The crowd moved as one body, all moving with torches and voices. The air trembled with their fury, thick with smoke and fear.
"Exile her!""Burn her!""Drive her out!"
The chants overlapped until they lost their words, until they became something deeper an instinct, the voice of survival clawing through every throat.
Aria's breath came shallow, she tried to meet their eyes, but each gaze was harder than the last, carved out of fear and betrayal. She could almost hear the walls of the village closing, every door slamming shut against her.
Tomas planted his feet beside her, hammer still raised. His voice cracked through the din: "You'll damn yourselves if you do this! You'd rather listen to fear than the truth?"
But his father shoved forward, jaw locked like stone. "The truth is standing in front of us. Look at her! Look at her hands. Do you call that salvation?"
Aria's wrists burned. Ash still clung to her fingers, faint streaks of red glowing beneath her skin where the fire had answered her. She hid them at her sides, but it was too late the villagers had seen.
A ripple of terror passed through the crowd. Mothers drew children back. Men leveled spears.
The eldest of the cloaked council raised her staff again. The sound cracked through the smoke. "The decision is made. She will leave before the dawn. If she remains, the fire will take more than banners and wood."
A roar of agreement swept the square. The verdict was sealed.
Tomas turned on them, desperate. "She saved you! She"
Hands seized him, dragging him back into the crowd. He fought, cursing, but the villagers pinned him fast.
Aria's chest hollowed. She wanted to scream, to beg but the words caught in her throat, smothered by the weight of every eye pressing down. She could only stand as they pushed her back, step by step, toward the edge of the square.
A spear point gleamed inches from her ribs. "Walk," the hunter holding it growled.
She stumbled forward, the villagers parting just enough to let her pass. Their faces burned in her memory, neighbors she had once carried water with, danced with at harvest. Now their mouths twisted in hate.
As the gates loomed ahead, the oak's voice stirred again quieter, strained, like wind through dying leaves. Stand, or fall.
Aria's fists clenched, nails biting her palms, she wanted to stand. She wanted to fight. But the spear pressed harder, and the gates yawned open like a wound in the earth.
Beyond them, the forest waited, black and endless. Watching.
The mob shoved her through.
The gates slammed shut behind her, the sound echoing through her bones. She was alone.
The silence was immediate, suffocating. No more torches, no more chanting only the whisper of the trees and the distant, steady rhythm of her own heartbeat.
Her knees gave way, and she dropped to the cold dirt road, palms pressed to the earth. Tears carved paths through the soot on her face.
Exiled, cast out like a sickness.
But beneath the grief, beneath the ache of betrayal, something else stirred. A small flame.
Not the wild blaze that had burst free in the square. Not yet. This one was quieter, steadier.
They had thrown her to the forest.
And the forest had been waiting.