Cain scanned the chamber again. Nothing moved, nothing breathed besides the two of them. The air felt wrong—not stale, but too still, like the room was waiting for the next action before it allowed itself to exist properly.
He looked back at the chains. "Why are you even alive? If this place kills intruders, you shouldn't still be breathing."
The figure's expression remained empty. "Because I didn't enter for myself."
Cain raised an eyebrow. "Then for who?"
"For you."
Cain blinked. "Try again."
"It won't make more sense the second time." The figure exhaled. "I came because the forest told me someone would arrive with the lantern. Someone who wasn't erased. Someone who didn't dissolve between the branches."
Cain stared. "You're telling me the forest talks."
"Not with words." Their gaze flicked toward the chamber's ceiling. "It breathes, it remembers, it warns. And it led me here to wait."
"For what?"
