The sun didn't so much rise on the next day as it did reluctantly stain the grey sky a bruised shade of pewter. Deeper into the second zone, the forest had abandoned the pretense of hospitality. The pines here were gnarled, ancient things with bark like dragon scales, and the silence was no longer peaceful, it was predatory. It was the kind of silence that had teeth.
Eris rode Solara in the center of the column, her fire magic humming beneath her skin like a volcano. She wasn't ignoring Soren today, partly because the silence of the woods was unnerving enough without adding a domestic cold war, and partly because she'd already squeezed the metaphorical juice out of that particular lemon. Soren, for his part, was vibrating with a cautious optimism. He stayed close, his eyes constantly scanning the ridgelines where the shadows seemed to move with a life of their own.
