The deeper Nyxia walked, the more the forest seemed to resist her.
Branches caught on her cloak like fingers. Vines slithered beneath her feet, slick and purposeful. Even the mist here had weight. It clung to her like oil and whispered in the gaps between her thoughts.
Loque'nahak prowled ahead, his spectral form dimmer than usual—subdued, as if the very air made his glow retreat inward. His ears twitched at nothing. His hackles were constantly raised.
This was not a place meant for Spirit Beasts.
Or for anything still breathing.
The map etched into the stones from the ruined pillar had burned itself behind her eyes—an arc of symbols and sigils that pulled at something inside her like a compass embedded in bone. She followed it without hesitation, through trees older than bones, until the path dropped off into a ravine overrun with gnarled roots and twisted rock.
There it waited.
The circle.
Or what remained of it.
The ancient druidic site was almost entirely reclaimed by rot. Massive stone arches lay half-collapsed, choked with blackened ivy and fungi that pulsed faintly with unnatural light. Trees sprouted sideways from shattered altars, and thorns the size of daggers wove through druidic carvings like veins through flesh.
What should have been serene felt surgical. Torn apart. Re-sewn with materials that hated life.
The wind didn't stir here. But something else moved.
Nyxia descended the moss-slicked slope slowly, bow in hand, Loque flanking her. Her boots crunched on broken roots and scattered bones—some animal, some not.
She passed a stone marker half-buried in collapsed earth. The carvings were ruined, but she traced the shape of the symbol beneath the grime: a crescent moon cracked down the middle.
She whispered, "Elune weeps."
Loque growled low in response.
At the center of the overgrown ruin sat a once-sacred tree—its trunk hollowed and black, leaves long dead. Around it, seven standing stones encircled a crumbling altar. Each stone bore faintly glowing wards, but they flickered like a lantern on its last breath.
Whatever magic once protected this place was failing.
Or worse—being unmade.
She moved forward slowly, scanning the space. Her tattoos began to ache faintly—an itch beneath the skin, as if reacting to the energy around her.
A glint of metal caught her eye at the base of the third stone.
She crossed the circle and knelt beside it.
There, embedded deep into the stone, was a dagger. Its blade was broken halfway down, the hilt worn smooth by years of handling. The runes along the spine were familiar. Not just Kaldorei. Personal.
Her father's dagger.
Nyxia stared at it, frozen, a tremor running down her arms.
He'd carried it the last day she saw him. The day he vanished into the wilds after the funeral pyre of her mother had burned out.
He'd said nothing when he left—just looked at her, eyes hollow, before turning and disappearing into the trees.
Everyone else assumed he'd died.
She knew better.
And now she had proof.
She reached for the dagger.
The stone screamed.
Not aloud—but through her skin.
A pulse erupted outward the moment her fingers touched the hilt. The ground cracked beneath her feet. The roots around the altar reared up like struck serpents, slamming into the dirt and stone with enough force to shake the trees.
Loque barked a warning.
Something in the roots moved—fast.
A tendril shot toward her, barbed and steaming.
Loque intercepted it mid-air, his fangs sinking into the vine. But the moment he bit down, it exploded in acid.
He cried out—a raw, guttural sound that shook her to the marrow.
His flank steamed. The spirit-light of his form dimmed, parts of his silver fur sizzling away. He staggered, tail whipping, and collapsed.
Nyxia didn't think.
She dropped to her knees beside him. The wounds pulsed with a sickly green glow that ate away at his body faster than she could bind it. Her hands trembled, and her tattoos flared so bright they illuminated the ground.
She looked up—and the roots were closing in.
She had only one option.
One she'd sworn not to use.
She reached into the pouch at her belt and pulled out a small crystal vial. Inside: ash-black powder flecked with red shimmer.
Forbidden fire. Fire that didn't burn wood—it burned essence. Banned by druids, outlawed by priestesses. It ate what it touched completely.
But it obeyed only one rule: intention.
Nyxia took a breath, uncorked the vial, and poured it in a circle around herself and Loque'nahak.
The roots hesitated. Then lunged.
She whispered a word not written in any book—only remembered in dreams.
"Vareth."
The powder ignited with a scream.
White-hot flame erupted in a ring, racing up the roots like wildfire soaked in sorrow. The air went sharp and electric. The screams from the roots became voices—babbling, pleading, promising.
Then silence.
Only the fire remained—burning in a ring, consuming everything in its reach, but touching neither her nor Loque.
When the final root crumbled to cinder, the flame vanished.
The altar still stood.
But now, from its cracked center, something grew.
It rose slowly, unfurling from the charred stone.
A flower.
Petals like porcelain. Streaked with red veins. Its stem pulsed with faint violet light, and every so often, it shivered—like something inside it was breathing.
Nyxia reached toward it. Her hand hovered inches above the bloom.
Then it spoke.
Not aloud. Not in words.
In memory.
A fire.
A blade.
Her father's hand, slipping from hers.
The sound of water on stone.
Her own name, whispered not by a voice—but by the Veil.
"Nyxia…"
She staggered back, hand to her chest.
The flower closed.
The message, whatever it had been, was over.
She turned to Loque.
He was still breathing—barely. But his wounds had stopped spreading.
She sat beside him and placed a hand on his flank.
"Stay with me," she whispered. "I'm not going alone."
His breath caught once. Then steadied.
The dagger still sat embedded in the stone.
This time, when she touched it, it slid free with no resistance.
She held it up to the dying light and felt its weight in her palm. A hunter's weapon, worn and ugly. But it felt like home.
She closed her fingers around the hilt.
Then stood.
Above the altar, the dead tree cracked—once, loud and final.
Its trunk split down the middle.
And from the wound in the wood, something looked out.
Two eyes—deep as wells. Burning softly.
Then gone.
The tree closed.
The glade fell silent.
Behind her, Loque'nahak stirred. His breathing had steadied, but he did not rise. The damage had taken something from him.
From them both.
Nyxia looked once more at the flower—now sealed, unmoving.
Then at the dagger in her hand.
She had answers now. Just not enough.
The Veil was calling her deeper.
But if she was to survive what waited in its folds, she would need knowledge. Old knowledge.
And there was only one place that might still have it.
She turned north, toward the ruins of Warden's Wake.
And walked.