Chaos.

  Nateysta was locked in combat with a Thousand-eyed one high in the sky, fire exploding across the battlefield as massive roots and vines lashed out to trap the winged monstrosity. Hildebrandt was there as well, hitting it with power that lashed out at each swing of her mace. Every impact was visible, small shockwaves rippling in the air.

  Further down towards the forest floor Boreal was busy fighting seven Silver rank demons of the more humanoid variety at once. The shadows were her ally, whipping out and cutting deep painful wounds into the demons even as they began to freeze in fear of their elusive enemy. Boreal dropped from the shadows of a tree, unseen and unheard, her powerful jaws locking onto the back of a demon's head and crunching down with a loud crack. The demon went limp and she dropped it to the floor, vanishing as attacks from her other opponents rained down.

  The last three yet to join were Aylie, Lumin and Zalia herself.

  Zalia gave Aylie wings and they flew up and towards the fight. Lumin turned to starlight and flashed high into the sky ahead of them, faster than they could ever be, before dropping like a meteor towards the fight. Zalia’s bow began firing off shot after shot on its own, each arrow finding one, two or even three marks as they curved in flight and tracked enemy heads.

  Staff in hand, its crystalline top glowing softly, and robes rippling in their flight, Aylie closed her eyes and began to use her own magic. Ripples in the air, soft and unseen to most, extended out to demons who one by one, began turning on each other. Their world turned to a waking dream, allies became enemies and enemies vanished from thought. They attacked each other, each punch or slash weak like they were trying to fight back against her magic.

  Lumin hit, an explosion of hot, white light burning away lesser demons with a flash. The blazing starlight that was Lumin moved across the battlefield, ethereal claws and teeth lashing out, leaving glowing wounds much like Zalia’s own weapons.

  Above the fight, the Thousand-eyed one lost. It was torn apart, its body dissolving as its power was absorbed by Nateysta, something Zalia hadn’t seen him do before. With Nateysta and Hildebrandt now free to join the rest of the fight, it was soon over. An Ascendant and an Emerald rank, the two swept through the rest of the demons with ease.

  They were left with the Grove slowly regrowing from the battle, the bodies of the demons and the last remnants of the Thousand-eyed one vanishing into the earth until there was no sign of the battle left other than the blood coating the victors.

  Zalia landed amongst the trees and stepped through one, emerging next to Boreal. She leaned against Boreal as the gore covering her froze, flaked and fell away, revealing the soft fur beneath.

  Blocked by Hildebrandt’s dome, Nateysta’s aura and the protections of the Grove, the aura of death that pervaded Cormaine could barely be felt. With her senses stronger than they had been the last time she had been in Cormaine, Zalia could sense that aura beyond the dome, lurking in wait, biding its time.

  Nateysta, in his small form, appeared beside them. Zalia had a hard time thinking of that form as anything other than Ro-ak, even though Ro-ak had been Nateysta all along.

  “So, what now?”

  “Now I bring in our reinforcements.”

  “You’ve never really explained what those reinforcements are very well.”

  “Patience, young Zalia. All in good time.”

  Nateysta closed his eyes, his entire body as still as the tree branch he stood upon. Well, Zalia didn’t have time to wait because she had an old friend to talk to. Sort of.

  She bumped against Boreal to get her attention before taking off into the air. Boreal followed, stepping on platforms of ice next to her until Zalia remembered to give her wings.

  “The collective survived Boreal. The memories I hold, that of their people, I can return it to them one day. I’ll have to wait until they repopulate but they're alive.”

  Zalia landed next to the pool, Boreal still right beside her. They stared down into the pool together, where softly glowing jellyfish housed the remaining dozen or so frogs of the collective. The slightly larger frog from before returned to the surface, floating gently with their front hands resting on the pad of a water lily put there by Zalia long, long ago, the last time she had been in Cormaine.

  “You remember me little one?” Zalia asked.

  The frog blinked its eyes at her.

  “The one prophesied. We do not remember much, only that your return would signal our rebirth.”

  Zalia sat back, looking up with closed eyes. The collective had sacrificed much to ensure that she would make it out of Cormaine and Zalia had thought that was the end of them. But here they were. She held their memories, not only for what help they had given her from what little she could decipher from the memories, but as a holder until her return. She looked back down at them.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “What do you remember?”

  The frog blinked at her again.

  “Pain, fear, acceptance. You. Flashes of things we don’t understand.”

  Zalia wiped the tear that escaped her eyes as an image flashed through her mind, the obsidian hand of that demon closing savagely around the small form of Delphi. That pain and fear had been avenged long ago.

  “I hold your memories, but I fear with your number you will be unable to hold them without losing much of it. One day I will return them to you, but you must grow in number first.”

  She stood, and a portal opened on one of the many trunks of the tree above them. The entrance to her vault.

  “Come.”

  The frog hopped after her, landing on her leg and holding on as she strode into the vault towards the back, where the memories of the collective were held in a swirling mist sat upon a shelf. She lifted the frog up and put it next to the bundle of memories.

  “Touch it and see.”

  Their little hand reached forwards tentatively until it landed on the swirling half sphere. Zalia waited patiently until she felt a large number of powerful beings enter the Grove through whatever magic Nateysta was manipulating.

  “I’ll leave you here with this, I have things to do.”

  The beings felt familiar to Zalia, their very essence that of the wind and sky, the ocean and its endless depths, the fire and stone at the core of every world and that of the desert, its brutal and scouring nature.

  The other gods had arrived.

  For the help Nateysta had given in Endaria, these four nature gods had promised to help him reclaim his own world. The power that he got from those in Endaria who still worshipped him helped, along with the years of rest and recovery he gained from being there, but the powers of these four could do a lot for them.

  This was immediately evident as Zalia started her way back towards them. There was a large portal to Endaria, much like the one that Nateysta had used to bring them all here. In front of it were the four gods, chunks of power separating from their forms. Those chunks of power were shaped into elementals, each one Mythical ranked. The new elementals moved away from their creators, one each to a side.

  The Grove reacted to their presence, changing to suit the nature of its new protectors. The side that held the spirit of heat and stone lost its trees and undergrowth, instead becoming a cracked and hot landscape filled with rivers of flowing lava, Flame-root spread out amongst its surface. Smaller elementals of a much lower rank, Iron and Bronze, formed from rituals. Each of them was made from the elements of fire, lava and stone.

  To the side of the wind elemental mountainous peaks formed, Zephyr growing from their surface as powerful winds lashed between them. Elementals of wind and lightning appeared there, free and flowing. The ground around the ocean elemental disappeared to be replaced by a lake within which nothing could be seen, its depths unpierceable. Water Lily grew on its surface and though her natural eyesight could not see within, Zalia could feel the elementals and currents begin to flow through it as the Mythical ranked one sunk within and out of sight. The last quarter of the Grove changed to suit the elemental of Scour, forest vanishing to be replaced by rolling dunes and wandering sand storms that were elementals in truth.

  Each of these new landscapes met the centre of the Grove, which remained as a thick forest of trees and undergrowth, its mysteries hidden by the canopy above.

  Zalia inspected each of the changes with appreciation, even though it was her own sub-consciousness that had created them. The fluid nature of the Grove when allocated as her Herbal Nexus stunned her, the changes which would have taken weeks or even months of effort now coming without thought.

  The elementals were a powerful boon from the nature gods of Endaria and apparently fulfilled whatever promise or pact that had been formed between them and Nateysta, as they soon left the way they had arrived.

  Hildebrandt, Aylie and Lumin arrived back at the centre of the Grove as Nateysta, in his larger form, remained flying above, inspecting what Zalia had created. She thought, for only a moment, that the elementals were all the reinforcements that Nateysta had planned. The thought vanished as armed and armoured men and women began to march through the portal to Nature’s Reclaim. One after the other, some she recognised and others she didn’t.

  There were people from the Morning’s Shade, under the control of the civilian side of the Endarian council, as well as contingents from the Endarian army. As more and more people marched through the portal, the Grove underwent one final set of changes.

  Large barracks were grown from the woods, undergrowth and even trees moving aside to allow their creation, packed dirt paths like game trails forming in winding passage between each building and the central tree.

  Faian eventually stepped out of the portal and began organising the milling group of soldiers and mercenaries. From out of the forest came little wooden crows fashioned after Nateysta that began leading groups and contingents organised by Faian out and away from the portal towards barracks.

  “So, this is a lotta people, sure you can spare this many?” Zalia asked Faian, once things had calmed down a bit.

  A few hundred people had come through all in all, with what seemed like the entire Morning’s Shade being a large part of that, and though it was a lot of people it was by no means the entire Endarian military.

  “Don’t worry, I’ve ensured that Endaria will not be in danger due to this. With the Astar dealt with and the last remnants of demons cleansed from our lands, Endaria should be safe for now. Besides, we owe Nateysta.”

  They stood silently side by side as the last of the soldiers were ferried away to housing. Food, water, disease and injury, none of it would be an issue here with the natural resources and healing ability of the Grove.

  “So, what’s the plan?”

  Zalia shrugged.

  “I’d love to know. Nateysta is the one organising all of this.”

  “Let’s go get some answers then shall we?”

  “Sounds like a great idea.”