Sweet Silius Island Honey: Chapter Four

A stowaway and a society are discovered.

Teenage street urchin Owen and witch heiress Wanda venture to the land of the bee people in this 11-chapter fantasy novel.

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Photo by Lora Ninova on Unsplash

Owen held a machete and carried a bag of supplies as he followed Wanda down the ramp onto the shore. Before entering the forest, Wanda shut her eyes and raised her hands a little bit, as if feeling for something. She pointed to the northwest. "That way."

The trees overhead quickly became so dense that only slivers of sunlight made it down to the ground. There was no clear path, so Owen had to make one, cutting through the bushes and hanging vines all around. The ground rippled and sloped. Every step Owen took, he had to adjust his balance, make sure he had good footing. It was also incredibly hot, though Owen had worked outdoors so much of his life that he didn't mind sweating a little. He'd brought a canteen anyway.

Wanda used her magic to clear her way. All she had to do was look at a tangle of brush or a spider web, and it would open up for her, then close up as soon as she and Owen got through. In one of the webs lived a spider as big as Owen's hand, with fangs like a snake, but it skittered off as soon as the web moved, and Owen and Wanda passed by unharmed.

A few steps after one such spider web, Wanda halted in front of Owen. The path ahead was choked with vines thick as ropes. Her aura parted the vines, blowing the cover of a snake that had hung among them, its tail coiled around a branch, right in Owen's path. It hissed, but then curled back up and slithered off to find something and somewhere else to stalk.

"Lucky catch," Owen said.

"Not too lucky," Wanda said. "I have my aura spread out so if anything comes close, I'll know."