The Eternal Forest is the second book in The 5th Compass series. Daxton and his best friend, Barton, are looking for the other compasses while fending off an immortal foe. Nelle takes Adelaide under her wing, to help her develop her untapped power. Meanwhile, the most hated pirate in all of Stonehaven must decide whether to stand and fight or flee from the Paragon. This book delves into the life of the Paragon and the many lives it touches and destroys.
With no time on their side to debate their new discovery about the compass, Daxton and his friends continued their journey through the forest, using it to guide them. It wasn’t long before they found themselves at the edge of a river and the needle now pointed for them to follow it downstream. They all were grateful for the opportunity to quench their thirst as the sun began to set.
“Can we rest? We’ve been walking for hours and haven’t bumped into a single person, nor have we seen anyone even closely resembling the king’s army. We probably lost them a long time ago.”
“Is he always this bothersome?” Adelaide asked, stopping to sit on a tree stump while they all argued yet again over what the best course of action was to take.
“We have not lost them. I don’t know why I did not think of this sooner, but all this time we’ve been moving through the forest we made no attempts to hide our footprints or any signs of which way we’re traveling. Surely your father knows how to track someone, and that thing he’s got with him I’m sure knows how as well,” Wendynn explained, his arms crossed over his chest. “Would you like to sit here and continue to debate the subject or shall we press on? The wind is changing, which says to me we are nearing a much larger body of water, perhaps your compass is leading us to a boat or a ship?”
Daxton wished he knew where it was taking them, but he wanted to know more than any of them and the exhaustion they were feeling did not affect him. He felt that with every step he took in the direction it provided, he’d be led closer to his mother and answers he so desperately needed.
“I miss him…,” Adelaide said out loud, more to herself than to anyone else.
“Who?” Barton asked. He was given a dirty look by both Daxton and Wendynn and instantly realized his mistake in asking such an ignorant question, but it was too late. Her patience with Barton was growing thinner the longer they remained in close proximity of each other.
“My father, you idiot. Or, more importantly, the man who raised me for most of my life. If he were here right now, he’d know exactly what to do and where to go, he always did.”
Hearing her speak of a man who wasn’t her father by blood, but rather someone who chose to raise her even though he did not have to, gave Daxton pause. The image of his own father, the man who wasn’t his by blood, but who raised him since he was an infant. He hadn’t thought about his father, or his mother, since the worse day of his life, when he was taken away by the king’s royal army. He blamed his parents for what happened. He knows his father must’ve turned him over to them and the image of his mother turning her back on him as he screamed for her to help him would forever be burned in his memory. When last he saw them or thought of them he felt anger and confusion, but now that he was faced with Adelaide missing her father, he felt lost.
The compass grew warm in his hand, as if to get his attention. He looked down at it and pressed onwards in the direction the needle pointed. He did not bother to tell the others. When they saw him continue to walk, they followed close behind. Adelaide was slow to get up as Wendynn rushed to her side.
“Are you alright?” he asked, gently taking her by the elbow. Her eyes seemed darker somehow, similar to when the clouds parted and a storm started earlier in the day. Wendynn feared something she was feeling might trigger her to alter the weather again, but he did not falter in steadying her. “Wait, Daxton, I think something is wrong.”
Daxton and Barton turned back just as a dark cloud began to form in the sky. “I don’t understand what’s happening?” Adelaide said, falling into Wendynn’s arms. Her eyes remained opened, turning ever darker, but she was unresponsive to his calling out her name.
“Adelaide. Adelaide,” he shouted at her. Daxton helped him lower her gently to the ground as a drop of rain hit him on the back of the neck. He looked up in time to see a flash of lightning come down near him.
“What’s happening? Is she causing this?” Daxton shouted over the loud thunder that came next.
Wendynn stood and whispered to Daxton and Barton, “I’m afraid she is. And if we don’t get her as far away from the Paragon as possible, she could get worse.”
“Who?” both of them asked in unison.
“There isn’t time to explain that now. Help me lift her. If I’m correct, her condition is flaring up because that man we met back there is getting closer. She probably has never used her ability before and today was the first time it’s ever presented itself. I’ve never known of a case quite like hers,” Wendynn answered, growing slow of breath as he grabbed one of her arms and Daxton took the other. Together they managed to pull her up to a seated position. “Help me get her on my shoulder. I should be able to carry her the rest of the way.”
As the water came down heavily around them, Barton kept a lookout. “Let’s hurry, it appears her rain storm is only affecting where we stand. I’m sure it can easily be seen from a distance, giving away our position.”
Once Adelaide was placed safely on Wendynn’s shoulder, Daxton consulted the compass and continued to run at a steady pace alongside the river. In no time, they found where the river broke, joining a much larger ocean. Even the clouds that followed them as they ran began to break, signaling they had put some distance between themselves and their pursuers, but they knew that would not last very long.
“Look!” Barton shouted as he pointed in the distance towards a steam ship several hundred yards out in the middle of the ocean.
“Do you suppose that is what the compass was leading us to?” Daxton asked, looking down at the compass in his hand. The needle pointed directly at the ship and did not waver in its directionality.
“The question is not if that is our escape, the question is how do we get out there to it? Who is commanding that vessel and why is it not closer to shore?” Barton tried to hide it, but he was concerned for Adelaide and what she might do next if his father, and the strange man he traveled with, were to get closer again. “Perhaps there is a boat somewhere nearby that we can use to get out there?”
“I do not think that will be necessary,” Wendynn said as he continued to look out towards the steam ship. Black smoke began to rise out of a large pipe as it began to move towards them. “Let us hope whoever is on that steamship is a friend and not a foe.”
“Isn’t that Griggs’ steamship?” Daxton asked. Nelle, who was still inside of Wendynn’s body, had become so weak she was not able to control him as much as she normally would anyone she inhabited. But hearing the name of a longtime friend made her use all the strength she could muster to focus on the steamship as it approached.
“You don’t suppose…” Before she could finish her sentence, she collapsed to the ground, taking Adelaide down with her.