They did not speak for a long time after the mountain fell.
Elowen sat on the edge of the ruined trail, staring into the black fog still rising from the sealed mountain gate. Her hands trembled, though not from fear. Her blood was too loud for that now—each beat of her heart a hammerstroke.
Ashen stood behind her, watching the path they came from.
The Stillwoods were silent. Too silent.
Something had changed.
"We didn't kill it," Ashen finally said.
"No," Elowen answered. "We only woke it up."
She turned her palm up. A faint glow pulsed beneath her skin, the scar from the altar still fresh. Where the god had offered peace, something else had answered—something deep within her, older than even the god's voice.
It wasn't kindness.
It was fire. Cold fire. Patient fire.
Bloodline fire.
As they made their way back through the woods, the trees seemed to shift around them.
Elowen noticed the moss had turned gray.
The birds did not return to song.
Even the wind had forgotten its way.
"This isn't the Stillwoods anymore," she said.
Ashen nodded grimly. "We crossed some line back there. The god left its breath in everything."
Suddenly, a branch snapped up ahead.
Elowen raised her spear. Ashen drew his dagger.
From the trees, a figure emerged—barefoot, cloaked in feathers and bark, with a face streaked in ash.
A forest witch.
"I felt it," the woman whispered, her voice like wind through dry leaves. "The mountain screamed, and the bones of my mothers rattled in their sleep."
Elowen held her ground. "Who are you?"
The witch smiled. "The one who kept your grave from growing moss."
She stepped closer, and Elowen noticed—her eyes were milky white. Blind. But still, she looked straight at her.
"You carry the wound of a god," she murmured. "It will not fade."
Ashen stepped forward. "She doesn't want its mark."
The witch laughed, but there was no joy in it. "It doesn't matter what she wants. The Stillwoods chose her. As it chose her mother. As it failed to choose me."
Elowen's breath caught. "You knew Seris."
"I was Seris," the witch said. "Once. Before she took my name. My fire. My place."
Silence fell.
The air grew cold.
The witch walked a circle around Elowen, dragging her finger along the soil.
"You are not ready," she said. "But still… the roots recognize you. The blood has burned. The forest has bent."
Then she knelt, and touched Elowen's bare foot.
And whispered a word.
The ground beneath her lit with runes of light.
Elowen flinched.
Pain sliced through her bones—not from outside, but from within.
She saw visions.
Flashes.
Her mother, kneeling in the snow, a crown of thorns in her hand.
The god, bleeding starlight onto an altar.
And a child with no face, trapped in a circle of mirrors.
Then—it stopped.
Elowen gasped, her knees buckling. Ashen caught her.
The witch stood. "That was the first tie. The bone-tie. Now you are marked."
"For what?" Elowen hissed through clenched teeth.
"For war."
The witch turned and began to walk into the woods.
"You will find no rest, Daughter of Ash. Not now. Not while the god still dreams beneath the stone."
"Then help me," Elowen called out. "If you know what's coming."
The witch paused.
Her voice came back to them, low and brittle.
"No one can help you. But many will follow you."
"Some in faith. Some in fear."
"Some… to kill you."
And then she vanished.
Just like smoke.
Elowen sat in the dirt, still shaking.
Ashen knelt beside her. "You okay?"
"I saw something. Someone. A child. Trapped."
"Another vision?"
She nodded. "I think the god has more than one prison. Not just the mountain."
Ashen frowned. "Then we have to find them all."
Elowen looked up at the moon—faint through the tangled canopy.
"We will," she said. "One by one."
Her blood hummed again.
This time, she welcomed the pain.