The noon mist clung low to the ground, curling around our boots like half-formed questions. Dew beaded on every surface, catching the faint gold light that filtered through the trees. Birds chirped high in the canopy, but never close—like they didn't trust the ground we walked on.
Selaithe yawned mid-stretch, hands laced behind her head. "Remind me to only travel by hot spring from now on."
"We've passed two in a hundred leagues," I muttered, adjusting the sword's weight across my back. "Not exactly a trade route."
"Then we'll make one," she grinned. "Call it the Way of Steam and Soaking. Travel in luxury. Bathe with ghosts."
I didn't respond. Not because it wasn't funny. But because something in the air had shifted again. Subtle. Thin. Like a thread pulled just a little too tight.
Selaithe noticed it too. Her ears twitched. "…You feel that?"
I nodded slowly. "Same as yesterday?"
"No. This feels… lower."
We left the spring behind, climbing the ridgeline the bark map had traced in dark ink and old thread. The charmstones clicked faintly against my chest—mine tied to a leather cord, hers braided into her belt's woven edge. I still wasn't sure they were doing anything. But they felt heavier now. Or maybe that was just me.
The air had gone still. Not silent—but expectant. Like the forest had taken its breath in.
And hadn't let it out yet.
⟡
It started small.
A shift in the wind. A quiet between bird calls. The undergrowth thinned, but the trees grew—taller, darker, more ancient than anything we'd seen near Sylrienn. Trunks as wide as the Selkareth estate's gatehouse, bark with hints of green-laced blue where the light struck right. Their roots rose above the ground in snaking arcs like petrified serpents.
"Witchwood," Selaithe murmured.
I slowed my steps. "The same kind the elves warned us about?"
She didn't answer. Just moved carefully, weight placed with reverence, like the ground itself might wake and whisper if she stepped too hard.
We moved without speaking. No branches snapped. No birds sang.
The Witchwood remembered. I could feel it. In my blood. In my teeth. A low hum—not aura. Not mana. Memory. The kind of pressure that settles over you when someone says your name in a place you've never been.
We passed a fallen statue half-swallowed by bark. Elven armor—old, ornate, not the practical kind. Its face was crumbling, jaw lost to time, but the blade in its hands still gleamed faintly beneath the moss.
"I think we're walking over something buried," I whispered.
Selaithe nodded, eyes scanning the trees. "An outpost. Maybe an old keep. This ridge used to mark the Veilguard's reach—before the Fall."
"The Fall was centuries ago."
"Witchwood remembers centuries."
She stopped.
Her hand closed around my wrist.
I followed her gaze.
Ahead, between two spiraling root systems, a stone sat nestled in the earth. It wasn't carved. Wasn't placed. It had grown there, shaped by time—or shaped by something else.
On its surface: a handprint. Blackened. Burned into the stone like coal.
And below it, in a fractured, almost-decayed form of the Elarin script:
"Let this be the price for silence."
We didn't speak.
Not until the trees grew smaller again.
Even then, Selaithe only whispered, "We're getting close to a Fracture."
My throat tightened.
"But the elves said they sealed the nearest ones."
She glanced at me. "Maybe. Or maybe they just thought they did."
⟡
Evening came slow and heavy.
The forest pressed inward. The paths grew narrower. Our feet crushed fewer leaves—there simply weren't any. The canopy swayed above, but the air below was still.
The humming started again.
Subtle.
Like standing near a tuning fork struck once, long ago.
Then it happened.
We broke through a curtain of ivy and stepped into a hollow—an earthen bowl, choked with creeping vines and half-buried stone. At its center stood an altar. Worn smooth. Cracked down its middle. No sigils. No offerings. Just… presence.
My chest tightened.
The air didn't feel wrong, exactly. Just—bent. Like a curve in the weave. Like standing too close to a place the world had tried to forget.
Selaithe took a step back. "Kaelen—"
Too late.
My aura flared.
Unbidden. Instinctual. Not cast. Not summoned.
It poured out of me in a shimmer—dense, unnatural, Tainted White. Too bright. Too cold. It lanced from my chest in slow tendrils, reaching for the altar like it had been waiting for something to notice it.
The moment it touched the stone, the ground moved.
Not an explosion.
An exhale.
Deep. Ancient. Hollow.
And something beneath the soil… stirred.
Not a creature. Not a presence. A memory.
Not mine.
I saw flashes—burnt roots. Fingers clawing upward. A masked figure with seven unblinking eyes. Voices speaking in a tongue I shouldn't have known:
"We offered our names to keep the door closed."
Then another voice answered:
"That's the point of the sacrifice."
I choked.
Snapped back.
I was on my knees, gasping, soil between my fingers. My sword still on my back, untouched.
Selaithe crouched beside me, knife drawn, breathing fast. Her eyes were too wide.
"What—what was that?" I asked.
She didn't answer right away.
Then, low: "You touched something the forest buried."
I shook my head. "I didn't mean to."
"I know."
"I didn't even cast—"
"You don't have to, Kaelen."
She was staring at me. Not at my face.
At the space around me.
Like something was still there.
Like it hadn't stopped.
⟡
We didn't speak again for a long time.
Just walked.
Left that bowl behind.
Didn't look back.
That night, we made camp in a hollow of redleaf trees, their leaves like dying fire. No flame. Just cloaks and silence. The charmstones didn't chime.
I stared at the stars.
Selaithe finally spoke, voice soft against the canopy:
"I think we're near Eirenhald. If the bark map's right… four more days."
I nodded. "Good."
A pause. Then I asked, "You still think they'll turn us away?"
She hesitated. Her hand brushed the hilt of her blade.
"Maybe. But I'll make them regret it if they do."
I almost smiled.
Almost.
But my aura still sat too close to the surface.
⟡
We ran out of dried meat the next day. The last strip had gone to Selaithe the night before—she hadn't realized I slipped mine into her hand when she dozed. Now, both our stomachs growled like wounded beasts.
So we hunted.
Or rather—Selaithe tracked it, and I killed it. Something lean and long-limbed, all muscle and sinew. Not quite a wolf, not quite a boar. Yellow eyes. Black tongue. The kind of thing that probably had a name in the bestiary of some old Elarin ranger, but none worth remembering aloud. Its blood hissed when it hit the rocks. Not cursed—but not natural either.
"Still twitching," Selaithe muttered, crouching beside the carcass.
"It won't after we roast it." I wiped the blade on moss, then started setting stones for a fire ring. We'd risk the smoke—just this once.
We ate it. Slowly. Charred nearly black, hacked into rough slices, bitter and stringy. It fought us all the way down.
Selaithe spat into the dirt after a bite. "Tastes like wet boots."
"You eat boots often?"
She smirked. "Better than shoe leather made of swamp demon. Still. Protein's protein."
I winced, swallowing. "Remind me to learn how to trap squirrels."
She reached up to tie her hair back, then paused, letting it fall. "Getting too long for that," she said, running fingers through the blue strands. A few had started to curl near her neck. The wind caught them when she moved—made them catch the sun.
I glanced over. "It looks good. The length, I mean."
Her eyes flicked sideways.
"…You noticing my hair now?" she teased.
I looked away, ears warm. "Just saying."
She leaned her chin on one knee, watching me over the fire. Then, without flair or build-up:
"It's my birthday."
I blinked. "What?"
"Today," she said calmly, chewing a bit more of the meat. "Turned eight."
I stared at her. "You're—since when?"
"I'm five months older than you," she said, like I should have remembered. "Forest kids don't do cakes or lanterns or weird human choir songs. But it's still my day."
"…You're serious?"
She nodded once. "Eight years. Still breathing. That's worth something."
I sat back. "You should've said something this morning."
"I did. I said we should only travel by hot spring now. That was my royal birthday decree."
"Selaithe—"
She raised a hand. "Don't apologize. I didn't want a fuss."
She stood slowly, walking over to where my sword rested beside a log, then leaned forward—face lit orange by firelight. Her voice lowered.
"But I do want a present."
I narrowed my eyes. "…Meat?"
"Guess again."
"Charmstone?"
"Too easy."
"Okay. What then?"
She stepped closer, hands behind her back, tilting her head just enough to let her hair fall again.
"Kiss," she said simply.
I froze. "…What?"
"I was brave," she said, shrugging. "Saved your life. Again. Didn't cry when your cursed aura tried to wake a dead god. Patched your cloak. Hunted meat. Let you have the last bite." She ticked each one off like they were items on a scroll. "Kiss seems fair."
My throat caught. "You're not serious."
She didn't blink. "I'm always serious on my birthday."
I looked down at the fire. "That's not how birthdays work."
She stepped around the flames and sat beside me, close enough our knees brushed.
"Sure it is," she said softly. "You give someone something. Something that matters."
I swallowed.
The forest was quiet.
The fire crackled.
I leaned over, hesitated—but only for a breath—and pressed a kiss to her cheek.
Soft. Quick.
She smiled. Small. Sharp.
Then turned and whispered, "Next year, I want lips."
I shoved her lightly. She laughed—then wrestled me to the ground with far too much satisfaction.
When we finally collapsed back against the log, catching our breath, she whispered, "Three days."
I nodded.
"Eirenhald."
Another nod.
She curled beside me, hand resting over mine.
"Let's make it there alive," she murmured.
"…We will," I said, quietly.
But in the dark, I still felt that humming in my bones.
The memory beneath the altar hadn't let go.
And I wasn't sure it ever would.
And somewhere far beneath our feet… the earth still remembered my name.