To Scale the Emerald Mountain (The Willowbane Saga #1)

PROLOGUE

THE MOTHER

B roken bodies of those fallen during the day’s fight lay trampled on the ground, rivers of crimson cutting tracks through rust-red sand from their streaming wounds. A giant field of scrying bones, tossed by the Fates to be read and deciphered by them alone.

The scent of death thrives across the clumped desert sand, caked and congealed with putrid gore. Burned flesh and rotten decay coat the air, heavy and dark and reeking. The crushing presence of the Lady of Death flits from soldier to soldier as she continues to claim.

All manner of Healing has been either depleted to the point of demanding rest or otherwise destroyed.

There is nothing to be done to quell the insatiable hunger feasting through this buffet of defeat, racing towards the keening cries and guttural moans of those still desperately clinging to life as tightly as they do their failing bodies and spilling entrails.

I continue on my trek, my destination in mind as I ignore those at my feet: friend and foe alike. Reaching into myself, I grasp my divine magic that sucks me into nothingness and transports me where I wish to go.

My eyes open to find blinking lights barely visible ahead, just beyond the thick tree line. A jarring barrier separating plains from forest, no gradual transition between the terrain. Their war tent sits arrogantly in the tall grasses of the plain, out in the open as if welcoming an attack—as if they think they cannot be touched.

They may have strength; but I have numbers.

And it is for those numbers that I will commit this act.

My lithe body skirts between the shadows, a dark wave of silent water bending around my surroundings. I keep myself hidden from sight in the thick copse of trees, determined to make it to the open space beyond without being noticed.

I quickly make it out into the vast openness. The luminescent white and green of the two moons suspended in the night sky illuminate the field of bluestem and wildflowers. The lovely sight stretches as far as the eye can see, grasses and blooms gently bending in soothing waves of the calm night breeze.

The serenity of the stunning setting is nearly ironic.

The tall grasses swish around me, brushing my knees through my thin gown, comforting me; the land conveys that it understands. It knows what must be done, same as it did with my previous actions against it. Necessary actions.

A Mother protects her children.

With my head thrown back, I roll it side to side. I shake out my shoulders, loosening my tensed muscles and the deep power living within every fiber of my being, allowing it to flow fiercely within me. It awakens as a raging storm of fury and fire and ice. My magic comes alive, thrumming and growling like a great beast prepared to pounce. Sweat beads on my chest and shimmers in the moons’ glow as the earth calls to my gifts, my power that demands to claim and destroy. My silvery hair brushes against the exposed skin of my back, pure and pale enough to refract the light streaming from the sky above .

Hands at my sides and eyes fluttered shut, I tenderly rub the pads of my thumbs against my pointer and middle fingers, the blackened digits sparking with friction; blood-red dust and embers dark as the eyes of death crackle as they sprinkle to the flora below me.

My power instantly eats into supple stalks and spreads like a great sea of plague, radiating to devour the sustenance of the land. Soft grasses stiffen and thicken into something new—something ugly—that scrapes and shreds through the fabric of my gown.

The nutrient dense earth withers to feed nothing but poison into tender roots.

Urgent voices ring from the war tent, its cloth walls billowing in the wind that gains in strength while the terrain shifts for miles, pushing with resistance to the change.

A deep itch develops where the new thickets of brush touch me. Tight, angry patches begin to mar my skin; a deep festering itch eats all the way to my bones.

The voices become panicked.

I ignore the miserable discomfort coursing through my veins long enough to witness their chaos ensue. A stream of bodies ripple from the small opening of the tent, fighting to exit the oppressive walls suddenly becoming a death chamber, holding them in an iron grasp with unbreathable spores.

Little do they know, only minor relief waits for them outside.

A satisfied curl tilts my lips as the final person exits the mouth of the tent. My triumphant stare locks onto a pair of dark brown eyes, drinking me and my destruction in with rage.