When Evelyn awoke, it was not to morning birdsong or the rustle of small creatures in the brush. The world was still hushed, as though the forest itself held its breath.
Torren stirred beside the fire, blinking sleep from his eyes. "Didn't sleep, did you?"
Evelyn shook her head. "I… saw her again. The woman with silver eyes."
Torren's mouth tightened. "Another dream?"
"It wasn't a dream." Her voice was calm now, too calm. "She looked at me like I was hers."
Torren didn't respond. He checked his blade, then his boots, trying to stay busy. "We need to keep moving. The Warden's path cuts north from here. We'll follow the runes etched into the stones."
They moved carefully, navigating the terrain. Every now and then, Evelyn's gaze drifted, unfocused. The hum in her chest had grown louder—not like noise, but like pressure. Like something shifting deep beneath her ribs, stretching toward her spine, whispering across her skin.
After midday, they found the Warden trail—a faint sequence of spiraled glyphs carved into rocks along a ravine's edge. The path twisted between scorched trees and blackened underbrush. Torren stopped and crouched beside one such stone.
"Burn marks. Fresh," he muttered. "Ward-fire?"
"No," Evelyn said softly. "That's not what did this."
Torren gave her a look. "You're sure?"
She didn't answer. She couldn't explain how she knew. The same way she knew something had passed through here—something old, and cruel, and watching.
They walked until twilight. Then came the whisper.
It wasn't words.
It was pressure, sweeping through the trees like a hot wind that carried no sound but rattled the soul.
Torren drew steel. Evelyn gripped her cloak's collar. Both of them froze.
Then the light came.
Not firelight. Not sun.
A pale green glow seeped from the trees ahead, bending the shadows wrong. It didn't illuminate; it unveiled. Roots pulsed with veins of light. Bark twisted, coiling inward like skin around a wound. The air smelled of crushed thyme and rot.
"The forest hates this light," Evelyn whispered.
Torren's voice was barely audible. "It's not natural."
They ducked behind an outcrop of mossy stone, hearts thudding. From the clearing ahead came the sound of something wet dragging across the earth.
A beast emerged into the light.
Tall—almost human in stature—but its limbs were crooked, jointed backward. Its skin rippled, translucent, as though it wore a thousand faces beneath its flesh. It carried no eyes, but its head tilted, sniffing the air.
Torren gripped Evelyn's wrist tightly.
But she didn't flinch.
The core pulsed behind her heart.
And for one awful moment, Evelyn felt it inside the beast.
Not just its shape—but its hunger, its loneliness, its ancient grief. It had once been human. Long ago. Something had hollowed it out and filled the shell with song.
A song that Evelyn almost remembered.
The creature paused. Turned.
Then shuddered and slithered back into the green light, disappearing into the trees.
Only then did Evelyn collapse.