The falling memory had burned a circle of silence into the forest floor.
No birds sang.
No insects stirred.
Even the wind held its breath.
Elowen approached it slowly. The star fragment in her cloak pulsed with an uneasy rhythm, like a heartbeat skipping every other beat.
Ashen stayed behind, hand on his sword. "Be careful," he whispered.
The memory shimmered—a golden wisp hovering over the ground, trembling like a candle in wind.
When Elowen stepped into the circle, it entered her.
And the world changed.
She stood in a different time.
The trees were younger. Taller. Greener.
Before her was a woman with hair like wildfire and eyes the color of dusk.
She knelt beside a tree, whispering ancient words into its bark.
The woman turned.
And Elowen knew.
"Mother," she breathed.
Serenya smiled faintly. "Elowen."
This was not a dream. Not a vision.
This was memory, captured in pain.
Serenya stood and walked toward her. "You've come farther than I feared and faster than I hoped."
Elowen tried to speak, but her throat tightened.
"I left these behind," Serenya said, gesturing to the trees. "Memories wrapped in sorrow. They fall only when the forest thinks you are ready."
Elowen reached out, but her hand passed through her mother's.
"I couldn't protect you," Serenya whispered. "But I can still prepare you."
She raised one hand.
The trees around them vanished, replaced by a tower made of mirrors—
the same one Elowen had seen in her earlier vision.
"This is where the god was born."
Elowen turned. "Born?"
Serenya nodded. "Not of flesh, but of grief."
In the vision, a young man knelt before the mirror tower. He held something wrapped in cloth. Something lifeless.
A child.
His child.
He pressed his head to the glass and screamed until the world cracked.
And from that crack...
a god crawled out.
A god of silence.
Of stillness.
Of sorrow.
Serenya's voice was low. "He was once a man named Aeron. He begged the old gods for mercy, and when they refused, he became something they feared."
The image shifted again.
A crown made of thorns.
A staff that bled when touched.
A voice that spoke in forgotten tongues.
"He was the first to break time in the Stillwoods. He trapped it. Stopped it. All to keep one moment from passing."
Elowen shivered. "The moment his child died."
Serenya turned to her. "The forest remembers. But so does he. And now that you're awakening, he fears you."
Elowen looked down. "Why me?"
"Because your blood carries my strength. And your pain carries his ruin."
The world began to fade.
Serenya stepped closer. "Three gates remain. You must find them. Face them. Only then will the forest return to time—and only then can you choose your fate."
Elowen tried to hold on. "Will I see you again?"
Serenya smiled, sad and proud. "Every time you hurt and rise anyway… I am there."
The memory snapped shut.
Elowen dropped to her knees, gasping.
Ashen rushed forward. "What happened?"
She looked up, tears in her eyes. "My mother… she showed me the truth."
Ashen helped her stand. "Then what now?"
Elowen stared toward the heart of the forest.
"We find the next gate."
Above them, the sky trembled.
The fracture pulsed.
And somewhere far away, the god of sorrow—Aeron—opened his hollow eyes and remembered love.