Chapter 44

The forest is unusually still, even while it’s so full of life, of threats… of her. It’s oddly terrifying to be back and unsettled in this unnatural way. The forest was a place of peace, even before he met Aislyn, but now it was nearing its end; ready to die, to erase them all.

Energy whispered from all around him, calling him forward and pushing him backward as if they were there, in the bay itself makes Derek nervous. The thought that another cataclysmic event could bestow itself upon the land such as calling out the rings of limbo once more was horrifying. He wondered, idly, if anyone thought along the same lines; if anyone knew exactly who they were messing with by keeping him from her.

As he neared their clearing he found Aislyn in the middle of it, sitting right in the dirt with her knees bent up to her chest, just like she always used to.

‘Sweetheart,” he murmured to himself.

She wrapped her arms around them tightly and rested her head down on them. Derek knew that look