The forest did not brighten with distance.
As Kael followed Liora through the twisting undergrowth, the eternal twilight clung to the canopy, veins of light weaving across branches and roots like glowing arteries. His staff pressed against the soil with every step, his muscles aching, his breaths shallow. But he kept moving. He had learned one lesson here well—stillness was death.
Liora walked several paces ahead, silent as shadow, her cloak whispering against roots and grass. She moved with precision, every step placed as though she already knew where the forest would shift beneath them. Kael found himself watching the way she tilted her head, pausing when the trees hummed too loudly or the ground quivered faintly underfoot.
"How long have you survived here?" Kael asked at last.
Her voice drifted back, calm but clipped. "Long enough to stop counting."
"Not an answer."
"It's the only one you'll get."
Kael snorted, though it came out weaker than he intended. "You sound like the System when it refuses to explain anything."
At that, she glanced back. A flicker of surprise broke through her composure, quickly shuttered again. "The System speaks to you?"
Kael frowned. "Doesn't it speak to everyone?"
Her silence stretched too long.
The weight of it made Kael's chest tighten. "You're telling me it doesn't?"
Liora looked away, resuming her careful steps. "The System hasn't spoken to me in years."
The words sank into Kael like stones into water. His own fragmented guidance, as maddening as it was, had been the only thread of reason through the forest's chaos. To imagine silence—utter abandonment—made his veins chill.
"Then how—" Kael began, then stopped. He didn't finish the question. He didn't need to. The scars etched along Liora's arms, the way her blade moved like part of her body, the weariness carved into her voice—those were her answer.
She had survived without it.
Kael felt suddenly small.
---
Hours passed. They skirted around twisted groves where the trees leaned inward, their trunks fused into archways of bone-like wood. In one place, veins of light stretched across the air itself, thin and taut, shimmering like spider silk. Liora raised a hand sharply, halting Kael before he walked straight into them.
"Threads," she whispered.
Kael peered closer. The strands looked harmless, faintly beautiful even, glowing with pale blue. "What are they?"
Liora plucked a pebble from the ground and flicked it at the nearest thread.
The pebble barely touched before the air shivered—and the thread sang, a sharp, crystalline note that cut into Kael's skull. The sound spread, echoing, multiplying, until the whole grove hummed with predatory resonance.
From the shadows above, something stirred.
Dozens of eyes blinked open across the canopy—round, lidless, gleaming like pools of milk. Limbs twitched among the branches, too many to count, each joint bending wrong.
Kael's blood froze. "What—"
"Don't speak," Liora hissed. She moved backward slowly, careful not to touch another strand. Her hand hovered near her blade but didn't draw it. "Sound draws them closer."
Kael swallowed hard, forcing his breath shallow. The System murmured a faint warning in his skull—Predator class: Shiverweavers. Engagement inadvisable.
He had no argument.
Step by step, they retreated. The eyes tracked them, dozens upon dozens, following their slow escape until the glow of the threads thinned and the hum dulled into silence.
Only when they were clear did Kael let his breath out. "How many things like that live here?" he asked hoarsely.
"Enough," Liora said. "More than enough."
Kael shook his head. "And you wonder why I don't want your war. How do you even fight a place that wants you dead?"
Her reply came like steel against stone. "You don't fight the forest. You fight the thing feeding it."
Her gaze flicked meaningfully back toward where the Veinspire pulsed unseen through the trees.
---
By the time they stopped to rest, Kael's legs burned. They found shelter in the hollow of a tree trunk large enough to house both of them, its inside carved smooth by age or something far less natural. The glow outside dimmed as if shadows had thickened into walls, and though Kael knew true night didn't exist here, he felt the forest sink into deeper menace.
He leaned back against the wood, staff across his lap, and let his eyes fall shut. His exhaustion was bone-deep.
"Don't sleep," Liora said quietly.
His eyes snapped open. "I haven't slept properly since I arrived here. What's the worst that could happen?"
"Worse than you think." She didn't elaborate, simply unsheathing her blade and laying it across her knees. The gesture wasn't for him—it was for whatever might creep close in the silence.
Kael sighed, rubbing his temples. His veins still thrummed faintly with the Veil's residue. He felt it sometimes like a second heartbeat, pulsing when he was weakest.
"You've seen others, haven't you?" he asked after a while.
Liora's eyes stayed fixed on the forest beyond the hollow. "I've seen hundreds."
"And how many survived?"
Her silence was answer enough.
Kael swallowed the bitterness in his throat. "So why me? Why not leave me for the forest like the rest?"
Liora's jaw worked, as if she debated answering. Finally, she spoke. "Because you stood at the Veinspire and walked away."
Kael let out a broken laugh. "Barely."
"But you did," she said sharply. "I've seen men of iron will crumble to ash the moment they touched its call. Whatever you are, whatever brought you here—you're different. And different matters."
Her eyes flicked toward him briefly, and for the first time, he saw not suspicion but something close to reluctant hope.
Kael looked away, unsettled. He didn't want to be anyone's hope. He was barely holding himself together.
The System stirred faintly in his mind, its tone cool and clinical:
> [Observation: Subject Liora exhibits anomalous resistance to System integration. Possible significance to ongoing survival. Recommendation: Continued alliance may increase long-term survival probability.]
For once, Kael didn't argue with it.
---
They sat in silence for what felt like hours, the forest whispering faintly outside. Kael's eyes wandered to the scars on Liora's arms again—faint, some old, some fresh. Each told a story of survival written in pain.
"Liora," he said softly.
She glanced at him, one brow arched.
"If you've been here that long… what's beyond the forest?"
For the first time since they met, her composure faltered. Her gaze turned distant, as though remembering something both beautiful and cruel.
"Beyond?" she echoed. Her voice dropped, almost a whisper. "Cities swallowed whole. Rivers turned black with roots. Mountains bleeding light. And above it all, the Towers—anchors like the Veinspire, each one binding this world tighter into the Veil."
Her eyes darkened. "If the Towers fall, maybe the world breathes again. If not… it dies."
Kael's breath caught. The weight of it was too vast, too heavy. He had stumbled here only wanting survival, but the scope of the forest's curse stretched beyond his comprehension.
"Why tell me this?" he asked quietly.
"Because you'll see it soon enough."
The certainty in her tone left no room for doubt.
Kael closed his eyes briefly, gripping his staff tighter. His reflection's smile in the stream returned to him, taunting.
He wondered which fate awaited him—resisting, or becoming another shadow feeding the Veil.
---
Outside, the forest shifted.
The hum of the veins deepened, a vibration that rattled the hollow trunk around them. Liora's hand snapped to her blade, her entire body tense. Kael's veins prickled, his skin crawling with recognition.
Something vast moved in the distance. Not the skittering of Chitterkin, not the whisper of Shiverweavers, but something heavier—like the world itself dragging chains through its soil.
Liora's voice was low, grim. "It's coming closer."
Kael's grip tightened on his staff. "What is?"
Her eyes flickered with dread.
"The Warden."
---