Novels by R. Mobley

The storm had passed, but the wind still carried the scent of salt and ozone as Clara stood on the cliff’s edge, overlooking the broken shoreline where the drowned city lay hidden beneath the waves. Ashani and Ezra stood behind her, both silent, both changed by what they’d witnessed in the heart of the Echo Temple. Emily knelt in the sand, her fingers digging into the wet earth like she was searching for something long forgotten. They weren’t the same people who had entered WildWood. They had been touched—branded—by something older than time, something that had marked them as vessels, keys, or perhaps warnings. Ezra broke the silence. “If the Seed is just one part of this… if Varethkaal is another fragment… what exactly are we hunting?” Clara turned, her face unreadable. “We’re not hunting a thing. We’re hunting a person.” Ashani stepped forward, frowning. “You think one of the Yanuwah survived the second diaspora?” “Not just survived,” Clara said. “Was hidden.” She reached int

The waters around the Echo Heart grew still—unnaturally still. No current. No sound. Only pressure, thick and heavy, coiled in the hollow of the temple like breath before a scream. Clara tightened her grip on Ezra’s wrist. “You said it was a who.” Ezra’s eyes had gone glassy. “It’s not a god. Not a demon. It’s memory that forgot itself. A hunger trapped too long.” Ashani stepped forward, her voice cold and even. “You mean Varethkaal.” Ezra’s gaze snapped to her. “Not Varethkaal. What came before it. What the forest feared. What the sea bound. Varethkaal is a fragment—this is the origin.” A silence fell over them all. Then the Echo Heart pulsed. Once. The bioluminescent veins across its surface glowed a pale violet. Symbols writhed across its face, shifting like fish beneath water, incomprehensible yet urgent. Ezra dropped to his knees, clutching his head. “It’s waking up. It sees us.” Emily reached for him—but the moment she touched his shoulder, the temple exploded with s

The drowned city didn’t let go of Ezra easily. Even after the Echo Heart released its grip, even after the vision had torn through him like a rising tide, he felt tethered. To the sea. To the temple. To them. He wandered the streets of coral and bone in a trance, the world silent save for the rhythmic thrum of ancient currents pulsing through unseen channels. The figures that moved alongside him—neither alive nor dead—gave way as he passed. Not out of fear, but reverence. As though they had been waiting for him all along. The mark on his chest now spread across his left arm, glowing with faint bioluminescence. His blood had accepted something. Or something had accepted him. The oracle’s final words still echoed: “You are no longer only yourself. You are the Mouth. The one who remembers. The one who chooses.” Ezra stopped at the edge of the temple terrace. Beyond it, the sea opened into darkness. Not just depth, but void. The same void he’d seen in WildWood—in the pit that had sw

Ezra had followed the tide without realizing it. He hadn’t meant to travel so far south—hadn’t meant to leave the edge of the WildWood where his blood still echoed in its roots—but something deeper had begun pulling at him. A rhythm. A song. It spoke not in words, but in images burned into the mind: spires of coral bone, eyes like open wounds beneath the sea, a gate that bled light. Now he stood at the edge of the coast, where the rocks curved inward like a broken jaw, and the waves slammed relentlessly against the mouth of a half-submerged cave. The wind screamed here. Not just through the cliffs—but from inside them. Ezra clutched his shoulder, where the mark first appeared three days ago. It had begun as a simple warmth—like the tingling of pins and needles—but now it throbbed with every crashing wave. A spiral of ash-colored veins had grown out from his collarbone, wrapping down his chest. The forest had rejected him after the ritual. Or maybe this had claimed him first. The

The forest had grown quieter since the ritual, but Clara knew better than to trust it. There was no peace in WildWood—only silence before another storm. She stood near the edge of the Hollow Hill, staring into the carved stone face of the Yanuwah shrine, fingers trailing the old glyphs that still glowed faintly beneath the moss. They had dimmed ever since Emily’s return and the attempted binding of the Seed. Something had shifted. Not in the forest, but in the world. Behind her, Emily approached, her movements careful, controlled—almost human again. But not entirely. “Still nothing from the southern node?” Clara asked. Emily shook her head. Her eyes were darker now, their irises ringed with faint ash-grey as if touched by smoke. “The trees say something has stirred beyond their reach. A tide. A calling.” Clara exhaled sharply. “It’s begun.” Emily didn’t ask what it was. She already knew. “You felt it too?” “Ezra,” Clara said softly. “I saw him. Just for a moment—in a dream. H

Ezra woke to the sound of gulls circling overhead, the taste of salt thick on his tongue. His hand still burned from the marking—thin, raised spirals carved into his palm where the stone altar had drunk his blood. He didn’t remember blacking out, only the eye in the water, the crushing pressure, and the voice that had sounded like it came from inside his bones. He sat up slowly. The beach was empty again, save for a few twisted crab shells and the kelp-tangled drift of the tide. But something had changed. The air felt heavier now, as if it carried more than moisture—something invisible and watching. His backpack lay half-buried in the sand, soaked but intact. He fished out the leather-bound notebook he’d carried everywhere since he was thirteen—the one with the stories, the nightmares, the dreams he could never fully explain. Inside were drawings of forests that bled, oceans that whispered, and a woman with hollow eyes and hands covered in roots. He had drawn her before he ever he

Hello all, as book one has come to an end, or what I’d consider an okay path for a new book.. I’ve decided to continue the series, or at least begin a second book following this one. The what ifs and mysteries will continue, for now. Will you follow the journey of Ashani, and Clara in the next book? What else has Wildwood unleashed, or what has it been covering up? There’s more twists and new dangers ahead. Let me know your thoughts on Night at Wildwood, and what you think will surface next? Any thoughts or wants to follow a certain character and dive into them? Below is a small glimpse into book two, I hope you enjoy it as much as I’ve enjoyed creating this mini world. —— glimpse to book. Two - wildwood: Veins of the earth. After Varethkaal is sealed, Clara and Ashani uncover evidence that WildWood was only one node in a network of ancient, sleeping powers. The roots of these dark entities—known to the Yanuwah as the Deep Ones—spread beneath ley lines and forgotten places. Now

The earth cracked open wider, the very soil beneath their feet giving way to massive fissures. Dark, oozing sap—like the blood of the forest—began to spill from the cracks, black and viscous, moving like liquid shadows. “Run!” Clara shouted, pulling Ashani’s arm, but Emily hesitated, her gaze fixed on the ground, her mind racing with the realization that the land was no longer just a passive victim of the curse—it was now an active agent in the spreading darkness. As they sprinted toward the edge of the clearing, the earth heaved beneath them again, sending ripples of dark energy through the ground. The trees groaned, their boughs contorting unnaturally, and the sky darkened, as if the sun itself was being consumed by the land. “I knew it wasn’t over,” Emily murmured under her breath, her heart pounding in her chest. They could run, but they couldn’t escape. The forest wasn’t going to let them leave. The whisper came again, closer now, unmistakably clear. “You cannot run from

For a moment, the world seemed to collapse into a single, burning point of light. A wave of energy shot through the clearing, cracking the very ground beneath their feet. The roots writhed in agony as the light intensified, searing through the darkness and reaching the core of WildWood itself. The trees trembled, their bark splintering as the land buckled under the pressure. Then, with an earth-shattering roar, the ground split wide open. WildWood, once a place of darkness and twisted power, began to burn. “We did it,” Ashani whispered, her voice filled with both relief and exhaustion. Clara nodded, her heart still racing from the final battle. She could feel the weight of the moment pressing on her chest. The curse had been broken, the land freed, but at a cost. Emily’s face was pale, her eyes shadowed with the toll the battle had taken on her. “We’ve broken the curse… but the darkness isn’t gone. It’s just dormant. The seeds have been planted, and it will grow again—somewh

The roots that once held Clara in their vice-like grip recoiled violently, retreating from the light that poured from both Ashani and Emily. The air was thick with power—raw, untamed, and ancient—shaking the very foundations of the cursed land. The forest groaned, its deep voice resonating through the earth like the growl of a beast wounded in its heart. A dark wind howled, rattling the leaves and branches of the trees, yet in the center of that storm, there was a bright, defiant light that stood against the encroaching darkness. Clara’s body trembled as the roots loosened their hold on her, her limbs aching from the pressure. She gasped for breath, every muscle screaming in protest, but she reached out, her hand finding Ashani’s as she was pulled upright. “Clara, are you alright?” Ashani’s voice was filled with both concern and determination. Clara nodded, blinking away the haze in her vision. Her heart raced in rhythm with the pulse of the stone that Ashani held, which was now

The soft, almost imperceptible whisper seemed to hang in the air, resonating through the stillness of the forest. It was a voice neither fully human nor entirely something else. It carried with it an ancient, ancient weight, something so old and so deep that it threatened to bend the very fabric of reality around it. Clara, Ashani, and Emily stood frozen, eyes scanning the clearing for any sign of movement. “Did you hear that?” Clara asked, her voice hushed, almost reverent. Ashani nodded slowly, a frown tugging at her lips. “It wasn’t just in your head,” she said quietly. “I felt it… something… slipping through.” Emily’s hand clenched around the stone she still carried, though its light had dimmed, the stone’s power now drained. Yet she felt the weight of it still, a connection to the past that she could not ignore. A thread still tied her to WildWood, even now. Her voice was low but firm when she spoke. “The curse may have been broken… but that doesn’t mean the darkness is gon

Deep beneath the earth, Emily’s eyes fluttered open. For a long moment, she lay still, her body aching, her mind clouded. The darkness had enveloped her completely, and she had no idea how long she had been unconscious. But there was a sudden shift—a flicker of light—and she saw it. The roots, curling around her like serpents, but not just around her—around the very soul of WildWood itself. She could feel the darkness growing inside her, but also something else, something she didn’t recognize. The air felt different, charged with a strange, unfamiliar energy. “No…” she whispered hoarsely, pushing against the roots that were binding her to the ground. The remnants of the stone that had once been with Clara were now pulsing beneath her, buried deep in the earth, sending out waves of energy. And as Emily struggled, she remembered. The seed. The bloodline. Her ancestors had been tied to this forest, just as Clara’s had been. The curse had followed them for generations, and the d