Chapter 175
Cassian
The forest always smelled like magic.
Pine. Earth. Rain from three days ago, still clinging to the moss. And something else too—something older. Something that didn’t belong in words. That was the Enchanted Forest for you. The oldest in all of Lucarius, home to legends and creatures that spoke in riddles and riddled in truths.
I should’ve enjoyed it more.
But my mind wasn’t in it. I didn’t come here for leisure or nostalgia. I was on royal duty—headed north toward the River Lysel, where the Sirens had done what they always threatened to do and never followed through on—this time, they’d closed the river. No passage for traders. No crossing for shifters. No exceptions.
The official reason? Pollution from the lower banks—claims of shifter ships spilling waste upstre
