The air was no longer silent.
The moment the golden-masked figure spoke, the Stillwoods exhaled—just once. A soft, low sigh of wind rustled the trees, as if the entire forest had been holding its breath and finally released it.
Elowen stood frozen beneath the willow tree. Her chest rose and fell in panicked gasps, her hands slick with mud and blood. The figure across the clearing remained still, the cracked golden mask gleaming faintly in the grey mist.
"Welcome home, daughter."
The voice was deep. Cold. Not human—but not fully inhuman either. It echoed in the bones more than the ears.
"I… I don't know you," Elowen said, though her voice trembled with doubt. Part of her blood knew. Part of her soul remembered.
The figure took one slow step forward. The sound of the footfall rippled like thunder through the soil.
"You were born beneath moonlight, bathed in your mother's scream and your father's curse," the masked being said. "You are of the old line—the last thread in a tapestry that was torn by fire. Your blood is mine to claim."
"No," she whispered.
"Yes," it replied.
Her legs shook. She wanted to run, but the forest held her fast. The mist curled around her like arms. Even the trees seemed to lean in closer, waiting.
The masked figure raised a hand.
At first, nothing happened.
Then Elowen screamed.
Pain seared through her body, bright and sharp as lightning. Her veins felt like they were burning from the inside out. She collapsed to her knees, clutching her arms as glowing silver lines streaked across her skin.
Bloodline magic.
Awakening.
But this time, it wasn't memory. It wasn't vision.
It was real.
The power inside her rose like a storm. Her back arched, her fingers curled into claws against the earth. She saw flashes—of herself standing on a balcony before a crowd, wearing a crown. Her mother's face, pale and tear-streaked. A man's scream as he fell into fire.
Then—nothing.
The pain stopped.
Elowen gasped, blinking through tears. She was still on the ground. But her hands now glowed with faint silver light, the same light that traced patterns up her arms like delicate scars.
She looked up. The masked figure stood exactly where it had before.
"You are beginning to awaken," it said. "Good. The more you bleed, the closer we come to the end."
She forced herself to her feet.
"I'm not yours."
The mask tilted. "You will be."
Then the figure turned, disappearing into the mist like it had never been there.
The forest grew quiet again. But it was not the silence of sleep. It was the silence of watching.
She wandered through the trees, her body sore, her mind torn in too many directions. The voice beneath the root, the pain, the power—it all made no sense.
Yet it did.
Something inside her had changed. She could feel the forest differently now. Not with her eyes. But through her blood.
The trees whispered. The earth pulsed. The Stillwoods no longer felt like a prison. It felt like a being—alive and broken, whispering secrets through root and leaf.
She paused beside a dead tree with bark the color of ash. A mark had been carved into it—old, half-erased by time. A crescent moon pierced by a dagger.
Her fingers touched it, and once again, she saw something not her own.
A woman, cloaked in green, standing in the same place. A baby in her arms. The moon high above. Blood dripping from her fingers as she whispered a spell into the child's forehead.
Her forehead.
Elowen stumbled back.
That was her.
That was her mother.
The spell had hidden her in the forest. Hidden her from him.
But now she was found.
That night, Elowen built a small fire from dry roots and watched the silver marks on her arms fade into faint scars. Her heart still raced with fear, but something else stirred beside it—determination.
She would not run.
She would learn.
She would find the three marks the statue spoke of—bone, flame, and dream—and she would discover the truth of what she was.
The god might be watching.
But so was the forest.
And something else beneath it all... was waiting.