The mountain was alive again.
Not loud, not bustling — but breathing.
The air carried that strange hum, the same one that had first made Isabella's skin crawl when she arrived here. A soundless vibration that threaded through the mist and earth like a heartbeat. Every stone seemed to remember her footsteps.
She moved slowly, following a faint path that glimmered with silver light under the morning haze. Glimora peeked from her hood, the tiny creature's fur bristling at every whisper of wind.
"Don't look at me like that," Isabella muttered, stepping over a root. "You're the one who wanted to come."
Glimora chirped softly in protest.
The forest thickened the higher she climbed. Trees here were tall and twisted, their bark streaked with veins of blue light that pulsed faintly, like living veins. Strange flowers glowed along the trail, opening and closing as if breathing in rhythm with the mountain. The smell was faintly sweet — like crushed herbs mixed with metal.
