We left Gromireston at dawn, well prepared with the equipment needed to defeat crawlers. The governor paid us double, exactly as promised. Though the gold felt hollow compared to what waited for us ahead.
The edge of Gromo Forest loomed like a bruise against the sky. Mist curled through the roots, thick enough to hide footsteps. Birds had abandoned this place long ago. Even the wind hesitated before crossing the treeline.
Vikra tightened the strap across his sword. "Last chance to turn back."
Fletch adjusted his bowstring, tapped the bottom of his quiver to confirm it's fullness, and narrowed his eyes. "You'd have better luck convincing the sun not to rise."
I smiled faintly. "Then we go forward."
The trees swallowed us whole.
The air changed first. It was heavier than before. The ground squelched underfoot, damp with something that wasn't water.
The first creatures came quietly, thin things that looked like skeletons wrapped in damp bark. Their eyes glowed faint green, like fireflies trapped in skulls.
Vikra cut one down cleanly. "Like slicing butter."
I moved beside him, sweeping a palm through the air. The pressure shifted; the second creature's bones shattered before it touched me. "Don't jinx it, Vikra."
Fletch loosed an arrow into the dark, and something shrieked. "Hit!"
We fought in bursts. Crawlers. Rot-beasts. Hollow vines that moved like snakes. Nothing hard, but enough to bleed our stamina. The deeper we went, the less sunlight reached us. My lungs felt tight, but not from fear. Something here was breathing with me. The forest was alive and it remembered.
After hours of weaving through roots thicker than houses, the trees parted.
Before us stood the largest trunk I had ever seen. It towered into the heavens, bark blackened, its upper branches dead and skeletal. A wound gaped in its base like a cavern yawning open. It bark bled shadows instead of sap.
"The heart of the rot," Fletch murmured.
The air trembled. I felt mana hum through the roots, pulsing with a heartbeat that wasn't mine.
"I can feel it. It's in there," I whispered.
We stepped inside. Darkness closed in around us, complete and suffocating.
"Light, please, Eridan?" Vikra asked quietly.
I envisioned a levitating ball of water and dropped a piece of solid magnesium inside it. Magnesium is a very reactive metal… "Mag-sphere." I said.
A silver-white orb ignited above my hand, burning like a small star. Water curled around it, cooling the heat, forming a shimmering globe that hovered beside me. Its light threw our shadows long against the slick walls, which pulsed faintly like flesh.
The tunnels twisted and split, looping endlessly. Each passage stank of decay and pulsated with mana. We fought through pockets of corruption, small nests of crawlers, rotten creatures and beasts.
I counted each breath. One. Two. Three.
By the ninety-eight breath, we reached the center.
*
Voryna waited for us.
It was not a monster. Not yet.
Her skin gleamed like porcelain, unmarred except for faint cracks tracing her collarbone. Her hair floated around her head like strands of dark water. Her eyes, by the Saints, those eyes were full of sorrow, endless and cold.
"So," she said, her voice both a whisper and a thousand echoes. "You are the ones meddling in my forest."
"Voryna." Fletch's name for her felt heavy on my tongue.
She tilted her head as she turned towards Fletch's direction then back at me as I spoke.
"You're draining the land dry," I said, stepping forward. "You've turned men into beasts."
Her smile was beautiful and wrong. "I've given them eternity. What else do mortals crave?"
"Freedom," I said.
"Lies." she sneered. Her hands slowly lifted, and the world began to shatter around us.
Roots tore from the ground, snaking toward us. I leapt back, air exploding beneath my feet. Vikra darted forward, his blade slicing through a tangle of limbs, sparks flying.
Voryna's magic pulsed, tree roots rippling from nowhere, coiling into spears. I countered, freezing each of her attacks in midair and shattering them with a burst of wind. She retaliated with a loud shriek that fissured the ground.
I inhaled, drew heat from the air, and let it spiral through my veins. Fire burst from my fingertips, searing through the dark. Sparks rained like stars.
Vikra moved with me, our rhythm practiced by instinct now. His blade flashed, catching her off guard. For the first time, I saw surprise across her face.
I pressed the advantage. "Conduct," I whispered, pulling trace metals from the soil. They rose, glinting, forming thin rods in the air. Electricity crackled between them, gathering. "Discharge!"
Lightning tore through the chamber, blinding. It struck her square in the chest, sending her crashing into the trunk's far wall.
When the dust cleared, she looked almost human again, weak and trembling with a single crack running down her cheek.
Then she smiled.
"Beautiful," she whispered, and reached out her hand.
The air shifted. My chest tightened.
"Shit!" Vikra coughed, staggering as light bled from his skin. "She's draining…"
I felt it too, the pull she had on us. My mana streaming outward, drawn into her like a tide. I tried to cut it off, to shield myself, but it didn't stop. She was drinking everything.
Vikra fell to one knee, his sword slipping from his hand.
"Eriden," he gasped.
But I stood firm.
The power she pulled from me refilled as quickly as she drained it. Ether surged through me, unending. My hair whipped in the storm of it, my skin glowing faintly.
"Stop," I said.
Voryna only laughed, wild and aching. "You don't understand. You're the resolution! Your mana, your life… it's exactly what I have been seeking!"
"I said stop, now!" I warned her again.
She didn't stop. She continued to draw more mana out of me.
So I let Ether loose.
Light erupted, silent and absolute. My breath caught as I burst her with Ether and then just as quickly syphoned it all back in less than a second. Her body convulsed, her porcelain face splitting wider down the center. The cracks raced across her chest and arms, glowing with white heat.
Voryna screamed. Not in rage, but deep agony.
When the light faded, she stood still but trembling. Her body was fractured but whole. Her voice came soft, almost childlike.
"Do it." she said.
I blinked. "What?"
"End me," she whispered. "If I die, I need just one promise."
Vikra and I looked at each other. Please revive him. Is this monster serious?
"Please revive him…"
My heart stuttered. "Him?"
She turned, and the ground behind her shifted. A large tree root unraveled, curling away from something hidden within the trunk. Glass, glowing faintly with mana.
"A casket?" Vikra mumbled.
Inside, suspended in shimmering blue light, lay Fletch's body.
His body was perfect. His body was still, no breathing was visible and his face was calm as though sleeping.
My breath caught as my brows furrowed in confusion. "What? But how? When, in all of this mess, did Voryna get the chance to take Fletch?"
Voryna smiled through the cracks with blackened bloody tears tracing her face. "He was my light. My anchor. I tried to bring him back. I tried everything. But the magic…" She laughed weakly, the sound breaking. "It took me instead."
She stepped closer, eyes pleading. "He was supposed to wake first! I was going to give him everything that I am, so he could breathe once more. I only wanted one more sunrise with him, but even that isn't possible anymore. Fletch, my love. To you I offer you my soul, so that you may live once more."
I shook my head, throat tight. "What is going on?"
"Love," she said softly, almost reverently. "The cruelest alchemy of all."
Her hand reached toward me, trembling. "Kill me, and save him. Let one of us have peace."
Her words broke something in me. I looked at Vikra, still kneeling but conscious enough to watch. His eyes held no judgment, only quiet sorrow.
I raised my hand, Ether pulsing around my fingers. "Voryna…"
"Please. Do it. Now."
Her voice was barely a breath.
I closed my eyes, and granted her her wish.
Light flared once, pure and clean as I sent a mix of electricity and fire into her. When it faded, Voryna was gone. Only her cracked porcelain mask lay on the floor.
The casket behind her glowed brighter, its mana trembling like a heartbeat.
Fletch's heartbeat.
I fell to my knees, staring at the man who had saved me, who had laughed with me by the fire, whose smile had already started to haunt my dreams.
And realization hit like lightning.
He had never been alive. Not since the day she lost him.