There were no rustling leaves, no singing birds. The trees stood tall and ancient, their bark blackened like burnt bone, their twisted branches reaching toward the sky like frozen hands. Mist clung to the forest floor in pale ribbons, cold and silent, wrapping around roots like old secrets. Even the sun, high above, hung like a faded painting—trapped behind a ceiling of grey clouds that never shifted.
It was a forest forgotten by time. And within it, something waited.
Somewhere between two trees that looked exactly the same, a girl stirred. She lay on the damp earth, her dress torn, her face streaked with dried mud and blood. Her name was Elowen—though she didn't remember it yet. Not her name. Not where she came from. Not even why her chest ached like something inside her had been broken long ago.
She opened her eyes slowly.
They were a strange, shimmering silver, like moonlight trapped in water. She blinked, then sat up, her body stiff and cold. Her arms were scratched from thornbushes, her bare feet covered in bruises. Around her, the trees loomed like silent watchers. She heard no sound. Not even her heartbeat.
She was alone.
"Where... am I?" her voice cracked like old glass. The forest gave no answer.
She looked around and saw nothing familiar. There were no paths, no footprints, only the fog and the trees. It felt like a place untouched by time, as if it had been waiting for something—or someone—for a very long time.
Suddenly, a sharp pain struck her chest. She gasped and fell to her knees. It felt like something inside her had been torn open. Her veins burned, and her eyes watered as memories tried to claw their way out of the darkness.
A throne.
A crown.
A scream.
Blood in the snow.
She clutched her sides as the pain grew. Something deep in her bones was waking. Not just pain—but power. A power that didn't feel like her own.
Her blood.
It whispered.
Not in words, but in feelings. Fear. Fire. Betrayal. And something older—something cold and patient.
She pushed herself up, shaking.
"I need to get out," she whispered. But where would she go?
The forest stretched endlessly in all directions, and yet... something guided her. Not a sound, not a sight. Just a pull. Like the trees themselves were gently pushing her forward, telling her feet where to walk.
She wandered.
Minutes passed. Or hours. Or days. It was impossible to tell. Time did not live in the Stillwoods.
Eventually, she came to a clearing.
In the center stood an ancient stone circle, cracked with age and covered in moss. In the middle of the stones, there was a pool—dark, still, and deep as a mirror. It reflected her face... but the image that stared back was not her own.
The girl in the pool wore a silver crown.
Her eyes burned like stars, and her skin shimmered with light. Blood ran down one of her arms, and as it touched the pool, the image rippled. Elowen gasped and stepped back.
"What… am I?"
A voice came—not from around her, but from inside.
"You are the last. The blood that binds. The pain that wakes. The key that breaks the god."
She froze. "Who said that?"
The voice was gone. The pool was still. The forest quiet.
But something else had changed.
Behind her, at the edge of the clearing, a figure stood. Tall. Wrapped in a cloak of shadows. Its face hidden beneath a cracked, golden mask. It did not move. It did not breathe.
But she knew. It had been waiting.
For her.
Her heart began to race. Her legs trembled. She turned and ran—not knowing where, only knowing she had to flee.
Branches scratched at her arms. Thorns tore her skin. But she ran, and ran, and ran—until the pain in her chest grew so strong, she collapsed beneath an ancient willow tree, gasping for air.
The moment her blood touched the roots, the earth beneath her shook.
From deep below, the Stillwoods stirred.
Something had awakened.
And far away, in a ruined throne room swallowed by vines and silence, a man with burning eyes opened his hands and smiled.
"She has returned," he whispered.
"Let the forest remember time."