The wind beyond Ironspire was cold, sharper than it had been on their way in, as if the world itself knew they carried something sacred, and sought to test their resolve.
The path wound down from the mountain spine into the lowlands, where forests grew thick and the land sagged with age. Time felt slower here, as though the trees had long ceased to care for the lives of men. Birds did not sing. The sun passed dimly, its rays shivering against the shifting leaves. The road became roots. The roots became moss. And the moss became silence.
Malrick walked ahead. Silent, as always, but not still. There was a restlessness in his steps, a slight twitch of his fingers every time the wind whispered too sharply or a shadow moved the wrong way. His eyes burned with thoughtless fire, but his lips held their usual restraint. He was a flame barely contained, a knife that hadn't yet decided where to cut.
Orien trailed beside him, gaze constantly shifting between the sky and the underbrush. He carried the calm of a scholar, but in his stillness was calculation. He felt the patterns of the forest, the rhythm of silence, the meaning behind the unnatural hush. Something about this place disturbed him. Not in the way that fear does, but in the way an unsolved riddle needles at the mind.
Rayan led from behind, hand never far from the hilt of his sword. There was an urgency in his stride, an unspoken hunger that moved with him. He had changed since Drakenshold, the fire of the wyrm still flickering behind his eyes. His steps were no longer uncertain. He knew where he was going, even if he didn't know why.
By the third day, they reached the outskirts of a forest none of them recognized, though Orien's maps were thorough and the stars above familiar.
It had no name on parchment.
But carved into a rotting wooden sign half-buried in brambles were the words:
"Elderhollow."
The name sank into their bones.
Elderhollow was not dead, but it wished to be.
Massive trees arched above them like cathedral pillars, their bark veined with silver and dark resin that pulsed faintly, like veins beneath skin. Vines crept like fingers, and the leaves whispered even when the wind held its breath. The further they walked in, the more the air thickened, clinging to their lungs like old smoke.
They passed ruins. Stone statues broken at the neck. Altars smothered by roots. Symbols etched in languages none of them spoke, yet all of them felt deep in marrow, in dream, in echo.
"We shouldn't be here," Orien muttered, his voice barely louder than a breath.
Malrick only grinned, a lopsided thing with no humor in it, and kicked over a skull tangled in ivy.
Rayan said nothing. He had begun to feel it the moment they crossed beneath the twisted boughs.
A presence.
Watching.
Waiting.
Testing.
They found the clearing on the sixth day.
It was not marked by signs or monuments, but by absence. No birds. No insects. No sound.
Just a circle of trees bent backward, as if recoiling from the center. The grass within was blackened and brittle, and at its heart stood a figure.
He was facing away, cloaked in a tattered robe the color of dried blood. His hair was long, tangled, and red as flame. Not the warm red of autumn or the golden hue of a hearth, but the violent crimson of rage. His skin was pale and unmarked, but his posture carried weight, as if his limbs had once borne chains.
And his eyes.
When he turned, the air itself recoiled.
One eye was shut, scarred down the lid. The other burned like a ruby submerged in fire. It saw through them, into them, past all armor and lies.
He looked young. Ageless. Beautiful in the way lightning is beautiful before it strikes.
Malrick reached for his blade without thinking, though his eyes narrowed with something like recognition.
Orien froze, calculation lost to something deeper.
Rayan stepped forward, unflinching.
The man if he was a man tilted his head slowly.
Then, in a voice that was not a whisper, not a shout, but a summoning, he spoke:
"Who dares to wake Vortan?"
The forest groaned around them.
The ground shook, not from motion, but from memory.
And for the first time since they left Drakenshold, none of them had an answer.
Not yet...