Season of Sacrifice (Blood of Azure Book 1) by Jonathan Michael (ereader that reads to you txt) 📗

I haven’t jumped to the conclusion it was a Lost Soul. It was possibly a drifting mad hunter passing through the wood. We simply don’t know. Regardless, Stone has ground rules in place for our own safety, and the foremost is nobody goes out after twilight. It’s a rule I’d prefer not to bend. But I have plenty of time.

Despite the pain, I make it to my destination rather quickly. I scurry around the forest floor, ravaging bushes and raking through fallen brush in search of the Everweed. I know it’s here somewhere, but the fading light poses a challenge.

I’m regretting having smashed it with the very leg in need of it now. If I recall, Goose mentioned small clusters roughly ankle high with thick leaves resembling aloe shoots and vibrant blue flowering with a radiance about them that shines day or night. But he also said there’s a flower out here that can make others desire you. Yao grass…or yao weed…or something like that. So who knows if he was blowing hot air out of his pie hole or not about this Everweed. Though, the benefits of having a cure-all remedy on hand are countless. I have to at least try to find it. Knowing it’s within reach is tantalizing.

The outlandish variety of plant life with similar features in this damned forest isn’t helping the search. There are hundreds of species of trees from apple and cottonwood to gumwood and araucaria trees. The groundcover is just as overwhelming, including everything from small coniferous bushes to huckleberry bushes and even a variety of different grasses, including the infamous rune grass that caused this disaster. It’s as if all the known species of Azure all conglomerated in one area. I can only hope the plant I saw and the legendary Everweed are one and the same.

“Aha!” I locate the smothered plant at the base of a cottonwood. There’s a small cluster of them. Unsure of which part provides the remedy, I rip out the root and all. An entire crop might be justified with the amount of lacerations I’ve suffered, so I stuff my undersized haversack to the top.

The distance back to the yurt feels as though it has grown immensely with the pain creeping further up my leg. And the rags I wrapped it with are turning a darker shade as the blood soaks through. I’m not typically soft at the sight of blood, but this one seems to be affecting me. I look around and see the trees spinning, so I sit down on a fallen tree to collect myself. The dizziness isn’t subsiding. I just need to get back, and quickly before the twilight captures me.

I press into the log with my hands to aid myself in rising. I only take a few more steps before collapsing back to the forest floor. I’ve underestimated the damage done. My vision blurs, and I can no longer feel the pain. I climb back to my feet. I’m stronger than this. I can do this.

I manage a short distance, struggling to place each foot in front of the other before collapsing to my knees once more. Fatigued beyond reason, I am unable to remain upright. I lumber forward, and my face hits the debris-covered forest floor.

I muster enough energy to roll onto my back, and I see sentinels on guard all around me. Their silhouettes stand tall, and their leaves weep. They tower over me and stare down in mourning as if I were lying in a casket. I fear they are going to bury me. Then she appears, and the sentinels fade behind her radiance. She glides between them, moving closer to me. I wish she could help, but she is only an illusion I won’t let go. She’s angelic, as usual. She places her hand upon my injured leg. Any pain overpowering the numbness that has bestowed me subsides. Just before my exhaustion takes over, her angelic figure is dispersed by an encroaching dark silhouette.

I should be remorseful for the future that awaits this world. But I am not. I am fearful down to the core. Fearful for myself, for all of those who I love, for all of those who will lose their lives, and for all the other innocents in the world.

2 Stone

C limbing never was at the top of my skillset. Nor am I fond of hanging about in high places. With my lanky limbs and natural ungainliness, I don’t long to participate in such activities. However, the hunger of a young man is constant when fending for himself in the Broken Forest. Occasionally the temptation of a ripe pear causes me to go against my own grain and up several layers of branches.

“Goose! Help get me down, will you? My legs are going numb. I don’t think I can hold myself much longer.”

“What’s wrong, mate? You’re upside down. Do you need the assistance of The Almighty Goose Greyson?”

He leaps to grab the lowest branch and climbs from limb to limb like an ape.

With his arrogance and the fact that he’s proving his worth, I find it rather difficult to resist throwing the pear at him. I would probably miss anyways.

“Hurry, please.” I didn’t know such muscles existed in my ankles. With one leg wedged between a fork in the branch and the other dangling aimlessly, I am only hanging on by an acute curl of my toes. The situation is further pressed because my anxiety mixed with the humid air covers my body in a light coat of sweat. How do I get myself in these messes?

Goose rises to my level in no time, offering his hand to help pull me upright, but I don’t have enough leverage to reach him. Instead, he pulls me up by my dirty blue tunic. Once upright, Goose lets go, unaware my tunic has snagged the most flexible branch