The Ashenwood did not welcome visitors.
It endured them.
Night fell like a blade the moment they crossed the true treeline.
SHNK— one heartbeat the sky was bruised purple;
FWOOOM— the next, the canopy swallowed every last scrap of light.
The air thickened immediately—rot, iron, and a sweetness that clung to the back of the tongue like overripe fruit gone slightly wrong. No birds. No insects. Even the wind whispered only when forced.
Sunniless walked barefoot across centuries-deep layers of dead leaves that refused to crunch.
They sighed beneath him—soft, exhausted breaths, as though the forest itself exhaled millennia of boredom.
Nyxara flowed beside him, above him, and sometimes beneath him—her massive serpent body threading between the trunks with the silence of smoke.
Moonlight dared pierce the branches once—only once—before dying on her scales.
Time felt drunk here. Minutes slid sideways. Hours looped backward. The forest did not care which.
The venom she had licked into his cheek still burned—less now, but deeper. It had become a second heartbeat under his skin, spreading through his blood like molten gold. Each pulse brought new sensations:
• cracked ribs dulling
• old scars itching as they erased themselves
• hunger—his oldest companion—quieting to a satisfied purr
He hated how good it felt.
"So," he rasped, voice steadier than it had any right to be, "this power you promised. When do I get to torch a palace or two?"
Patience, little thief.
Her voice curled through his mind like warm smoke.
Power given too quickly burns the vessel.
You are a cracked cup.
We mend the cracks first.
"Flattering." He kicked a root shaped suspiciously like a clutching hand. "So what's next? Bathe me in virgin blood? Feast on king hearts?"
Nyxara laughed.
GRRRRRM—
A low earthquake that made the leaves tremble.
Nothing so quaint.
You will drink of me.
And I will drink of you.
A slow exchange.
A marriage of hungers.
He stopped walking.
The clearing they stepped into wasn't a clearing at all—it was a ruin.
Obsidian pillars—cathedral-high—rose in a perfect circle, carved with serpents devouring their own tails. At the center lay a sunken pool, blacker than starless void, its surface showing slow, shifting constellations that stabbed the eyes if stared at too long.
The venom inside him surged. Hungry. Eager.
"Pretty," he said flatly. "Let me guess. I jump in and come out able to spit acid and bench-press castles?"
You will come out able to survive the next minute.
That is enough for now.
He opened his mouth to retort—
—and the forest screamed.
Not metaphorically.
The trees themselves shrieked.
CRRRRRAAAAAACK—!
Every shadow between the trunks unfurled like a nightmare stretching after a long sleep. Tall, thin shapes stepped free—made of bark, bone, and wrong angles. Smooth faces. Sideways mouths. Rings of needle teeth.
Ashwraiths.
Guardians of the compact.
Nyxara's voice tightened.
Old jailers. They kept me bound nine hundred years. They will try to keep you dead.
"Friends of yours?" Sunniless backed up reflexively.
Old jailers, she repeated. Now corpses waiting to happen.
The nearest wraith lunged.
SKRRRRRCH— limbs bending backward, claws elongating like spears.
Nyxara's tail snapped—
BOOOOM—!
The thing exploded into drifting ash.
Dozens more stepped out.
Then hundreds.
Ink spilling uphill.
Sunniless's heart hammered.
The venom roared back.
Run, little thief.
To the pool.
Touch the water and the pact begins.
Fail, and we are both fertilizer.
"Running it is."
He bolted.
Roots erupted to trip him.
Branches whipped across his face—WHIP-CRACK!—drawing blood that smoked on impact with bark. Wraiths keened—KEEEEEEIIRRRGH—, a sound that tried to hollow his mind from the inside.
One raked claws across his back—RIP— bright pain tearing him open—
The venom devoured the agony. Turned it to fuel.
He laughed.
Wild. Terrified. Ecstatic.
Nyxara raged through the forest around him—a hurricane of scale, fang, and shadow.
Every strike exploded wraiths into black cinders.
They reformed instantly.
She wasn't winning.
She was buying seconds.
The pool loomed.
Ten paces.
Five.
A wraith dropped directly in front of him—mouth yawning wide enough to swallow his skull.
He didn't slow.
He ducked under the bite, slammed his shoulder into its chest—
CRRRUNCH— rotten wood giving way—
felt several ribs break—SNAP, SNAP—
felt them knit mid-motion—
He hit the pool's edge.
And dove.
The water was not water.
It was memory.
It was teeth.
It was hunger older than kingdoms.
The moment he touched it, the world inverted—
FWOOOOSH—
He fell upward into a void while sinking through centuries of mud. Images slammed into him like hammer blows:
• Nyxara chained between the obsidian pillars, silver bindings burning like frozen fire while hooded figures chanted a language older than the moon.
• A battlefield under a red moon—dragon and serpent ripping mountain-sized chunks from each other.
• Himself—Sunniless—standing on the ruins of Elynor's palace, wearing a crown of black fire while the city burned and thousands knelt.
• His mother's face the day he sold her.
Not angry.
Just disappointed.
That image cut deepest.
He screamed—maybe.
Sound didn't exist here.
Nyxara's voice reached him, for once gentle.
Drink.
Something hot and ancient poured down his throat.
Not liquid.
Essence.
Rage. Loneliness. Amusement. Hunger.
Centuries of Nyxara distilled into one burning mouthful.
His body convulsed.
Veins lit beneath his skin like molten circuitry.
Bones shifted—CRACK-THOOM—
Scars split open, healed flawless.
His posture straightened, shoulders rolling back into a shape meant for command.
Even his teeth sharpened—just a fraction.
And in return, something left him.
Not his soul.
Something smaller.
Meaner.
The part of him that whispered tomorrow will be better if I just steal more.
The part that excused every betrayal.
It bled out into the pool and vanished.
He did not miss it.
He broke the surface with a gasp.
Hours later.
Or seconds. Impossible to tell.
The wraiths were gone—reduced to drifting ash.
Nyxara coiled around the pillars, watching him with ancient, unreadable eyes.
He crawled out on hands and knees that no longer shook. His body felt borrowed—stronger, unfamiliar, a skin two sizes too large.
The bruises were gone.
So was the childhood limp.
The air tasted different—layered, rich, alive.
He looked down.
Veins of liquid shadow curled beneath his skin, shifting into serpent shapes.
"How much did you take?" he asked. His voice had changed—deeper, rougher, like gravel soaked in honey.
Only what you could spare.
Greed is still yours.
But now it has teeth.
He flexed.
SNIKT— claws slid out—black, curved, predatory.
A grin split his new, sharper mouth.
"Good."
He turned toward the faint glow of Elynor on the horizon—smoke from riots, bells tolling for his head. He could hear it all.
"Tell me, partner… how long until I walk back into that city and make the king choke on his own crown?"
Nyxara laughed.
RUMBLE— like distant thunder learning to smile.
Sooner than he thinks.
But first, little thief, we hunt.
You are still half-starved.
And I have old debts in these woods.
Something large screamed in the distance—something that had never expected to be prey.
Sunniless rolled his shoulders, letting the new strength settle.
"Then let's collect."
He took a step—paused.
"Nyxara."
Yes?
"Thanks. For pulling me off that guillotine."
Do not thank me yet.
I did not save you from death.
I merely postponed it.
One day the bill comes due.
He shrugged. "Everything has a price. At least this one comes with interest I can spend."
He walked into the trees.
Nyxara followed, a shadow with fangs.
Behind them, the pool stilled, perfect as glass.
Deep beneath its surface—
two golden eyes opened.
And waited.