The trees obeyed her.
They didn't speak. They didn't roar. But they moved — slow at first, then with silent urgency. Branches bent. Roots twisted from the soil. The grove that once stood still began to stir.
Ashen watched her, wide-eyed. "You're waking the forest."
Elowen didn't respond. Her eyes were silver-lit. Her grip firm around the rune-spear.
The Mask's fire cracked against the thorn wall, breaking it apart. Glowing embers floated through the air like cursed stars.
And then—they came.
The Hunters.
Draped in ash-black cloaks, faces hidden behind masks of white bone, they poured through the burning wall like shadows through a wound.
But this time…
Elowen didn't run.
"Now," she whispered.
The trees obeyed.
Roots lashed out from the ground, snatching the first of the Hunters, pulling them screaming into the earth. Branches twisted like spears, slamming into bone masks, cracking them open.
Elowen moved like wind between them.
The rune-spear burned with silver flame as she fought — not perfectly, not gracefully, but with truth.
Every strike she landed echoed with the weight of something old, something that had been buried too long.
She was not trained. But she was chosen.
Ashen fought beside her, silent and swift, his own blade dancing like a shadow. The ground around them shimmered with ancestral energy. Even the air had turned against the Hunters.
They were no longer in control.
The Stillwoods had remembered themselves.
But not all enemies fall to roots and rage.
Through the fire, a new figure stepped.
Tall.
Calm.
Not masked — but worse.
His face was perfectly human. Too perfect.
No scars. No expression. Just emptiness.
His eyes were golden.
Elowen froze.
She knew this presence. Not from memory… but from blood.
The man smiled.
"You have her flame," he said.
His voice was quiet. Gentle. The kind you might trust. The kind that had lied a thousand times before.
"You've done well, Elowen. The forest sings again. Just as I hoped."
Ashen stepped between them. "Don't listen. He's not—"
"I know who he is," Elowen whispered.
The God in Flesh.
Once human. Once weeping on his knees before Seris.
Now reborn.
"I watched you grow," he said softly, stepping closer. "Even while the forest slept. I watched your pain. Your loss. I shaped it. Fed it. And now, look at you…"
His hand gestured to the glowing trees.
"A Queen of Thorns."
Elowen gripped the spear tighter.
"You stole my past," she said. "Twisted the forest. Killed my mother."
He tilted his head. "Not killed. Remade. Death is small. What I offer is so much more."
His voice carried power — it reached into her thoughts like vines searching for light.
But Elowen's roots were deeper.
And they remembered.
She raised the spear. "I won't serve you."
He sighed.
"You already have."
And then he moved.
Faster than thought.
He struck the ground — and the forest screamed. Trees split down the center. Roots curled back in pain. Ashen was thrown backwards, blood at his lips.
Elowen barely blocked the second blow. Her spear caught his wrist — silver clashed against gold — and for one moment, they were locked in stillness.
Her arms trembled.
His eyes glowed brighter.
"You are strong," he said, voice shaking with effort. "But strength… without understanding… is nothing."
And with a sudden pulse of heat — he vanished.
Elowen dropped to one knee, gasping.
The glade was burning.
Ashen crawled to her side. "He's not gone. He's just waiting."
"I know," she whispered. "He wanted me to awaken. But he didn't expect me to remember."
Ashen looked at her. "What did you see?"
She touched the place on her chest where the flame still burned under her skin.
"I saw the root of everything.
Not just the forest.
But the lie at the center of it all."
The glade trembled again. But this time, it wasn't pain.
It was warning.
The earth cracked — and something vast stirred below.
A voice, older than the god, older than Seris, rose from the depths:
"The time of stillness is ending.
The forest is waking.
The roots will bleed… and remember."
Elowen stood slowly, her shadow stretching long and dark across the ground.
"Then let it remember me."