The air in the Shadowfen did not just hang heavy; it clung. Veridia pushed aside a curtain of hanging moss, the strands slick with a foul-smelling slime that felt like cold entrails against her cheek. The atmosphere pressed in, a wet shroud that tasted of sweet decay and stagnant water, a cloying perfume that promised rot beneath its surface. Twisted, skeletal trees loomed from the fog, their branches like the grasping fingers of long-dead giants.
A familiar, infuriating hollowness began to ache in her core. It wasn't the sharp, stabbing pang of a direct drain, but something more insidious. It was a slow, persistent leak, as if the very air was a parasite, sipping at her Essence with a thousand tiny, invisible mouths. The sensation was maddening, a death by a million tiny cuts. Her meter, a faint shimmer in her vision, was already ticking down, the numbers bleeding away with agonizing slowness.
"Oh, this is just dreadful television," a voice purred, as sharp and pristine as a diamond on a dung heap.
Seraphine's illusion coalesced beside a gnarled cypress knee, her form a perfect, shimmering mockery of their surroundings. Not a speck of mud marred her ethereal gown of woven starlight. "A slow, boring drain? The Patrons are changing the channel, darling. Cosmic Boredom is a real threat, you know. Not just for you anymore."
Veridia ignored her, her boots making a thick, sucking sound as she pulled them from the black mud. Every step was an effort, consuming energy she couldn't afford to waste. The mud tried to claim her boots, to hold her in place, another small enemy in a world made of them.
"You should find something," Seraphine continued, her voice dripping with false helpfulness. "A grumpy bog-troll to submit to? A clutch of giant leeches to fight? Anything to liven this up. A princess slowly dissolving in a swamp is a tragedy, not a spectacle. And Vesperia is the only one who pays for tragedy, but even her patience has limits."
*Do not give her a scene,* Veridia thought, clenching her jaw so hard her teeth ached. *Do not give her the satisfaction.* To respond, to rise to the bait, would be to give her tormentor dialogue, a bit of conflict to spice up the broadcast. She would give her nothing. This was a race against the slow, seeping death of the air itself, and she would win it by sheer force of will. She pushed deeper into the fog, the sound of her sister's tinkling, condescending laughter following her like a ghost.
***
The oppressive gloom eventually gave way to a soft, inviting light. Exhausted, her breath coming in ragged pants, Veridia stumbled into a small clearing. The air here was different—clean, light, and sweet. The source was a patch of flowers blooming miraculously in the heart of the mire. They were magnificent, their petals an iridescent shimmer of blues and purples, emitting a gentle, pulsing glow. A faint, sweet melody seemed to drift from them, a wordless whisper of rest, of peace, of a full belly.
*Night-blossoms of the Seventh Court.* The thought was a flicker of memory, a sharp pang of homesickness for a life of effortless luxury. Such flowers were a rare delicacy, their Essence prized for its calming, restorative properties. To find them here, in this hell… it defied logic.
Against every instinct that screamed of a trap, she was drawn forward. The promise of a single moment's respite, of a beauty that wasn't trying to kill or use her, was a siren's call to her weary soul. She reached out, her fingers trembling, to touch a glowing petal.
The moment her skin was inches away, the beautiful illusion shattered. The whispers turned to hungry, sibilant hisses. Spectral tendrils, thorny and vicious, erupted from the hearts of the flowers, lashing out to wrap around her arms and legs. A jolt of pure agony shot through her as the Whisper-Lures began to feed, the drain a violent, painful rush that made the swamp's slow leeching feel like a lover's kiss.
Her vision swam, her mind flooded with psychic venom. The faces of her past flashed before her. Her father, his expression not of anger but of cold, political disappointment. Lord Malakor, his face a mask of spurned fury, whispering the word *desecration*. They swirled around her, their phantom voices mocking her fall. *Weak. Pathetic. Cancelled.*
With a roar of pure, undiluted rage, Veridia fought back. She tore at the ethereal vines, her physical strength failing but her fury giving her a desperate edge. The tendrils ripped at her skin, leaving bleeding scratches that sizzled with stolen energy, but she pulled free, stumbling backward and falling hard into the muck. The flowers pulsed once, greedily, their light flaring with satisfaction before their illusory beauty returned.
She lay there, gasping, her Essence meter now flashing a critical, angry red. Looking up, she saw the truth. The main path, the one that seemed clearest, was lined with more of the glowing blooms, spaced just far enough apart to seem like a natural, beautiful occurrence. This wasn't a path. It was a feeding trough, and she was the intended meal.
***
The main trail was impassable, ending abruptly at a chasm of bubbling, corrosive black water that ate at the air itself. Suicide. To her left, almost hidden by a thicket of thorny vines, was another option. A faint, animal-like trail, barely a foot wide, marked with unsettling symbols woven from reeds and bone. It felt ancient, wrong, a place where the swamp's natural decay gave way to something deliberate and malevolent. It was her only choice.
She pushed her way onto the Witch-path. The air immediately grew colder, the oppressive humidity replaced by a grave-like chill. The sounds of the fen—the croaking of unseen things, the buzz of insects—died away into an absolute, unnerving silence.
Deeper in, a new sound began. A low, rhythmic chanting, too structured for any beast, too guttural for any human. It rose and fell in a hypnotic, unsettling cadence that seemed to vibrate in her bones.
Driven by the desperate, frantic need for an Essence source—any source—she pushed onward, her hand gripping the hilt of a crude goblin dagger. Through the tangled foliage ahead, a light appeared. It was not the inviting glow of the Whisper-Lures, but a sickly, pulsing green that flared in time with the chants. It was the color of poison and rot, a beacon of pure wrongness in the gloom.
Veridia crept forward, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs. She reached a thick screen of hanging moss and parted the strands, peering into the clearing beyond.
A coven of six witches stood in a circle, their skin the color of wet mud, their eyes glowing with the same green light that pulsed from a rune-carved stone at their center. They were chanting, their voices a low drone of power. In the middle of the circle, bound to the stone, was a writhing creature—a Glass-Hide Boar, its crystalline armor cracked and bleeding.
As she watched, the ritual reached its climax. The chanting rose to a fever pitch. The boar convulsed, a final, agonized shriek tearing from its throat. Its form began to twist and warp, its flesh melting and reshaping like hot wax. Mud and wicker-like reeds rose from the ground, weaving into its dissolving body.
The final shape was a grotesque parody, a monstrous, mud-and-wicker effigy of a woman with horns and a contemptuous sneer. A mockery of her. The witches threw their heads back and raised their hands. The effigy's eyes, two empty sockets of woven reeds, flickered open, glowing with the same malevolent green light. It was not just an insult. Veridia felt a cold dread crawl up her spine as she recognized the principles of sympathetic magic at work. It was a voodoo doll on a grand scale, a vessel being prepared for a curse meant only for her.