We walked for most of the early night, hoping that Mellie knew which way she was going. In the dark, the swampy forest around the Amethseryne lake was imposing, and the winding road through the mud was almost impossible to see. I heard Sally let out a muttered curse as she sank knee deep in a puddle that had surreptitiously disguised itself as flat road. Erza helped her pull her leg back out, which was accompanied by a delightfully disgusting schlorrrp. We tried to be as quiet as we could in the dark, but I still heard the occasionally muttered curse whenever someone bumped into something. The moon was a faint sliver up above, mostly covered by the thick canopy above us.

Sally seemed to be somewhat adept at seeing in the dark -- whether that was a demon thing or just luck -- but she compensated for that by having no idea how to navigate wooded areas. That left Kazumi and her reptilian sight, who was by my side, unsteady on the uneven ground and too focused on not falling over to do anything else, Mellie, who was helpful in pointing out hazards on the path, and Morgana, who was not.

The forest thinned out. The ground became more steady, and after a few hours we took a rest by the side of the road in a small clearing. We didn’t want to light any fires. The news of our escape shouldn’t have been out yet, but we weren’t in a position to take things for granted. There might be alerted patrols around. We softly chewed on some salted fish and tried to speak only in whispers.

“What are the Redwood like, Mellie?” I asked. “Like, what do I have to expect? Giant Spiders? Brigands? Massive carnivorous plants?”

She gave me a mystified look. “What are you talking about?” she said quietly. “The Giant Spiders are coastal. They never come up this high.” I was a little offended at the way she implied that I was a fool for not knowing the basics of Giant Spider habitat distribution. “Why? Did you hear something?” Or, perhaps, I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions and considered the possibility that she was worried.

I shook my head. “No, I just know that the forests down south,” I said, trying to sound like I knew what I was talking about while racking my brain trying to remember where the game had taken place, “have all kinds of dangers. I was wondering if the great Redwood was anything like that.”

She shook her head. “None of the dangers you get down south exist in the Redwood. From what I know, the forest is quiet and gentle. Not even poachers go in there much.”

Okay. That was less comforting and more ominous than I would have liked.

“You’ll not tell her why, Melamira?” Morgana asked. If she was sneering, I couldn’t tell. “The Redwood is the most beautiful, quiet forest on the entire continent,” she continued. “I often went into it as a child when we’d rest on its banks for a few days. It often lies undisturbed for years.” She crouched down and stared ahead for a moment. Mellie looked at her with interest. I felt like she didn’t know all there was to know about these forests either. “The spirits see to that.”

I raised my hand tentatively. “When you say spirits, is that like, a religious thing? Or--”

“They eat trespassers they don’t like.”

“Oh.”

Mellie furrowed her brow. “I’ve never heard of them, and I used to walk to the Redwood all the time. I thought it was simply out of respect...” She trailed off, realizing that her view of the forest might have been rooted -- no pun intended -- in naivety.

Morgana shrugged. “You have to think of the Redwood like an ocean. If you stay on the beach, only getting your feet wet, you’re safe from all manner of things with teeth and tentacles. But the deeper you go, the bigger the things lurking in the deep.”

Mellie chewed her tongue. “I never did go that far in…”

I blinked a few times.

“Are you saying there’s sea monsters in the forest?” I tried.

Morgana, for the first time I’d met her, laughed. It was mostly a breathy chuckle, but it seemed genuine. “No. But there’s spirits there, older than I am, who would devour you if they feel you are a threat to their woods.”

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“And we’re going in there willingly?”

She nodded again. “If we’re quiet and respect their rule, we will be fine. I doubt the military, or even the Amethseryne scouts, would look for us in there. It’s the best way to put distance between us and them.”

“That sounds incredibly dangerous,” Lillian said, appearing from the shadows. “There have to be safer paths.”

Morgana shook her head. “Our original journey took us southeast, at the edge of the Wood, but that’ll be crawling with military patrols now. The Court suggested we go north, but that’ll add days to our journey, and they’ll expect us to go that way. Due east, cut through the Redwood, will be our best bet. It’ll be dangerous, but if you keep your head you’ll be fine.” She looked at Lillian. “Though I wouldn’t pitch your gods against the old ones of the Redwood,” she said without a trace of humour. “The ones that live here are more hands-on than yours, cleric.”

Lillian swallowed. “You have experience with these… forest gods?”

Morgana nodded softly. “Once or twice. They’re no different from the ones you’ll find in the deep oceans, I suppose. Our ideas of right and wrong don’t really come into it for them. They simply are. Let them be and they’ll let you be.”

When we broke camp and moved on, I couldn’t help but hear her words over and over again. I wondered what it had been like, to discover old forest spirits when she was younger. What did they look like? Giant walking trees? Floating wispy clouds of ectoplasm? My fantasy ran wild as I put one foot in front of the other, which was why I was surprised when I felt a soft, cold hand slip into mine, and I saw Sabine join me with a soft smile.

“It’ll be okay, love,” she said softly and slowed me down long enough to give me a quick kiss, and then winked. “I’ll protect you.” That was more comforting than I expected it to be, and I could only smile back.

“Thank you, Sabine,” I whispered. “It just feels like things are starting to get… I don’t know…”

“Dangerous?”

I shook my head. “That’s not it. It’s… how do I put this… mythical?”

She cocked her head as we continued walking. “What do you mean?”

“It’s like… everything we’ve done so far, it’s all been alien and fantastic to me, certainly, but I could make sense of things. But now it’s starting to get…” I paused, trying to collect my thoughts. “I mean, ancient gods? Being chased by armies? That’s not… I have no frame of reference for this stuff. Politics exist all over, but I’ve never been in a forest that tried to eat me.”

Sabine laughed softly. “I think I understand, though I can’t really relate. Traveling with the Companions for so long… we’ve seen some strange things. I doubt we’ll see anything we won’t be able to handle, Liz.”

I squeezed her hand. “That helps. Thank you.”

She smiled at me and I felt my heart do that thing that’s halfway between a backflip and full cardiac arrest, that told me that I’d keep falling for her every time she looked at me that way. “Hey,” she said.

“Hey?”

“I love you, Liz.”

Aaa.

“I love you too, Sabine.”

She chuckled and shook her head.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Nothing at all. I just… love how powerful that feels every time I hear it.”

Aaa!

“Me too.”

She squeezed my hand right back, and we continued on walking in silence. We’d decided we wouldn’t stop until dawn, by which time we hoped we’d be at the edge of the Redwood. Mellie had assured us that the shadows of the great trees would make the difference between night and day moot, and that we’d be able to get some sleep once we were inside.

I was already starting to feel the sleep deprivation starting to weigh on me. Lack of sleep, once upon a time, had been a fact of life for me, but these days I slept quite well. Which was why the heavy blanket of exhaustion fell that much heavier on my shoulders. It was the feeling of your body telling you that you should sleep now, but at the same time trying to eke out every bit of energy reserves so you could keep going. It wasn’t pleasant.

The distance between the Amethseryne forest and the Redwood was only a six hour march, in theory. When I asked Erza how far we’d come, she told me she figured it was about midnight, so we should be getting there before daybreak, at least. Once we’d reached the treeline, we’d be able to slow down our pace somewhat.

The roads at night were quiet. Once or twice, we encountered a traveller going the other way, usually an Elf on a cart who looked as tired as we felt. Our lack of lighting would make us obvious, so we hid in the ditch just off the road, watching the light of their lanterns cast shadows around us.

When the road finally split to both the north and south, we went off the path. Even the trails kept their distance from the Redwood, it seemed. I saw the familiar blue light of dawn on the horizon. There was a moment of disorientation because the horizon seemed higher than it usually did, until I realized that that was because the morning light was dawning from behind the Redwood, an unbroken treeline that stood hundreds of feet tall. Compared to the city of Amethseryne, the individual trees weren’t that impressive, but the unending wall of them, stretching in both directions and who knew how deep, made the forest feel impenetrable. Something about the forest made me uneasy, in the same way I’d felt uneasy as a kid the first time I stood at the edge of a pier and looked out over the sea. It was that feeling of being dwarfed by something big, old and full of things you can neither see nor understand.

We heard the chirping of birds as we approached the treeline, and something about that was deeply comforting. I’d half expected the forest to have been quiet, scary and overbearing. But when we finally walked in under the shadow of the giant trees, the forest started to feel more and more like a normal, well, forest. There was the sound of a woodpecker in the distance. I saw a few small creatures scurry through the underbrush. Birds were singing love songs in the distance. For a moment, I was relieved. The Redwood might be host to ancient and uncaring things, but it also seemed to be full of life.

We made camp a little ways into the forest and things quickly got darker. Mellie hadn’t been wrong; the forest was dark, the thickness of its trees cutting out most light. There was little vegetation on the ground, which made walking fairly easy, mostly trying not to trip over the occasional root.

“Here,” Morgana whispered, and we stopped, gratefully. The less strong of the group breathed audible sighs of relief as they took off their packs. Mellie started to clear a circle of leaves to set up a campfire and Tilly, still full of energy, started gathering firewood. We’d rest here for eight or so hours. The trees, we figured, would keep anyone from seeing us, so we’d be safe for a while. I sat down by a tree and immediately began to doze off. I looked deeper into the forest that had felt like shelter just seconds ago, and saw that the light got dimmer and dimmer the further you looked. The shadows deepened into blackness, and sleep suddenly became a lot more difficult as I tried not to imagine something, out there, staring back at me. We’d finally made it to the Redwood, and I hoped very strongly that we wouldn’t drown in its depths.