Anaya crept out of her hiding place and edged toward the forest, pulling her cloak tight around her. When she reached the place where the portal opened, she stretched out her hand, feeling through the air for any sign of the anomaly, but there was nothing there.
Chewing her lip and looking around, she came to the first line of trees. It was then that she realized there was something strange about this particular forest. The trees along the edge stood in a perfect line, like a row of sentinels guarding the entrance. They were equally spaced and their branches stuck out at strangely symmetrical angles, the arms of soldiers prepared to march.
Warily she reached one toe over a protruding root, expecting the trees to move together and shut her out, but they remained still.
Swallowing, she put her foot the rest of the way down and stepped into the forest in earnest. Although nothing appeared to change at first glance, an unearthly quiet fell over her, like she had stepped into a serene bubble. When she turned around and looked back, the world outside looked hazy and distant, like it was part of some other reality.
Satisfied that so far she was still alive, she turned back to the darkness between the trees, trying to decide which way was the most likely way to find a mage’s tower. If this was, in fact, a magical forest, it stood to reason that the tower would be precisely centered among the trees, or at least that made sense to her.
So she began walking, humming a little song under her breath. It was a song her grandmother had taught her many moons ago, a song from a time when the Makara people had their own land and something to be proud of. As she walked, the trees around her swayed lightly, their branches bending away to make way for her passage.
After some time, Anaya was deep in the forest, far from any source of light or sound. The forest seemed to wrap around her, like a cozy blanket, and she found that she wasn't particularly afraid, per se. And yet, as soon as her song ended, she began to notice the glowing eyes of shadowy creatures leering from the darkness all around her. She could hear the low growl of something not quite ordinary beyond the next stand of trees, and she swore the trees’ branches were reaching toward her now.
Telling herself that this was all silly, she continued walking, ducking out of the way of a few stray branches that seemed intent on catching her hair or her clothes. Finally, she found herself facing a narrow corridor, one with trees whose branches had all come together to block her way.
Looking on in consternation, she cursed herself for not having been better prepared for this. Still, she was sure a little bit of magic would be enough clear a path. She began singing again, repeating the song from before, waiting impatiently for the branches to move aside as she fumbled in the pouch at her side for the little bit of metal she carried everywhere she went. But no matter how loud she sang the song of her people, the branches remained stubbornly intertwined before her.
With a grumble, she took a step forward anyway, grabbing one with her hands and trying to pry them apart by force, but as soon as her hand pushed the first branch, everything around her seemed to come to life.
The vines that grew up the sturdy trunks of trees began moving like snakes, down the branches and onto her arms, grabbing her and wrapping around her wrists. Panicked, she tried to yank her arm away, but the vine only tightened further, and as she wriggled to and fro, looking all about for an escape, she realized that the trees behind her head also closed off the path.
Now she stood trapped on all sides, the bristling mass of angry tree branches woven together, and the serpentine vines creeping toward her with every passing second. When she felt the first vine snaking across her foot and towards her ankles, she kicked out at it, but although it retreated for half a second, it was not to be deterred.
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Soon, vines latched on to all of her limbs, and she was fighting a futile battle as they moved up toward her throat. Terror siezed her, and in a moment of weakness she cried out a series of words that she can only heard once before in the Makara camp. In an instant, a blinding light flashed around her, scorching the branches and sending the vines shriveling back from wence they’d come. She didn't stop to see what would happen next because she was too busy running towards the center of the forest. Only now that she was running, the sounds of growls and hisses were hot on her heels. Whatever creatures had been waiting in the darkness had given chase. She was their prey. Thinking quickly, she bobbed and weaved between the trees, hoping that she could evade some of her pursuers, hoping that some of the beasts might lose her track.
Something clawed at her heel, and she shrieked again, leaping sideways to try and avoid the beast’s next swipe. However, she was met by another growling thing hunched down in the shadows.
Everywhere she looked eyes glowed down at her, teeth bared in the dim light. This time, when she reached for her magic, desperate for anything that might get her out of this, she found that it wasn't there.
Her grandmother had always warned her of this. She’d said things like, "Anaya, don't waste what is precious. Our ancestors would be ashamed to see are you throwing your gifts around with such folly."
Anaya, of course, had ignored such warnings. Every time she reached for her magic, it had always been there, in times of need and in times of want. She had never known a day without it, subtle as it may have been. But now, deep in this forest and shrouded by some kind of untouchable barrier, her gift had abandoned her. She couldn’t even muster enough of it to lift a leaf. It was gone.
The beasts circled, moving closer and closer, and her eyes darted between them, wondering which one of them would make a meal of her first. She stood ready, hoping for any chance she might get to break through the ring they formed around her.
They were not all the same. She did not believe they were hunting together. In fact, the more she watched, she wondered if they might be prepared to fight one another for the opportunity to devour her.
Slowly, she stepped backwards, easing her way out from between two snarling beasts whose eyes were locked on one another intently. The muscles of their shoulders bunched, the one on her right lowered himself down like he was ready to pounce, and she backed away, hoping that they would entangle themselves with each other and forget all about her.
"Good kitty," she murmured, trying to sooth herself more than anything else. The beast on her left let out a yowl of challenge at the other beast, and Anaya froze, not wanting to draw his attention again.
Now that she could see that there were only two of them, she was starting to formulate a plan. She just had to time things perfectly, and she had to admit that that was easier said than done.
Her heel landed on a twig snapping it and both beasts turn their eyes to her abruptly. Instinctively, she threw her arms up over her face, scrambling backward and prepared for them to lunge at her.
But when the first beast made its move, the second animal sprang sideways, lancing at it from the side and pummeling it against a tree. There was a moment of hesitation before Anaya realized what had happened, and then she was running as fast as she could, trying to ignore the place on the back of her leg where the creature’s claws had left a thin trail of blood.
Her lungs were burning and her breath was coming in gasps as she sought an escape.
Finally, she noticed that the forest was growing lighter around her. The beasts, only momentarily slowed by their scuffle, had picked up her trail again.
She doubled her efforts, knowing that even with a head start she had no chance of outrunning them. Then, her eyes landed on a thin tree trunk with branches spaced just perfectly for a girl like her to climb. She was not sure that the beast could not climb a tree, but she imagined that if the beasts weighed as much as their size suggested, they wouldn't get very far on this particular tree before the branches snapped under their weight.
Throwing her arms up over her head and leaping with all her might, she grasped the first branch and swung her legs up, clambering up branch by branch. She found herself moving into the light and away from the darkness of the forest canopy. At the base of the tree, the angry beast yowled again, scratching at the trunk and ramming into it, causing it to shake in Anaya’s grip.
She clamped her arms around the trunk where she stood, praying that with the light would come the return of her magic.
As the creature continued to circle below, she took a deep breath and moved further up the trunk until she emerged from a leafy barrier, and discovered that the tree’s trunk was bending directly toward the open window of what could only be a mage’s tower.