The fog thickened around her like velvet soaked in ink.
Lybid walked slowly, hands outstretched, feeling nothing but wet air and invisible dread. The silence here wasn't emptiness—it was waiting. It was the kind of silence that follows a question no one dares to answer.
Then she heard it.
A voice.
Low. Feminine. Familiar.
"Child of roots… why do you resist me?"
Lybid froze. The fog pulsed like a heartbeat.
"I know your pain," the voice said, closer now. "You speak to ghosts. You bow to trees and pray to absent gods. Why suffer? Why bleed for those who never listened?"
She turned slowly. Shapes flickered in the mist—faces, almost real. Her grandmother. Her mother. Her sister, Olha, her body still soaked from the river.
"I can give you power," the voice continued, echoing through them all. "The Death answers to no priest. No church. Only you. Just reach. Just accept."
The fog parted.
Before her stood a vision of herself—older, robed in bark and silver, crowned in antlers and moons. Her eyes glowed green. Her hands bled light.
All around her, the forest bowed.
Her voice turned solemn. "Mara."
The mirrored-Lybid smiled. "I didn't know that someone would still remember my name, did 'He' tell you?"
Another Lybid laughed hysterically, her hand turning pale and hair black.
"No, it can't be, he's busy dealing with the New God."
Behind her, the fog twisted into a throne. The roots curled lovingly around her name.
Lybid's hands shook.
Then came a whisper.
"Lybidka…"
It was her grandmother's voice.
Soft. Worn. Strong.
"Child… remember why we sing. We are guardians of Rod."
Other voices joined.
Her lineage. Her memory.
A hand rested on her shoulder—warm and ghostly. She turned and saw them: dozens of figures in robes of leaves, feathers, earth. Women and men alike. Their eyes calm. Proud.
Throne of roots slowly turned into bones. The figure sitting on it tsked.
"You carry us," they said in unison. "But you are not our shadow. You are our path."
Lybid faced the false image of herself again. It had grown twisted, monstrous, antlers cracked, robes stiff with rot.
She stepped forward and raised her hand.
"Be gone."
Mara smiled once again.
The fog screamed.
The image shattered into ash.
The mist parted.
Lybid walked forward.
The ancestors faded behind her.
But their strength remained in her bones.