Thalen Greenleaf's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

The trees closed in ahead. Thalen shoved at a wall of thorned branches, but they held fast. He turned. Behind him, the giant's slow steps ground closer, and the dark wolf slid between trunks, pale eyes locked on his glow. He was pinned. The splinter still burned in his fist, and it pulled hard toward the tangle, straight into wood too thick to pass. He pried at a gap with both hands. A branch snapped back and tore his palm. Blood dripped on the moss. The wolf lowered its head and stalked forward, one paw at a time. Behind it, stone scraped stone. Thalen had no way through and no way back. A small light flared near his shoulder. He flinched. A sprite hovered there, no taller than his hand, her wings ragged at one edge. Green leaves crowned her hair. A dark bruise marked her side, and one wing dragged as she flew. "Stop pulling at it," she said. "You'll never win against thorns." Her voice was thin but sharp. "Who are you?" "I saw them take your tree." Her eyes flicked to the wolf, then back. "I've been hiding in this wood since. Now hush and hold up your light." Thalen lifted the glowing splinter. The sprite pressed her small hands to the thicket. She hummed low, and the branches shivered. Green shoots curled. The thorns did not part for strength. They parted for her. "The wood knows me," she said. "It doesn't know you." A narrow gap opened, just wide enough for a body. The wolf sprang. Thalen threw himself through the gap. Thorns raked his back. Behind him, the branches snapped shut like a fist. The wolf slammed into them and yelped. Its jaws snapped on empty air, walled off by the tangle. Thalen rolled onto packed earth and gasped. The giant's steps faded, blocked by the same wall. The sprite squeezed through the last of the gap and dropped beside him, breathing hard, clutching her hurt side. "That took more than I had left," she said. He sat up and looked around. He stood in a clear path under old trees. Soft light glowed from a mushroom set into a trunk, its cap wide and pale. The splinter tugged ahead, calm now, sure. "You could have let them take me," he said. "I want that tree back too." She wiped dirt from her cheek. "Its memories aren't only your clan's. My kind lived in its roots." Thalen closed his fist around the splinter. The way ahead lay open at last. He owed his life to a sprite he did not know, and she wanted the same thing he did. "Then we go together," he said. She nodded and rose on her torn wings. Thalen followed the pull deeper into the wood, no longer alone, the giant and the wolf sealed behind him.