The Poisoned Forest Read online

  THE POISONED FOREST

  A Hedge Dragon Novel, Book 1

  YASMINE GALENORN

  A Nightqueen Enterprises LLC Publication

  Published by Yasmine Galenorn

  PO Box 2037, Kirkland WA 98083-2037

  THE POISONED FOREST

  A Hedge Dragon Hunt Novel

  Copyright © 2022 by Yasmine Galenorn

  First Electronic Printing: 2022 Nightqueen Enterprises LLC

  First Print Edition: 2022 Nightqueen Enterprises

  Cover Art & Design: Ravven

  Art Copyright: Yasmine Galenorn

  Editor: Elizabeth Flynn

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED No part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any format, be it print or electronic or audio, without permission. Please prevent piracy by purchasing only authorized versions of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, or places is entirely coincidental and not to be construed as representative or an endorsement of any living/ existing group, person, place, or business.

  A Nightqueen Enterprises LLC Publication

  Published in the United States of America

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  Welcome to The Poisoned Forest

  Map

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Cast of Characters

  Timeline of Series

  Playlist

  Biography

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Welcome to the world of the Hedge Dragons. While this is the first book in a spinoff of the Wild Hunt, you do not need to have read that series to read this one. Storm’s world is her own, even though you will see familiar faces if you’ve read the adventures of Ember and Herne.

  Thanks to my usual crew: Samwise, my husband, Andria and Jennifer—without their help, I’d be swamped. To the women who have helped me find my way in indie, you’re all great, and thank you to everyone. To my wonderful cover artist, Ravven, for the beautiful work she’s done and my editor Elizabeth, who keeps me on track and prevents me from becoming the Comma Queen!

  Also, my love to my furbles, who keep me happy. My most reverent devotion to Mielikki, Tapio, Ukko, Rauni, and Brighid, my spiritual guardians and guides. My love and reverence to Herne, and Cernunnos, and to the Fae, who still rule the wild places of this world. And a nod to the Wild Hunt, which runs deep in my magick, as well as in my fiction.

  You can find me through my website at Galenorn.com and be sure to sign up for my newsletter to keep updated on all my latest releases! You can find my advice on writing, discussions about the books, and general ramblings on my YouTube channel and my Patreon. If you liked this book, I’d be grateful if you’d leave a review—it helps more than you can think.

  Brightest Blessings,

  ~The Painted Panther~

  ~Yasmine Galenorn~

  WELCOME TO THE POISONED FOREST

  To the rakshasa who enslaved my sister: you just made the worst mistake you’ll ever make in your life.

  Yes, I’m a hedge dragon. An abomination, or so they call my kind. I’m a loner, but I’m also loyal to my sister. Turns out, the rest of the family couldn’t care less. I’m the only one willing to go after her when she vanishes.

  She’s being held in Owlanvine, a city in the desert. To reach her, I must travel through the Poisoned Forest, one of the darkest, deadliest places in Wildemoone. But the Lord of the Hunt and his Lady take pity on me and offer me help.

  Now, together with a small band of allies who I swear are more trouble than they’re worth, I’m out to save my sister before she’s lost forever, and before the forest does all of us in.

  Reading Order for the Hedge Dragon Series:

  Book 1: The Poisoned Forest

  Book 2: The Tangled Sky

  MAP

  CHAPTER ONE

  I crouched behind a thicket of brambles, watching and waiting. The deer on the ground beside me was beginning to attract flies. They swarmed around the carcass, but I kept silent, not bothering to shoo them away. There would be time enough for that when I made it home and gave the meat to my mother. I’d have to start out again early next morning, but it was my job to put food on the table for my mother and my sisters, and it was better than sitting around the cave, listening to the arguments. My brothers could fend for themselves.

  I’d been on the road for three days. This time of year, the deer and elk ranged lower in the mountains, staying by the treeline. They knew that the dragons were more active in the lower reaches of the kingdom during winter, searching for food away from the high reaches. In a way, that made it easier for me during summer, since my kind stayed in the foothills, far away from the higher mountains where the Truebloods made their homes. But come winter, I ran a much greater risk of being caught.

  While I could make it down to the treeline in less than half a day by flight, that opened me up to danger. While hedge dragons were far smaller than Truebloods, we were still big enough to be noticed. So I stuck to the soil, traveling mostly by night, trying to avoid being spotted.

  The trip to the forests took me a day, then a day to catch and prepare a deer, and then a day to make it home, dragging the deer behind me. I could lift it over my shoulders easily enough, but that left me vulnerable in case I was attacked. One thing every hedge dragon knew—either keep weaponed up and ready to run, or chance never making it home.

  A noise to my left startled me and I turned, sword out and ready. I was good with my blade, and I had one of the best, thanks to stumbling into a cave one day where I found a crumbling skeleton, fingers still closed around the hilt of a crystal sword. I’d taken the sword and since that day, it had never left my side. While my sisters and mother had no use for it, I didn’t trust my brothers, so I slept with it under my mattress at night.

  As I turned, I saw that the noise was simply one of the gimbels. The creature stared at me, eyes widening, then it turned and scurried away on its squat legs, its belly shaking as it ran. The forest sprites varied in nature and looks, but they were one of the few creatures I never worried about. They hated the humans, they feared the dragonkin almost as much as I did, and they were peaceful, preferring to while away their days in the forests, tending to the trees. The gimbels kept to themselves and seldom bothered anybody.

  I glanced around again and, seeing no one else, grabbed the ends of the rope I had tied around the deer’s legs. I slipped the ropes over my shoulder and started off again, picking up the pace so I could reach home before dark.

  Home was a large cave hollowed out into the side of a mountain, sheltered over by a ledge right outside the door. We were on the back part of the Shred, which had long ago been destroyed by the dragonkin, but now, no one but ghosts lived in the forest and it had never grown back to the robust shelter of trees that it had once been.

  The blackened trunks left from the wrath of dragon fire had hardened over time until the trunks were hard as rock. It took five days for a caravan to make it through the sinuous trail that wound around the charcoal stumps, and longer on foot. Very few ventured into its borders, however, due to the spirits who haunted the decimated woodland. Since humans feared the area, we were left pretty much to ourselves. After the fire, my mother had moved us here. It was probably the wisest decision she had ever made.

  I skirted the edge of the forest, ignoring the moans and whispers echoing from the Shred. Ghosts didn’t bother me much, and most of them were as wary of me as I was of them. We left each other alone. I passed along the road so often that I was certain that at least some of them recognized me. At least, the recurring hants did, like the soldier who had been fighting against the dragons when they strafed the forest. He had died, desperately shooting arrows as far as I could tell. Why he hadn’t run away, I had no clue.

  Truebloods—the ancient dragonkin—were immortal. They could be wounded, but they couldn’t die, and so war against them was useless. When they decided they wanted an area, it was safer to pack up and run. But the people of the Shred had fought back, and the dragons had destroyed every last inch of the forest, then turned and sought another place, no longer interested in a burned-out mass of woodland.

  The hant of an old washerwoman waved at me as I passed by. I waved back. I wasn’t sure if my siblings could see her, but I could. We never really talked about it. We never really talked, to be more accurate.

  Near sunset, which came early during the days of mid-autumn, I saw the flicker of light from the campfire built outside the opening of the cave. We kept a fire outside for cooking, given there wasn’t much ventilation inside. During the night, we dampened it to avoid being targeted in case someone veered off track and saw our flames, and took hot rocks inside to place under our covers. My mother wasn’t much affected by cold temperatures, but my siblings and I were.

  Besides the cave, we had a small lean-to that housed the two cows my mother took care of, so w
e could have milk and cheese. My mother traveled to the closest village to trade meat for goods like flour and salt and potatoes.

  I dragged the deer over to the side of the fire and dumped it, then—seeing no one out near the camouflaged shed—swept back the deerskin curtain to enter the cave.

  Inside, my mother had made the cave as comfortable as possible. There were cots with thick thatched mattresses on them, a table and chairs, and against one wall there were a pile of hearthstones and we kept them warm with our breath. All hedge dragons can, like the Dragonni, breath fire, though our fire streams weren’t as powerful or impressive as theirs. The stones emanated enough heat that, in our human shapes, we were able to stay warm even during the winter.

  A glance around told me that my brothers weren’t home, but my mother was, along with Sparkle, one of my sisters. They were sitting at the table. My mother was knitting what looked like a sweater, while Sparkle played with a couple of sticks, using them as dolls. My siblings and I were all the same age, having been born out of the same clutch, but Sparkle was born with a veil. She was slow and unsure, the mind of a child in the body of a woman. My mother grudgingly left her alone, to play or sing to herself through the day, while the rest of us did what we were told to do. My other sister, Shellsong, appeared to be out.

  Mother looked up at me. “Did you find food?”

  “Yes, I brought you back a deer,” I said. That was all I was to her—a food machine. Our mother loved us as much as she loved living in a cave, away from her own kind. I looked around. “Where’s Shellsong? Did she go out for a walk?”

  My brothers ventured out on their own to find their own food since I refused to provide for them, but Shellsong seldom went far from Mother’s side, or far from the cave.

  My mother picked up her skinning knife and headed for the door. “I’ll skin the deer now. Will you be heading out again tomorrow?”

  Something in her voice unsettled me.

  “Yes, as usual. Where’s Shellsong?”

  Once again, my mother ignored me. “Try to catch an elk. We have to put enough meat by for the winter for Sparkle and me. I only have a few weeks stored up.”

  I hesitated, glancing around the cave. Something seemed different. Then, I noticed that Shellsong’s mattress was missing its blanket. “Where’s Shellsong, Mother? Where did she go?”

  Without missing a beat, my mother paused at the mouth of the cave. “She’s gone,” she said, then slipped out the door.

  I stared at the deerskin cover as it fell across the doorway again. My first thought was to go after my mother, but she obviously was in no hurry to talk about it. I turned around, staring at Sparkle. She was young of mind, but she could talk and she was observant.

  “Sparkle, what are you doing?” I asked, sitting beside her. I was the only one who paid her any attention. My mother saw that she was fed, but had no interest in anything the girl had to say. My brothers ignored her. Shellsong teased her, though usually relented before Sparkle started to cry.

  “Playing,” she said, holding up the sticks. She had wrapped rags around them and clumsily drew on their faces with charcoal.

  “I like your dolls—they’re cute. Say, do you know where Shellsong went?” I reached in my pack and pulled out a small sack. I had gathered some of the cloudberries from the forest and tucked them away specifically for Sparkle, who loved them.

  “She went away with the men who came to visit,” Sparkle said.

  I froze. Men? The Truebloods took the form of people, but then again, if it had been dragonkin, they wouldn’t have left anyone standing. My entire family—save for my mother—would have been killed.

  “What men?” I reached over and took Sparkle’s hand, turning it palm up, and poured some of the berries into her fingers. “I brought you a present.”

  “Cloudberries!” Her face lit up. She was beautiful, with hair as long as mine—down to her thighs. But unlike my hair, which was green as the forest during summer, her hair shimmered with a pale blue hue. My eyes were as green as my hair, flecked with gold, but hers were blue as the morning sky.

  Like all of my siblings and me, green dragons circled her forearms and shins. Our mother was a green dragon, so we were born with her standard. Lineage always came from the mother. Sparkle was slighter than I was, delicate in a way I could never be. Sparkle was fragile in a world that was harsh and deadly. And that made me want to protect her and take care of her.

  “Yes, I brought you cloudberries, and there are more. But Sparkle, please tell me about the men. Why did Shellsong go with them?” I tried to ignore the alarm bells in my brain, but they wouldn’t go away. Something had happened during the three days I’d been gone and whatever it was, it had led to Shellsong’s disappearance.

  “Well,” Sparkle said, popping a few of the berries into her mouth. “Three men came the morning you left.”

  “Did Mother seem surprised?”

  “No, I think she knew them,” Sparkle said. “She let them in and told me to go play. I was playing with my dolls. Then I saw one of them hand her some coins and then…” She stopped, her smile fading and her eyes clouding over. “They took Shellsong away. She was screaming but they tied her hands together and put a cloth over her mouth. She tried to call for the rain but they stopped her before she could make the waters come. Then they pulled the cloth down and poured a drink from a small bottle down her throat. She fell asleep and they carried her off.”

  My stomach lurched. I handed my sister the rest of the berries. “Don’t worry about it, sweet one. Eat your berries. I’ll be right back.”

  I pushed myself to my feet and strode out the door. My mother looked up and her eyes grew wide as she saw me bearing down on her. She held the knife out.

  “Don’t you dare question my choices,” she said, her eyes as harsh as her voice.

  I crossed my arms over my chest, staring at her. “What did you do with Shellsong?”

  “I did what I had to.” My mother went back to butchering the deer. “She wasn’t pulling her weight. She wouldn’t forage for herself. How long do you think your brothers are going to hang around here? They’ll be off soon enough, now that you’ve quit feeding them. They’ll be off sniffing after females soon enough. They have no loyalty. And you barely bring in enough to feed the three of us, let along Shellsong.”

  I stared at her, still silent. The fact that she even mentioned “loyalty” made me want to smack her one. But she was right in two respects: my brothers were restless and I expected to see them fly the coop any day. For a while, feeding them had fallen to me. My mother had favored them—if she favored any of us.

  But a few years back I had cut them off and, once they had understood that I meant it, they began to forage for themselves. Shellsong was lazy, narcissistic to a fault. But her self-centeredness came from fear and sadness.

  “You know that Shellsong was depressed,” I shot back. “You know how much she wants to be one of the Truebloods, like you. And yet you blame her for her moods, when you make it clear, every day, that we’re only burdens to you, that we ruined your life.”

  “How dare you blame me for resenting you? I didn’t ask for what happened to me, and now I’m cast out, cursed to live in hell for eternity. My wings will never mend. And I will never again take my true form.”

  I glanced over my shoulder toward the cave, making certain Sparkle couldn’t hear us.

  “What happened to you was wrong—there’s no questioning that. I understand why you feel the way you do, and I’m sorry. I wouldn’t wish your fate on anyone. But you can’t blame us for doing this to you. We aren’t to blame. And frankly, given how the Truebloods have treated you and what you just did to Shellsong, I’m grateful that I’m not one of your kind.”