Elira
By dawn the next morning, Elira had packed her satchel, gathered two days' worth of travel bread and dried fruit, and kissed her sleeping mother on the forehead without waking her. She pulled her green cloak tight and slipped into the wildwood beyond Eldhollow, it was a beautiful Forrest with greenery everywhere , a mix of light and dark green moss covering most of the ground with the exception of the little dirt path that was used for travel by small town merchants and the villangers.
If she had seven days to save her brother, she'd need three things: the truth, a trail, and a miracle.
She started with the site of the arrest. A small glen two miles east—quiet, moss-laden, and crackling with remnants of spell-energy only someone trained could sense, but she could her grandmother had taught her how to pick up on these things , even if only to help keep safe in a dangerous situation.
Elric had been gathering wolfsbane, that much he'd said before they'd taken him. A storm wolf had appeared—quite rare in fact not many sitings have been recorded of them around our village but what we did know was that they were massive typically had a stormy gray coat of fur with eyes like lightning hence the name they were given, and known to be aggressive and territorial,which doesn't really add up since we don't see them often , unless a storm wolf had recently taken up residence in this Forrest, this shouldn't have triggered a territorial attack, so why was it here in the first place ?
The magic Elric had used to defend himself from the storm wolf had scorched the trees.
But when Elira knelt beside the half-burnt underbrush, she saw something else.
Runes.
Tiny, precise—etched into the bark of a tree where the fire hadn't touched.
Trap runes.
Someone had drawn the beast in, she knew it, but why would someone want to draw in a storm wolf?
She stood quickly, heart racing.
"Elric didn't summon the storm wolf. Someone set him up, of course he would have to use magic to defend himself against a beast like that"
A twig snapped behind her.
She spun, hand raised, a deep red with gold intertwined magic sparking at her fingertips.
A tall figure stepped from the shadows, a man cloaked in gray, a silver pendant catching the light, she's seen that pendant before but didn't get a good look at it in the moment the light hit it, there was something familiar about this man's presence but she couldn't quite place it, not yet , but how did he manage to get so close without her sensing him ? Who was this man and why did he seem so familiar to her.
"Elira Ashthorn," the stranger said, voice deep and calm but wary, due to my magic stance ready to attack if need be "If you want the truth I can help … but you're not going to like who you have to trust next."