"Where are the mana beasts anyway?" Kael asked, the question carrying a mild impatience underneath the curiosity.
His gaze moved from one bush to another, from shadow to shadow between the thick trunks, finding nothing that satisfied his search. "I can't find them."
Noah's lips curled.
"The mana beasts in the deeper parts of the forest are more territorial," he said, his voice carrying the even quality of someone explaining something they had taken time to understand.
"It's rare to see them gathered in one place. They don't move in groups the way the ones closer to the edge do."
He paused for a fraction of a second.
"Each one tends to claim its own ground and stay within it." His eyes moved, calm and certain, to a specific point ahead of them. "Which means where we're standing right now is actually the territory of a mana beast."
Another pause.
"And it's sitting right there."
