(Complete) **A MATURE FANTASY** Book #1 in the Elemental Heir Series.
Now published and available in PAPERBACK and KINDLE on AMAZON!! 🤍
"Your ready wit never fails to surprise and delight me, Brenya." He murmured, his lips only inches from my own...
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(Dristan's POV)
My hands balled into tight fists beneath the table as Brenya read the riddle aloud.
"I hide among the living wood. Who always, yet have never stood. Those who seek them surly could, though death will follow if they should."
The answer came to me immediately. I remained silent, for I could not speak. The hair on my arms rose as I envisioned the beasts that the riddle spoke of.
Brenya waited for someone to speak.
No one did.
"Well?" She whispered.
Silence.
I stared at the table in front of me, my teeth aching from being clamped together so fiercely. How were we going to face them? No one had ever come out of the black forest alive.
No one.
"Someone say something." She whispered again. I could hear the anxiety in her tone.
"You're not going to like it." Marrok said, breaking the silence.
"Tell me." She said boldly.
"The riddle is obvious..." He said.
Yes, it was. We all knew what it meant. All of us, except Brenya.
"But it is going to be the most difficult rune to obtain. That riddle can only mean one thing..." He said, his tone low and dangerous.
"Tell me." She repeated louder.
"The rune is with the Kodoma." He said quietly.
I bared my teeth at the thought of Brenya standing against the mighty, powerful and vastly feared Kodoma. Images of the giant creatures filled my mind and I could already feel my instincts screaming at me to keep her from them.
The Kodoma were ancient tree spirits, guardians of the sacred black forest. The black forest was a forbidden place, one that no one dared venture too closely to. One step into those dark woods was a death sentence.
The Kodoma were technically spirits, but they hid inside of colossal trees, animating them into living beings. They sat motionless in the forest, guarding, waiting... Waiting for someone foolish enough to enter. And then they would spring to life, pounding their victims into the dirt with their gargantuan limbs.
It was rumored that they could uproot themselves and walk around, though no one knew for certain. So few had ever seen the Kodoma and lived to tell about it. I, myself, had flown above the black forest once. I'd dared not soar too low, for fear of what they might do...
But as I'd flown above, I had watched the treetops move beneath me. They did not move in a natural way, as some trees did in the presence of a strong wind... They moved in sync with my flight patterns, as if they were watching me...
