaps it had mistaken us for someone else close by?

I reached for my sword to protect myself to find nothing but air at my side. Panic built up in my chest until I remembered I had discarded the shattered blade not too long ago. Now, I was defenceless. At least Auron and Kayne still had theirs.

We turned around to run back in the direction we came from as we had no other plan, no other hope for getting out of this alive, but we couldn't. There was another forest spirit in its predatory form standing in our way. We were trapped on all sides.

When I looked closer, stepping into the centre of the ring we were confined to, I realised that it wasn't another forest spirit after all. It was the same one that had extended its body to surround us.

Kayne raised his hands in surrender. "I'm the Prince of Racaea, heir to the High Fae title. We are allies of this forest, not enemies." His hands trembled as he spoke.

The creature leant down so we could see its face more clearly. It was contorted with confusion at the prince's words, its head tilted slightly as if to get a better look at the man that tried to converse with it. When it only snarled in response and the walls it had created moved towards us, I knew it couldn't understand a word that had come out of Kayne's mouth.

The three of us stood back to back, hoping to come up with a plan between us, but there was nothing we could do. All that was left was to guess whether we would be crushed to death or pierced with the forest spirit's claws or teeth.

"Hey!" A voice called from behind the creature's walls. Lorella's voice. There was a clatter of metal that followed which I could only assume to be a weapon of some kind.

She was a fool. Lorella could be safe right now or on her way to fetch help for us, but instead, she had decided to intervene herself. Though, I couldn't blame her too much for wanting to help us. I would have done the exact same thing.

The monstrous creature halted its scheme to kill us and looked curiously over at the lady. It reached down with a honed claw and picked her up. Ignoring Lorella's struggles to break free, it tossed her inside its death trap with us.

Auron rushed over to her side to help her up and bring her to the centre of the ring.

"You could have gotten us help!" I yelled, scanning the walls made of vines and leaves for any sort of gap we could escape from. There was nothing.

"You would be gone before the time help arrived." She hissed back, cradling her arm. I wouldn't have been surprised if the bone was broken from the fall she'd taken.

Auron shrugged, meeting my eyes. "She does have a point."

"Now is not the time," Kayne pleaded. He looked pained to see a part of the forest attacking him. The rulers of Racaea were supposed to be connected to or even one with the forest that made up most of the kingdom. It must have been heartbreaking to see a creature that was supposed to protect the kingdom trying to take out on its leaders.

The woodland walls the forest spirit had risen had grown much closer to us now, almost ensuring there would be no chance of escape. However, they stopped instantly as the ricochet of a horn blared through the trees. It coiled in fear, its barrier retracting as it sounded again. This time the horn was louder. Closer.

Who was creating that sound? Nobody usually travelled this far into the forest without some sort of death wish. How did they get here? Did they get chased by a forest spirit too?

When the horn sounded a third time, the monster shrunk back into itself, reverting back to its glowing orb form. It fled back into the trees, leaving us to be free from its torment.

Relief washed over me, but it was quickly replaced by fear once more, my heart beating rapidly in my chest. If something that fearsome had been frightened by that sound, I had a feeling whatever was behind it was even more terrifying.

"Lorella," Auron began. "Where are the horses?"

"Still on the main path." She winced at her words. "They were already spooked at the sight of that creature when I was about to return them, so bringing them along wouldn't do them any good." There went our escape plan.

"What is a group like you doing in this part of the forest?" A voice called from the canopy of trees above us.

When none of us replied, too stunned to think of a response, a girl jumped down and landed in front of us. She wore a loose hunting attire, jagged knives strapped across her body and a bow and quiver slung over her shoulders. From her height and face, I could guess that she was around the age of fifteen.

Her hair was a golden shade, just a little darker than Kayne's and peaking out from underneath the strands were pointed ears. She was fae.