James stayed close to Cerys and her friend as they walked on. Even though Nashtra was not from this forest, and it was different from his own, and he kept saying that it was a very different tribe of elves, he was familiar with it, and the others let him take the lead.

“So what is it that sets this forest apart from a regular one?” Cerys asked.

“Didn’t you hear?” Peter told her. “It’s a magical forest.”

Cerys narrowed her eyes at her brother and then turned to look at James. “I get that it’s magical. I could tell by the glowing stuff and all the poison that you keep warning me about. But you said that there is a certain type of energy in Vathalloín. What makes this forest special?”

“The Elven tribes living here doesn’t exactly want humans to know,” Nashtra answered in James’s stead. “They pretend not to know, but I think they do.”

“So what do you think it is?” Cerys asked the elf.

“I think it has something to do with the moonlight,” he told her. “You might not realize it, but this forest is pretty close to what you might consider an Arctic Circle. It might not be colder, but it does get a lot less daylight.”

“Not to mention the canopy blocks out the light when it is daytime,” James added.

Nashtra seemed to agree, though he did not say anything more, but seemed lost in his own thoughts.