The Death of Magic: A Novel of Rootworld

Kristen had stopped after she could no longer hear the bustle of the crossroads where most of the students were still mapping out their plans. She had passed into the woods where Seren had winked at her and followed along a lopping barbed wire fence until it disappeared beneath a dead tree that was growing thick with bracken and moss. There she'd spied the triangle imprint of Seren's boot.

Kristen had been looking for the pinpoint of her high heels, but it seemed she had been traveling on her toes. Likely running. The sharp footprints tracked their way through the moss of the fallen log into the woods beyond the fence line.

She froze with one foot on the log peering into the woods. Things were silent besides the far-off cackle of black birds. Light came through the sparse overhead. Evergreens populated most of the area. The way the trunks were arranged in neat rows made it appear to be an old tree farm, though that was unlikely. She hoped down onto the pine needled forest floor and tried to tell if the white hole above seemed any dimmer.

Ben was right. According to what she'd learned in Astrology, the globe-side planets swam past the other side of the white hole and blocked out its light. It was what accounted for nighttime in Rootworld. The heavenly bodies on the other side acting like the shutter of a camera. There was no way for her to tell without Ben around with his adjustable binoculars.

She unshouldered her bow and sat on the end of the log wondering how far this grove stretched. It didn't seem like a good place to find many specimens.

So far there hadn't been a single prospect for logging an unknown species. Had it been two weeks earlier she could have documented a slew of strange animals while she'd scaled the cliffs of Cathbad. There had been roosting birds, snakes, and a marmoset like animal that glided among the outcroppings on batlike wings.

Now, there just seemed to be a whole lot of forest floor. The trunks of most the trees would only be climbable with her spikes, which she had left behind with some of her heavier equipment. What had Seren been thinking?