The forest was no longer alive.
Where once birds had hidden in the branches and night insects had sung their shrill songs, now there was only the thick, heavy quiet of death. The clearing smelled of iron and smoke, and the pale moonlight fell upon a field of bones.
Elara stood in the center of it all, her body trembling, her lips chapped and dry. Her hair, so recently wild and ravenous, now hung limp and wet, streaked with gore that clung stubbornly to its strands.
Drops of blood slid down, thick and sticky, but the hair did not drink anymore. It twitched faintly, exhausted, as though even it had limits.
Her gloves were shredded. The delicate skin of her palms and fingers was torn open, small cuts oozing bright blood. She tried to flex her hand, but the sting made her hiss softly. For the first time since she had embraced the hunger, she looked small — human.
The maids noticed. They broke their silence not with pity, but with movement.
Liora, fierce and blunt as always, strode to one of the packs dropped by their carriage. She pulled out a canteen of water and knelt by Elara's side. "You can't stay like this, my lady," she muttered, her voice low but steady. "You'll sicken if the blood dries on you."
Aveline was already tearing strips of cloth from her own sleeve. Her pale face was drawn tight with worry, but her hands were quick and sure. She dipped the cloth into the water Liora poured and began carefully dabbing at Elara's hair, strand by strand.
Each touch revealed the true sheen of the hair beneath the filth — still unnaturally pale, still gleaming faintly under the moonlight, but weighted with exhaustion.
Brenna crouched near Elara's hand, her soldier's eyes flicking over the torn gloves. "Hold still," she said gently, not as a command but as a request. She cleaned the worst of the blood, then wrapped the wounds with slow precision, the bandages snug but not suffocating.
Elara allowed it, her chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. Each touch stung, but the ritual of care steadied her.
When Brenna tied off the bandage, Elara whispered, "Thank you."
The three maids paused, their eyes widening. They had heard her give orders, sharp and cold; they had heard her laughter, mocking and strong. But thanks — soft, real — was new.
Liora cleared her throat. "Don't thank us. Just… don't fall like that again."
Aveline smiled faintly, her fingers still working through the knots in Elara's stained hair. "We'll keep you standing, my lady. Even when you think you'll fall."
For a moment, there was no hunger, no gods, no looming thrones. Just quiet. Just the sound of water dripping onto cloth, and the low hiss of the fire they had managed to keep alive through the battle.
It was Brenna who found it.
While the others tended to Elara, the tall maid moved toward the commander's remains. His armor, once glowing with power, now lay cracked and dented beside his pile of bones. The metal hissed faintly, cooling from its supernatural heat.
Brenna bent down, her shield still strapped to her arm, and brushed away a layer of ash. Her fingers found something etched into the breastplate, beneath the queen's sigil.
A second mark.
Her breath caught. She leaned closer, wiping harder, until the symbol revealed itself fully: a circular design, jagged and precise, woven with shapes that made the eye ache to follow. A serpent devouring its own tail. Within it, three crescents interlocked like the phases of a moon. Around them, runes older than the kingdom's written language.
Brenna's throat went dry. She lifted the armor piece and carried it back toward the group.
"My lady," she said, setting it gently at Elara's feet. "Look."
Elara blinked down at it, her vision still hazy from exhaustion. Her hand shook as she brushed the surface, tracing the lines. The moment her finger touched the inner crescents, her stomach clenched — not with hunger, but with recognition. The gods stirred inside her.
Her vision flickered.
For a heartbeat, the clearing dissolved, replaced by flashes of shadowy figures kneeling in a temple long buried. She saw chains glowing in the dark, not red like the commander's, but black as void. She heard chanting, not in words she knew, but in a language that tasted like blood and ash.
She gasped and recoiled, her bandaged hand clutching the armor.
Lysandra moved instantly, her arms wrapping around Elara's shoulders. "What is it?"
Elara's lips parted. "This… isn't only the queen. This crest…" She swallowed hard, her voice trembling in a way that made the maids lean closer. "It belongs to something older. Something hidden. An order forgotten — or buried."
Her hair twitched faintly, strands curling toward the crest as if to drink from it, but recoiling at the last moment. Even the hunger did not want it.
Liora scowled, her sharp eyes darting between the sigil and Elara's face. "So the crown is not acting alone."
Brenna nodded grimly. "They've bound themselves to something else. Something older than the throne."
Aveline hugged herself, shivering despite the fire. "Then it means we're not just fighting the queen anymore."
Elara stared at the crest, the runes burning in her mind. For the first time, she felt not only fear, but the weight of inevitability.
"This kingdom," she whispered, "has shadows even the gods did not speak of."
The adrenaline drained from her body all at once. Elara slumped against Lysandra, her hair dragging across the ground in a heavy, bloodied heap. Her vision swam. Her bandaged hand throbbed in time with her pulse.
"I… can't…" Her voice cracked. She hated the sound of weakness in her own mouth, but the truth tore through anyway. "I can't move."
Lysandra tightened her arms around her. "Then you don't. Rest. For once, let others carry the weight."
Elara's head fell against her shoulder. The maids shifted uneasily but said nothing. They had seen her as a goddess, a storm of white strands tearing men to bones. But now she was pale and trembling, her lips cracked, her hair lifeless.
It made her more human — and, strangely, it made their loyalty deepen.
Liora poured more water over the cloth and squeezed it down the length of Elara's hair. Blood diluted into pink streams, soaking into the dirt.
"You'll stain the whole forest red if we leave you like this," she muttered, though her hands were careful, almost gentle.
Brenna checked the bandages again, adjusting them to stop fresh bleeding. "You'll scar," she said bluntly.
"Let it scar," Elara whispered, her eyes half-closed. "I want them to see what they tried to chain."
Aveline offered her a small piece of dried fruit from their supplies. "Eat. Please."
Elara looked at it for a long moment, then shook her head faintly. "Not yet. My stomach… turns."
The maids exchanged glances but did not press.
When the blood was washed away and her hand bound, the group turned to their guards. Two men and a woman had survived the ambush, their armor dented, their eyes hollow. They were slumped against the broken carriage, breathing hard, too tired even to tend their wounds properly.
Lysandra ordered them to rest. "One hour. No more. Then we move."
The guards nodded weakly.
The maids spread bedrolls close to the fire. Elara did not argue when Lysandra carried her to one, laying her down with surprising care. The white-haired girl curled on her side, her hair coiling loosely around her body like a protective nest.
Lysandra lay beside her, not sleeping but watching, her sword across her knees.
The night stretched thin. The forest stayed silent. Every creak of wood or rustle of leaf made the guards flinch.
But no more chains came.
For now.