The Moon-Warded Wood
The trees of Ridgefall were not merely sentinels—they were sanctified. With roots deep in dreamsoil and bark laced in wards old as moonlight, they formed a living shield few could breach unannounced. But the Ridgefall elders knew better than to rely on myth alone.
Even the sacred must bleed to survive.
At dawn, the valley stirred. The wind carried whispers—warnings from the wolves that roamed the deep perimeter, silent as ghosts. The scent of null magic had reached the northern treeline. The Council's blade was coming.
Inside the dreaming hall, Mira knelt with her hands pressed to the altar-root, sweat beading along her brow. Her breath came shallow. Her eyes were turned inward.
"They come wearing silence," she whispered. "Their names are shadows and their blades thirst for memory."
Alaric stood behind her, arms crossed, armored in storm-forged leather. Around him, the war-kin of Ridgefall moved with purpose—young wolves being anointed, old warriors sharpening crescent axes, dreambinders weaving spells between sighing branches.
"How many?" he asked.
Mira's eyes opened, glowing faint silver. "Six squads. Drenched in null sigils. They walk outside the tether of fate."
"Assassins," Alaric muttered. "The Council's hand."
He stepped out onto the high root-bridge overlooking the valley. Below, the village pulsed with tension. These were not Ironfang—these were remnants, scattered clans, exiles and dreambound, whose spirits had not yet learned to howl as one.
But he would change that.
Alaric raised his voice.
"You were hunted for what you are. Driven from kin and soil. You have worn masks to survive, hidden your bloodlines, shackled your gifts. But no more."
He held up a curved blade—not of steel, but of carved ashwood bound in silver thread. A dreamblade.
"Their fear of us is not new. But now, it is justified. Because we remember who we were. We remember what they stole. And tonight, they come to burn the roots. But they will find fire waiting for them."
A murmur of growls and chants rose from below.
High Seer Athis approached, laying a bone totem at his feet. "We have set veilstones at every northward entry. The roots will shift paths if they sense null sigils. But that alone won't stop them."
"It doesn't need to," Alaric replied. "It only needs to guide them—to the Hollowing."
Mira stepped beside him, her voice raw. "You're leading them into the Dream Maw."
He nodded. "Let them walk into the place they fear most."
That night, as mist coiled through Ridgefall's fringe, the first of the Inquisitors crossed the outer perimeter. Clad in cloaks that distorted shape, wielding blades that drank starlight, they passed unseen by most mortal eyes.
But Ridgefall's sentries were not mortal.
A young scout named Elin—a girl who had not spoken since the Spire took her father—watched from the shadows of a singing tree. She raised her signal horn but did not blow. Instead, she ran, fleet as myth, leaping from branch to branch. Her breath left trails of frost. Her feet left no mark.
She reached Alaric moments before the second team crested the southern path.
"They split," she whispered. "Two teams took the river crawl. Three are in the root tunnels."
"And the sixth?" Alaric asked.
Elin swallowed. "The Seer's chamber."
Alaric's eyes darkened.
"Sound the Maw."
All across Ridgefall, the old horns blew. The ground shook. The trees moved, literally shifting their roots to open a path that had long been sealed.
The Dream Maw—Ridgefall's bleeding heart.
It was a hollow wound of tangled roots and forgotten power, a natural labyrinth infused with the raw essence of lost dreamers. It was where failed seers once lay down to sleep forever. Now, it would be the grave of their hunters.
Mira gathered her strength and stepped into the path. "I must draw them deeper. Into the true dream. Only then will they be revealed."
Alaric grabbed her hand. "And if you don't come back?"
She met his eyes. "Then you must."
Their hands parted.
As Mira vanished into the Maw's whispering dark, Alaric turned to his warriors. "Prepare the bindsteel. Once they're inside, we close the rootways. No escape."
As the Council's chosen killers entered the dream's domain, Ridgefall closed behind them like a mouth.
For the first time in centuries, the land itself had chosen to fight.