Cara curled up tighter on the couch in the corner of the Erinbar Ranger den, away from the drinking and singing and carousing and whatever else Gramok had them doing.

  Too many voices she barely knew, too loud, too earthy a scent that lacked the hint of hirrenberry, and too quiet. Even now, hours later, the tree-song lay silent. Even the couch was wrong—the Rangers of Erinbar suffered the delusion that couches should be too hard to swallow you whole.

  Nola continued caressing Cara’s back, and her empty promise rung in Cara’s ear. It gets better.

  Could it? How could Cara trust such words, when backed by nothing but proof that her Forest was dead. That she’d killed it with a vote that she could never regret.

  Tiny little bites gnawed at Cara’s earlobe, and she reached up and stroked her furry little darling’s nose. Nibbles understood, even if the others could not.

  Ted was gone.

  The Forest was gone.

  Her childish dreams of adventure had killed them both.

  A mug clinked faintly as Kegan raised it from the table. “To those no longer with us. They made victory possible.”

  Victory. Cara pulled Nibbles to her chest and let the sad little creature lick her nose. She should be happy. Glad that she’d survived, that her people had survived, that the Destroyer was no more, that the Forest could be healed.

  She bit at her lip, clenched her eyes shut, and ripped up any seeds of joy or relief or happiness. There’d be time for such things, but not now. Not yet.

  Ted…

  Had it been real, or a trick of the System to bind Heroes and their Companions together?

  She couldn’t tell.

  Might never know, not really.

  Not now.

  She heaved herself up, cradling her darling Nibbles. Pushed herself to her feet. “I’m going home.”

  Nola jumped to her feet. “I’ll walk you.”

  Cara shook her head. “Home-home. Tolabar.”

  “By yourself?” Nola said, wincing the moment she said it.

  Cara nodded.

  Nola frowned, and Kegan gave Cara that pointed look that she was being an idiot, but neither spoke. They understood that, at least.

  “Thank you,” Cara whispered. She placed Nibbles upon her shoulder and shuffled out of the Ranger den, past the festivities. Past Gramok’s butchering of an old wood elven ode to fallen rangers.

  Even the floor here was too hard, too firm on the balls of her feet.

  “Wait,” shouted Gramok behind her.

  She froze up and stared at the tree trunk ahead.

  He bounded up alongside her.

  “Stay,” she said, giving him her best smile. “Celebrate. You deserve it.”

  The mask on Gramok’s face crumbled. “And here I thought we were friends.”

  She stared up at him and cocked her head. “We are. Stay. They’ll be glad of your company, despite your singing.”

  The great orc’s shoulders sank and he slowly shook his head. “They need to see it was worth the price they paid.”

  Cara’s breath caught in her chest. “And you?”

  His face fell. “I need my friends.”

  Cara flung her arms around him and pressed her cheek against the cold hardness of his chest plate.

  He draped his arms around her and held her tight for a time that stretched out forever, until he finally patted her on the back. “Let’s take you home.”

  She looked up at him with watery eyes and nodded.

  They walked to the lift in a silence like a cold blanket. Yet, as the lift descended, she found herself staring at him, questions prickling her mind. “What about you?”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Me?” He smiled, though the corners of his mouth were that little bit too eager to be truthful.

  She leaned against him and closed her eyes, breathing in the rising earthy scent of the forest floor, tinged now with grubby death. “You. Home. The future.”

  He stayed silent for almost the entire the ride down before he finally spoke. “I think I’ll skip home for a while. Don’t know if I can handle finally earning dad’s pride.”

  “You orcs are weird.”

  Gramok chuckled. “No arguments here.”

  The lift reached the bottom and they set forth in more comfortable silence, past withered trees and dying shrubs. They walked until the sun sank low and yet saw no creatures, heard no birds sing. With each step, her heart sank deeper still; this was her doing, her choice.

  And for what? So Ted could sacrifice himself one last time?

  She forced herself to look at the destruction she’d wrought, to really see the bushes withered away to nothing, the leaves wilted to black palms riddled with holes.

  She approached the nearest tree and cast Grow upon its black, crumbling bark, just the way Jeremy and Discern Magic had shown her.

  Vines of emerald and forest green magic spread out from her touch, turning the bark brown and the leaves green once more.

  Gramok rested his hand upon her shoulder. “Now that’s something.”

  Her stomach churned at the memory of that gross potion going down, letting her pick new perks. She spat on the ground, though it did nothing to clear that vile echo of the taste. “He gave us our magic back.” Rebirth reared its ugly head in her mind, and she stamped down upon the guilt she couldn’t help. “Most of it, anyway. Made us whole again.”

  Gramok gently rubbed her shoulder, working out the tension coiled there. “Gave you a second chance.”

  Cara closed her eyes, reached up and petted Nibbles. Aidan. Elivala… Ted. “Not everyone got one.”

  “Doesn’t mean you get to waste yours.”

  Cara glowered at him, wishing he were wrong. “Come on.”

  They continued on through the night, led by Gramok’s hooded lantern. If any dungeon spawn were prowling for an easy meal, they were welcome to try it.

  Wounded forest gave way to the ring of death around Tolabar, devoid even of the green of grass or the slightest speck of life, and the tree-song’s silence gave way to a deeper void that weighed on her soul.

  A gasp caught in her throat. The Forest outside wasn’t dead, not quite. Not like this ring.

  Was that— Yes! A bird’s song in the distance.

  Cara broke into a run, sprinting past the death around her and into the lush green of the forest around Tolabar. Cut off from the greater Forest, it had survived Ted’s purge.

  A lump formed in her throat. She clutched her hand to her face, remembering his touch upon her cheek. His smile. That glimmer in his eyes, the one he had right before he did altogether stupid and brave at the same time.

  The tree-song’s voice sung to her once more, and longing and yearning fluttered through her chest.

  Her heart clenched tight, pounding like he were beside her again.

  Except he was not. He was gone, an echo of her own longing in the tree-song, amplified no doubt by its emptiness.

  She stared at the trees, wishing it weren’t so. The tree-song was so very empty and yet not at the same time, devoid of the flood of voices it used to know yet still alive, still singing its song. She petted Nibbles, still sat upon her shoulder, and let the tree-song flow through her.

  Such hopeful longing. Excitement, even. That wasn’t her reverberating through the Forest. One of the dryads, perhaps? Excited to feel another wood elf return to Tolabar?

  She let her heart sing into the song, shared her loss and pain and hurt.

  Joy and hope and love bounced back, sprinkling the longing in her heart with kindling that burned even brighter for it.

  He’d died for her, gladly, willingly, with love in his heart.

  Love for her.

  She felt it in her chest, in her bones, in the quivering dance of the tree-song.

  Gramok patted her upon the back. “Ironic. The dryads saved Tolabar, in their own way.”

  “They did.” Cara’s heart hung heavy in her chest. She’d hoped it would be true, of course, but to know it, to feel it? It should have brought joy. Yet even almost alone in the tree-song, it refused to hear her, refused to listen to her sorrow. “This was a mistake.”

  Gramok said nothing, his silence loud enough to ask for him.

  “I’ve changed,” Cara said, wishing it weren’t so. Wishing the Forest would hear her sorrow. “This isn’t my Forest anymore.”

  “Give it time,” Gramok said, gently pushing her forward. “The Forest demands, and the Forest offers.”

  A grim chuckle escaped Cara. “It’s, ‘the Forest offers and the Forest demands.’”

  "Novor, novor.”

  They continued on in silence to the lift, or where the lift should have been. Smiling at the memory of Ted figuring out what was here, she looked up and saw the lift above.

  She frowned. The lift had been left at the Forest floor when the village had been abandoned, and the dryads avoided the villages still. She placed upon the closest tree and cast Commune, and called down the lift.

  “Trouble?” Gramok asked.

  Her heart skipped a beat and she readied her bow. “Always.”

  They rode up the lift in silence. At the top, Cara cast Commune again, probing what information the Forest could provide on who else was there.

  A sense came back. A single figure within her room.

  She tensed up. An ambush? The Destroyer had promised revenge. What if he still lived? She cast Communicate upon Gramok. Stay here unless I call for you. Be ready to run.

  Gramok’s stiffened up but nodded. Stay safe.

  Cara dropped to a crouch and snuck through the village, across rooftop paths and passageways. The wood sprung properly beneath her feet, completely masking her footsteps.

  Her room’s door lay ajar. She peeked through it, and a tingle ran down her spine. A figure stood facing away. He had long pointed ears yet was as tall as Ted, too tall to be a wood elf, too inelegant to be an elf of any kind.

  A little slimmer than Ted, but otherwise…

  Daggers stabbed at Cara’s heart, and she drew her bow, lining up a Sniper Shot for the shapeshifting dungeon spawn’s head. Whatever its game, she wasn’t playing it.

  The shapeshifter held up an unfinished oversized bow. One of the prototypes Ted had never needed. It slipped its hand over the grip custom sized and shaped to his hand.

  A perfect fit.

  A flutter in Cara’s chest wailed into the tree-song, and Nibbles squeaked.

  The dungeon spawn turned, and smiled. Ted’s eyes lit up a face a tad slimmer, a tad longer, yet very much Ted’s.

  She clenched up. A trick, it had to be.

  Ted Tolabar So'maevka

  Level: 0

  Ted’s smile faltered. He held out his hands, and his warm touch embraced her in the tree-song. “Hey.”

  Her heart leaped into her throat, and she leaped into his arms. “Welcome home.”