The woods stretched wide and silent, cloaked in a mist that clung like damp breath. Kaelen walked ahead with his hand on the hilt of his blade, Maeve not far behind him, her keen eyes scanning the underbrush. Rhess flanked the rear, silent, distant, ever-watchful.
Seralyn's thoughts were not on the trees. They had walked through worse terrain. What unsettled her was the quiet in Kaelen—the dullness in his voice since they left Vaelgard. The prophecy had cracked something open in him.
And in her, too.
They passed beneath a thicket of half-dead pine, where the branches twisted into blackened shapes. Somewhere ahead, a scream pierced the air.
High. Human. Female.
Kaelen froze. His sword was drawn before anyone could speak.
"Someone's in trouble," he said sharply, and dashed toward the sound.
They burst into a clearing where the mist coiled unnaturally, as if summoned by something foul. A creature of sinew and rot hunched over a writhing figure—a girl in a tattered cloak, shielding her face.
Seralyn reacted instinctively. Flame sparked from her fingertips and struck the beast's side. It shrieked, reared back, and Kaelen plunged his blade through its skull. The monster crumpled with a wet thud.
The girl on the ground trembled, blood on her cheek, her eyes wide with shock.
"Are you hurt?" Seralyn knelt beside her.
"I… I think I'm alive," the girl stammered, then looked up. Her gaze locked with Kaelen's.
And everything stopped.
Seralyn saw it—Kaelen's breath caught, his grip slackened.
"Lyra?" he whispered.
The girl blinked, tears springing to her eyes. "Kaelen?"
For a long moment, silence reigned. Then he stepped forward, kneeling before her like a man glimpsing a ghost.
"I thought you were dead," he said, voice hollow. "You vanished after the fire…"
"I ran," she said, trembling. "I couldn't… they said you were gone, and the Order—"
She broke off into sobs, and Kaelen pulled her into his arms.
Seralyn looked away, uneasy. Maeve exchanged a glance with Rhess, but no one spoke.
Later, around the campfire, Lyra told fragments of a tale—how she'd wandered, how something had chased her for days, how she stumbled upon this cursed forest by mistake. She spoke softly, sweetly, her voice carrying a warmth that soothed even Maeve's wary demeanor.
But Seralyn watched her closely. There was something off. Not lies, no—but a precision in the way Lyra spoke. A carefulness. As if she was walking a tightrope made of memory.
Still, Kaelen believed her. That was enough, for now.
That night, as the fire dwindled, Seralyn sat alone beneath the trees, listening.
Not to the wind.
To the whispers.
They were back. Distant. Faint. Words like:
"Two souls bear the light…"
"…before the throne of night…"
"…one heart will break…"
She closed her eyes, clutching her cloak tighter.
Something was coming. And Lyra's return was no coincidence.