The marsh swallowed sound.
Liora moved through the reeds like a shadow, each step stirring the still black water that reflected no sky. The faint shimmer of her bond with the Beast glowed at her throat, a thin thread of gold pulsing with her heartbeat. The deeper she went, the more the world seemed to twist—trees with bark like bone, vines that whispered when the wind passed, and water that moved even when the air stood still.
The Beast within her was restless. Something stirs beneath, it murmured. Not the Sleeper—but what it left behind.
Liora knelt, pressing her hand to the wet earth. It throbbed faintly beneath her palm. Not life. Not death. A heartbeat older than both. The marsh itself was waking.
She had walked for three nights since leaving the village. Sleep came only in flashes, and when she dreamed, she saw the Sleeper's shape fading into the horizon, vast and shrouded in mist, its power stretching like cracks beneath the world. But she also saw them—faces half-remembered, bound to the Circle long before her time. The first Wardens.
Their voices whispered: Find the heart of the marsh. There lies the truth of the bond.
By the fourth morning, fog turned so thick it felt like breathing through cloth. The golden light of her bond dimmed to a faint ember. She was walking through a silence that seemed to wait.
Then—movement.
A ripple spread through the water, low and deliberate. Another answered from deeper in the mist. The Beast inside her tensed, instincts flaring like sudden fire.
We are not alone.
Shapes moved through the fog—half-formed, gliding just below the surface. At first she thought they were fragments of the Sleeper, but the light they carried was not cold. It shimmered blue, steady, patient. As one drew near, she saw its face: a mask of water and starlight, neither living nor dead.
"The Circle endures," the shape whispered. Its voice was layered, ancient. "Warden of the Marsh, why have you left your boundary?"
Liora bowed her head slightly, though her hand stayed near the hilt of her blade. "The Sleeper is not bound. It lingers beyond the marsh, seeking cracks to return. I follow to mend them."
The water-shape tilted its head. "To mend is to break anew. To chase the shadow is to feed it."
"I don't have the luxury of waiting," she said. "It will come again."
Silence stretched. The water around her stilled completely. Then the figure spoke: "Then you must walk to the Heart Below. Only there can you see what was hidden from the first Wardens. But beware—the marsh remembers its mistakes."
Before she could speak again, the shapes sank back beneath the surface, leaving only widening ripples.
The Heart Below. The words pulsed through her like a second heartbeat.
She turned north again. The air grew colder, the mist thicker, until even the sound of her steps vanished. When at last she reached solid ground again, she found herself before a hollow tree larger than any she had ever seen—its trunk wide enough to swallow a house, its bark slick with silver moss. The air smelled of rain and memory.
At its roots was a pool of dark water, perfectly circular. It did not reflect her face. Instead, it showed a faint outline of antlers, spreading like roots beneath the surface.
"This is it," she whispered.
The Beast stirred. It is a gate.
Liora knelt beside the pool. She could feel it pulling her in—not with force, but with promise. She thought of Corren, of Maren, of the villagers burying their dead under frost. Of the light that had pulsed through her when she'd first bonded with the Beast.
"Then we see it through," she said.
And she stepped into the water.
The cold struck her like stone. The world shattered into pieces of light and darkness. For a moment, she could not breathe—then she wasn't breathing at all. The water wasn't drowning her; it was remaking her.
She opened her eyes to find herself standing in a mirrored world beneath the marsh. The sky was the color of amber glass, and the water above her glowed with faint light. Beneath her feet stretched a plain of petrified reeds and forgotten altars. At its center, a vast tree grew upside down—roots stretching upward into the mirrored sky, branches buried in the earth.
The Beast appeared beside her, solid now, its fur threaded with starlight. Its gaze was wary. We have crossed into the first memory.
"The marsh's memory," Liora breathed.
The Circle's birth, the Beast corrected. This is where the bond was made.
They walked toward the inverted tree. Around them, shapes shimmered into existence—men and women in robes of gold and green, their faces carved with runes of light. Each held a fragment of the Circle, glowing faintly.
But their eyes were hollow.
One raised a hand, pointing at her. "You bear what we could not contain."
"The Sleeper?" she asked.
"The reflection," they said together. "Every bond casts a shadow. Ours became it. Yours sustains it."
Liora stepped forward. "Then tell me how to end it."
The figures began to fade, their voices blending with the hum of the air. "End it? You cannot. You can only choose which side remains awake."
The ground beneath her trembled. Cracks spread through the petrified reeds. Water gushed upward, black and cold, devouring the plain. The Beast roared, its voice echoing across the mirrored world.
The memory collapses. We must return.
Liora reached for the tree, pressing her palm against its bark. The gold light from her bond flared, shooting through the cracks.
A voice—not the figures', not the Beast's, but older—whispered through her:
To end what was begun, you must unmake the bond.
The world shattered.
She fell upward through water, gasping as she broke through the surface. The willow loomed above her again, its branches heavy with frost. The pool beneath her glowed faintly gold, then dimmed.
She dragged herself onto the roots, shivering. The Beast's voice came faint, distant. You saw it.
"I saw... everything," she whispered. "The Sleeper isn't our enemy. It's the bond's reflection. It exists because we do."
Then to destroy it—
"—I have to destroy us."
The words hung between them, heavy and final.
The wind moved through the reeds, carrying the faint echo of the water-shapes' voices:
To mend is to break anew.
Liora stared into the pool, where her reflection now shimmered with golden light and antlered shadow. For the first time, she understood what it meant to be the Warden—keeper of both creation and ruin.
And as the mist began to thicken once more, she knew the Sleeper was stirring again, sensing what she had learned.
This time, it would not test her.
It would come to claim her.