Was this my reward for making it through the Ivory Forest's trial? For defeating the trick it toyed me with?

Oryal was still nowhere in sight and my panic screamed inside of me with raging thoughts of what might have happened to him. For someone with his skill and prowess in battle, he should have had no trouble facing whatever the forest threw at him. Yet, the emptiness he had left behind was beginning to become a gnawing void.

I took slow, hesitant steps into the glade and an hourglass caught my attention. The object sat at the far end of the clearing and was much smaller than any other I had seen. It was carved from an elaborate dark wood and a misted glass that kept the sand inside hidden from view. Though, it sat upon a magical mechanism that turned it over and over in rapid succession, making me fear it was going to fall off the hinges. Staring at it gave me a sense of malice, like it radiated a silent warning to those who would dare tread near it.

Being here was going to take something from me.

As much as I was annoyed with the forest's antics and simply wanted to go home, I really needed the Noxol. I still needed to get back to Deathly Delights to bake the royal guard a cake with all the poisons he listed in his request. My challenge was far from over.

I crouched down next to the closest patch of flowers and retrieved the enchanted jars and gloves from my bag, being careful not to touch the fingertips or palms of the material with the other poisons it had encountered. Each jar had a golden circlet of woven stars around the seal, protecting the contents from ever spilling out.

Leaning close to the fully bloomed Noxol, the scent of burnt sugar filled my nose, just like when we had first entered the forest. I carefully plucked a petal from a flower and waited for it to turn into dust, just in case this miracle was too good to be true, but it never happened. It was real.

Working efficiently and steadily, I harvested three flowers' worth of poison and placed them carefully into the jars, making sure to seal them tightly once I was done. I didn't want to take any more in case it made the Ivory Forest angry somehow. I couldn't afford to face its wrath again.

As I packed away the Noxol, tucking it safely at the bottom of my bag, the hourglass snatched my attention once more. When I looked at it, the surroundings warped, stretching strangely, until I blinked and the distortion vanished. I had no doubt it was a powerful, ancient magic and I didn't want to mess with it.

Now what was I meant to do? Where was Oryal? I had the Noxol and I needed to return to my bakery, but I couldn't leave him behind. I had no idea where to start looking in the endless expanse of trees.

Wandering out of the glade, I had a prayer on the tip of my tongue to the gods for the forest to not plan any more deception. It had enough fun separating us, pushing illusions into our minds that weren't really there. There couldn't be anything else it had planned for us.

After walking for what felt like an age, a pale blue butterfly flew haphazardly into my path — one that had the same glow as the bounty hunter's. It didn't seem like it was headed in a certain direction, as if it was desperately searching for something. I offered my hand for it to land on, but it refused, too panicked to accept.

"Oryal?" I called to receive no response. The insect's glow was still strong, so it had to be freshly summoned. He couldn't be too far away.

I continued in the direction I was headed, my pace quickening as hope filled my heart. Another butterfly flew overhead and its twin followed close behind. Soon, a whole hoard of azure beauties hovered around me.

"Oryal!" I yelled louder, searching around trees and bushes to see if he was nearby. Where there were butterflies, a bounty hunter had to follow suit.

There, slumped underneath the trunk of a tree, was the man I had been searching for. I rushed over to his side, touching him — his skin, his clothes, his face — to make sure he was real. Oryal's eyes were firmly shut, making my worry spiral. What had happened to him? I scanned his body for any sign of injury, for any blood soaking his fighting leathers or gaping, fatal wounds, but there was nothing in sight.

The bounty hunter lunged into action, his eyes flaring open and his hands racing to grip the handle of his axe. I had to fall backwards to narrowly avoid the blade scratching my cheek. However, when Oryal saw me, his weapon fell back to the ground with a loud thud. He hesitated, giving me a moment to see the exhaustion collecting under his eyes and the dirt that built up along his dark skin. His eyes weren't glazed with the forest's magic, so I knew this had to be him.

Finally, I had found Oryal again.

With shaking fingers, he reached out and grabbed my hands, squeezing them to test the reality the Ivory Forest might have presented him with. "Tae?" He clasped my face, brushing his thumbs along my skin.

"It's me." A tear of pure relief rolled down my cheek. He was here.

When he determined I was real and not a strange, cruel illusion, the bounty hunter pulled me in for a fierce hug. He cupped the back of my head with one hand, tangling his fingers into my crimson curls, and gripped my shirt with the other to tighten his hold. The embrace was so strong that I was frightened he was going to break a few ribs.

I wrapped my arms around him too, burying my face into his shoulder so he couldn't see the extra tears that fell. "I've been looking for you everywhere, but the forest kept us apart." His warmth wasn't something I imagined I would miss, but feeling his body encasing mine made me realise how much I missed having him by my side.

Oryal pulled back, pressing a kiss into my hairline and then resting his forehead against it. "I've been searching nonstop for days. I would have never lived with myself if I couldn't find you."

"Days?" I questioned, breaking away from his touch. "What do you mean? I saw some Vahan soldiers that the forest conjured to scare me and they chased me until I took them down and found some Noxol, but that was all. It's only been a few hours." Maybe it would have been half a day if I had really lost track of time, but not several.

The bounty hunter shook his head. "I've been keeping track, unless the forest was playing another trick." He looked so tired that I was inclined to believe him.

My mouth twisted into a frown. "What happened?" Did this missing time have something to do with the hourglass I saw? It had spun so quickly while I was collecting the poison that it could have easily added up to a day.

"I saw you run off after seeing something in the forest and then I lost you." Oryal still gripped into my hand, as if he was scared I would leave him again. "I searched the area, trekked back to the clearing where we slept for the night, wandered around the middle of the forest, and I still couldn't find a trace of you. There was a part of me that hoped you had simply headed back to the village, but I couldn't be sure. I couldn't risk leaving you behind." He mindlessly fiddled with my fingers, tracing the ridges of my skin as he spoke and recalled the past few days. "What happened to you?"

"I watched you call my name and tell me to wait when I was merely standing beside you. You rushed away to chase something, supposedly me, and I followed. I couldn't keep up so I lost you and that was when the Vahan soldiers we saw from the other day tried to kill me." Oryal hung onto every word, his gaze never straying from mine. "While I ran, I found some poison to use against one of them and everything vanished. The fire, the bodies, everything that proved it had happened was gone. The forest left me an arrow to follow and it led me to the Noxol. I searched for you after and the blue butterflies you left behind guided me to you."

The bounty hunter pulled me in for another hug — this one offering comfort instead of assuring himself I was real. He breathed deeply before speaking. "The Vahan guards are dead, I promise you. They died the moment your human ears would have been out of range of hearing their cries for help."

Turning my face into the crook of his neck, I whispered, "Did you really wait for me all this time? You've been trapped here for days instead of going back to the village."

"Believe me," he began, rubbing soothing circles on my back. "Waiting for you has always been a form of freedom." As I looked up, entranced by the softness in his voice, a pink butterfly landed on his horn. "I've been waiting for you for much longer than you realise. Every time I've been outside of Deathly Delight, I've been working up the courage to go inside and talk to you. I didn't know why I would head in or what excuse I would come up with, but I've waited for so long."

"Why?" My brows furrowed. "To wait and talk to me? What for?" It couldn't be as simple as that. Oryal had been occasionally standing outside of the bakery for years.

"Let's get out of here. We've been in this forest for long enough," was his reply. He used the tree behind him to help haul him to his feet, his nails digging into the bark, and he extended a hand to assist me.

I accepted it, but I didn't use it to stand. Instead, I helped stabilise Oryal's shaking form. "You should have eaten when I told you to." If he had been stuck all by himself for days, he wouldn't have had access to food or water. How he was standing at all was a miracle in itself.

I dug into my bag to find the tins of Sicrecan pasta and shoved one into his hand while I scavenged deeper inside to find my flask of water. The bounty hunter didn't argue this time, placing several pasta parcels into his mouth in one go and washing them down with a large mouthful of water.

"I'm not used to eating so much," he explained after he finished chewing, beginning to walk in the direction I assumed was the way back to the village. "I used to leave most of the food for my sister since there wasn't much to go around. I wanted her to grow up having the best possible life."

"That's incredibly sweet of you, but you don't need to do that now. Your sister is at school in Wrosite, so you need to take care of yourself."

Oryal freed a hand and linked it with mine. "I know. It's just a difficult habit to slip out of."

With quickening paces, weary of every sound that surrounded us in the damned forest, we made our way toward the outskirts hoping nothing would greet us on the way out.

Chapter Word Count: 1,954
Total Word Count: 20,334