Chapter Forty Two

Rose

I drifted to sleep with the familiar scent of leather and cardamon slowly began to dissipate, leaving me alone. My eyelids were heavy, like they were weighted. Eventually, the weight disappeared, allowing me to rapidly blink. I roughly rubbed my eyes until they let me focus. I was no longer in my bed, I was no longer with Orion, I was no longer in Black Moon...Where was I?

My eyes frantically glanced around; I was in an empty field with a fog blanket covering the ground. I hesitantly took a few steps forward; the fog felt eerily familiar. All of a sudden, a sprout broke through the ground beside me and began to rapidly grow. Before my eyes, it turned into a sapling and then a mature tree. Another tree grew before my eyes and then another. Before I knew it, I was in a thick forest with underbrush breaking through the ground, snaking up between my toes and tickling my ankles.

I knew I wasn’t in the ethereal realm, at least. I recognized most of the trees and