The forest changed as they traveled east.
The trees grew thinner, bark white as bone, and the wind carried no birdsong. Even the sunlight felt wrong here—filtered, brittle, like it had forgotten how to warm the earth.
They walked in silence. Maerin rarely spoke now. She watched the shadows more than the path, staff always within reach.
Erynn's Rune flared once—briefly, like a warning.
He ignored it.
---
They made camp beneath a twisted fir, roots curled like claws. Erynn gathered firewood while Maerin sketched maps in the dirt. He was just beginning to relax when the ferns shifted.
Not from the wind.
Footsteps.
He turned slowly—
—and saw the figure step out from the treeline.
Cloaked. Masked. The mask was smooth and white, carved into a blank face with a single vertical slash down the center.
The figure raised a hand.
"Runeborn," it rasped, voice hollow. "You bear the Spark. By Order decree, you forfeit your life."
Maerin was already moving. She hurled a blast of frost that shattered bark and kicked up a swirl of leaves. The masked figure vanished—
—then reappeared behind her.
Erynn didn't think.
The Rune ignited.
Purple light exploded from his chest as he reached out. The ground cracked. Roots twisted upward like grasping fingers, snaring the attacker's legs.
The figure hissed. Steel flashed. Maerin's staff blocked the strike just in time.
"He's marked by the Final Sigil!" the masked one snarled. "They were right!"
"Who are you?" Erynn shouted.
The mask turned toward him.
"Your end."
---
The battle blurred. Magic tore the air—frost met flame, rune against rune. Erynn moved by instinct, not knowledge, but the Rune guided him. A flick of his wrist sent ripples through the earth. A wordless thought summoned force like a hammer-blow.
But it wasn't enough.
The masked figure was faster. Trained.
Maerin fell, blood on her shoulder.
Erynn screamed.
The Rune responded.
A burst of light shot from his chest and struck the mask—cracking it in two. The figure staggered, dropping their blade.
Underneath was a girl. Pale. Eyes glazed.
But her expression—
—was calm.
"You'll awaken the King," she whispered. "And we'll all burn."
Then she collapsed.
---
Maerin knelt beside the girl, breath ragged. "She was Rune-bound. A puppet. Mind chained by the Order."
Erynn stared at his hands. They still glowed faintly.
"I could've killed her."
Maerin touched his shoulder. "You didn't."
He looked at the fallen mask, still smoking.
"But I think I could have."
---
Later, as they buried the girl beneath the ferns, Erynn asked, "Why do they fear me?"
Maerin looked to the distant hills.
"Because the Rune doesn't just answer you," she said. "It follows you. And it's waking things no one wants to see again."
---
To be continued…