THE FOREST WHISPERS
The Draven Estate didn't sleep. Even when the fires burned down to embers and the hallways went silent, Marina could feel it—the house watching her. There was no settling creak of wood, no wind against the windows. Only the faintest sounds outside her door: soft, padded footsteps that paused too long, the slow scrape of something sharp dragging against the wood
They weren't guarding her. They were waiting.
She sat on the narrow bed, Ezra's cracked compass resting in her palm. The golden glow beneath her skin pulsed faintly along her veins, no longer confined to her birthmark. It crawled up her forearm, spreading like creeping frost—except it burned.
The room felt colder than it had earlier, though the small fireplace still crackled in the corner. Her reflection in the window looked Pale. Strained. Her eyes were too wide, like she was already halfway to being something she didn't understand.
And then the whisper came.
Not from her head. Not from a dream.
From outside.
"Marina…"
Her breath caught. It was soft, almost melodic, floating just beyond the glass like smoke. She pushed off the bed and crossed to the window, fingers clutching the curtain until her knuckles whitened.
The forest loomed beyond the yard, an ocean of black and silver where the moonlight cut through the pines. For a heartbeat, she thought she saw a flicker of pale light between the trees, like a reflection or a lantern. But it was gone as quickly as it appeared.
Then, again, the voice—closer now, curling like a hand around her spine:
"Find me…"
Her instincts screamed to stay inside. To wake Kael, to wait until morning, to pretend she hadn't heard it at all. But her legs didn't listen. Something deep, something foreign inside her veins, pulled her toward the door.
She grabbed her jacket. Slipped her boots on. The compass stayed in her hand like a lifeline, though she wasn't sure why.
The hallways were empty as she crept through them. The lanterns burned low, their light flickering across the carved wooden walls. Even Kael was nowhere to be seen, and the quiet pressed in heavy, like the air before a storm.
The cold outside bit through her coat the moment she stepped out. The lanterns along the estate's lawn cast soft, hazy circles of light, but beyond that, the forest was a wall of black. The pines swayed, their movement somehow disconnected from the still air.
She stopped at the edge of the grass, her breath misting in the moonlight.
The voice didn't call again.
But her feet kept moving.
The moment she crossed into the tree line, the air changed.
The wind didn't sound like wind anymore. The branches of the pines rubbed together, soft and rhythmic, their creaks drawn out into almost-words, like the forest itself was whispering in a language she almost understood. Her senses sharpened with every step—every crackle of a twig beneath her boots, every faint shift of snow, every flicker of shadow.
Her veins pulsed hotter, the glow brightening just enough for her to see faint golden light seeping through her skin. Her fingertips tingled, her heartbeat hammering like a drum.
Then she saw it, Ezra's compass.
It lay at the base of a massive pine, the cracked glass catching the moonlight. Next to it, four deep claw marks carved through the bark, fresh enough that sap still bled from the gouges, dripping like tears.
Marina crouched, fingers brushing the cold metal of the compass—
And the forest stopped.
Not the sounds. Everything.
The wind died. The branches froze mid-sway. Even the distant rustle of animals vanished, leaving a silence so complete it buzzed in her ears.
Her breath came fast and shallow. The hair on her arms lifted. She turned her head slowly, every sense straining. Her vision felt… sharper. She could make out the texture of the bark on distant trees, the slow drip of sap from the claw marks. Her hearing picked up the faintest sound—her pulse, quick and erratic.
Then, another sound.
A breath.
Hot, Slow Too close.
It stirred the tiny hairs at the back of her neck, raising every muscle along her spine.
Before she could move, a rough, guttural voice rasped from just behind her ear, so low she felt it in her bones as much as heard it:
"Run."
Her veins flared, golden light sparking under her skin like fire racing through her blood. Her body locked, every muscle trembling, and for a heartbeat, she couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.
Then instinct took over.
Marina bolted, crashing into the dark woods—heart hammering, the compass slipping from her bloodied hand as the shadows behind her came alive.